Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Uh, good evening everybody. I will now call to order the April 20th, 2026 meeting of the Hood River Planning Commission. My name is Kate Hoffman and I am planning commission chair. Uh, before we begin, I want to say hello to Tina McNy. Commissioner Mcnnerie is back with us, which is lovely. And we have a quorum this evening. and I'm going to uh give you a description of tonight's process and a few disclosures. First, the function of the planning commission is to review the record for this application, take testimony, and determine whether the application meets or does not meet the approval criteria in the Hood River Development Code. Second, we are required to render an impartial decision on each application. This means that we cannot have a personal financial stake or bias that would prevent us from making an impartial decision. Before we begin this evening, I will call for the disclosure of bias, exparte contact, and conflict of interest from each commissioner. Anyone in the audience will then have the opportunity to question any of us about those disclosures. Our decision on the conditional use permit will be final unless appealed to the city council. To appeal our decision, you must participate either orally or in writing before the record closes on the item that you are interested in and raise any issues you would like to preserve for appeal. Once we close the record on an item that will end your ability to raise new issues or present evidence, let me describe the order of events for the hearing on tonight's agenda. First, we will hear the staff report. This is uh on file number 20. Where did it go? Sorry. 2026-09. We'll hear the staff report and then we will hear from the applicant. Then we will take public testimony. Finally, we will hear the applicant's final rebuttal and remarks. And after everyone has had a chance to testify, we will close the record, deliberate, and may render decision tonight. Our decision, however, is not final until it is reduced to writing and officially issued. Here are

some basic rules for presenting testimony in tonight's hearing. Only present testimony when called upon. Do so only at the podium. Begin with your name and mailing address. Maybe I should stop and ask if we have anyone signed up to testify, just out of curiosity today. Okay. Nobody on online. Okay, great. Okay. Well, for the one attendee online, uh please, if you're going to testify, raise your hand and uh begin with your name and mailing address. Limit your testimony to the applicable approval criteria and to three minutes. If you believe that other or different criteria apply, please identify those and explain why you think they apply. That is it. by way of a procedural introduction for tonight's hearing. Does anyone have any questions about the procedure for this evening? No. No. Okay. Uh, do we have any online hands raised? I assume the answer is no. Okay. So we will now consider file number 2026-09 which is an application by the port of Hood River requesting approval of a conditional use permit a conditional use to permit Port of Hood River administrative offices as a public facility within the light industrial zone. A quorum for the planning commission is present and I will now ask all of the commissioners to disclose any exparte contacts conflicts of interest and bias in this matter. We'll start down here with Commissioner Kits. Oh yeah, turn your uh button.

No conflict of interest, no bias, no exparte. Um I have no bias, exparte or conflict of interest on this. I also have none of those. I have none of either. I also have none.

Okay. And does anyone in the audience have uh any reason to question any of us on the disclosure, exparte, contact, bias, or conflict of interest or challenge otherwise the participation of any commissioner here this evening? No. Okay, great. Okay. Uh now we're ready for the staff report. The application before you tonight is file number 2026-09, a conditional use request to permit Port of Hood River administrative offices as a public facility within the light industrial zone in an existing building at 200 North Wasco Court. Perhood River Municipal Code public facility is defined as a facility or use which is necessary for the public health, safety, and welfare, including community government and transportation services. As outlined within the report, staff found the Port of River uh administrative offices meet these criteria. Additionally, the applicant proposes minor changes to the interior and exterior of the building, including entry door modifications, windows, and awning, lighting, additional signage, while retaining the existing building, parking, and overall site layout. Staff found that the proposal generally complies with all criteria except as conditioned, which are included on page 24 of your packet. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, next up we have the applicants presentation. Good evening. My name is Eric Hoffman. I am with Sun Design Studio Plus Architecture, the uh the firm that is handling this project with the Port of Hood River. I don't have a presentation per se other than I can describe a little bit about what we're doing and trying to do for the port at this location. Um says the port Amanda is our port representative today um has to move from the current location due to the bridge the proposed new bridge the

