Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening everybody. We're going to call to order tonight's planning commission meeting. It is Monday, January 5th, 2026, 5:36 p.m. This is a continuence of a public hearing for file number 2025-15. the line 29 architect architecture Marriott hotel site plan review. Dustin, before we get started, you have some comments.

Yeah. Uh just before we get into um the hearing portion, I have a just a point of business. I'm looking for a quick confirmation for a quorum next month. Uh we will have other business coming up through this body. So uh next uh your next meeting that I expect will be actually a Tuesday the 17th um given the holiday. So, February 17th, I'm looking to see if you got I have four of you here. So, there's this afternoon meeting the 17th of February. Um, correct. That's it. Nothing till

Well, I'm looking for I'm looking for something on that day. Um, but I don't have anything planned prior to it. So, I'm just wondering about I got at least one of you. Okay. Two. And anyone else on via your life plan out that farm? You can phone in. Okay. Phone available phone. It's February 17th. Get it off. Okay. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom works. Perfect. I'll I'm gonna book something for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Dustin. Okay. Uh before we begin the rest of this evening's proceedings, we uh shall call for any new disclosures from the commission members that would be exparte contacts, conflicts of interests and bias since our last meeting in December. Nothing. No one. Okay. No, no such comments. Okay. Nothing new. Nothing new.

Okay. Nothing for myself either. Uh the next step here is uh is there anyone in the audience that wishes to question any commissioner about their disclosures? If so, please make yourself known and step up to the Oh, there you go. Yes.

Good evening, planning commissioners. Um you wish to be heard on a bias challenge uh for one of uh one of the commissioners. Um, this is never fun to do. Um, but, uh, we do think it is important. Again, my name is Ezra Hammer. I'm here on behalf of the project applicant. And following our last meeting in December, we were alerted by a concerned member of the public that one of the planning commissioners had made bias statements on a Facebook group um about the project and importantly about one of the city rules which the project is utilizing as part uh of its approval process tonight. Um, and we found those comments to be challenging to the point where we do believe it shows bias. Uh, and we would ask that that commissioner recuse themselves. So, um, with that, uh, I would like to read the comment if that is appropriate, chair, and then ask the commissioner if they would like to comment or recuse themselves from the hearing.

Who is it? Uh, it is Commissioner uh, Kits. Okay, go go go ahead.

So, we have um handouts that we'll provide the other commissioners with. Uh Scott, if you'd be kind enough. Um this was a statement made in the Hood River Happenings Facebook group. Um some of you may be members of it. It uh is a clearing house for conversations on happenings in Hood Rivers. Um, and we have a text thread going uh discussing the project. Um, and in this text thread, which was on August 4th and was not mentioned at your last hearing nor disclosed at that hearing, uh, Mr. Kits raises concerning comments about the project itself in so far as he is opining on it despite the fact that the record is not complete. He has not had an opportunity to review all the information about the project. Um he raises concerns about whether or not a hotel is even justified, which of course is the project presented and I think more challenging for us raises very serious doubts in his own mind about whether he believes the city processes and procedures as it relates to parking fees are warranted. Um and importantly, this is a city code which um all project applicants have the right to utilize and comply with. Um and our project does as many other hotel projects have done recently. And here we have Commissioner Kits uh expressing his displeasure with the process and insinuating that the community is worse off for the fact that that ordinance is in place. And again, because our project is utilizing that ordinance, we find it very troubling that we would have a commissioner in a public setting opining to the public about the fact that he does not like the

ordinance itself and believes that we are in a worse place because of it. Am I allowed to respond to that? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, the first sentence kind of says it all. It says, "I'm on the fence with this project." And I was on the fence with that with the project and opining as you say over the parking the loop parking fee is you know I don't know what to say about that. I mean yeah I was in the hearing that I was here with in front of the city council when they lowered the blue parking fees. I thought it was a bad idea at the time. I still think it's a bad idea. And if you think that's disqualification for me, and I mean this was before I even got on the city c I wasn't even on the I wasn't even commissioner at this time. I wasn't even thinking about being a commissioner at this time. So yeah, that's that's disqualification. Then someone's going to have to decide that. I don't believe it is at all.

Actually, it's up to you as a commissioner. Um and that um you need to be able to decide whether you can decide this application based on the criteria before you based on the facts in the record and that you have not prejudged this because bias is a another way of saying prejudgment. And so you know you had explained the statements but ultimately you have to make a decision that is unbiased based on a criteria based on the evidence in the record. Yes or no

I can do that and I think I can't imagine that no one has an opinion on this anyone in town. So I including this and here on this on the commission it's it's impossible not to happen but you have to go beyond your opinion and you have to look at the facts and the and the uh what'sever presented to you and judge from that and I've got some questions about that. That's going to be some of my first questions. Nothing to do with parking. This has to do with the whole process. So yeah I can absolutely do that. Okay. Is that I assume that's the end of this process, right? Yeah, I think actually

the the code has a weird provision where it allows the planning commission or the city council when it comes to them to to decide to kick a member off or not, which is sort of weird in my mind since under the ethics rules, it's personal to the commissioner. Um, so I think that's still and that's still part of the standard script I've seen in past. So, um, you might want to check to see if the planning commission has any particular feelings, uh, about this or just roll on to the next point. Go ahead.

Uh, do any of the other commissioners have any compelling arguments for why Mike should not stay? Commissioner Kits should not be a part of this. None. Okay. Neither do I. Let us move forth. So at the conclusion of the December 1st hearing, we sent the applicant away with a long list of issues that we wanted the applicant team to address. And since then, the design proposal uh for this project has changed significantly. We also discussed at the December 1st hearing uh that when the record that the record would be left open with a somewhat complicated open record sequence. We discussed that we would then reconvene on January 5th to receive final verbal comments from the applicant, deliberate and decide the application. We have now today uh shortly before this meeting received dozens of procedural objections to the suggestion that the applicant should get the last word by way of concluding verbal comments this evening. That gives us several procedural options at this point. Um, first it was discussed at the December 1st hearing that the applicant could and would provide concluding oral comments at our continuence hearing. This is consistent with the stat, excuse me, with the statutory requirement that the applicant gets the last word because the applicant has the burden of proof and should be allowed to meet that burden, but with no new evidence in those concluding final rebuttal remarks. We could deny the applicant that opportunity and just roll into our deliberation this evening without benefit of the applicant's comments that describe the final form of the design or we could allow everyone in opposition to first give their final response to the revised hotel design before the applicant gives its final concluding remarks again with no new evidence. I am inclined personally to as the chair to

uh let the applicant provide their final concluding remarks for a few reasons. First, we talked about this at the December 1st hearing that the applicant would get the opportunity for final oral comments at this continuation hearing and no one objected back in December. Second, the project proposal has changed significantly in response to opponent testimony and our request for changes and I think that one would appreciate a description of where that change design as proposed sits today. I think the planning commission needs and deserves that explanation of like where we are now. Um, third, the applicant gets the final word and all of these land use matters. So, as long as no new evidence is introduced, I am inclined to let the applicant do that. Uh, and finally, allowing the applicant final concluding remarks with no new evidence will not prejudice anyone's substantial procedural right. And if anyone disagrees, any procedural error can be corrected at the city council level. Um the issue. Sorry. Go ahead. I see Dustin.

I I think we have someone with a procedural question online raising their hand. Oh, we do. Okay. I think it's Mike Connors who originally um raised this procedural objection. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Connor. Mike, we haven't heard you yet, but we're ready for you if you have something to say.

Mr. Connors, we see your hand. We cannot hear you. the was he going to describe the procedural objection at hand that this would be the time for that. So we're we I I presume that is Mike's intent but we need to hear from him personally.

Yeah. Also, the you were uh I think Dustin sent out to all of you kind of a packet of all of these procedural objections. They're virtually identical, but the first one that was most specific was from Mike Connors, who's an attorney representing one of the opponents. Um, so I'd like to hear him. Okay, that would be great, Mike. if we could hear you at some point.

Maybe his maybe he's muted. Yeah, try to promote him. Panelist.

Um, my name is Warren Johnson. I'm uh a neighbor up the street. Um, I here to I'd love to hear what they have to say about the modifications, but I think it's a little unusual to have them make a response and then the public doesn't get an opportunity to react to um the changes that are being made. Um, but uh since you're in a position to maybe evaluate what the process might be moving forward, I wanted to consider that. I think we got um I can see him. Yes, we can see you now. No, not yet. No, he's muted. Maybe he's muted.

No, he's not muted. He's not muted. And you have plenty of audio, but no video or plenty of video, no audio. I would look for uh Wait, try the earphones. Uh, no. Nope. Still can't hear you. Um, let's see. I've seen this before. Um maybe if they want Can you hear me now? Yeah.

Yes.

Okay. Apologize about that. I think I was trying to change my settings and I think the problem was not being a panelist wasn't allowing me to be heard or seen. Um, so, uh, for the record, my name is Mike Connors. I'm the attorney representing Mr. Ryerson. And, uh, as Mr. Karen's indicated, uh, we had some email exchanges today about a procedural objection that we have raised, uh, with respect to the process tonight. Uh, I'll try to be brief in explaining our procedural objections. Uh but first of all, I think it's crystal clear that the applicant does not have the opportunity to address the commission uh orally tonight. Um the city code defers to the state statute that applies to this open record process that the planning commission used. The state statute is abundantly clear that the applicant's final argument, they are entitled to the final word and their final argument must be a written argument and it must be submitted 7 days after the date in which the parties all parties were permitted to submit rebuttal comments. Uh the rebuttal comments were due on 12:15. That means 7 days thereafter final rated argument was on December 22nd. Um, so there's nothing the state statute express limits it to final rent argument. There's nothing in the city code that permits it otherwise. And I certainly didn't understand or hear that the planning commission was uh permitting the applicant to give a summary of its comments at the hearing tonight. And I've been doing this for 30 years. I've never seen a jurisdiction allow that to happen when using the open record process. Uh there's been some questions about whether or not it would be prejuditial. I think it's clearly prejuditial. Um and I think you start with a question of why would the

applicant be asking for an opportunity to summarize and clarify its project in violation of the procedural requirements unless they thought it would have a bearing on your decision. uh clearly they understand it does which is why they're willing to risk this procedural error and potential procedural defect in the process. And I think the reason that has been stated for allowing them to do that is that there's been some confusion regarding the project uh modifications and how it addresses community concerns. Well, the applicant had an opportunity to clarify clearly explain that during their open record procedure and they didn't. And if they didn't, it doesn't mean that they and they alone are allowed an opportunity to address the commission. Addressing clarification of the project and what modifications were made and how they relate to the issues is inherently evidentiary. Those aren't legal arguments. It's it's clarification to try to explain what it is that they actually did. Um, and we just feel that it's unnecessary. We've had two hearings. We've had an open record process in which the applicant had two evidentiary submitts, a final written argument submitt, and there's really no reason to allow the applicant and the applicant alone an opportunity to try and summarize or clarify their proposal. If they were to do so, each and every party that has commented on this application should have an opportunity to respond to those clarifications and summaries because up till now we haven't. I'll just speak from my personal experience. All due respect to the applicant, but I found the project revision descriptions very confusing. It's not clear to me what revisions they made to allow them to be able to explain what those revisions are to the

commission and deprive all the remaining parties an opportunity to comment or respond to those clarifications. I think it's a clear procedural violation. I just would advise the commission. If you commit a procedural violation, taint the process, it could create a procedural defect that months years down the road would come up on appeal and require this to come back before you. Everybody's had an opportunity to comment. We think you should deliberate and make your decision based on the testimony you've heard at the two hearings and the extensive written comments that have been submitted by all parties. And we just urge you to follow your procedural requirements. Uh so with that I'm happy to answer any questions but that uh uh is our procedural objection and I appreciate your patience and allowing me to explain that.

