Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening everybody. I would like to call tonight's meeting to order. It is 5:32. Uh we would like to welcome our new commissioners with us today. Uh Matt Pope and Mike Kitz. Uh and with that, may we go ahead and have planning director update.

Thank you, chair. Uh we have Dan Karen's uh city attorney on line tonight. Dan's going to give us a quick overview on uh just some meeting procedures uh that we go through every time we have a uh a public hearing. Uh typically for quasi judicial hearings, applications requests related to uh bias, exparte and um and conflict conflict of interest. Yeah, Dan's favorite. Dan, take take it over. We'll, uh, we'll Sure. do this.

Um, uh, thanks for having me this evening. Uh, this is sort of a primer, um, that I don't think is super relevant to tonight's agenda, but it is relevant to an upcoming agenda item, the uh, Marriott Hotel. I think December 1st, it's set for hearing. Yeah. So, there are um uh three things to be mindful of that may arise between now and then that you'll need to disclose at the first public hearing on this item. Um those are uh conflict of interest, exparte contacts, and bias. Um they're all three very different concepts. Uh let me begin first of all, exparte contact. That's sort of the one of the easier ones. Um, under the Oregon land use system, you're supposed to render your decision based strictly on what's in the record, the information you have about the application uh that's in the record. That way, the applicant and all members of the public can respond to uh the evidence in the record that may uh affect your decision. So exparte contacts aren't prohibited, but they're a pain in the neck because you have to disclose them at the first public hearing opportunity after which they occur. Um, and so an exparte contact is anything that you learn about the uh application that's before you that you gleaned from outside the public hearing context. So, um, if you do a site visit, that's information you learn about the application. And so, you just need to disclose that at the first hearing so that people can rebut, um, what you might have learned. There's not much to rebut about a site visit. But if you say, "The applicant took me on a trip to Reno last weekend and bent my ear about the proposal," there's a lot

to disclose about that one. um and the public is allowed to rebut that or one of the neighbors to the site button hold me at the grocery store told me why this is a terrible proposal. You need to disclose, you know, the substance of that contact so that everyone can understand what you know about the application and rebut any misperceptions you get there. So that's exparte contact. Um and undisclosed exparte contacts can be a basis for undoing the decision if they're deemed to be material later on. So just be mindful they're not showstoppers. They're procedural uh hurdle that you have to surmount at the hearing. So each hearing there will be a call by the chair for disclosure of exparte contacts. Uh the second one is conflict of interest and that is you have a personal financial stake in the outcome of the matter before you. Um the application for example is on property immediately next to you and that could influence the value of your property. That's a direct financial stake in the outcome. The um applicant is your brother-in-law and maybe you're financially tied to the applicant. that would be a conflict of interest. Um, you generally you cannot have a conflict of interest merely because of uh you serve on a nonprofit board. So that's kind of a rare exception is not going to pop up in these hearings very often. But when people use the expression conflict of interest a lot, it's pretty narrow under the ethics statutes. It refers to an actual or potential financial stake in the outcome of the matter that's before you. Could be negative, could be positive. Um, but it's a financial stake

in it. And you need to disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest. Um, so when I say potential, a good example is um in a legislative context, conflicts of interest matter. When the city was considering short-term rental regulations, some of the city councilors, one one of them rented a room out in her house and would be potentially subject to these new regulations. Another person rented their entire house out to vacation vacationers in the city would be subject to those regulations potentially. It was run up the flagpole with the ethics commission. They considered the text of what was before the council, the text of the STR regulations and determined that posed a direct conflict of interest because it would it would impact them in a financial personal financial way. So that's actual potential. The third thing to be mindful of are biases. And another word for bias is prejudgment. And this comes up occasionally in case law. Oh, let me refer back to conflict of interest. Um, you it's up to you to figure it out and declare it. Uh, the same thing with biases, but it's up to you to figure it out and declare it at the public hearing. And basically, uh, people are hardressed to force you off the matter, uh, force you to recuse yourself because of those two things. It's kind of up to you. And if you violate the rules by staying on, it's on you. It's a personal problem. It's not a problem for uh the city, except it may jeopardize the decision. It could be a grounds for uh getting a remand back from Luba. But um

generally, I as the city attorney, I'm almost never going to say you've got to recuse yourself. Um I can say it looks like a conflict of interest to me or it looks like you're biased. Um but it's kind of up to each individual to make that determination. And so um uh in terms of the bias for example prejudgment it's comes up you know it when you see it um and where it has been the basis for a remand from Luba it's where uh decision makers have like published editorials in the newspaper saying I would never approve uh this development things like that kind of that you have prejudged the matter based based on information or feelings that are outside of what's before. You understand too that a lot of times people are uh appointed to planning commissions and are elected to city councils because they have expressed kind of strong feelings about certain types of development um maybe even some projects. And one the what I would ask any of you that has a potential uh conflict or potential bias is can you render an impartial decision based on the record the facts before you and the applicable approval criteria yes or no. And so that's the fundamental evaluation you have to make each time you address these criteria. Am I so um not happy with this application just because of um this came up for example when Walmart wanted to uh expand or build a new store. Uh some people had been so involved in opposition of Walmarts in the past they could not they

could not be unbiased uh and impartial. Um, so those are the three broad categories of things that you need to be mindful of. So, um, going back to the first one, exparte contacts, you may be subject to those as you wander about the community between now and December 1st and shortly thereafter. Um, just if people start talking about it, talking about the application that is or is going to come before you, just say, "Look, I can't talk about it any more than, you know, if you had a lawsuit in court. You couldn't go and talk to the judge at church about your case. You can't do that. You are sitting in these matters as a quasi judicial decision maker. And so, you just need to tell that person in the grocery store, I can't talk about it. Please don't." uh it'll jeopardize my ability to, you know, sit on the planning commission and participate in a decision. If it comes to having to uh any questions about this, you can feel free to reach out to me or to Dustin about these matters, you know, is this a conflict? Is this a bias? Is um is this a exparte contact that I need to disclose and we can give you our opinions about it. Um but if it comes to recusing yourself you would have to step down from the dis and either leave the room or sit in the audience. If you do that you can then participate as a member of the community. You know if you are you know step down for for bias um you can go ahead and participate uh in the hearing as a as interested member of the community. um you cannot represent somebody else in that capacity though. It's a personal thing. So recusal means you you can't participate in a deliberation, discussion or the vote. In fact, physically step down, go

to the audience. Um so that's kind of it in a nutshell. Does do people have questions about any of these things? They are going to come up between now and December 1st. All right. first first time I turned that mic on it worked I think. Um question Dan just on exparte. So I guess the is the engagement in discussion the issue because so if someone does come to us in the grocery store and they express their opinion and we say I'm sorry I cannot I I can't discuss that with you because I'm on the planning commission. Um, is that already an exparte contact that we would need to disclose even though we haven't engaged but they have expressed?