hopeful new bridge across the Columbia River. uh they did a search for uh property purchase within Hood the city of Hood River and this is the most viable candidate that came up for the administration portion of their needs which includes staff the director and a chamber's facility for commission meetings. So, as the architecture frame, we took a look at the building. Uh there'll be a tenant improvement to the space to create uh a chambers location uh for public meetings and chamber discussion for the commission uh uh staff offices as well as a uh as they have in their current facility a walk up window for uh purchasing breeze by or other uh port related uh uh activities or permits that are required uh like parking down at the waterfront. Uh to that end, the exterior of the building will be receiving a little bit of change at the chamber location. There's a garage door currently, a rollup door will be swapped out for glass uh as well as um a new awning at the front of the building to help show wayfinding for people visiting the port offices uh in terms of uh door awning for weather protection and then lighting to again to help wavefind to the front of the building. And that other than some uh bike parking that's required, uh that's kind of the extent of the exterior changes to the building and the interior. So that's kind of sums it up in general, but happy to answer any questions you might have. questions.

I think the only the only one that I had probably for you is or for the port in general is just this uh topic about the breeze by um potential increased volume in uh traffic and parking requirements is that the only mention that I saw of it or the first mention I saw of it in the application or actually wasn't in the application, it was in the city's engineering um documentation. So, I'm just kind of curious for about a little bit more context on that. And it looks like we're proposing a uh a a condition that before um before the building permit is issued uh uh that topic is sorted out and it's determined if there's going to be increased uh traffic or parking requirements. So maybe just a little bit more more context on why the ambiguity and where's the where's the answer and are we sure it's going to that the answer is going to exist before the building permit needs to be applied for.

I'm happy to give my interpretation of what you wrote but you may also have some comments as well. We're happy to fill in too. So go ahead go ahead and take a shot.

Uh so we hired as part of the conditional use permit you have to hire you have to do a traffic study. So, we hired DKS Associates out of Portland that has done work in the city of Hood River uh in the past uh for the traffic group and um they did their uh traffic analysis report for this location. Um the the staff came up with a concern about that what you brought up the breeze by uh purchases of the passes. And so I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that our traffic engineer will go back and look at that as part of our documentation process to apply for a permit, but my understanding is that we need to have something figured out before a permit is released from the city.

Yeah, correct. Uh we don't think it it's not included in there. I think the expectation is it's it's going to be immaterial. Um but it is a feature that has the it is a public facing component. So you know the administrative aspects are all really back of house. Their staff they come in in the morning and they leave at night. It's really that customerf facing that um that we want just or engineering when they saw it they wanted since it is a public uh facing aspect they wanted that to be confirmed. Uh expectation is pretty low that it's going to have any material impact because for the most part breezeby is again this is staff experience is a lot of automation now. it's improved very much by, you know, if it's purchased, it's purchased one time and then thereafter it's it's an automation. So, we don't think it's going to have a material change. We just think we're looking for someone to say, "We looked at it and this is the trip count." Uh, the other issue that shows up is that even if it moves the number one, they're within a proximity of a proportionate share district. So, uh, it may just adjust that proportionate share contribution, which is actually um it's it's a monetary contribution. So it could adjust the fee amount um but also not it's not going to fail. There's no expectation that the number of people getting breeze vis is going to fail a signalized intersection. Um so we're comfortable with it being a condition of and just clean up rather than it hinging on you know without this known quantity we don't we don't feel comfortable this thing moving forward. That's not the case at all. It's just it's really clean up and paperwork that DKS will do with our engineers. So,

so yeah, I mean that all sounds good. And if it, so if it doesn't meet our assumption, however, and the uh and it comes back and it does, you know, significantly alter uh the findings, then then what happens? Uh I guess it's if it or you could modify the condition that if it fails the intersection, it fails any intersections or it it could come back to you. Yeah. For I mean that would seem kind of natural. thing. It is so remote of a possibility that we didn't put that in there. But, you know, there's maybe Breeze by really hits with the new bridge and it becomes, you know, this becomes the hottest spot in town. Um,