Thank you Mr. Connor. Does anyone have any questions for Dan Dan comments? um guidance.

Mike and I have been in practice together for a long, long time, and I'm surprised that in 30 years he hasn't seen this. This is a pretty common uh opportunity. The applicant gets the last word, final rebuttal in written, oftentimes also in in oral form. Um no new evidence. U but it's up it's ultimately up to the commission. Um this was discussed at the December 1st meeting uh that the applicant would after the open record sequence the applicant would have an opportunity to come back at the continuence hearing and make concluding oral comments and I think we we actually transcribed the hearing uh from uh from December 1st. Do you have

Yeah. And so, uh, albeit about an hour into the hearing, um, you see seen my comments in my staff report, uh, I think verbatim, uh, we made a recommendation, uh, to leave the record open for 7 days, um, to allow arguments and resubmissions within 7 days and then allow the applicant uh, 7 days for final rebuttal. a bunch of read what

from my from my quote it says this then allowed the applicant seven days for final rebuttal applicant has the burden of proof in this matter so they are allowed the last word on it continued quote those seven days you would end up with a written rebuttal and then the applicant would be asked to reappear and have the opportunity to provide final rebuttal to you in person on January 5th which I stated at that point which I believe is the next regularly scheduled planning commission meeting after the holiday break. I'm here for any questions that you may have. Okay. And then we went on to hear from the applicant. Uh later um actually at the end of the first December 8th open record period, you would you received information along with everyone else who uh chose to read it uh advertising uh the series of events which included a statement in there stating that we would anticipate applicants rebuttal hearing from you in person. Then again on December 15th after the second round you received another cover letter outlining the schedule of events again stating that we anticipated for this to happen. So uh although there's some clearly some difference of opinions that's where it appeared in the record leading up to this point. So I do I do believe that there are um some ambiguities in the in the changes that were made by the applicant um in terms of the reduction of the of the uh of the number of floors on two segments, two or three segments. And maybe I I was confused in in not seeing that match some of the plans or some of the renderings. So that's that's something that would be worthwhile getting just understanding the uh full complete current application I think is um is a gap for me at least maybe a maybe I'm alone in that and people through the

deliberation can help get me up to speed I'm open to that too. So Mr. Connor is is he saying that if we don't do what he suggests this whole process is uh basically someone can come back in a year or a month or whatever and challenge that would that's what he said but that's nonsense. uh if anyone and and there are lots of people who have objected to this p to this happening

the this is very likely to go to the city council and it will be resolved there where there'll be a full hearing before the city council and people will have the chance to say what they want to say about the proposal at that level. So it's not going to bubble up all of a sudden years from now as a problem. It gets resolved now. All procedural objections at the local level get resolved at the local level at at this stage of the game at least. So it's Can I clarify, Dan? Is the city council process an open record process or is it closed record? No new evidence at city council? Closed. On the record. Yeah,

it's it's on the record with usually with oral argument. Yeah. So if the applicant is entitled to clarify and explain the ambiguities in their revised project submittal, which I think the commission has indicated they like I was and other parties are confused about what the revisions are even in scope. That's evidentiary. You can't cure evidentiary procedural errors in a on thereord appeal process. If if you raise an evidentiary procedural error to the city council, the record would be open to address that though.

Why wouldn't we do that here? I mean, why why why would we wait till the city council to cure an issue that is a defect created at the planning commission?

The well, the one remedy that the chair outlined is to allow everyone who's objected to give their final opinion about the design. They've had that opportunity. the record during the 777 sequence. People had the opportunity to review the plans and and continue any objections they have. Uh so that was that's one op opportunity you have tonight. One option is to allow all the people who have objected to give their view with the applicant getting the final, you know, comment. Again, no new evidence in any of this, but um I'm my my view of this is that since there's no new evidence and this is a clarification that from my view as staff would benefit from knowing a crystallization of what is the proposal at this point in time since it has changed since it was first submitted. um that would be a benefit. And if if people believe that that clarification based on evidence already in the record is a procedural error, they can raise that to the city council and the city council can allow them to comment on what changes they think weren't in the record, but I don't see it as a procedural error. Can I just ask were we not a were there no procedural objection happening, we would still have an opportunity to ask the applicant question to clarify their additional materials that were provided.

That's always in all of this it's a tricky deal because no new evidence is allowed to come in at this level. Okay. And so, um, you could you could and that happens often where people the commission will ask for like which drawing shows the final design that's before us tonight. That's a good thing to know.

Um, and you can you can ask the applicant for those sorts of things based on basically direction uh within the record. For the record, I I just dis just just for the record, just want to say I disagree with that. I don't I think once the record is closed, the planning commission has to basis decision on the record and I believe the record is closed as of December 22nd.

Just have a question of is are I mean with the reduction in hiden floors I believe are we even talking about 135 room hotel? I think there's really some some fundamental data missing about what we're considering at this point. And maybe the answer is yes, it still is 135. I'm just curious how that happened.

I think we're we're still back up to you and your three paths that you laid out. Yeah. So, we still have to pick one. Correct. Right. Yeah. So we we have to deliberate right now about whether we want this to just go forward without any further comments from anyone and we just deliberate on what we've seen or if we want to allow these and you can also get a you know there'll be kind of a staff summary of what's the current status of the record. Right. Were we at risk legally if we if we go ahead and don't let these guys have the final word after we already said give them the final word? That seemed a little

I mean it it would if you don't allow it then and the applicant loses at this level that would be part of an appeal to the city council for sure.

Yeah. Just like if you allow it to happen and the application is approved, the opponents can appeal to city council and that would be part of their appeal. So, you're not the last, no matter what you do tonight, you're not the last word. Yeah, I believe I alluded to this at our last hearing about procedural uh changes and asking for them to give us their final uh statements. Um but we did say that we would give them the final statement and so at risk of the procedural defect I believe we should stand by our word the final say

and so if we decide to do that then we also there's going to be someone else that's providing testimony the opponents that that's one of the options you you don't have to do it that way you can you have the range of procedural options before you and so you can decide how to proceed. I think the the issue is pretty well crystallized. Well, I think we all have something to say. We don't want to we don't want to give up that we're not debating giving up our ability to ask questions, right? Okay.

Okay. So, our options are allow everyone in opposition to first give their final response to the revised hotel design before the applicant gives their final concluding remarks again with no new evidence or we deny the applicant that opportunity and we just go into deliberation. Correct. Those are our options or or you allow the applicant to give their final verbal rebuttal with no other with no okay those those are the three paths. I didn't hear whether we are allowed to speak ask questions. We'll still deliberate. That's during deliberation when we ask. So we get asked Dustin or we can ask the applicants during deliberation. Do we have to speak among ourselves?

Yeah, I think that's the those three final actions preclude your deliberation. So regardless of those three that you take, planning commission still needs to deliberate after any of those options. Okay. Well, my question is, do the deliberations include me being or any of us asking you for clarification? Correct. Or okay. So long as there's no new evidence and usually by way of preventing that, I like to say as found on page

one to 600 or 700 on the record, you will find this. That's really an effort to make sure that unintentionally we do not introduce new evidence here that we want to keep going back to either the materials that were submitted to you as a part of the initial application, the open record, the continued record in any staff report. We really need to focus on those things. So when I make clarification, I should say as found on X and the applicant should make sure they do the same thing as well. Do we want a motion to move forward with one of three options from Sure.

Um well I think this could go in layers. Um one we should decide whether or not to give the applicant the final uh rebuttal and then if we do then we can decide whether or not we are leaving uh it open for opponents as well. Okay. So entertain a motion to allow the applicants right of final just one point of clarification does so if we do leave it open that means we're we're coming back. No no we leave it open for yeah that feels a little disingenuous because we didn't let people know that they could come and present opposition. So

that's correct. The agenda does not say as advertised previously only that it's what the agenda was posted. That's what the record said ahead of time. Yeah. So all the way through seven days in advance that's what has been advertised. Um,

so yeah, and my my other comment on that is that uh it sounds like you think that if we let the opponents uh give their own remarks that we would somehow have to continue this. But if the applicant has the right of final rebuttal, there will never be a scenario where they don't get to go last, right? Like, so we're just gonna the only other thing that's going to happen is that they're either we're either going to not let anybody say anything. We're going to let the applicant say what they need to say and not let anyone else say anything or we're going to let opponents say things and then end it with the applicant's response. That's what I thought we Okay,

that's what that was. So, okay. Well, where do we want to start? A motion for will motion to allow opposition and applicant to give remarks. What about us? We will always get to do that. We have deliberation after anything that happens. Yes. Second.

We have conversation opportunity here. Um, I think that that my my issue voting for that is not because I don't want uh people to be able to provide comment. My reason for voting against that would be people didn't know that they should be here or present or online or prepare for that. So, I think that's unfair to them. And on paper, it looks like they got the opportunity, but in reality, they didn't get the opportunity. So, that's I will vote no on that. And then the advertised agenda was that we were just going to listen to the uh applicants rebuttal. U so we could we could move with that.

Yeah. Why don't we back up and do a motion just entertain a motion specifically about allowing the applicant to provide their verbal rebuttal. Wait but you have a motion and a second on the on the table. So you need to dispense with that before you move. Oh yeah. So motion. Thank you. Sorry. Back up. Your motion in a second was to allow all parties to participate in rebuttal this evening. Let us go down and register our votes. Starting with Commissioner Kids. I am I am confused about it. Uh I I will vote to get things moving here. Yes.

Uh nay. I nay. Oh man. I'm going to go I Okay. So, we have a majority in support of allowing everyone to provide their rebuttal this evening. How does this work? Do we have people that are specifically here to provide opponents to provide their final comments?

Well, let's get a raise of We'll raise our hands and there may be people online who would like to testify a position and this would be basically so no new evidence.

No new evidence. It's people's view of the final proposal. Hey Dan, one thing that I just want to clarify is I don't know how people what they we would be testifying to until we hear from the applicant and their summary clarification and and as has been discussed, there's people that assume they weren't going to be able to testify today that tonight that I think aren't either going to be prepared or aren't available. I don't know how this cures the cures the procedural error. Okay, I am going to bring up the comment that Commissioner Little made to me is that his I he incorrectly stated I he meant that he agreed he would like things to move forward. Should we vote again on this motion?

That's very confusing. Yes. So, um so let's state the motion again. What was the motion? Uh the motion was to hear remarks from all parties from all parties. So I I'm not a big fan of I and nay. I don't really know what that means. It's not English. So people say yes or no to the motion. Agreed. Okay. Uh I'll second. Okay. Let's go down the line. Agreed. Yes or no? Yes. Thank you. No. Yes. No,

I'll say no. Okay. Okay. Apologies for the confusion on our first. Did that make sense, Mike? This or are you after me, Dan? Yeah, this this is I'm I'm tracking this the same as you are. Yeah, if I understand, is the commission saying that they want to that they voted to allow the applicant and the applicant alone to address them tonight? That was my understanding for the motion. We failed the motion to that's it was a motion for everyone but that was that was that failed. The motion failed. So right now we don't have a motion as to what they want to do. Fair enough. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. So we're looking for a motion for what you want to do.

Anyone that would like to propose a new motion what we should do next. Yeah. So I motion that [clears throat] we move forward with the agenda as planned which includes testimony from the applicant only. Okay. You have a second. Second. Okay. Let us vote starting with Mr. Kits. Yes or no? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Votes yes. Majority approves the motion to move forward with the applicants for verbal rebuttal solely this evening. Have we covered our basis?