It's always a good thing to disclose that especially if they they launch into it before you were able to shut them down. Um, because there might have been, you know, somebody there witnessing this in the produce aisle and uh, you know, I saw you engaged with that person about this thing and don't tell me you didn't get an ex party contact. So it always, you know, you don't need to belabor it if it was nothing. Like the site visit, I visited the site. That's that's it. You don't need to say anything more about it. Um getting caught at the grocery store might be a little more protracted of a disclosure, but it may not, you know,

so it helps to kind of shut them off before they launch into it. And that applies to any person. If they're our spouse, it's the same spouse. Yeah. Yep. Again, in advance of the hearing, um when we open the hearing, we ask um it's just point of procedure, everyone should make their declarations. Um

so there's your opportunity that we program into each hearing and then along with that you all are um there's also a point where anyone is offered the opportunity to question you on what you disclose. So applicants or uh participants in the hearing uh may ask you okay tell me more about this what did you learn? So there is also an once you declare and disclose the matters there's an opportunity for participants to dig a little deeper to get a good understanding of how how does it impact the hearing before them

right and that's an important part of it I always try and force the issue uh once everyone has gone through the disclosure right you know this person this next next next does anyone in the audience wish to question any commissioner based on this these disclosures Because in order for someone to preserve any of these issues for a subsequent appeal to Luba, they have to raise it below. That's their opportunity. If they remain silent, that's it. They can't, you know, raise it later because they failed to preserve it during the local proceeding to give you a chance to cure. But just to be clear, it's not particularly a good idea to engage in any social media back and forth.

I recommend you just don't leave your house for the next month.

Well, I mean, you can if you if you do, nobody knows but you, unless you know, people lurking on Facebook said, "I saw you there a lot." Um, so there's that. You could say, you know, I'm a member of this Facebook group and there's a lot of flaming about it. Um, and if so, for example, people if it's in used to be in print news, you know, that used to be a thing and I read the editorial all 16 of these editorials against this Walmart store. The cure to that is those editorials get physically placed in the record of the application so that anyone can say, okay, this is what they gleaned. So you can sort of kind of do that with Facebook if you want to like print down the uh you know uh back and forth on the issue. It's a little cumbersome but that's one way to document in this record of this land use proceeding what those exparte contacts were. I would uh admonish all of you though do not engage don't don't you know comment. Um, so like when city councilors ask me, "Hey, can I attend the planning commission hearing and find out what's going on with this hotel thing?" I say, "Sure." I mean, I'm not going to tell a counselor what they can or can't do. If you show up, though, do not engage. Don't, you know, stand up, ask questions, don't express any opinions that people can later on say, "Hey, you you sneered when the applicant said this." That's bias. You've prejudged this already. So, don't express opinions about it until it comes time to deliberate and vote because you you basically people may challenge you and it could get ugly. Um, I've seen in this city, um, the c kind of that questioning of people's exparte context take on a crossexamination tone

that lasted an hour and it was so you don't want to be that person. Zip it. Any any other questions? Um the other thing is um in terms of impartiality, one way to know if you have you know close enough contact is if there if you have any personal business or familial relations with any of the parties. So if there are people opposed if it's like your wife is opposing this you know disclose that. Um if it the applicant uh you have a business relationship with the applicant disclose that. um because it may, you know, for one thing, it it it may kind of taint the process. People will say that it was um that you really did have a uh a conflict. That's one of those potential conflicts. And so, you need to think seriously, okay, if I it's a former client of mine. Um I I can be impartial and opponents would say, "No, you can't. you know, you you you know, earned a fee from that person and now you're going to doubt their veracity of their testimony. I don't think so. So, just be cautious of those um uh business, familial, or personal relations with any of the parties. Just kind of watch that because it it's it's something to think about and maybe disclose. Okay. Thank you so much for attending.

Keep a low profile between now and December 1st, but keep your eyes and ears open. Thanks, Dan. All right. You're welcome. Have a good evening.

Okay, on to the next matter, which is not a public hearing. Um, this is this is your workshop, so um we can open it up. There is no disclosure. This is not a legislated matter. It is not a quasi judiciary matter. It is really a workshop for planning commission to provide some input. Uh we have a couple people here who may want to talk uh provided some input and we have our consultant team online uh to give some information and testimony. So with without further ado, we're on to the next matter.

Okay. Uh then let us open tonight's work session for module four of the development code update. Uh and we're going to start with comments from the audience. I do we have a signup sheet or I mean I don't know if all of you are going to talk today or just a couple of you. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Mike Hendris start with you. Uh for those who are watching remotely, please use the raised hand feature in your tool browser. Oh uh you want to Yes. You want to tap a tap on green is good. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. So thank you for giving me this little time. I know you have a lot of work to do tonight and I appreciate it. I'm actually here with very positive things to say to you. Uh, I'm one of the co-chairs of a group called Dark Skies Gorge. And as you can imagine, that means we like our dark skies. We like it out there. We want to keep it out there. Uh, there's about 140 of us in a loose group. We've been trying to work. Kevin and Dustin have been great to work with on trying to talk about things. We're here to say it's great that module 4, and thank you consultants. It's great that module 4 has a section called uh outdoor lighting. Uh as I think we all know, there really wasn't anything in the old code at all. And it's just terrific that it's in there. We're so happy to see that. Thank you to everybody for putting it in there. It's clear that the details aren't there. You all read it as well as I did. It's clear that there's language that has to be worked out that will work for Hood River, but that can be done and we're hoping to in provide some input and I know you're caring about it, too. You're all caring about it. So, that still has to be done. But what we want to ask you to do, please, is support the idea of some good, strong language about protecting our night skies and then we just go from there. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mike. Okay. Okay, next up, I apologize. I cannot read your handwriting, but I know we want to talk about the fee in lie of parking. It probably is. I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's too Please state your name uh for us if you will. Chris Robuck. Nice to meet you. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for letting us vote first. The item that I wanted to mention to you is at the very end of your agenda and by then you and I would both be going. So um at the very end of your agenda is the calculation of the requisite parking spaces for a development. Immediately following that is this inloo provision. The calculation of the number of needed spaces is kind of moot because a developer can write a check for all of those required spaces. So what I'd love to see is that whole inl provision in lie of parking spaces go away. Um, short of that, um, I'd encourage you to do something that would allow you to get at least a a certain proportion of those required spaces physically rather than just kicking the can down the road. It could be something like a development has to provide 90% of the required spaces or or all but you know 20 of the required spaces. some some sort of measure that that doesn't allow what we have right now, which is again a developer can calculate the number of needed parking spaces and then write a check and walk away. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all the testimony we have. Okay, Tina, did I see you raise your hand in the back? No. Okay, cool. Okay, well that I think is all of our input that we have from the audience. Uh so next up I guess we have our presentation. Take it away, Matt. All right. I wasn't sure if uh Kevin Ray or Dustin were going to start us off, but I'm happy to just jump in. Sorry. [laughter] No worries.

Someone's out of my shreds. Should I just go for it? I can't hear Kevin or Dustin say anything else, so I I will.