but it just again, just in terms of the number of people, uh, it's hard for us to believe that it it could do that. But if you if you wanted to really bootstrap this to the point where if there is that possibility, you could say, you know, if by some, you know, some circumstance occurs that this results in a failing intersection, um, it would have to return to planning commission for some sort of analysis and determination. I think that seems reasonable. I think better than just making an assumption that there's not going to be any different finding. uh we shouldn't assume until the traffic uh

yeah again just based on what is known it is so remote of a possibility that oh again if if we're were really on the margins here or really there was a possibility we would definitely be asking for a pre um an amendment to confirm um rather than the condition and again the the ultimate result and again if if it does slide one way or another the change will be in the proportionate share that is due do um not so much of a a traffic improvement. That would be need like they would not need to put in a signalized intersection at Cascade and Rand. Um you in a different instance that would be m I would say that would be material and uh something we would not want to leave the chains.

Okay. We can maybe pick it up in our in our discussion. Um I just wanted to say I get my breeze by by mail. Uh can you give us a stat currently or approximation of of the uh the marina parking spots or the port parking uh permits and breeze buys? What percentage of people currently come to the office or is it vastly done by mail?

Sure. My first name is Amanda and my last name is George. the director of real estate for the Port ofood River. Currently, our mail and breeze buy is is probably 60% of what happens. That being said, if you know, when we move into this building, it's under the impression that the new bridge is a for sure thing and it's going to be built built. So, we will continue to see a decrease in foot traffic if if we do move into this building. Thanks. I'm just curious about how many people a day come in as customers to your current location.

Um, I would say currently we probably see somewhere between 25 and 50 per day in and out. So just just for clarification, uh, that actually was included in the in the DKS study, those those 25 to 50 Sorry, I didn't I didn't read the details well enough. I would have to go back and look. I don't recall off the top of my head. Okay. I guess I'm curious then why is the topic coming up of needing to go back and to you know DKS and include the these breeze by customers if we already knew that they existed?

I'd say I would say my guess is an estimate. Obviously I don't have eyes on the facility 247. I say just keeping an eye on people coming in and out from like where I sit. You know, most of the people come in, it's a onetime application and to pick up their thing, not to consistently pay. I would say people that come in just to pay one time or maybe one to five a day. Okay. Any more questions? Yeah, I can ask one question.

Whoops. I would this would be for the planning commission I think uh commissioners uh Dustin we the last meeting we had was we took we were they were trying to take light light light they're trying to take something out of light industrial and reszone it is that and you guys the city said that there's an abundance of light industrial and it wasn't really a big deal so this is kind of the same thing except it's a different use is that is is that that's not an issue anymore would that was that building originally light indust industrial or was it office?

Yeah. Um it was office before. So the issue becomes and the the reason the request is here, it's not a zone change. So the the property is not being changed uh outside of its light industrial designation. Um the in the Hood River Municipal Code 1703 and your light industrial uses public facility is is a conditional use and and also I think that's part of uh public facility has a lot of different looks to it. Um, a pool is a public facility, police station is a public facility, administrative offices um are public facilities. U so with with the kind of the breadth of how what a public facility looks like, it really ends up translating to um is this the right space for a use? So this is not a new use. It's an office space. Next to it is light uh industrial manufacturing office research R&D. Um you would see it probably pretty different if you saw a pool being proposed. It's okay. Does the pool generate the traffic? Is the pool generally impacted positively or negatively by its surrounding light industrial uses. I think that we're it's really where it becomes a little more uh fitting for the the conditional use approval. Uh I think as you see a basically an office space being reoccupied by a government agency uh a public facility if you will uh office for office with no footprint expansion. We don't we don't see any conflict of the uses. So really the idea is to to evaluate is the public facility in conflict with its neighboring uses or does it is it exposed to some conflict. Are we introducing this to where it it jeopardizes the surrounding uses or it's actually jeopardized by its location and surrounding uses? And this one we see nothing of the sort.

Yeah, the staff report kind of said that it just didn't register in my brain. So I I understand

Tina. The only other thing that I came across that seemed worth noting is that for the uh site distance requirements for uh the southside available site distance if you were going 25 miles an hour would fail. Um but if you were uh it says however if it is assumed that drivers turning on Noasco court from the south are only traveling 15 the stopping distance would be adequate at 80 uh at 80 ft. Um is there strong reason to believe since they're turning are we assuming that people just slow down and go to 15 miles an hour? I guess that uh that the TW I'm wondering why the 25 was raised. It's pretty clear it's 50. Just curious.