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Let's see. Where are we now? Okay. Now we are uh to the point where the applicant will provide your verbal final rebuttal. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Thank you, commissioners. And Ezra Hammer, for the record, fuddling with technology, so bear with me here. Green screen one. All right. You seeing screen one on your screens? You will see it up there when you successfully. Okay.

Try one more time. Whatever's up there, this one here.

Oh my goodness. All right.

All right. 45 minutes in. We've got here. Uh for the record, since uh there was some cross talk, I uh disagree with the um insinuations that opposing council made regarding how folks are viewing this project. Uh but I will certainly do my best tonight uh to provide closing argument. I'm going to be very clear. Nothing you're going to see tonight something that is not in the public record. Full stop. I'm going to tell you the page number every time I show you an image. Okay? I don't want anybody worrying they haven't had an opportunity to review, but this public record is voluminous. It's over a thousand pages if you look at the application material as well. And I understand uh that a thousand pages is a lot to get through. So, I'm going to do my best to take from the record only respond to the direct direction that we are given from the planning commission as well as providing rebuttal to the thematic challenges that we've heard to this project oh so many weeks. So, thank you again for bearing with me this evening. Thank you for reading what is upwards of a thousand pages. I understand that this is um complex and we appreciate all of your time as volunteers being with us here tonight. Importantly, this is from page 420 of the record. This is a rendering of the proposed project which again is a hotel 135 rooms remains 135 rooms. It includes a spa and a restaurant both of which are open to the public and intended for outward-f facing public use. Okay, this is what we're going to talk about tonight. We're going to go over You asked us to respond directly to the concerns that we heard from our neighbors, the church. You asked us to show the visuals of the

project in the built environment. There was substantial discussion around traffic analysis, how that's done, what it means, should other things have been considered, parking demand, are we entitled to use the inloo fee or is that something that requires subsequent analysis? how to measure building height and importantly compatibility within the existing community. This is page 425 of the record and this is just to reset us here. So we are in the C2 zone. This is commercial zone. We're in downtown. Um your commercial zone is where you put your commercial uses. There's been a lot of conversation around where hotels should go in this city. The commercial zone allows for hotels. You generally keep it out of the yellow parts of the map. This is page 426 of the record. This is the building site. As you remember, we have one of the largest assemblages of property in the downtown area. And as the record shows, and as we'll show again tonight, the topographical challenges of this site are bordering on the unique and highly unusual. And that is because of how big the property is. This is page these are from pages 4 541 and 543 of the record. Okay. We were given explicit direction from this commission uh uh and by one of the planning commissioners themselves who is affiliated with the Riverside Community Church to ensure that nothing our project would do would have any structural impacts with regards to the church. If you look on the right hand side of your screen, you'll see an image from a report that was prepared back in

April of 2025. It's in the record and again recreated here from page 543. We had had an initial conversation with the church and we had prepared a geotechnical and structural analysis based on the very real concerns that the church raised about a retaining wall. Following our meeting, and again this is in the record, we met numerous times with the church to review this geotechnical report to listen to their concerns and to ensure that their engineers understood what our engineers understood, which is our project will in no way undermine the structural integrity of an important community asset. What you'll see here on the right hand side in red is a portion of the existing retaining wall which is specifically being retained as part of any future construction to ensure that there is no structural impact to the church. Um so let me just be very clear. We met and conferred. We reshared analysis that had been done. We listened and we and we spoke about the importance of ensuring that everything that we do will in no way impact the church. And I'm pleased to say that if you look here on the left, you'll see in the record page 541, the church saying they do not oppose the project. The second explicit direction that we were given from the planning commission was to demonstrate the visual of the project within the built environment. This starts in the record at page 463. And what we're going to see here is a series of slides that show just that. What you'll notice starting off the view here on state is the significant topographical shift as you move east west. Our site is unique in that we have

significant topographical shift moving both east west and north south. But as we all know with State Street, there's a very significant slope in this part of town, and that's why you see the building looking like it does. Moving on, this is just up the block. This is the record at 464. Here we are with the um county building looking towards the project site. And what you'll notice is that the project appears small in relation to the county building. And again, these are adjacent. They're separated by sixth, but because of the topographical shift, which we'll reshow, um the project sits much lower than its neighboring buildings. This is page 465 of the record. And here again you see the relationship um on sixth between the county building and the project because the project is situated in a way where it is away from sixth and because of the topographical east west shift. You'll notice that the project appears lower than the neighboring building. This is our neighboring property and there have been a lot of these similar visuals in the record. We've heard from our neighbor across Sherman Way that this project will block their view. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This project is bigger than the one-story bungalow directly across the street from me. I'm not going to tell you it isn't because that would be disingenuous. But it is a commercial building in the commercial zone. And what's important to understand is the relationship of that building to the overall neighborhood within the zone and importantly how

construction could occur in the future. And we don't need to go that far. We just go down the street a couple of buildings. This is still on Sherman. This is page 467 of the record. Here we have um some beautiful buildings. These are about 20 years old. They use the same sort of step terrace construction that our project utilizes. And you'll notice that they too are far larger and taller than the building that they are adjacent to. So yes, directly across from us there's a one-story building, but next to that there are very tall buildings which if measured from the street in the same way that our project is measured, these buildings are actually taller and that evidence is in the record. This is page 432 of the record. This is one of my favorite images in the record because I think it shows how Hood Downtown Hood River touches and feels. It's eclectic. It has unique buildings. Some of them stand out. Some of them blend in. Some of them take up all of the property. Some of them do not. But what they have in common is a unique touch and feel that when placed together creates a very fun environment to work, live and play in. The third thing I want to talk about and this is page 442 and 444 of the record uh traffic analysis. The record has two traffic analyses in it and as part of the open record period, we provided a subsequent traffic analysis which was then reviewed and concurred with by the city's contract

traffic engineer. So we have upwards of five traffic engineer analyses in the records saying the same thing. and that is that our project and the trips that it will create does not trigger off-site improvements. And that's just using the systems and the formulas that Hood River has adopted in compliance with state law. There is not ambiguity. There were two intersections that warranted subsequent conversation. The first is Cascade and second, and that's a page 444 of the record. Um, and there was a lot of public testimony about how this intersection is challenging and the city of Hood River acknowledges this fact. You acknowledge it so much that you built it into your transportation system plan. The city has made a determination, a legislative determination that changes should not occur at that intersection regardless of traffic flow. So there is now our project doesn't change the traffic flow, but even if it did, the city has determined the changes should not occur at that intersection. And so for those in the community that are unhappy with that decision, the process for addressing that is through the comprehensive plan update process and your transportation system plan. The other intersection that got a lot of conversation was state and six and this is at 442 of the record. there. Again, the tra the traffic created by the project does not warrant off-site improvements. It's a black and white yes or no issue and it does not and the city has said it does not. But we asked our traffic engineers to dig a little bit deeper. We said even if the project doesn't warrant it, what could occur at this intersection in the future that might improve traffic flow?

And so they did their analysis and this is in the record. And what we learned was that the significant challenges at state and six are related to left turn movements from private properties. People turning left out of their properties is creating challenges with traffic flow there. And the solution because we we had a lot of people at the first hearing asking about solutions. The solution to that is a raised median in the middle of the road to prevent left turn from private properties at that intersection. Again, our project doesn't warrant that. But if the city wished to pursue transportation improvements at that intersection, that is something that traffic engineers might recommend. This is page these are pages 477478 of the public record. Um, and we put them here to discuss comparables because there was substantial conversation here at this commission and in the public at large about why we were doing what we were doing. We said we did an analysis to determine this was an optimal use. But we also found that had we done something else, the traffic impacts that we're hearing so much concern about would be worse. that if we were to revert back to the grocery store use, the traffic impacts would be more significant than the proposal. If we were to do residential, the impacts would be more significant. So again, that's on page 477478 of the record. Um, and warrants mention given that there were comments about what should be built at this site. Moving on, this is page 445 of the public record. There was a lot of conversation about parking, how much parking was required, and importantly,

how much the project should provide and in what context. The city of Hood River has a very unique parking code section. Most jurisdictions when you think about parking requirements for hotels, you tie a minimum parking space or parking space equivalent to room. So you'll see one space for every room or half space for every room as the standard. In Hood River, you do things a little bit unique as I said. And what you do is you tie it to square footage. And so you say that if I have a hotel with a 100 rooms, that's 100,000 square feet, and I have a hotel with a 100 rooms, that's 400,000 square feet, the ladder should have four times as much parking, even if you have the same number of rooms. Now, what's unique about our project is because of the touch and feel that we're hoping to create, we've created a lot of non nonusable space, extra space. The halls are wider than your coat requires. The lobby is larger than necessary to simply serve patrons. Right? We want to provide comfortable space and as part of that we're providing things that are larger than necessary. There was these hotel rooms are up to 400 plus square feet in size and these are these are larger hotel rooms and so with those larger features comes higher parking requirements and so the city of Hood River requires 183 parking space equivalents not parking spaces but parking space equivalents. The city says because of the size, the square footage, not because of the room count, but because of the size, you need to provide 183 parking space equivalents. And that can be done either with parking spaces or

within Lou fees. And importantly, there's no discretionary process or sub additional review that needs to occur for that choice to be made. It's up to the applicant. You have bucket A and you have bucket B. Pick the right one. go ahead, put parking spaces on site and pay the fee for the rest. And there are some hotels that were built recently downtown with no parking spaces because that was the right mix for them. And there was no special authorization that they needed to get in order to do so. They simply followed your code. And so we said, "Okay, the code says 183. What do we need?" And so we hired a traffic a parking consultant to do a parking demand analysis of hotel rooms. And we looked nationwide and we looked at all sorts of situations, constrained, unconstrained, urban, rural, etc., etc. And we found that the type of hotel we're building in the type of community that we're building in generally has 74 spaces per room. So you would do three spaces for every four rooms. And we found that there was a trend to put more parking, but we're seeing that trend kind of top out at 0.82 spaces. So, eight spaces for every 10 rooms. And we made a determination that that was insufficient for the project. That despite what we were seeing in the market and despite the fact that we could provide zero parking spaces, we thought 120 was the right number. We thought above and beyond that parking demand analysis. And we thought that specifically because the type of amenities that are included in the project again that hotel and that spa and the desire to have them being community serving because that will be better for the project and better for the community and in order for people who are not staying at the hotel to come and use that we wanted to ensure that there was. So that's where we get the 120 spaces from um based on the city requirements coupled with our own

traffic demand analysis. Okay. So now we're going to move on to talk about height. There was a lot of conversation in the record about uh concerns with how height was being measured. And this is a picture. This is in our the geotech report. So this is in the application material that you all have access to and has been in the public record on page seven. And what you'll see is the condition of the site. And if you've ever been out there, you'll notice that if you go to the southern end, there's the sheer wall, you know, that just kind of jumps up at you. And that is because the site is significantly topographically challenged. And we see that on the survey, page one of the survey for those you can track at home. Um, and here we see that the property has a grade change of approximately 60 ft. So if you start in the northeast corner and you go to the southwest corner, you're going to increase by 60 ft, which you know, roughly six stories, right? It's it's it's a significant grade change on the property. Um, and it's unique because it's so big, but it's not unaccounted for. So this is your municipal code. It's also on page 364 of the record. This is how you measure building height. And there are two ways to do so in Hood River. Um, and it depends on how much grade change there is within the building site. And there was a very good question last time I was here when the question was, well, what how do you measure it? Like how is the thing measured? Uh, and so we put that in the record and it starts at page 450. So you take a building segment when you have a terrace building or a building if you do not have a terrace building and you go five feet out from the corner. So you take the building segment go five

feet out and then you measure each one of those points and you determine whether or not there's more than 10 feet of grade change within those four points. And if there are then you use number two in your building code which gives you an extra 10 feet essentially. uh because that's the way the building code reads. And so this is segment one of the building. Again, pages 450 and 451 of the record. And what you'll see here is we go on the right, you go 5t out. You measure, you determine that between 240 and a half and 229 is more than 10 ft. That puts us in segment two. You then measure 10 feet up from the lowest grade and you go 45 ft. And so what you'll see here is that for segment one, the allowable height is 45 ft and we're building 44 and a half feet tall. This is pages 452 and 453 of the record. Excuse me. Excuse me. Uh this is segment two. Uh and we do the exact same thing, right? So you go 5 ft out. You measure the difference between the highest and the lowest datam here. 250 and 233. That's more than 10. That puts us in segment number two. You go 10 feet up from the lowest point and you measure 45 feet here. The allowable height again 45 feet. That's the only allowable height number. And here this segment is 400, excuse me, 43 uh and 1/2 ft tall. Moving on to segment three. This is on page 454 and 455 of the record. Again, we look at that five feet out from the building segment to determine whether or not there's more than 10 feet of grade change. Here, the maximum height, again, 45 ft and the actual height, 41 ft. Segment three, excuse me, segment four, we do the same thing. This is on pages