Matt, thanks for being here tonight. We've got a couple of new commissioners with us, including Mike Kits and Matt Pope. Um, they're meeting you for the first time. Uh, with Matt tonight is Carrie Breni, who's been helping us draft code, and they're going to go through a PowerPoint presentation. Um, we've got 10 items that we highlighted in the memo to you, but obviously a lot more language in that document than uh just those 10 issues, but Matt and Carrie are going to run through those 10 issues. [snorts] And of course, you're welcome to bring up any other issues you're interested in discussing tonight, you got questions about, etc. So, with that, turn it over to Matt and Carrie. Thanks, Matt.

All right. Thanks, Kevin. Yeah. So, I will share my screen um and walk through this presentation. Um so we'll give you kind of a quick some of this is what we've been doing um each time we've met with you um previously just give you a quick um status report on where we are in the process um what's coming up next. We'll give you a little recap on the issues or um elements of the code that we addressed in the earlier modules which hopefully will be um particularly helpful for the new folks on the commission. Um, and then we'll talk about some of the sources um that we use to develop the provisions that are in the module 4 that you got in advance of the meeting. And then as Kevin said, we'll walk through these 10 items. Um, we'll preface each item with just kind of um reiterating what's in your staff cover memo about each of these items. And um, a lot of these, you know, what we say is here's our proposed approach or intended approach and what do you think? Does this make sense? do you support this? Um, so we're interested in that. But as Kevin said, you know, other comments or questions you have, we'll be happy to do our best to answer them um and talk about them. Um, and uh, for good or ill, I will do most of the talking tonight at least in terms of the presentation. Um, but I'll be looking for Dustin, Kevin, Carrie to jump in and add to what I say and also help with responding to questions. So that's the that's what we'll do. So I'm just going to keep moving. Um, but do let me know if you have any questions along the way. So, I won't go into this uh schedule in detail, but what I will say is we've been going through this kind of iterative process of um looking at the updates to the development code in modules or kind of buckets. We're at number four of four. So, we've gone through a lot of development code with y'all up to this point. Um, we've been meeting with you and then also meeting Oh, and the star I see is in the wrong

place here. We should be under PC briefing number four. Sorry about that. Um, we've been meeting with the city council as well. So, after we meet with you, we'll be meeting with them next week. Um, getting their comments. Um, we are getting ready to initiate some kind of brief online questionnaires for folks to ask them about some of the same types of questions that we've been talking to you all and council about. So, that's getting started. and we'll be having some meetings um kind of focus group small group meetings um with a variety of uh interested parties in the community uh and those are currently anticipated to happen in the first half of December um as well as having a focus group specifically with um Spanish speaking members of the community that is going to take a little longer to organize and we're expecting that to be in January. Um, we'll then take everything we've heard from you and council and everybody else and put together a combined revised draft set of code amendments. So, a com more complete um and updated uh version of the development code. Um, and then we'll go through um additional meetings with you all in council to talk about that. So, that will happen in early 2026. Um, so that's where we're headed and then we'll kind of continue to um, you know, work through revisions to the amendments and ultimately take it through an adoption process. Uh, likely probably going to be completed in um, fall of 2026. That's kind of what it's looking at. We're probably about a month behind right now. So, sorry about that, but we're moving along despite that pretty well, I think. Um, I think that's kind of all I have to say about the schedule overall and just kind of where we are, but just appreciate all the the hard work by you and council and everybody else so far. So, uh, so just kind of a reminder and I'll

say more about each of these on the next few pages is that we've got these four modules. Actually, I think I'll just kind of cover these on the next slides because they go into more detail about each of these sections. So, this is just noting there's four of them. Um so module one we looked at some general provisions in the code um purpose and authority definitions. Now we started looking at definitions but we're going to have to revisit that again once we finish module 4. Um because a lot of those definitions get updated along the way. Um a lot of record determinations and non-conforming situations. um how staff interprets the code when there's it's not clear what the code means and somebody asks for a staff interpretation and then enforcement. So those were things we looked at in the first module looked at a a number of things and I'll say each module has gotten sort of bigger and thicker and more stuff to talk about. Um but module two was focused a lot on different types of procedures. So specifically, there's different procedure types for reviewing different types of applications. We looked at that. We looked at provisions related to site design review as well as land divisions, property line adjustments. I will not read through all of these things. Some of these things are ultimately legislative processes like amendments to the zoning map or code. Um, but others are things that could come before you in an application process. A lot of the early ones are. Um so lots of different procedural issues and topics that we looked at in module two. Um module three we looked at um kind of um types of standards that are applied to development but short of design standards. So these are um development standards I would call them. So um what are the different zones that are applied and used there? What uses are allowed in different zones? Um what

are some of the basic standards apply to those in terms of lot size setbacks things of that nature. Um and then in a number of cases there are some special use standards we looked at um as well as overlay zones. So your base zones as well as overlay zones. So those are the things we looked at in module 3. Um and then module four, which is what you've got in front of you or um was uh provided to you in advance of this meeting and that we'll talk about tonight, um has to do with design standards. So, a variety of different types of design standards. Um how they're administered is one of the things we look at. what types of design standards are applied to how buildings and entrances to buildings are oriented, how buildings are designed, and kind of the full um gamut, I guess, of different types of buildings, residential, non-residential, or commercial or industrial. Um we we're going to talk specifically about drive-thru facilities, and then things like transportation and access and circulation, as well as landscaping, street trees, outdoor lighting. You heard comments at the front of the meeting about that. We'll talk about that. Um, and then vehicle and bicycle parking and loading. So, uh, one of the commenters mentioned that as well. And then public facilities and the standards that are applied to those. So, and I know it's a lot of pages you got in advance and we're not going to go through that line by line, but we are going to pick out these 10 issues that Kevin mentioned and kind of talk through some questions related to those. But, if you have other things you saw in there that you want to ask about, happy to talk about them. So, I will maybe just take a quick pause before we jump into these discussion items and just see if anybody has any questions about what I've said so far because that was a lot of talking. Probably I need to take a breath. So, yeah. Any questions about what I've talked about? Hey Matt, I wonder if it'd be is it useful to just sort of state the

objective around this project in total? But what what are we just kind of backing up and zooming out just what are we to the code?

Yep, that is an excellent question and sometimes I've had the kind of project objectives or goals at the front of the presentation. Um but I'll note a few and then we'll see if um Kevin and Dustin have anything to add. I think first and foremost we're trying to make your development code easier to use you know so easier to use by applicants by staff by you all as you review applications and make recommendations or decisions um so just making the code easier to use is a pretty important um overarching recommendation. This is challenging to do in a code, but putting things in as plain a language as we can, you know, as we're updating these provisions um just making it more easily understandable. And then another pretty important um objective is to ensure that standards that are applied to residential development to housing are clear and objective. So they don't involve use of discretion um unless the applicant has an alternative path and opts for something that's more discretionary. But otherwise, there needs to be a path for review of a of an application for housing that has clear and objective standards. So, you know, that means that those standards I put those in front of you or anybody else, you'd all come to basically the same conclusion about whether somebody's meeting the standards. Um, so that's a that's a very important one. Um, I think just from a process standpoint, we want to make sure, you know, we're addressing things that we hear about from people that are important. So having an inclusive and a and a constructive engagement process with the community is another kind of overall project objective. Um and also I think I would just say um making the structure of your code a little more sort of logical and finally you know this is the first time in a long time that you've gone through like a full scale code update and so over the years you know things have been

fixed here and there probably a lot of times but trying to create a more consistent code and for things that haven't been fixed but have been talked about making sure we pull those into the process. So those are things I would say about overall project objectives and I guess I would see if Dustin or Kevin have anything to add to that.