I think it uh the side streets post speed limit, but I think this is just under the assumption that no one hits the right-hand turn um at full speed. If they're following the law, it sounds like yes,

I think it's more of an inertia and just driver hat like just the natural instinct to break at the corner when you turn. Um I I I think that's where the traffic engineers tip up to. Um on so I was going to hold this for deliberation but I I'll just put it out there now and we can figure out what to do with it. I did want to talk about the um about the vacant lot to the north and that that could be potentially used inadvertently uh not by the port's direction of course but by uh you know uh community members or uh customers for overflow parking. So, I wanted to see if we could potentially beef up that. I think there's a condition around it. Um, but maybe talk about a signage requirement or some sort of barrier requirement. Um, even if just those concrete uh parking, not even sure what they're called. The things you run into when you park. That's a we talk about it.

Is a lot paved or in What's the status of it? It's just unpaved. I don't recall this. Looks like gra I think it was mentioned as gravel. It looks like gravel from the Google map at least. Under the same ownership. Different ownership. It appears to be under different ownership. It just looks like a natural I mean I would park over there if the spots near the near the building were occupied. Go ahead.

It's our understanding that a cat purchased that lot. It's currently housing uh CAT buses. So, parking in that spot's not necessarily an option at the moment. If CAT decides to to move the buses, I could see where constituents may decide to pull into a Grab a lot for easy kind of access. It is also my understanding that CAP plans to pave that and turn that into somewhat of public parking, though I don't have exact information, just in the the scheme of purchasing that building. We were we that was just brought to our attention.

Are are you asking that we somehow include this in our review? Yeah, I think as I I'll throw it out as a condition to put some barrier so that you cannot drive from the parking lot of this property into the gravel lot. Either signage or some sort of physical barrier for Oh, maybe we Yeah, maybe we should just we can deliberate on

Yeah, maybe we should move on to that. So, if there are no more actual just questions, questions. No. Okay. Then, uh, we're going to go ahead and close the public portion of the hearing this evening and move on to the deliberation part. So, we can get back to this right now. Um, so I don't know, for some reason, I don't that thing about this lot did not register for me at all when I was looking through this report. Is it in the parking? Yeah.

There's no condition. There's no condition that you mentioned. No, we just uh we left it for your information. That lot to the north is under separate ownership. um you know for part for the purposes of modern parking and modern code compliance it would be required to be paved. Um so we consider it vacant if you feel it's necessary to ensure uh it does have a cross access easement to it.

So there is there there's there's good reason to be mindful about how it's used and how it it may not just all of a sudden automatically become a gravel parking lot. uh and requiring some sort of separation is definitely useful to delineate properties and and expectations. Also, if you wanted to say, you know, anything over four spaces right now, if they were going to develop or grade over four parking spaces, that actually does trigger site plan approval. So, um there's a placeholder between expanding and that and that's been in the code for forever that if if they want to go over their 800 plus minus square feet, um which my rough estimate of 9 by 9 by 18 with a little lane, um you you could put that in to say, you know, if if you were going to utilize four or more parking spaces per the code, uh you will have to get a site plan approval or an expansion of the CUB. Also, that again, it's owned by somebody else. So, there there is a limit there's a limit on what they can agree to on someone else's property. Um, this would really just kind of be a little bit of buttress and expectation and forecast. So,

yeah, I wasn't suggesting we put any any uh condition uh relating to the use of that other lot. Okay. At all. Uh it could be certainly used for parking. Um, yeah, I think just it'll be a natural place for people to flow over and park, especially if there are I think there was a mention of, you know, public meetings that will probably generate quite a bit of traffic potentially and those folks could park on the street and walk, but they will probably more naturally park closer to the building. Cool. I was mostly just curious what your concern was about the lot. That answers my question. Uh any other specific deliberation about this application?