456 and 457 of the record. Here, the allowable height is 45 and the actual is 38. And finally with segment five, we do the exact same thing one more time. We determine that the allowable height is 45 ft and the actual height here is 32 feet. So you look at each segment as it is terrace and you go through the exact same exercise and it's all just dependent on grade change. Right? The city has said we have parts of the city that have a lot of grade change. So we measure height differently in those areas than we do in areas where we don't have as much grade change. There was some questions about changes to the project. Um, and uh, if you remember the first time we were here, there was in the staff report there were some notations around improperly calculated building height. And so went back and checked it again. We had calculated an error and we also had heard substantial comments from the community about the fact that folks felt the building was too big. And one of the ways that we think about big is height. And so we reduced segments 2, three, and four by 7, 10, and 10 feet. and we extended segment two westward to account for that loss height. So we want 135 rooms. That's the right number for us. We hear people that it's too big. We've purposely left a lot of the property undeveloped. So there's a whole half of the property that's just an asphalt parking lot. We'll extend the building there and we'll lower the height. It's lowering and extending.

Um, moving on beyond height, we heard a lot of conversation about compatibility. And for us, and this is, uh, forgive me, this is page 427 of the record. For us, compatibility is really understood in several different ways. um specifically from like how does the building touch and feel compared with other buildings near it. And we understand that by articulation and glazing. And we also understand it by height and by bulk with in relationship to the uh property that it sits on which uh the planners will tell us they call floor area ratio. This is page 682 of the record. Um and floor area ratio is a tool that planners use to understand bulk. How much of the property is the project taking up? It's understood as a ratio between the square footage of the property and the amount of floor area in the building that you're building. So if you have a 100 square foot piece of land and you build a 100 square feet of uh building on it, that's a 1 one F. We call it F or floor area ratio. And so here we see how our project compares with some of the neighboring properties. You'll notice that based on how height is measured, we're actually about 30 feet lower than the county courthouse. Right? You notice there's a giant burm when you go to the county courthouse, right? kind of earthn wall rises up next to you and then the building is perched on top of it. That's not how Hood River um permits construction anymore. So that's kind of a vestage of how you used to do things back in the day. And the new rules don't allow for that sort of earth work. And

so the height there is much taller, but the F is a little bit smaller. If you look at the Sherman Loft town homes, which we showed visuals compared to, this is directly south of the project site, you'll notice that these are also a little bit taller and about twice as much F as our project. So, more bulk on the property than the bulk on our property. We also have the Lightwell Hotel. Again, about twice as much bulk um and about the same height. This is still page 682. We see the county library, much less F and a similar height. We see the Ferris building uh which has again about twice as much F and a a little bit shorter. We see the county building which has about as much F and is a little bit shorter but feels much bigger because of where it's situated in the topographical shift. And we see Riverside Church, which is technically taller, but again because of the grade shift that occurs there and less flora area ratio. Moving on, this is on page 683 of the record. We also have the comparison at 310 Oak, much more F. We have the Fullale Brewing, much more F. the Hailbrunner building. Um, and then buildings that are uh taller but less F, the 616 industrial and Central Link building. And the little text box there, I'm afraid it's showing up a little bit small, but that's from the staff report at page 683. And it says what I'm saying to you right now, which is if you think about bulk in the context of compatibility in F, the project sits about in the middle of everything around it. So, we can't get much more

compatible than that. It's not smaller. It's not bigger. It's Goldilocks right in the middle. This image is from page 429 of the record. And again, this is kind of a line shot, but with the topography taken into account. And again, you note that as you move uh up towards the county building, because of the grade change, things appear bigger, even though I just told you the county building is actually technically smaller, right? Because from a compatibility standpoint, the farther something up is on a hill, the larger it feels. And all of this kind of goes into the thinking around what is compatibility, right? You look at the height, which we talked about. We look at the bulk or the F and you also look at how the building interacts with its surrounding community. This is page 431 of the record. This is a fiveminute walkshed from the property and you'll notice well where we are right now, but more importantly a lot of the businesses that we know and love in downtown Hood River, right? This is part and parcel of the community. It is compatible with the community because it is integrated into the community. And importantly, we talked about vehicular trips earlier and concerns around traffic. The new hotels, many of the new hotels which have been built in Hood River have been built down by the river. And so, it's more for folks that want to come and enjoy downtown. It's often a car, it's a car ride. You hop in the car and you got to drive up and you got to find parking and that can be challenging. Our property and our project is in downtown. These are walk sheds. So, if I'm a resident or if I'm visiting the spa for a day and I want to have some of the delicious ice cream in downtown Hood River or I want to visit the library, these are walks that I'm taking. These are not car rides that I'm taking. So, again, in the context of compatibility, you have the built structure itself, but

you also have how it interacts with the surrounding community. So again, back on page 420 of the record, I want to thank you for bearing with us. I know this has been a unique night. It certainly has been for us, but we we want to reiterate everything that we've expressed previously in the record, which is our gratitude to the city for allowing us to work and to get to this point. We want to thank you again for taking the time to consider our project. happy. I have the project team here with engineers um and we can answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, any final clarifying questions for the applicant? I've got a lot of questions. Okay. But uh and and Dan and Dustin, I assume you will help guide us if we are navigating into the no new evidence territory.

I get pretty tongue tied, so I wrote down everything. I'll try I'll read it and try not to uh fumble too much. I guess this is for Dustin and maybe for the commission, too. This is only my second commission meeting, so I'm uh I haven't been enough of them to really understand the process or let me start with this. I did I [clears throat] did read the Hood River Planning Commissioner Handbook, which is I'm sorry, this was your first rodeo. Thousand pages. It's a big rodeo.

The takeaway from that was this is a quote. The building's use or impact will be in place for some time, maybe generations, and this is the opportunity to decide if it will be beneficial or not. That was that's kind of where I went from and it went on from there. So in my mind there are conflicting directives for the planning commission between the comprehensive plan and the municipal code of the city. The comprehensive plan states this is goal one. There should be citizen involvement in all aspects of decisionmaking. Goal two states the plan is a legal document and as and a statement of public policy and can be used as more than a guide in decision-making by the planning commission. The comprehensive plan goes on to direct us to maintain the quality of livability in the area. Balance with economic health. Encourage encourage design standards consistent with quality of life issues. Respecting the character of the town and gender economic sustainability by supporting small businesses. Make sure new development is in scale to surrounding neighborhoods and ensure safety standards for bicyclists and pedestrians. That's all from the comprehensive plan. But then the comp that's all from the comprehensive plan. But then the comprehensive plan continues with only factual testimony and findings related to applicable approval criteria outlined in the Hudbury Municipal Code shall be considered. So can the planning commission take public? So this is Dustin's question I think. So, can the planning commission can we take public comments relating to quality of life, small town atmosphere, height, bulk, scale, compatibility, safety, traffic, and parking into consideration for goals one and two? If those comments address if those comments address legitimate concerns that are in conflict with or in violation of stated goals in the comprehensive plan, if not, then how do we acknowledge and reconcile the

considerable concerns expressed by the public? ready. Um, so this is a good question. Uh, and this was listed and somewhat outlined in um, in our presentation before and then it shows up in summary. Uh, I believe and I don't have the page off the top of my head. It is the cover page between the open record submission between 121 and 128. um this request before uh the planning commission comes out of uh it's a site plan review. So it is it is not um and as listed in the approval criteria with 1716 which is in one of the things we listed before the comprehensive plan is is not the approval criteria and as as organized the city zoning code really is supposed to be the implementing agent of the comp plan. So although there are, you know, welcome all comments, your your decision is is based on compliance with the code. So you're not being asked to evaluate the comp plan, nor are you being asked how the zoning code, which is drafted to implement the comp plan, lines up or not. You're not having to do some balancing. Um whereas other decisions such as a conditional use approval, if you go to the conditional use section within 1706, it's going to say evaluate this under the comp plan. Do the list. If it was a zone change, it would say evaluate the comp plan and you see in our decisions and your decisions that come out of planning commission those specific findings. You will see a laundry list of finding comp. This as a site plan is is not subject to that decision. It does not say evaluate the comp plan, do the balancing act of

housing versus um economic development um you know by complying and going through this process you are essentially following the comp plan in the way that it's administered. Yeah. Well, kind of it is kind of confusing because it does tell you to that public comment should be taken into consideration and that can be a criteria for our decisions. But you're saying that's not the case. So if if the public is writing letters and testifying is all that for no reason. I mean we can't take any of that into consideration. Is is that what I'm hearing from you? No, you should take it into consideration especially if it compi if it aligns with the code.

So the public's analysis um you know should be also looking at you know planning commission saying you guys need to apply the code. Now, um, other statements that don't align with that, you know, you can still hear them. You can still evaluate them. However, when it comes to your decision, whether you're a Hilton Rewards Club member or a Marriott member or whether you love hotels or think they're a waste of time is not relevant to Planning Commission's decision. You're here to base your findings of fact, not findings of dis of opinion, findings of fact on the record and elaborate that, write it down and send that on.

So, anything in the comprehensive plan that people have brought up or that I've read that I consider pertinent is irrelevant.

If you think it's embodied in the code and how the code reads and how your interpretation of the code looks, there there's some room there. However, um just because the comp plan says it and it doesn't show up in the zoning code, that that's not an analysis. So, you can see in my report, I don't go through and list the comprehensive plan criteria. I go through and list the zoning code criteria and articulate how those are met. So, the comp plan is really intended to build a zoning code around it and follow through especially in a matter of limited land use decisions such as this. So, as you know, mentioned I mentioned this before in the hearing, this is typically a site plan as a limited land use decision. It's a matter that my staff and I evaluate given the size and gravity of this is really the only reason why it's before the planning commission now to help ensure added transparency on the matter. Um, that you know, you may say that complies with goal one, you may not. Um, however, there's a reason why those goals are embedded in the comp plan. I have the opportunity whenever I make a decision, I advertise it. That comes from goal one. Having the opportunity to move something to planning commission, that goes with goal one. Having your decisions written and down in writing, advertised and provided to everyone who's participated in this hearing, that aligns with goal one. But so we're not that's where those goals and those comprehensive plans live within the rules and the regulations that we script and follow through on. You're not going back to the comp plan. You're evaluating the code. So the comp plan lives in the zoning code and all its little pieces and why and processes. That's really how you how you evaluate. You're evaluating the zoning code, not the comp plan.