Thanks Matt. Um just I'll circle back to the code audit. Obviously, first step in the process, identified a variety of issues as Matt discussed the types of things that we anticipating anticipated looking at early in the process. Went through that code audit, identified a variety of issues, and those have been things that Matt and Carrie have been addressing as they've been drafting code.

Yeah. And that that audit um had a number of touch points from staff, things that we had a hard time administering or things that we saw come up routinely as uh as obstacles or just issues. Uh development community, a number of interested parties both in terms I would call generalized special interest in the housing world, in development world, uh public engagement. So we had a public um allowance to where uh it really provided that opportunity to say this this doesn't you know similar to that like these were things that we've heard um that were flagged and then really um you know a number of items that we saw as conspicuously absent. Um there's no cell phone provisions in there. this is a real like this cell phone thing might catch on you know like so um having something in the code to directly address that. Um the code originally, you know, this version of it really showed up um in the 80s. It took a little bit of a makeover in the 90s, I believe, 1993. Um there was a there was a push to update it again. You know, we are now talking 30 plus years of management practice, um challenges of administration, difficult sites, lower tolerance, um that I think is um that is a big deal. um you know every every inch counts. We used to measure in feet. Now we measure in inches and that and that I think has pressure tested the code to the point where the law used to allow more discretion. It doesn't now. So you have to have a code that really starts to lay out some very spe specific and predictable outcomes um for applicants and for participants. And I think that we've, you know, that's that's one of the big objectives here is to arrive at that to the best of our ability.

Can I ask you a question? What was the middle housing code rewrite you guys spent a long time doing? Was that is that separate from this whole thing? I mean, now it's fairly recent. Wasn't that a complete code rewrite

uh just for for that housing product? So uh within the the code there's 25 chapters. Uh the middle housing uh code was an update and it became chapter 1725 and it was a specific rule set built around that one housing type. So, uh, and when I when I helped draft that, the way I set it was to have it almost self-contained because I knew the rest of the code had so many issues that I couldn't I couldn't have those other parts of the code starting to enter in. So, it really became kind of cordoned off. Um, and so it it really was tailored to a specific housing type and circumstance. Uh, it didn't go through and fix all the other issues with all the other housing types. Um and within that time the city was in a position um to where it was only I don't it wasn't going to be required to do anything with middle housing. And since that time even since we've changed it um the city is now going to have to do some additional regulations related to middle housing not because of its own code but because of state law change that we need to we need to wrap into this. So, uh, there's some changes in the the outside world that we'll have to adapt to and there's some overlap there for our middle housing code and what the state refers to as middle housing. So, one of the efforts is to is to reconcile those two to make sure they're matching up uh where they're where there's overlap and keeping them separate where we want to keep them separate. So, um the it's in process, it works. I think it works well. Um, we will have to adapt to a changing world though that keeps changing around us.

Yeah. So, so the middle housing ordinance was an entity into itself and what you're trying to do is bring everything up everything outside of that up to date which you didn't address during the middle housing because that was its own right. Yeah. And I think there's things that we could still update with that. You know, it's it's never going to come off perfect, but I think your characterization is pretty good. That was actually one of my questions as we get into this. Um, why don't I guess I was believing or thinking I was seeing that we were folding chapter 25 into the rest of the sections and they essentially doing away with that middle housing chapter and defying it.

I I although it's not complete. Yeah, I think my intent is to is to fold it in. It's not to eliminate it, but it's going to be spread throughout instead of in its own chapter. We'll see what the organization looks like. Um, you know, in terms of ease, you know, part of it is I think it's easier because it's all enclosed in one. Uh, but we will have to reconcile a larger format like depending on how the large format gets written. Does does it make sense to have it in its own bucket or does the code read to inform it? Let's we'll get the content and we'll work on the organization we got

and that we or that I put comments in it doesn't seem to exist in there. It seems to parts of it seem to be another like in the in like in the residential design standard section I believe I'm seeing part of what was in the middle housing

there's certain that's again where certain overlaps were occur will occur. Um it may be to other things. up. You have a section just on town houses. Technically, the state considers that a middle housing, duplexes, that is something we're going to have to adapt. Um, you know, I think we'll end up with a special section to maybe what is referred to as space efficient housing. um to in to avoid any confusion with the terms and the words that we use and what so

yeah I I'll just say we don't want to lose that good work that the city did on that. We're not intending to just kind of fold that or spread that throughout the code. do want to retain a lot of those provisions and they are intended to promote not just middle housing but smaller um units. Um and so again there will be additional regulations on kind of some of those other types of um what the state calls me housing but are a little different than what the city referred to as middle housing in that code update. And but I would just say the other thing I would say is again we're we haven't produced the the updated complete code. So you're seeing things kind of all over the place a little bit and that's just a function of this iterative process. But we won't lose that stuff. I think that's the main point I would want to make.

I guess then my then my feedback and I and I'll let this proceed. Sorry. I do think that potentially keeping them separate makes it more difficult to use uh the entire product. So, I mean, maybe we'll see as we as we get to that final uh version, but if you're telling if people are having to decide where they need to go, do I need to go to this to 25 or do I look up here in this, you're creating more complexity in in the product itself. So, anyway, we'll see it as it gets fleshed out. But

yeah, appreciate the comments. We're definitely we've been having conversations with staff about this and and we're definitely thinking about it. So yeah, I appreciate the thoughts around that. Um I will say one other quick thing um because Dustin reminded me of it. Um that's another just over sort of overarching goal of the project and that is to make sure that the city's code is consistent with recent housing um rules and laws that have been passed um by the legislature andor adopted by the state over the last several years. A lot has happened at that level. And so that's another important goal of ours. And this project is being funded by a combination of city money and state money. And so that's part of the reason the state's providing money to help pay for this is to make sure that we um achieve that kind of consistency where it's where it's needed or required. So all right, any other questions before we jump into these these 10 items? Go ahead, Matt.