I just have the just the detail. I think I might have Yeah, I emailed you, Jacob. just the um the site address is different in a few places, but I did maybe we could I don't know if that needs to be cleaned up or just mentioned, but I think just the applicant use a different address because there's been multiple addresses within that building, but within their application and our staff report and all the engineering comments, the tax lot matches and the one address matches just I think it was different tenant spaces that confused that a little bit, but the engineer used the wrong address, too. That's all right. But just for you know history it's easier to be makes it smoother for tracking data. We can make note of it. Yeah. Tax lot becomes key there. Yeah.

Um split the disc street addresses and it becomes you know understand the only other thing there's a typo on page five. Um I just think it says it should say as conditioned instead of uh instead of the conditioned um detail on page five. Thank you. Okay. Anything else?

Uh well I think Commissioner Pope was concerned about liability with that overflow parking more than anything. And uh I I didn't I've driven the site and pulled in and thought there was plenty of parking except for me the mention of a public meeting where it might be overflow and I didn't check to see I didn't think to see but I believe there is parking on Wasow probably on both sides of Wasco. I'm not sure but I believe there is. I'm not sure there's any restrictions on that or not but there's another dozen parking spots out there if necessary. So I'm not that concerned with the parking. Okay.

Thank you. I don't have any specific comments other than I think that this is a logical uh change of use based on the public facilities information. It was pretty pretty simple application. That's my one and only comment. So, are we at the uh I have no comments.

Okay. Are we at our we may be at the uh it's time to Would we like to propose a motion about this application? Does anyone support putting some sort of barrier or sign uh at the edge of the property to stop parking or should we just let it let it flow? I would think that's just between property owners and we shouldn't meddle with it.

Sound good? I think the the one other not to interrupt, but the one other piece was uh you mentioned kind of a a ceiling on breeze bypasses in DKS. Ju just so you know that that is not included in the DKS staff report. Uh hence the engineering suggestion that it be incorporated. So

got it. I Yeah. So it could be pretty significant. Um, so I I would definitely want that condition to say I mean if it's I guess if they if it if it comes back and they decide to do the inloo it doesn't really matter. So you can just keep doing inloo payment. Um but if it come back from a traffic that's a from a parking perspective from a traffic perspective it if it does break an intersection then that's a bigger shoulder if if there's any sign you could say is if there's any sign that uh would result in a intersection failure that it will be returned to PC yes

okay do we have a proposed motion that includes the additional breeze by traffic addendum. Anyone? Well, sure. Let's uh vote on it. I I vote yes. Okay. That's what you're looking for. We've got to propose the uh motion to approve if you want to approve. A motion to approve. Okay. the uh file number 2026-09 with the conditions of approval as listed in the staff report including the addition of the breeze by traffic failure situation and and looking for a second.

Yes, I'm looking for a second. I'll second that. Thank you. Okay, all in favor I I Yes. Okay. unanimously passes. Thank you for making this easy. We have told we're not gonna be I uh I know you jumped right in the hearings. I do have one more out. That was the uh right after the planning director's update. Oh, sorry. I'm I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled that your your ambition. Now, we will have the planning director's update.

Uh I just have one thing. I think we're about six weeks out from uh having a draft consolidated draft code. Uh this is the code we uh update for subdivision and land use code. We reviewed this with PC over number of hearings broken into modules. Uh the purpose of this next set is to return to you with a consolidated draft and combining all the modules together and how they fit which will also result in some workshops. So we'll also workshop that draft. So it's not just a draft viewing. We are trying to figure out based on how it comes together how many we're trying to forecast the number of workshops. Um we will have TC workshops. We'll also have city council workshops. So that's going to be forthcoming. But just I can I can see it in the next month and change. So I just wanted to give you a heads up that as we we get into summer we we should expect to see some of those things.

Cool. Thank you. I look forward to that. We all look forward to this. Um, that is all that is all I have for director's update. Thank you very much. Thank you again for uh the commissioner for for joining us again and you you got right to the introduction. So, thank you. I forgot it last time, so I'm trying to check all the boxes this time. Well, thank you very much, commissioners and applicants. Uh, and now we will close tonight's hearing. The time is 6:02 p.m. And have a good night, everybody.