Okay. So everything that I mentioned the quality of life small town atmosphere height bulk scale compatibility traffic all that is irrelevant you know we're not supposed to consider that or so those things live in the zoning code 1720 is traffic and access the zoning code lives you say that I said a lot there's a lot of other things there too compatibilities I mean what where do you where do you go I mean compatibility lives in the zoning code parking lives in the zoning. So is compatibility subjective? I mean is one person's compatibility is another person's non-compatibility. I mean how

I would call it we would refer to it as an ambiguous term. Yeah. These are and so this is where we have a hearing, we evaluate it, the applicant brings its statement to saying here's how we believe we've met it. Okay. I mean, that's where it goes back to the applicant's burden of proof is, you know, we I guarantee when it's ambiguous, we're all going to have our impressions of what compatibility is. Okay? You know, in generally speaking, this is, you know, a hearing to hear how this proposal or any proposal meets the compatibility standard. Compatibility is not not in the zoning code though, right? It is in the zoning code. Okay.

Yeah. That's in uh 17. Probably a big part of our deliberation will be about compatibility in bulk and scale. So I think we can just wondering how I how you perceive how do you make a decision. I mean if it's I mean as part of the deliberation we'll talk about okay compatibility in our I just I just had that. Okay. Oh I have more. You said you have more. Well this is for the uh applicant. Should I wait for that or should I don't want to. No we're once we're done with your questions we're going to move forward with deliberation. We could we could also begin deliberation and see if we can't answer. That's going to be part of deliberate questions. That would be fine as well. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. And then we can see what we have collectively to

This really isn't uh this really isn't a question for them. It's just uh some a statement and there's a little question in the back. Should I go ahead with this? All right, I'm going to read it again. Okay, this is I'm all about traffic actually. I've been here since 1984 and I've I've seen a lot. I remember when Safeway was there, traffic is an issue. Okay. So, beside besides what I consider a severely flawed flawed traffic count done in early March, I also believe ODOT and DKS aired in n in 2006 by not including State Street and Sherman Street as part of the interchange area management plan overlay zone, especially with the site being in the central business district. ODOT policy is clear. studies, quote, "Studies generally include areas within half a mile of an interstate off-ramp, but in 2006, DKS states stated, "While the southern boundary at State Street is significantly closer to the interchange than 1 half mile, this limit was deemed appropriate for this area given the changes in topography and existing residential neighborhoods to the south that are unlikely to be redeveloped within the planning horizon." The same study put Rand Road in the overlay zone well outside the half mile standard. So I don't understand why that happened. I think that was a big mistake. It's a little late now. But and also in the 2006 DKS ODOT study, they continue with quote approval of a development of substantial size partially or entirely within the overlay zone that is consistent with the underlying zoning but represents a worst case trip generation scenario should require a review. plus a regular review was recommended every five years. If either was done, then when and what traffic count did they use? Chapter 3, page 20 of the GKS management plan is basically a warning as to how careful the city needs to be with

development in the relation to Second Street due to the in quote the inability to mitigate traffic in this area. The applicant's response to criticism of their March 3rd traffic count is telling in the terms they use to defend it. These are quotes defending their traffic count. Unsupported seasonal data. Hypothetical assumed seasonality as a concept only makes sense if it's backed by real data counts. Arbitrary percentile increase discretionary factor whatever that is. And they also added if [clears throat] a hypothetical seasonal increase were applied, most of the intersections that were required to be studied would not see an appreciable change in the level of service except for Second Street and Sixth Street at state. Really, taking into account a full hotel plus two restaurants, a spa, and a convention center, the traffic delays and backups would become treacherous with no possible fix ever.

Mike, I'm sorry. Is that your comment about this or is this a question? No, not I can't question. No, I'm I'm asking what your question is because I am confused about what your question is. Okay. Well, how does Well, okay. So, this was a question. How does an applicant's projected $10 million yearly contribution to Hood River's economy jive with no appreciable change in traffic delays? That's the question. But I need needed some context to it, I thought. Yeah. I don't that's too much. That's I I don't know that it falls under the Okay. Well, I I asked related I asked project things that we consider some clarification before I went go ahead with that.

Okay. Uh wanted to get it out to Okay. [clears throat] Oh. Okay. Uh well, should we kind of structure the structure the deliberation by topic? Yeah, I think that would be good. I have some comments of my own separated into topic. But you want to start with traffic? Sure. I already that was me. So yeah, they don't have to answer that. That was basically I didn't know if that was dur should have been put out during deliberation or since I was already going. I thought I'd just get it off my chest. So sure, I've got more to

Okay. Uh well, I'm I will be happy to go first in that I it's my opinion reading all of these materials that uh this project meets all of the applicable applicable traffic related requirements. I understand that there are issues that people have with levels of service and various areas that are related in one way or another or issues about belief that some seasonal data adjustment needs to be applied. But there is no requirement for them to do that. And the levels of service that are listed in the traffic reports um are at acceptable levels. And that's in my opinion where our ability to judge that issue ends.

Yeah, I mean it it seems like that's been confirmed by the DKS you responses like se a couple times to their TIA. Um I do think the you know and like second and state is going to be a failed intersection um at some point and that could be because of this background data and even if nothing happened that would happen but I guess it doesn't in my mind uh mean that if this um development goes through that it's not going to contribute to that failure. I mean both are both are true right

kind of my Dustin is shouldn't the developer be responsible to mitigate some of the impacts caused by increased even if it's going to fail anyway there's going to be an impact right so there's no mitigation possible everyone admits that so where do you go where do you go from there and they did talk about what mitigation options there would be going raised walking going beyond their scope that that they needed to further application And yeah, I mean, I think not having people not take a left-hand turn there is is probably the only way. I mean, you you you'd have to loop.

Does a developer intend to put anything towards the impact that they're going to be adding? Okay. that

the city's the limit on the city's ability to condition this project is based on the code. And unless mitigation is based on a code requirement, you can't require mitigation. And for traffic engineering issues such as this, you're you cannot second guessess the city's traffic engineer. you're you're obligated in a technical area like that like storm water calculations. You can't run your own calcs. You have to rely on the city engineers evaluation of storm water calculations. So, um the city is limited in its ability to impose exactions on development. If it's not in the code, then we're limited. We can't do that. And and just to be clear for the record, um DKS is working as the city's engineer in this capacity. So oftentimes um just for clarification and those viewing, you will see an applicant provide their own analysis and they will make their assertions and their arguments and then the city staff will evaluate. In this instance, DKS is hired on as a subject matter expert to review this proposal on on behalf of the city. So just as as we use their use them by name, I just want to make sure that you all are aware and that those viewing these proceedings know that when we mention DKS, we are mentioning the city's hired traffic consultant.

Well, that's we we understood that or I understood that, but I was wondering what what they what information they used was information from their traffic study that they reviewed and okayed from from a March study.

They they will do a couple things. Um oftentimes they will scope uh the study. DKS actually runs the model associated with the city's traffic analysis and forecast and uh they are the consulting engineer both for the transportation system plan. So they provide that backdrop. They are involved in in the audit of those findings and proceedings. And you see in the record you'll see an initial study come up. You'll see DKS saying no applicant you're not right. you need to adjust these factors. And then you see in the record another traffic study provided and DKS then responding saying okay your analysis your assumptions your trip passroughs uh we believe we believe this now and we believe the analysis and the terms behind it are accurate. So um they they don't just agree or disagree. they, you know, they'll make comments and demand changes until the point we're here. Um, we have basically findings saying, okay, we're at the point we conclude this is reasonable. We agree with the not mitigation or we don't have a recommendation for mitigation from this applicant. Uh, and we actually included that, I believe, in the December 8th to 15th very intentionally for the purpose of this hearing. We wanted to make sure that DKS was not uh on the fence with this recommendation to you all.

Can I respond to the question? May I respond?

So um we're using terms and some of them are terms of art. So when you ask whether the project little will mitigate its traffic impacts I'm sorry commission. Um when you ask whether we'll mitigate our impacts the answer is yes. So mitigation occurs in two ways. It incur it incur it occurs based on the traffic which the project will generate which then triggers a series of fees that go to the city which are then used for building out the transportation system plan in an unencumbered ways. So for this project we are paying $576,000 in transportation fees. So we pay that to the city. The city bundles that with other dollars that it has. It bonds against that and it builds out traffic improvements consistent with the transportation system plan which is part of the comprehensive plan the guiding document for your city. The second question around mitigation is whether offsite mitigation is required. So that's we we talked about these two intersections where there was a lot of good questions around. So to determine whether improvements need to be made to a particular intersection, you look at the traffic counts and that's the yes no uh black white that I talked about before and the DS reviewed. So if you don't trigger improvements to a specific intersection, then you don't make those improvements, but you still and always pay your transportation system fees so the city can use those fees in whatever way it sees fit to build out the transportation system plan. So again, here we're paying $576,000 in transportation impact fees to mitigate the impact of the trips created by the project.

Thank you for that clarification.

Yeah. What kind of m there's no mitigation possible. I don't what could any amount of money do? I mean, if it was $50 million, what could happen? I mean, like there's no mitigation. So what's where's the money just going to sit there? I I don't get it. I mean, I think it's agreed upon that we all know that there are traffic problems that are generational at this point in Hood River and that the city is still trying to address, but whether or not it is relevant to our decision-making capacity for this project, like I hear your concern for sure, we all do. There's it's also federal law and state law dealing with the limits on local government's ability to impose exactions like that on a developer that you're you're able to require a developer to um address the impacts that they cause. And under state law, you do that in large part through system development charges. Because, for example, if if a new interchange is warranted after uh many years of development, you can't make the last developer through the door pay to construct an interchange since it's the collective trip generation of many, many developments. And so in order to do that, that's how federal law says that you're limited to uh exactions that are have a rational nexus. So if they don't generate any trips, say it's an old folks home where people don't drive to, there's no nexus. And then if there is a nexus, it has to be proportional to the impact. So the the proportional impact is not to construct an entire interchange. It's a

an incremental cost. And so the theory between behind system development charges is that's a a fee that developers pay to uh account for incremental impacts to the city's transportation system. Generally, it's very difficult legally to require a development to pay for offsite improvements. That's that's a limit. property line is basically the limit of your legal ability to require an an intersection to be changed or you know off-site improvements are very difficult to require legally. I understand all that. Just my concern is the fact that there's no mitigation that basically can be done ever no matter what through them or anything in the future. If the town grows, we have what we have at Second Street here. You should run for city council because that's an issue that the council struggles with. um how to address these systemwide impacts when you have many years of incremental uh development that cause the need for these improvements. Um, it's a difficult thing to fund, but you're you like the city in general is limited in your ability to require a particular developer to fix a deficiency that is pre-existing and the entire cost of fixing can't be attributed to one development. You got to spread the cost over time, over space. My question just kind of stems from something that Mike Connor brought up about the mitigation and uh and what he said the 1720 the traffic analysis section of the code um it says that if the proposed development shall cause one

or more of the effects in section 1720 abovely traffic hazard negative impact to a transportation um you can go on But that's kind of where I'm coming from with this question. It's just are they violating the code? Actually, uh it's good you raised that. Uh that section actually says if one of these conditions exist, you're going to provide a trip traffic impact analysis.