All right, we'll do. So, um, first just kind of I forgot I had this slide, but really quickly, some of the source of information we've got here. So, there's a couple of different model codes that we're looking at. One is called the transportation and growth management model code for small cities. So, we are using some of the provisions from from that. that model code is actually being updated right now and so some of the provisions in that model code are somewhat outdated. So it's not always for every element of Hood Rivers code the best thing to look at, but it does provide a really useful u model for a lot of the things in Hood Rivers Code. There is some additional U model code um work that's being done right now. ONA stands for Oregon Housing um needs assessment. So, there's a set of new rules that have been are being developed in Oregon um by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development um that will apply to housing associated with the this Oregon Housing Needs assessment um set of rules. And so that code, a draft of that code has been completed. Um both of those are being updated by folks in my firm. I'm not the one um in charge of them, but I'm getting to benefit from the work that other folks in my firm are doing on that. So, those are both sort of sources of information. Obviously, your existing code um there's some good codes out there that have been fairly recently updated and address those clear and objective standards requirements I talked about. Um andor, you know, have been have gone through a fair bit of local review. So codes from Sandy, Oregon, Bend, and Sisters. We're trying to look at, you know, cities that have some similar characteristics to Hood River as we're looking at these things. Um, and then just some of the state legislation that I mentioned a moment ago and revised statutes, some of those

are very specific and um, they provide actual standards, you know, for the city to incorporate into their code. So, so those are all and then of course just a lot of discussion amongst us. And when I say us, me and Carrie and Dustin and Kevin and and you folks, so team discussions and feedback from planning commission and council and others. So those are all the things that are going into this. So I did just want to mention that. Um and then I will jump into these issues. So we've got like kind of multiple topics per slide, but I'm going to cover them each individually. I'll say a little bit really kind of repeat what's in the cover memo. see if Dustin or Kevin or Carrie have anything to add and then have hear from y'all about what you think about the questions we're asking. So the first one is residential design standards. We included page references to your packet here um if you want to kind of look at these in more detail. So you know what we had to say about this is um the existing code for Hood River has relatively few standards related to housing or housing design. And the standards you do have, a lot of those are in your um planned unit development section and they're not really considered to be clear and objective standards. So, we recommend updating the existing standards and supplementing them or adding to them um with standards that are clear and objective that can be enforced and administered in that way and relying on um uh in large part that ONA model code that Oregon housing needs assessment model code because it's already been kind of vetted by the state and an advisory committee is being clear and objective. that addresses state requirements and it's just a pretty good baseline set of standards for housing design and it includes standards that apply to kind of a full range of housing. So, um that's our that's our

recommendation and we want to make we want to see if that makes sense to y'all if you support that based on you know this um my summary and kind of what you saw so far in the code. And I'll just again sort of punt it to Dustin and Kevin and Carrie and see if they have anything to add to that intro. Matt, this Kevin, I don't have anything to add. Thank you for the summary, Dustin. Carrie, no. Uh, really looking for your input to add again. Uh, what we compile will go into the creation of the final code. So, uh, you can have reactions, you can agree, you can have things that caught your attention or you thought were missing, conspicuously absent, conspicuously wrong. Uh, again, I think the the material you have is a little cumbersome, but what we didn't want to do is pull out so much of it that you didn't really see kind of the methodology and some of the options. So, um, there's something that you, you know, whether it's in there, whether it's not there, whether it's something you have to add based on, uh, your own experience, we're we're taking notes and we're, we'll roll it in.

It looks like Bill Irving has a comment.

Yeah, I mean, I've got I have a lot of comments on a lot of this and I don't have no idea. I mean, it seems like that the level of the the amount of material we have to cover seems a challenge with the level of comment that I think needs to get made on this. There's one comment. Um, it's the other part that's hard for me is I'm very familiar and I'm guessing a lot of other folks are with our current code set and it's really hard for me to look I mean I I know that I know where our current code set breaks and I know the how to develop under it and what works, what doesn't, what are the pain points. When I when I look at this stuff I've it's it's taken out of context for things like landscaping requirements for example. Um, and then we're I don't know if we're going to have lock coverage discussions like it it it would be helpful for us to when we get into these um specific detailed decisions to actually have our existing code set to compare it to. I think so that's one comment. um building orientation. I I look at all these and I'm like, why do we why are we adding this to our code? I don't think we should be adding these this type of design detail into our code set. I don't know. I mean, we found with our um we found with our ADU requirements, we found with our initial middle housing requirements, I mean, the more the more requirements of we put for a developer into the code set, the less it gets used. And so, I'm looking at this townhouse code and I'm like, do we care if the door is oriented to the street or if it's 90 degrees to the street on the front porch? I don't care. So, and I can go I can rattle through

all of this stuff and I don't know what the other commissioners think, but like I would say 4.2.1 delete two delete three um you know 4.2.2 I don't even understand what that means but delete it. We need a wall or fence in front of a house screening the front door from the street. Like, get rid of it. I don't understand why we're doing this. So, 4.2.3 delete.

So, I think.4b delete. 4.2.4D delete. Why do we care what the width of a garage door is? I I think the issue becomes and this is from your packet is the the code includes limited design standards many of them that are not clear and objective that we cannot enforce. So you have the opportunity to to do something or to do nothing. You can eliminate all standards uh for design and and that is that is a possible outcome. However uh absent anything that's clear and objective you you you really have nothing. So, I mean, you Bill, you you're you're right. You you don't need to place those in there. Um, but I don't think that the staff's recommendation is that you omit any type of approach to residential building design.

Well, we don't necessarily I mean, we have our development standards with our setbacks for garage doors and I started yard setbacks and our building heights. Um, I don't think we should be telling people which whether their door can face the street or a 90° angle to the street. And I don't care if the townhouse garage door is 12 ft wide or 13 ft wide. Like I don't So, we have one commissioner opinion. I've I would delete I would I I don't think we should adopt this. I mean, maybe there's some sections of it, but holy, we're we're just handcuffing the design process. So that's my comment on this section and I if we want to talk about specific items in that section I can comment.

Mike, you've got a comment.

Yeah, I do. Uh I think that if I had some of these design standards when I was building a lot of my houses would be better looking. I think that it's not a bad thing to have design standards. I think it can go too far and I think you can handicap a builder, but I think there has to be some design standards and I think things like snoutous and I think there's a lot of things that that should be written into this and not just throw everything out because I as a builder I've I've made a lot of mistakes and I wished I'd had some design standards at the time and I have been held to some design standards and I'm glad I was because the development turned out better. That's just my opinion. Yeah, I mean I I think I I think I I I believe both of those things are true. I mean I think you know Commissioner Irving Irving what you were saying about um yes we could remove them all. I think but uh so design standards for residential design will improve the design of these structures. I I believe that's true. It will improve the the quality of the neighborhoods. I believe that's true. It will probably reduce the volume of housing built because it does create some burden or some barrier or some complexity to delivering housing. I think I think that's that's a balance. And I like the idea of maybe we don't throw them all out. We have some that are really clear um and have a clear positive impact, are straightforward to implement and are general and consistent practices that people should be reasonably following. I'm I'm kind of in the middle there. I agree. I can see both sides of

Well, to jump back in as a builder, I think if builders have a know what they're up against and don't have to go back and forth in a situation like this, if it's clear, they're not going to not build. They're going to build and they're going to be glad to build because they have a direction and they know that it's going to run through the system without it being an issue instead of arguing about it in front of the planning commission. Well, I I mean I guess the issue is it we're imposing for specifically I'm talking about town houses because that's the first section. We're imposing some criteria on town houses that we don't impose on res on a on a single family residential structure. So because we're doing a particular product type, do we care if the door faces the street or faces 90 degrees to the street when we would allow the same exact thing on a single family structure next door? I don't think we should do that.