And so checking the box, we absolutely have provided a traffic impact analysis. So you can see if there's a certain number of hourly trips that code if you backtrack it it basically says when one of these things that happen these folks are not going to be able to just propose a development they will have to have a credential traffic impact analysis that's evaluated so uh we could say that box has been submitted we've reviewed it

can I ask a hypothetical question if the traffic hoover's uh population triples in the summer And you assume that the traffic uh in terms the traffic uh count was done and you wanted triple it would that make any difference and I mean is it doesn't matter what the traffic count was it could be infinite and they' still be okay for them to no matter what if every intersection in town was impacted by it would not m would not you're questioning the validity of their traffic counts. I was hypothetical I said I mean it wasn't in March and there's I think that's um

that I just I don't understand the it's a good question and it has to it actually goes back to some of the DKS analysis we asked we asked our traffic engineer I read all that

to and basically their assessment is if you want to seasonally factor this these requests in terms of traffic impact analysis you'll you'll need to change your rules You'll need to not applicant city will need to change its data. The city will need to change its collection and the city needs to be mindful at risk that if you start sizing your traffic facilities and transportation to meet a peak hour demand, you there may be some real consequences there too. Um, you know, you build a threelane highway where Oak Street now exists, you're going to change the character of your downtown. You may size your infrastructure to meet a peak demand, but you eat up the sidewalks and it doesn't feel like Oak Street anymore. Those are some real comprehensive trade-offs that are thought about at the comp plan level, at the TSP level, not necessarily at somebody's application. So that that is that's really you know and this shows up in that DKS memo as commentary of this is city needs to have some its own analysis of its own process not at the time of application and and it has been thought of and it's reflected in your GSP and your comp plan that you don't size your transportation system based on the peak demand in the middle of summer. It's it's more of an averaged demand so that you don't have overbuilt intersections and interchanges.

Okay. Is that that include underbuilt as well? I mean it's your it at times during the summer they'll be underbuilt. There'll be congestion and that's that's the price you pay by not building your system to the accommodate the peak flow. You'll have congestion. showing talk about parking.

I I I would prefer we just move straight to the building height and compatibility discussion because that's probably going to take I assume a little bit longer than the other things on this list in my opinion. Uh and I'd like to get that out of the way. Anybody want to start? uh with the building height uh for Dustin uh I think there was a lot of comment on it it being higher than what our definition of height is in Hood River. Um and we talk about the different uh standards or code. Uh so I just would like to get an explanation from you what why the stepped up terracing and massing in the height u is allowed in this situation versus it just being looked at as one single law.

Yeah. Uh if you going back to the the building height definition which has uh really come into play in uh in 1980 um that's ordinance 1488 and then ordinance 1690 which uh are both in and that was a 1993 revision. Uh you can see two different scenarios uh outlined in the code. One for buildings that basically have less than 10 ft of grade change you measure from the high side. Uh for buildings that more than grade uh 10 feet of grade change within the the area you measure from the lowest point and plus feet uh plus 10 feet from that lowest area. Um evaluating then there is a section within it that says segmented or terrace buildings shall be measured and and basically no none of those will exceed the greater height. So that's lived in the um in that height definition for um for 45 years now. Um really I don't think it's ever been tested um at this to this extent. Um you know we don't have a long precedential history. Um my initial staff report called that and said they they are calling upon and relying upon this and um it's it's unclear. I think the applicant did request that later saying we we need we need some direction here and uh within that they outlined and refined their decision or they refined their uh their application. I made findings on those ambiguous terms where is zero um which in this case it's pre-development grade and reasons why again it's not defined in the code at that point it requires some level of interpretation where here um the idea that a segmented terrace building provision in there means we evaluate each segment uh I raise the comparison between the the building code at the time which really almost has the

identical language that our code has. Um drawing some comparisons there and then incorporating the graphic that actually comes from the building code. Um previously um UBC which later became translated to the IBC to incorporate the international aspects of of Canada uh and which is based you know our code is is very much based around we have the Oregon structural specialty code which is born from the IBC the international building code. Um drawing those comparisons basically stating it is plausible that given a site that is 65 ft in grade that is has 20 ft of retaining walls that a step building analysis is is a plausible look at how this works. Otherwise in this circumstance having a building that uh can exceed building height. Otherwise, the alternative being if you evaluated this from a single point and measured it across the site, you would have a building that could essentially be 20 feet under the street and violate the building height. I I don't think that's a plausible approach. There's something in the segmented terrace building analysis that is a sensible look at it. Um the uh the applicant has responded within and I think they recited the pages of each segment breaking each down to its pre-development grade, its lowest point, its maximum height. Um and basically, you know, that's that's their statement to you saying, "We believe following this methodology, we we comply we with with your regs."

I think he's looking for your professional opinion. Oh, do I do I buy that? And do I buy do I buy that a segmented or terrace building analysis is is applausible? Yes, I do. Yeah. And and I think blindly just when I initially saw the first staff of the floor,

uh I saw it as, you know, we take the lowest point, add 10 plus 45. That's what we can do point blank. But it seems like we're going to the different standards of uh code to give us a more sensible height uh option for this particular site. I understand it's very complicated because of the steps up and so are we allowing the segmentation of a building because of the lot or or is this just standard practice that we would use? um the UBCS IBCS

and and again I don't want to I don't want to create those as because the IBC says that it's okay that that is absolutely not the case. It's only been used as reference to kind of call it disambiguation of the city's own zoning code. Like our code has some gray areas. How do we start evaluating that and making those points that require interpretation more clear? That is the case. It's really not because of the lot. It's actually because of the building itself. It's it's a combination of both. Um typ typically it has been a single point plus five or a high or low. That's a really I would call that the more that is a simplistic way of looking at it. And often times it works. You know, a vast majority of the times you're not looking at a a building of this size. you're looking at a we look at a a house, a pitched roof, maybe a duplex, maybe a triplex. Those are circumstances that really can be addressed from that. Rare is it that you get a building of this size, of this magnitude that actually has multiple segments. Um, you know, and in our world also, we get in a difficult position where in the housing world, we can only apply clear and objective standards. So this level of detail and analysis of which you know we're starting to talk about how did you come up with this the expanded findings that actually doesn't fly in the in the residential world. I can't I can't get to that level of detail. Uh and you'll see in our world we also talk about reason why this code has some issue. It's not the first time you've heard that. This is this is on display.

May I ask a question about the segmentation? I mean, is it just completely arbitrary on how these are segmented just to fit their their needs or is there actual engineering? Are these separate buildings that are being built separately? Uh I it can't be completely arbitrary. If you look at the drawings, the drawings will show different roof heights. Um but it's actually one building. It is one building and and we have not interpreted it that a segmented building means multiple buildings that they must be multiple in different buildings in some way. So that that's how we interpreted it as stats.

Yeah. I think if you I mean if I think of this as being uh four different you know lots being developed this would probably be I mean this would make sense if you were to divide this into four lots. This is probably how you would expect for them to be developed. Not the one furthest uphill to be really short. So, I mean, that's kind of it would be a natural way to develop the the the lots.

Is there still a question that needs answering? I guess I guess for to make it clear as a yes or no question, do you feel like the standards that we're using to fill in the gaps of our code, does that is that something that was born of the applicant or something that was born of our our own planning uh department? And do we feel like this is the appropriate way to measure height for this particular lot? Because I know this lot breaks the code. Yeah, I think it's something that they raised and we responded to as an interpretation and that's that's really a very normal arrangement like they raised the question of ambiguity. We are like we are the officials of this uh and those really empowered to interpret it both staff and planning commission you are in a position to interpret the code and say

this is what's been raised is this plausible do we buy it that is that's actually you know I've given you my recommendation on it that is what you're being asked to do right here

yeah and I guess for the commission I feel like in terms of compatibility and when you look at that the view of of State Street and you see the different heights of the different buildings. To me, it seems like it's pretty compatible. It's not a a grow like atrociously tall in comparison. It seems like it's just part of the part of the scope and, you know, having that much pavement and not using 100% of the lot makes it feel like it's and the bricks and whatnot all seems pretty compatible with the look of the street. I think I'm in agreement with that. Personally, I think that given the people on Sherman might disagree with that.

Well, they are not on the planning commission and it is a subjective, you know, it's subjective topic and that's why I raised the question is is this the appropriate way to measure the height and like if they were off of State Street, no matter what, we're just basing it off of the lowest point in in the lot. And so I mean does is the building that we have now would would that be compliant in today's code? I'm sorry. The building that we have meaning the existing on the newspaper building the building compliant by way of height. Yeah. Yes. All throughout.

Yeah. It's also a maybe a story and one half. So if your if your underlying code says 45 ft, uh that building is is is not a two-story building minus maybe a basement. So I mean if we want to get to compatibility, do you want to shift to that as a topic? Like

I mean I I mean I'd like to address I again Ezra Hammer for the record um with regards to measuring height just because there's been conversation of building lot. So the way that you measure it is from the building or building segment. So to the point that was raised if it was built in multiple lots each building on each lot would be analyzed on its own. Additionally, if we were to build multiple buildings on the same lot, you would also measure each building. So, in a world where Hood River made a different interpretation, let's say Hood River made an interpretation that said building segments, that's not a thing. Terrace is not a thing. We could build five buildings and each one would be measured exactly the same way that I showed you and each one would comply individually. So, so understanding that the only difference there is whether there's a false wall between two structurally different buildings with different HVAC systems um that would be immaterially different from the outside is how that would be analyzed. Thank you.

Uh yeah, I mean I just wanted to weigh in that I I do believe that the that the methodology for calculating I in this step terrace building um is reasonable and I can't come up with a with a more reasonable kind of way of measuring it. So it seems reasonable and rational. I that doesn't mean that I believe it's compatible in bulk and scale. So I just want to be clear on that. So height is a different um criteria than compatibility and I do still want to talk about compatibility outside of height.

Yeah. Yeah. Go for everybody okay with the height discussion as of now? You guys want to move to compatibility? fine with Yeah. Are we It sounds like we're in Are we do have somewhat of a consensus that the height we are the way that it is calculated is acceptable for this project? Is that what we're Yeah. generally. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Then yeah, compatibility, right? So it, as I said, I don't think it's a clear, you know, standard of what we're choosing from. And everyone in every community is going to have a different feeling about what that means because it is not very specifically laid out. There are a few things that are involved in compatibility like that are in the code that we can consider like the overall, you know, size, square footage of the building, the height of the building, which we've already addressed. uh there's a provision for terracing or a requirement that when you anytime you have an extraordinarily big building like that or I think it was and don't quote me but I think it was you know if any one of the singular walls is longer than 100 feet it has to be stepped in some way design-wise or in this case physically so that it is not just one big giant brick of a building that takes up the whole block. And in my personal opinion of how this is interpreted, I think that it they have checked off all those non uh subjective standards under compatibility and then everything else. I mean they I think when it comes to you know the materials that they use on the outside of the building and you know whether or not I don't know those are just everyone's going to have a different opinion on those and I think looking at the living in this town for as long as I have and looking at the materials that were provided to us with the images of other buildings in the surrounding area I can't come up with a reasonable argument that what I see is incompatible. That doesn't mean I haven't heard everyone else's comments on the issue, but I don't find any of them to be so compelling that they override, you know, the things that have been met.

So, is compatibility is just visual or is it what is it how it feels in the neighborhood? How close it is to residential? I mean, what there's a million Exactly. It is. It's you're just you're just addressing basically the look of the building. Yeah. Yeah, the size and the look of the building. I mean, like, and again, we've been provided with other visual examples of similar looking buildings. Well, many of them are several blocks away at best.

Yeah, I think it'd be good to address what we're considering the surrounding area for compatibility purposes. I do I do agree that with you know looking at the notice area uh 250 ft of the of the uh proposed development as being a reasonable surrounding area. I don't think picking a building um uh across town is a is really a a legitimate methodology my perspective that was kind of borne out in that in the findings from the plan commission in 2008 on the other hotel on Cascade. I was able to find that find those that plan commission's determination and they they essentially said we're going to use 250 ft which is the notice area. If you look in within just with I I did Google street view of every single property within 250 ft of this development screenshotted them and looked at them very you know methodically. It is grossly incompatible from my perspective in terms of scale and bulk. I don't I think it may be and if you look at that 317 Sherman which is that large condo um development that the applicant you mentioned was built 20 years ago it's it's kind of reasonably compatible with that but that whole uh you know uh C2 zone is it is the office residential back there is not going to be that for some period of time I mean it may become that in 30 years but we don't know and so we have to look at the current state I think of compatibility and it doesn't meet the threshold of my perspective.