I had that question. Why are we not applying these to single family? Is that just a newbie question? So obvious, but why would we? No, I think that's the type of input that like I think that's fair game is, you know, if it if it's good for a townhouse. If if this is the sentiment that planning commission is coming to is that yeah this is a generalized standard regardless of type whether it's uh single dwelling townhouse row multif family these are the characteristics we are we'll take that either good for all of them or good for none of them I mean let's

how you can you logically make a distinction I mean how you can say it's good for you know multif family but not good for single family so I I would

these are these are pretty organized Like we could just go through, you know, 4.2.12 orientation. Are we going to impose? Do we care? Are we going to impose that? Um, it it mentions a a front porch that has to be 25 ft in square area um in order for you to do something. have wanted at le I'm not sure I uh there it doesn't seem like in any of these options your front door can face something other than the street in in 4.2.1.2. Do people have an opinion about that? Yeah, the the facing the front of the street uh doesn't necessarily it seems like a pretty obscure thing to be concerned about, you know, in terms of tighter lots. Would it not be okay to have the garage door be in the front and then, you know, have a door that's facing the the border of the lot that's not the front facing? That's maybe like if it's if the street is to the south, could the door not be facing to the east, so to speak, if it's the last house?

I mean, there's a there there's a picture right here on what he has up and we have a door that swings in on a porch. Um, but that porch has to be 25 square feet, I think. But I if it didn't have a porch and if we wanted to have a walkway that came up to a door that approached the house at some angle or 90 degrees.

Yeah. And to to me in the in the case of the orientation of the door, I would like to there to be the availability of having not not just front facing up to 45 degrees just because in the case of uh an end townhouse in order to you know maximize square footage that that would be an option for the design of Well, that has to there has to be an exception for an for a situation like that. Obviously, I mean that that should be that should be up to the planning department to be able to say, "Yeah, obviously that's going to be ridiculous." So, you have you can do it the you don't have to. No, that's not the way it works, Mike.

Okay. It's written down here. That's what we have to hold them to. And they can't just get we can't Well, they can write they can write in this up to their discretion, can't they? But I can't uh that's not Yeah, Mike. I would we I would I don't know if we have enough votes, but I would move that we strike that section. Great. Wait, Kevin, do you have a comment?

Just a quick response to Mike. you know, as we talk about application of clear and objective standards to housing, I think that's what Bill is getting at that um we are trying to prepare a code set that does give the developer clear and objective criteria to work with and we need to be cautious about introducing discretion in there. That's just inconsistent with state law now. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Well, I don't know if you want us to kind of respond or weigh in about the rationale behind some of these standards or not. We can if you'd like us to, but I mean, we're happy to just kind of listen and, you know, and take down the comments. We are going to be um reviewing the same set of standards with city council and we'll be conveying what we heard from you to them. Um so, we won't anything you say, "Hey, get rid of this." We won't get rid of it quite yet because we need to have similar discussions with other folks. So, I I just kind of want to make that clear in terms of the process. So, I guess, you know, I'm going to a little bit rely on Dustin and Kevin to call on us if there's questions you want us to respond to or answer. Um, but mostly we're here to, you know, hear what you have to say about stuff. Um, I mean, the only other thing I'd add to that is some of these design principles really are about, and they're about a couple things. One, kind of improving the appearance, the appearance of housing. kind of back to what um Mike talked about and two enhancing kind of community safety, you know, so people can see what's going on outside their house. Um things of that nature. So I I'll just kind of toss that in there. Um but beyond that, I'll just kind of wait and see if people have questions for us and and otherwise just listen to the discussion. Um, one thing I can add is, uh, we started with these design standards at the town, home, cottage, cluster level. Um, because Hood River is not required to do it for all housing types. Other bigger cities have to do uh, have uh, duplexes, triplexes, quadlexes involved. And then I've worked in some cities where they also apply the same standards to duplexes that they're applying them to single family as well. So there are options and there is a model code language for single family

and duplex design standards. Um it is not put in because um it was not directed for us to consider putting it in based on what was came out of the code audit. But they're saying there there are options to include single family and duplexes and other housing type standards if desired.

For the purpose of the discussion too, we're we're not needing a vote on any of this stuff. We're just like we're getting your responses to it and you know again we're taking notes on it. these are the things that we're going to convey and you know again planning commission has a divi whole bunch of experience on this in different areas like we're looking for that experience to use you as the sounding board so I don't need to vote on it we're hearing you know concern about orientation some design standards that you know the balance between creating obstacles and creating good design is is what what I'm hearing here in concern concerns that overly prescriptive can lead to challenges. Um, so there is overly prescriptive is an issue. We have to match that with clear and objective, but keep going. I mean,

yeah, I mean 4.2.2 I don't understand it. I mean, I would say we strike it. I don't know why it's there. Bill, could you do us a favor and mention what page of the um packet you are referring to? um 16 16 and 160, I think. Okay. Um if you're just looking at the uh document, it's actually page 19. Okay.

Um but but yeah, I agree with Bill 4.2.2 that that's pretty feels a little bit too too involved. you know, if if somebody wants to like if you're in the downtown area and you don't want to have a fence, you want to not have that barrier, seems like you should be okay to not have.

Well, so like this the question I have here is like are town are town houses subject to requirements to plant a street tree? Are they subject to our landscaping standards? And then why are we like putting some additional thing in here that we even need to have a comment? It's like it's just seems like it would this whole section if you're going to be meeting at least two of the following like it seems redundant because aren't you going to have to do one or two of these anyway? I mean, aren't you going to have to I guess there's a question for staff. Are there landscaping standards associated with town houses? Uh to be determined. I mean you

the landscape. Okay. I mean we have them now currently, right? Well, depends on how they're built. Two or less are lot coverage and not landscaping. So yes and no.

But there's a requirement. I mean we do have a requirement to plant street trees. Where does that come in? Uh it can be in the uh land use and public facilities and or excuse me land division and public facilities, but that's not that's different um than on private property than public property. So currently you don't really have landscape standards on your town houses. You have lot coverage and you have street trees. There's really limited in between there. So

yeah, and and there's limited room in between there, right? So I I would suggest we rely upon any landscaping standards in the city street trees versus requiring us to put another tree in front of something that's you know close to the it I don't I don't think I don't know why we would have this section. Um, I'll say that I've worked with these rules in other cities and they weren't really an impediment to townhouse project I was involved in. Not really that unusual, I think. Is that Steve?

This is Zach. Oh, Zach. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, Zach. You're not concerned about it. I think Mike has a good point that if you have clear rules set out, that's that's helpful to a developer. I understand your point about it being an impediment to have too many rules, but I'm seeing in these codes pretty common things that I don't know. [clears throat] I think they're okay so far.