Well, well, compat is compatibility. Can you take into consideration the fact that there's a library and a preschool and a kids climbing gym and all that within the immediate area? Is that considered is that under the umbrella of compatibility as well? I mean, I don't know. Is it does anybody know? Question. Is it the immediate area like Matt's saying 250 ft notice area or is it all of downtown? So I think I mean so let's just read it if we can. Is it okay we read code? Yeah go for it.

Is that in the record? Okay. Uh so compatibility uh so 17.16.040H. Am I in the right spot? Anyone want to correct me on that? Believe uh compatibility is defined as the height, bulk and scale of buildings shall be compatible with the site and buildings in the surrounding area and the use of material should promote harmony with surrounding structures and sites. And again and design is is separate.

Yes, we have no specific definition of surrounding area. For me, I think it makes sense to include the entire commercial commercially zoned downtown area. Like I understand it is on the edge of that but it is still part of that surrounding with with the absence of any other guidance. I think we need to get to this in over time. Yeah. And a plan commission in 2008 determined that it was 250 ft. That's on the record. You know that's the precedent that was set.

I don't think that they set precedent. That's not how these work, right? Like just they said back then doesn't mean that that's now what we could decide, you know, something different. to get the right decided we got a different concept of surrounding area but my my idea of the surrounding area is the immediate you know what you can see from the building I mean there's a resident there's housing in back there's a residential area directly south and like I said there's a library and there's I'm looking at safety issues too compatibility but maybe we just stick with comp compatibility so is that under the umbrella again of compatibility if there's really nothing in the area that's of that scale at least and

I don't know the capacity you have to have something similar scale the the length of the building or the height of the building oh the just the overall size of it yeah I mean scale can be square footage can be size scale be size and I mean the analysis

I just feel like I look at the county building and it's you know pretty blocky just rip you you know, and it'll eventually be similar in height in terms of just taking a view of it. So, I think in that case, it's compatible in height. Um, I think the the distance or the the length of the building because it's terrace will feel shorter and if you're walking down the block and compared to the to the church won't be terribly taller if you're comparing from the street, you know, as you're walking up the street. Obviously, if you take one point and then you take that point, it's going to be it's going to be taller from sea level, I suppose. But like from the sidewalk it'll be about, you know, you'll walking downhill.

It'll be the second largest building in town apparently. Well, what if it was an apartment building? What is your is your subjective compatibility change on what the particular use is or what the actual building looks like? That's I feel like I've heard a lot of we wish this was something else. If it was a if it was a grocery store, I think it would be worse in my opinion. Yeah. More dangerous. I I wouldn't I agree. I think the traffic would be worse too. Yeah, that's what traffic alone, right? Effort traffic alone. Yeah. So, I'm not in favor of that by any we should stick on compatibility. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think everybody has their idea of compatibility. Bring up parts of the evidence. Do we have a way of doing that

uh that's in record? I just have a there's a particular image, the one with Mount Hood in the background I think would be useful. I actually zoomed in on that to the 250 foot area. Did you Is it something from the rebuttal? Yeah, it's from the December 8th uh letter line 29 exhibit E. You had it up here. The compatibility. We saw it. We saw it today.

We saw it today. I think if you if you if you really zoom in on that, which I've done, and cropped it to the 250 foot notice area, which I'm calling the surrounding area, I think you can really see the bulk and scale of this development and its incompatibility. I mean, I don't I don't know how how one can't see it. I think it'd be useful because I know this is in part subjective um to kind of visually see how this, you know, sits in context. I've got on my screen, but I don't I can't share a screen. I know which one you're talking about. Um the page it is.

Yeah, it's the compatibility report. Let me look. It is page 585. It might be useful to also have the notice area on the map which is maybe in the application. But I mean people I think know where that gets you. The courthouse to the to the admin building, the Sherman properties and Keep it going.

Okay. That's all I've got. Sorry. What was uh you said that it didn't feel compatible in this particular picture. I think it I think it clearly shows the Vulcan scale being not harmonious with the surrounding uh difference and development but I definitely am interested in other people's opinions on that [snorts] commission. Well, one question I have is are these renderings accurate because they've lowered the height supposedly and we're it's unclear whether we're using up-to-date renderings.

I would assume that those that were provided in the rebuttal response would be up to date. Yes. Yeah. From original compatibility exhibit. Um from the December 8th

from December 8th those have been updated. Yeah. I think I've said my piece on compatibility. I don't know. I just say one more thing that a lot of the pictures I looked at and I look at them really carefully. A lot of them are at weird angles. They seem like they're a little distorted and funny. I mean, it just some of them seem out of scale in the comparisons. They're they're structured to some of the other buildings in the area, even the neighboring buildings. just Yeah. Were the pictures just It's just off of the Google maps. Yeah. Just look. So, it's going to be a fisheye lens. Oh, yeah. So, that could be uh

Yeah, I I got a lot of angles, but yeah. Again, I I feel like I

Yeah. Uh so one question that did come up uh in the public comment was around uh C I'm always getting my C1 and C2 next so this is embarrassing C1 someone referring to C1 as a residential um zone which isn't which is which brought me into this sort of you know sort of existential crisis of am I seeing C and just seeing commercial and seeing R and seeing residential which would make sense. I'm not sure if that's ever defined but the actual zone is called uh residential office and I couldn't find any definition of C as a C dash number or R- number. So it did it did get me thinking that the if it if that if we do interpret C1 as a one as res or as a residential zone then the setbacks should be greater on Sherman uh and it shouldn't be up to the to the lot line I believe uh which may help with compatibility is the reason I say that and may help with some of the issues that people have along Sherman with it with it being kind of tunneling Sherman and not being compatible with the developments across the street which again it's clearly not compatible with the developments across the street on Sherman from my perspective a bulk scale.

Dustin I assume you have a comment on what C zoning means versus our zoning. Yeah. See, uh it has it's lived both ways actually in our um it it's named office residential. So, you know, whether it's misnomer or not, that is the official name. Uh it does have commercial uses in it. Uh it is um by operations and lure. It uh it does not follow a lot of the residential standards for licensing, especially in the STR world. So, it it lives a little of both. um across the street has not been typically considered adjacent. So um meaning a budding sharing property lines um as compared to having two properties and instilling a uh a setback because it's adjacent to residential. Usually that's property to property not separated by a street.

Got it. Thank you. I'm sorry. Can I go back to your page number? Yeah. 585 I think I said. Well, your point is that that's the best friend at best. I that shows the bulk of it better than any other other uh pictures I have.

I think it's I I I think it's one of several images that is useful for determining if it's compatible based based on bulk and scale. We could go to other topics if we want while we're waiting. Please go forth. Discuss other topics. Parking. Let's do that. That's the last one on my list.

What? selfidentified top real quick because I was accused of being biased about uh about the parking the end fees. I did make that comment. It was true. But I also I also uh was sitting here when the decision got made and I uh I thought that they shouldn't have been lowered the the rate because there are so many um because what's happening now even with the light well and it but it does stifle uh it does stifle development downtown but it just there are a lot of people that could have developed apartments downtown above all the stores and buildings and they could have done the light well years ago if they hadn't if they if they had uh dropped the uh that fee, you know, before they did.

I just go back to one of Mike Connor's comments about is that discretionary or not as far as the fees. He seems to say that he has a disagreement with staff on that point. Oh. Uh, Mike, we're under parking now. I mean, parking I was thinking, excuse me.

Uh, so as far as staff's concerned and again back to your December 8th, uh, the inloop parking fee has been in place since 2006, uh, is not a matter that we have used discretionarily, meaning allowing people to use it or not use it based upon our analysis of theirs. It has simply been used to satisfy the code. So, uh I think Mike in his argument mentions if that is the case, these folks could actually buy out all their parking and uh therefore um that has issue. Um well, in fact, people do buy out their parking and then you know and as mentioned before um other developments 100% I mean vast majority of downtown uh has no parking. Um, we do not evaluate in lie of being eligible or ineligible on a case-byase basis. We evaluate it as eligible. If it's within the central business district as it's located, it is eligible. And what percentage then becomes based upon that. In my administrative decisions, you'll see findings basically saying satisfies parking or not by providing parking, providing fee and loo or combination thereof. I I have yet to say this applicant no does not have access to this way of providing parking downtown. This applicant does. We do not discriminate between those. So equal eligibility across the court

and I agree with Commissioner Kits that I'm really disappointed that the inloo fee is as low as it is. But such is the way of life right now. And you know we can't go into a hypothetical situation. Yeah. No. and actually think that they're providing a decent amount of parking. I'm honestly a little surprised that we're getting that many, but um who's providing? Uh the applicant. Oh, okay. I'm not I'm not I I want to go on record as not being against the Inloo parking situation. I mean, it's they I was around when they lowered it, but it stifled development by having

Oh, yeah. I see what I'm saying. So, they could have done I I wish they'd have done it, you know, years and years. Yeah. before they did it actually. Yeah. So, I'm I'm a fan of that, but it's kind of, you know, I can see it getting to the point where it's going to really have a impact on everyone else trying to park in this town. So, I I don't know where to go with it, honestly. Do we have any specific comments about the parking for this project? No, I think I mean I think it's compliant with Well, that's it. Yeah, those are the questions. Those are comments

connected questions just uh I know that they have written to the uh is it the URB about having a a partnership with them to build more parking. Um that seems like that should be sorted out before any approval would happen because I doubt they're going to want to distribute their parking once they've already built their hotel. They're not going to want to go back and build a parking process. I'm pretty sure that's not possible. That's not a condition. It's not conditionitional by us. Yeah. Yeah. Like they could still do that later to me, right? Yeah. No.

Again, Ezra Hammer here on behalf of the applicant. Just responding to the to the last comment, Commissioner. Um, so as you as you noted, we've reached out to the Urban Renewal Agency several times. Uh we've noted the fact that we are leaving about 40% of the property undeveloped. You'll notice that we're not building out the entire site. Um and we've highlighted the fact that our property is currently used as a public parking lot by many people in the community and that we're happy to explore opportunities for a public private partnership there. I don't know when might be interested in having that conversation. Uh I certainly can't speak on behalf of the city. I can say that if they are interested in exploring it, there is ample time and we would be happy to have that conversation with them even as the project is getting built afterwards. There's no kind of time limit on that piece. It's an open-ended conversation and we welcome that opportunity.

And related to that, um Dustin, are they required varants for the access from the previous from Sherman? Sorry to bring Mike Connors up again, but that's another argument he had made, but it was Yeah. From

from the existing layout, there's two existing curb cuts. This actually goes back to 1720 um which uh basically evaluates a location. Typically a a site that has no access points would be pushed to get access off the lower classification street in that in in this instance that would be Sherman. However, these are there's two existing access points on site. Both of them well one of them is extremely non-conforming. This one is non-conforming. Uh there's provisions within the code that talks about those allowing to be uh to remain. Um in this there's a condition of approval within this application that the applicant uh eliminate one of those access points. That's the farther um westernmost that's at the corner current located at state and six. This would not trigger a variance. Um and per the code, it's it's evaluated as existing non-conforming access points to be evaluated by the city's engineer. So, no variance needed. No zoning variance in that.