Is um I just when I'm going to look at this, okay, the the engineering and public works is going to tell me what I have to put. I have to put trees in front of my house in the planting strip, right? And I've got a limited area in front of a townhouse. And now I'm being dictated what I can do specifically with that. So, And it may not be appropriate. Yeah. So I I guess I my opinion is we should not have that but yeah and I think we're going for clear and objective um language. So I'm assuming we wouldn't have two different locations where where somebody would have to look at and see what the what the requirement would be there is that that's the purpose of of this section

or at least if there are different sections to make it pretty navigable like if you have if you need to go somewhere you got to go somewhere and it's going to be clear and direction that it's not a maze or quagmire and I think that becomes in the organization we don't want to test the string theory here of like part of this is to make it easy to find the pieces and um but I think the question here is you know we have relied on some discretion and good choices and compatibility and general intent and that's no longer a playbook that we read from you know and that's where some of these things become real explicit because I can't say quality I can't say consistent I can't say high standards or you know sympathetic to the neighbor like we're we're we're we're we're really in a position now that where the state has said you you need to outline these things in in pretty detailed way. So if you're going to require someone to landscape the front yard, you better tell them what landscape means. You know, that's that's like does it mean lot coverage? Does it mean gravel? Does it mean you know you what what does that mean? I need we're going to need to break it down to say, you know, this is one tree, you know, one and a half inches in this area. Like I'm not saying that's the magic to it, but at some point those are the the parameters and that's the the methodology and some of those things that we have to that's the way we have to start organizing and and it's really designed in a lot of ways. It's designed in paint by number um because that's that's what we can measure. Um, even if it's in a hearing, you know, until we provide someone an alternative path to say, "Here's the discretionary path that your your great design can be flexible and you volunteer to go this way, you know, when we start doing these things by permit when we're approving them, they they got to be pretty they're going to be pretty mathematical in in a lot of ways. So, it may seem scripted and kind

of strict, but that's that's what we're being asked to do." Like, that's what the state will require us to do. And so, um, you know, things will happen and things will happen organically and people will come up with good designs and people will come up with bad designs, but you know, there's there's things that we, you know, we're going to have to we're if we're going to draw the line somewhere and make people do things, it's going to have to be real explicit or if it's not explicit, we're going to just accept the outcome. I mean, that's that's really the that's that balance there. And and it's okay to do both. I mean, you don't have to script everything, but there's things that you want to make sure are done. They're going to have to be explicit. Otherwise, they are left to good designers, bad designers to to come up with and and and it it is a sea change. It's a real big shift and um you know, part of the reason why the code is important. But again, come you you're on page 19 and 163. Yep. 4.2.3. 2.3 windows and doors. We're dictating on town houses that they have to be a particular amount of glazing or facades. Like someone can build a ridiculously ugly single family box directly next door. I don't I don't understand why we're applying these standards on townouses. This is a selective product type.

It's actually something that came up in um when we did clear and objective standards for middle housing. Any middle housing that faces the street has this. So, this is actually starting to follow suit with that clear and objective standard. Uh, now to town houses. I mean, you could have the same thing with single family as well. So, well, Bill, it doesn't sound like you would want that for single family.

No, I'm not. I'm just I'm just like I don't we're we've The experience has told us that the more stuff we put in here, the more difficult it is and the less people use it. And this is pretty basic stuff. I'm I mean, is everybody going to do this? Probably, but I'm just wondering why we're even putting it in there for 4.2.3 windows and doors. When I go down to 4.2.4.D, garage width in a driveway in a in a townhouse shall not exceed 12 ft measured from the inside of the garage door frame. Explain that to me, please. Why? is just a standard and it starts to dominate the facade,

right? So, if you have a 12 foot wide door or greater than 12 foot wide door and you have a 25 foot lot, half your lot looks like a garage door. Well, it doesn't have to be a 25 foot wide wide lot, but with town houses, that's the typical width.

It's You're right. It's typical. But if you have a 60- foot ride townhouse lot and you want to put a two-car garage in one of the units, you're prohibited from doing that. So we're you just you're whittling out all these cases and Hood River is not flat and things are not square. So when we have all this weird leftover stuff and we have lots that are only 90 feet deep, but they're wider. Like it just doesn't I don't understand why we put this in here. That was one of my questions or maybe it's related is that are all of these items potential things that people can come to the commission and ask for an exception when they bring you their plans?

No, houses don't even come to the commission. Actually, not at all. No, this uh part of our plan will have an adjustment provision in it um that we have to provide um that there will be adjustments to certain design standards that we have to entertain. That's also a state law change. So 1537 this will be subject to it and I can just wave the garage door width because of 1537 if this goes in or is there a percentbased thing? Uh, I believe it's 10% on most standards for uh, 1537. Matt, do you know if that's the right number?

I think that's the right number. We can Yeah, 10% gets me to 13.2 on a garage door. It's like, suppose you want a two-car garage, 14 feet, it's 16 feet. Like, can I say something, please? All right. So, is this talking about if it's facing the street, the 12 foot maximum garage door width only if it's facing the street? around back. Is it different? It's only if it's facing the street, right? Yeah. As for a street faces, that would be that would be nice to have

if the lot was 25 foot is a is a typical uh frontage for a townhouse. They're 50 foot lots. So, you have a 25 foot lot. So, anything bigger than 12 would overwhelm the the dwelling in my opinion. What if you had a much wider lot and you wanted to put a duplex on there instead of a triplex? Would the would the width of the garage door change if it was a a 30 foot or 35 foot lot or is it just is it just is it specific to a town hall and that's it?

You could you could absolutely do it. I mean this is again the opportunity to be like I think it's an oversimplification. We should like this would be the comment that we're like we want to make sure that when there are larger lots that are have more opportunity for more unit that we you know don't use 12 feet as a flat foot but use a use a percentage.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm not advocating for bigger garages. I I like I like smaller garages. Uh Bill's right. A lot of people have toys. They maybe want two cars. They're probably going to have toys in one car. But yeah, if if it can if for if a wider lot's going to have a wider duplex on it, you you probably shouldn't be limited to a 12 foot. But but for a smaller duplex, yeah, absolutely. I'd agree with that. 25 foot wide lot, 5 foot side setbacks, you got a 12 20 foot building envelope, you have a three-foot garage door, I mean three foot man door. If you have two feet on either side of your man door, that's six foot of the facade. in here is you're limiting your garage door to 12 when it could be 14.

I'm looking at a still six foot is dedicated to pedestrian entrance, 14 foot dedicated to vehicle. I don't know if you can get two cars in a 12t wide. You can't, but you can do an oversized garage. You mean depthwise or widthwise? Width. I mean, yeah, I want to put a 14 foot door or a 13 foot door. Well, 14 would barely get two cars in there. I mean, I think you're talking Well, that's it. It may not, but you could put you could put a bunch of junk and still have it stick out and get your car into one half, you know, twothirds of it. Yeah. Well, it's just personally I'm I don't like big garage doors and snout houses. Yeah.

Unless unless uh you know, unless it's in proportion to the dwelling. That's just that's just me. Well, we haven't said I mean this this doesn't mean it's a snout. I mean the man door can be in front of the garage door. This garage door I didn't say that one can be recessed over it could be the garage door could be recessed from the man from the man door. It could be recessed over an under an overhang. I mean we're dictating a lot of things right here without understanding the specifics of design of the site. So, do we have some sort of slight consensus on think about this whole section?