Okay. Do we have any other topics on that we want to cover? Justin, are you able to get that? Nope. Was not. Okay. And I was unable to be 585. They had it in there. Oh, yeah. In the PowerPoint, too. Yeah. I don't know if you can zoom in. It's actually page 585 is up there, but um I have not been able to be promoted as a panelist allowed to share. So uh we we found the packet, we have the page up, uh but it's it's sharing it to the the the production team is is shows knows how to do it but uh cannot get me the credentials.

Um I I guess I just back to compatibility. I do want to just the uh F kind of analysis that was provided by the applicant on December 15th page 680 of the combined record excluding applicant materials packet. Um I just I mean again that included buildings that I believe to be well outside the surrounding area. Um it also I think that the analysis was a bit flawed by the fact that I mean the applicant just just mentioned it that 40% of this site is that correct is not actually being developed

approximately which is considerable and many of these which would greatly impact your um F analysis um and you know many of these uh comparables occupy 100% of the of the lot area. So, I think that that really skews this analysis quite a bit. Both of those uh situations, picking buildings from across town or across downtown, I should say, be clear, and then also ones that take the the entire lot area. So, I think that it's a it's a a way of justifying kind of the Vulcan scale, but I don't I think it doesn't justify the Vulcan scale adequately. Any further comments or should we perhaps move forward with the motion?

Uhability. What are the things you saw that uh well I personally made a list of important points which was uh building height, parking, traffic scale and compatibility. And those are the four main issues for me with this project. And we kind of beat traffic into the ground I think. Yeah. So uh

parking we've covered height we covered compatibility seems to be would safety issues be part of traffic I would think so okay we could entertain a motion to recommend approval of file number 2025-15 application with conditions of approval as listed in the initial and revised staff reports. Oh, there were some um some edits to the staff report that were included in the applicant's response. Some little typographical calculation edits.

Yeah, any of those uh we will bring back to you to make sure again any decision you do must be reduced to writing given some of the gravity and size. Um I will work the markups and technical return that to you to make sure your decision whatever it is um has to be reduced to writing and you get an opportunity to review it. Okay. That's just a procedural um whatever our decision is it can then just be appealed to the city council. Is that the next step?

Yeah. So uh you are um for a site plan approval you are the final deciding body unless appealed uh your decision can be appealed the pallet body is city council. So regardless of decision uh there's appeal opportunity that happens typically after you are reduced to writing. We provide notice to everyone participated in the hearing. All those parties of record are eligible for that or to to appeal. So we can still entertain another motion now to approve as listed in the staff report and presented with the conditions of approval on staff report. So

yeah, I'll I'll go ahead and motion to approve the file with the conditions um as listed in the staff report. Okay, do we have a second for this motion? We're voting up or down on the project right now. Well, we need a second. We need a second for the motion. I mean, I will second that. Okay. And then we can go down the line and vote yes or no discussion or uh Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I do I do I I believe the applicant has done a lot to attempt to meet the compatibility standard. I I I see it. I see it in the stepping back. I see it in the approach to state. Um I just believe with the bulk and the scale of that structure, it's not possible to meet with that or with that many rooms. I I I see the effort. Um and so I it's I've struggled a lot with with this topic and I've hyper analyzed it over the course of seemingly many months. So, I just I I just want to say I put a lot of thought into this and it's with great care that that I that I've come to this moment. And

thank you. I I agree that I think that I really appreciate every single person's participation in this and their opinions on everything. Uh, and for me, I feel like there's a pretty pretty clear set of standards for me for judging this project and I feel like they've been met. Okay, this was very hard for me too because I'm new to the council. I studied it for the last month. I've gone over I've read thousands of pages from the planning commission handbook to everything these guys have done. I think it's the a very nice project. I just think it's in the wrong spot. I think it's not compatible with almost anything. I think it's a dangerous precedent to have that much uh traffic added to the already failing intersections. I've got I've got the three closest bu uh businesses to that project, which is really hard for me. I'm a block away. I have three retail businesses, which would probably benefit, but uh the health of the town means more to me than that. So, I'm I'm going to have to say no on this just from compatibility standards. Sorry.

We'll take an official vote here in a minute. Have to all make a speech, but if you have anything else to add, please hold up. I got I got it all. I got it. Okay. Well, then let's uh take a vote on the motion. No. No. Yes. No. Chair votes yes. So, we have a uh majority three to two. So, so your motion failed. Yes. Our motion failed. Okay.

If I may, I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in here. Um this is going to get fun procedurally tonight. Given what just happened, I need to highlight OS19752, which says when a deciding body appears to be prepared with benign application, they have to grant the applicant the opportunity to propose conditions of approval to satisfy the deciding. I'm making that request now and requesting that you give us five minutes to sidebar and come back to you with those recommended conditions.

This is uncharted ter uh territory for me as chair. So I don't know if this is something we take a vote on or I'd like to hear Connor Conor weigh in on this. Oh, okay. Well, is it Sorry. Is that is that Yeah, is that why? Because this is a procedural Okay. Okay. uh point he's raising and Mike may have a procedural objection to it. So, let's hear what he says. Okay.

So, again, commissioners, for the record, Mike Connor's here on behalf of Mr. Ryerson. I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to respond to the applicant's procedural point. That's why I'm raising my hand and asking for it cuz their testimony is done and they're raising a procedural point. There's absolutely no requirement that you allow them at this point in the process after the record's been closed and you're deliberating to be able to come up with conditions to address your issue. I'd also note that a condition that addresses, for example, the compatibility issue of being incompatible with the site, what kind of condition could they offer today that wouldn't amount to a major modification of the project? Planning commission's given them more than they're entitled to in terms of being able to address their project, proposed conditions of approval. you should decide it and if they disagree with your decision, they can raise whatever issues they need to raise before the city council on appeal. So, that concludes my comments and I appreciate the opportunity uh to address you on this procedural point.

Thank you, Mr. Connor. I've never seen this statutory provision used this way. I mean, it's been in state law for decades. Um, so I I would say it's kind of up to you. I I was I'm struggling to think like maybe a different color of the building would do the trick. Uh so I'm hardressed to see how it would help. But it's kind of your call uh if you want to entertain the five minute sidebar and hear what suggested conditions they have or not. We have to vote on do we have to make a motion? I would I would do a vote on the procedural point because the vote on the main motion is now concluded. Yeah,

you've got a procedural point. Address it with a vote of the commission. I respond to Mr. Connor's projection. Chair, uh I will highlight for the commission that there was a case in 2024 in Oregon City where just this very issue was raised. Um and in the subsequent litigation that occurred, it was found that the city aired by not allowing the applicant to provide an opportunity to propose revised conditions pursuant to 522. So we might get sued. Is that the deal? I say I'm not a lawyer. So uh

to to me these guys have really I I feel I'm I'm a developer. I've built 500 houses in this town. I've been on the other side of this thing many, many times. I feel bad for the applicants. I know this is a for what they've gone through, I can't even imagine. I mean, it's much bigger scale than anything I've ever done. I would be inclined to let them have their five minutes. I don't think it's going to make a difference. I can't I shouldn't probably say that, but I can't imagine the difference it would make, but that I would say why not? But that's not

Yeah. I think the challenge is is that if it results in essentially a different proposal then no one has had a chance to comment on it's going to be challenging. So I you know yeah I think go for it but I don't but I think it's going to be challenging. That's a good word for it. Well I'm kind of curious what might come of it but I don't know if it's a good idea. Sure. When it comes to procedural errors, it never pays to scrimp on process. So, this is one way to kind of avoid that problem. Just see what they have to say.

Five minutes. What I was leading leaning towards as well is that more information is probably better than not. So, do we have any objections to them? No. No objections. Okay. Are we all in favor? Agree to let them present. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. That is how Okay.

Okay, we are back on the record after a little break. Here it is 8:07. We are going to move forward with the last bit of testimony we have this evening.

Thank you, chair, and thank you, commissioners. Thank you for bearing with us. I understand this is unique. Um, we have been doing our best to actively listen as you deliver it. There are certain features of the site that we cannot change. How big the property is, um, that's something beyond our control. Um, how big the building is kind of in relationship to the property. Um, we've done our best to keep it from covering the entire site. We were doing that not as a way to provide false information around floor area ratio, but because we felt it was more compatible. Um, and so that has us leaving a lot more the property vacant than presumably others would in this context. So those things feel a bit challenging. We did hear, we think, some very eloquent testimony around the compatibility issue as it relates to the southern low-scale residential properties. And a question was raised around setbacks in the context of adjacency between these various zones. So, your code has requirements where zones are touching, properties are touching, have additional setbacks. And as um as staff mentioned, that wasn't applicable in our project because we're across the street. We're not touching. Um we would propose to this commission to set back the property 10 ft providing a landscape buffer off of Sherman uh in a way that would mimic the setback requirements if the properties were in fact adjacent. So setting the entire of the building 10 feet back from Sherman at street level and we would provide a landscape catwalk um buffering uh adjacent to Sherman. So the touch and feel of Sherman would be sidewalk landscape buffer. Um we do not believe

that this is the type of material change that would require reconsideration. We're if anything reducing the impacts of the project. We're setting it back farther. We're we're taking away that friction point between the various zones uh separated by the road, but we would request that you consider that as a condition of approval for this project. Thank you very much. Thank you. What now?

You get to think about it. Um you could um you can impose conditions like this on any development that you want. um this doesn't change the this doesn't invalidate the notice that went out about this proposal since it wasn't that specific. So um you can consider this deliberate about it and decide whether you want to someone make someone could make a motion that readresses the the fundamental thumbs up thumbs down decision you've already made. Thanks D. Is that clear enough? Sort of.

I greatly appreciate that consideration. Based on what I've heard from other commissioners, I don't know that it may make much of a difference to our vote, but it doesn't it doesn't make a difference. I mean, it's Yeah, I yeah, I appreciate that consideration, but I don't believe it's going to make a difference to my uh weighing in on compatibility with bulk scale.

As a builder, I know uh that is a really big deal to do that. I mean, it's I can't imagine the trouble it was would take and what you had to go through to even consider that, let alone agree to do that. But I don't believe it's going to uh affect the compatibility in a in a positive way except maybe for the people on Sherman. But even then, their views are gone. So I I'm I'm of a mind to uh to reject this. I'm afraid I'm still have Okay, thank you. So deliberated but no need to re vote. It seems like

no new motion. No, no new motion is proposed.

Okay. Uh well, I think that's it for us this evening. Let me get up my agenda. I don't think there's anything else. Dustin, do you have anything else to give us this evening before we close the meeting? So, so, so you know, um, you know, with the with the failed motion to approve this, I will have to draft findings of denial. Uh, you will need to prepare some, we'll we'll start a draft on your behalf for findings of fact. Um, they'll need you to do some homework because again, this is a fact finding regardless of up or down. This matter needs to be articulated for city council to evaluate. So, we'll do some drafting. I'll start with my staff report initially as develop and then as supplemented uh as to kind of part of the record um as it's based around the code um we'll have to evaluate and try to articulate what you've stated. I need you to then finalize and validate that and issue that uh that decision.

So when will this come back? Soon as possible. Okay. We'll have another I need hearing just about the findings of fact. Yes. Yeah. I believe uh that first meeting in February um will be my target date. I'm sorry. I don't know what your next regularly scheduled meeting is. First Monday is the 2nd. February. February 2nd. Okay. So the uh I have no other information or materials for you to evaluate on February 2nd. This will be the only thing that comes back for you to articulate. Okay. So, it'll literally just be a review meeting for us to review a decision. Yeah. Okay. Ad adoption of findings. You've already decided the case.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right then. Well, uh with nothing else, this meeting is now officially adjourned at 8:13 p.m. Thank you again, everyone. Have a good night.