We're not having to vote on anything now anyway. No, no, but I mean, yeah, I mean, Jacob really should take this into consideration. Everything is being said by everyone. And we we will convey what we heard from you whether there's a consensus or not when we talk to the city council as well. So, I mean, I would go back to what Dustin said is we are we do want to hear your comments. We you don't have to agree on things. It's great if there's consensus. If it's not, that's fine, too. Um, yeah. So, I I don't think we're looking for you to reach consensus on these things, right?

Um, from our perspective, you know, we we just want to hear the comments. I I think we've I think we've heard, at least up to this point, you know, what's important to folks um who have talked and we'll convey that. I I also um I do want to just kind of reiterate what Dustin said a minute ago is we're on the first of 10 items here. We're happy to be here and talk about this stuff for kind of as long as you want within reason, but I yeah, do you want to have a sense of how how much longer we're going to spend on item one before we kind of move on to item two and beyond. So

what Okay. What's what is do we have a definition for multi-unit? Five or more units is typically how multi-units defined. Okay. Is that is that a definition somewhere then? That actually has now uh been introduced in the state law. Okay. Got it. Which does not comply with the city's version. Just Okay. Well, I'm just looking at 6.2 and we're saying design center signature multi-units and I don't know. I was trying to figure out what that's what we're generally talking about. Five or more.

Five or more. Okay. Hoffman, I I think it sounds to me like the commission is agreeing with staff um that there is, you know, an interest in replacing standards that can't be applied with some clear and objective design standards that also retain some design flexibility. So, we have some work to do on the flexibility side to address some of the the concerns that we're hearing about here. Obviously, uh I I don't disagree with Commissioner Irving. It's tough. You know, they're challenging sites in town. Not everyone is going to be developed the same way. So, we've we've got some work to do.

Yeah. I I would just hate to see, you know, unit here and a unit there not be able to be built because of, you know, something that's a little bit too restrictive. Well, and the the other thing that it leads to is it leads to just building the same exact thing. I mean, you drive down Wasco and there's four there's unit four townhouse blocks that are just rows of them because they're identical and they meet standards. They met some standard at the time when we did them when we had standards. Right? Does everybody know where I'm talking about? Yeah.

Right. that you stick standards in and that's what you get. So, I'm nervous of them. I'm I'm a 50/50 split on this particular issue. Yep. I think generally you have a 50/50 split. Some flexibility reservations about being overprescriptive. We That's enough for us to to take. Okay. Are we ready to move on to the next section or is that similarly situated in that it's just more building design standards that that people object to or don't?

It the next the next item is related to um non-residential building design standards, but it is about building design standards again. So, I'm happy to do again the quick intro and then see what y'all have to say. Um it's a you know another chunk of design standards. So I will go ahead and just do the intro and then you know see what you have to say. So um your current code has a pretty limited number of design standards for new commercial development outside of a couple of your zones. The water um waterfront overlay district and the downtown historic district have more of those standards. Um and so we are recommending um implementing some design standards in other zones for non-residential or for commercial buildings. Um these do not have to meet the same clear and objective requirements unless there's a residential or a housing component to the development. Um but we still want so you know you can have a little more flexibility here but still important for them to be implementable I guess. And um we will say that uh that model code that transportation and growth management model code has really extensive requirements for these types of developments. We don't recommend implementing all those. We recommend a more abbreviated set of standards than what's in that document. So we are trying to kind of slim down you know the number of standards to apply for these types of developments. We want to make sure there is some design flexibility. Um, so that's the overall recommendation and yeah, happy to hear what you all have to say about uh this section. This is in um pages 32 to 41 of the the code document. I guess the only thing I would comment

just at the highest level is I would be more um I would like to see more uh these to be more challenging and rigorous and clear um and prescriptive uh because we're not dealing with uh not getting housing if these projects don't happen. So I'm I'm emotionally e feel better, you know, applying more criteria to the to the commercial projects. And I think they have a they tend to have a large impact on the community um and on the community that surrounds them. And so I think that's another reason to apply a fair amount of rigor and specificity. My general comments were that I felt throughout that the model code that you provided us as an example in all of these sections seemed reasonable to me with the exception of whatever other edits we've discussed already here. Um, I don't know who what exactly um deleting or updating to reflect the desired style of Hood River necessarily, like who are who what that is or if that is a thing that exists or if that's what you're asking us to tell you. Um, but I don't know that I could describe what all of Hood River wants in their, you know, requirements for something like that. But generally I think it the code looked good to me.

What do you want to you know regulating entries regulation the lo regulating the location of parking roof styles windows there? There's some common characteristics that that we can get into without scripting a you know a call it a Levvenworth style you know like that there's there's a lot of there's a lot of areas that that you can start to look at to make sure these buildings have common characteristics that aren't necessarily so stylistic that it's you know high alpine or art deco you know there's

predominant entries again back to the building placement black back to the glazing um the amount of space on the first floor you know there's those pieces that are that are generally you know they're themes and you see them throughout quotes everywhere so you know that's I guess our sound is less concerned about the rigors associated with commercial development than residential they will still need design flexibility you're not scripting the absolute single style Multiple styles are okay. Certain characteristics. Okay. I'm just trying to like not trying to talk you into it. I'm trying to draw draw this out.

That's totally reasonable. Yes.

Materials, you know, do you see material? There's typical materials that are characteristic in the area regardless of style. you know, the masonry, stone, architectural metals, wood, lap, you know, Pacific Northwest pallet of, you know, of colors and materials. We can we can fit that in there as kind of the the tren a trend. I got a question without having like I mean I did look at it um is the and some when we got down into parking and some other stuff I had questions about mixed use and I'm not sure where mixed use falls into this and are these non-residential building standards based upon the use type or the zone or the zone a combination of the use type and the zone

going to be use type uh Because regardless of the zone, if you have a mixeduse building, meaning something with, and I say mixed use with residential and commercial, you're going to end up in a residential clear and objective standard. So, it's going to have to fit a clear like if you have mixed use residential in the building, you're going to have to make that fit to a residential standard or a clear and objective format, if you will. Okay?

Or for the residential component of it. So for this for p set question two here items for discussion 32 to 41. Um are those for where do mixeduse buildings fall under one or two on on on your slide? I guess my question

if all under one because we're talk if if it's as Dustin just said if it's a mixeduse development with a residential component then we need to apply clear and objective standards to the housing component or the residential component. Number two we're explicitly asking about design standards for new commercial development or non-residential development. So, in terms of the questions we asked, um, you know, the first one's really about residential, the second's about mixed use, but as or about commercial, excuse me, non-residential, but as Dustin said, if we're talking about a mixeduse building, then we do have to apply clear and objective standards to the residential component of that building. So, and that, you know, if the residential can be all the way through the building, then it's to the whole building. Okay,

that doesn't seem totally clear to me. Um, like I'm just wondering so we have like we've got some examples up in the Heights where there's I don't you know there's three floors of apartments and a residential or some commercial use on the ground floor like a insurance agency or salon or something. I don't remember what's on the building I'm thinking of. Um what standards are going to apply and how are they going to get applied to a building like that when we're talking about material use and things in that instance you would have to be explicit in your mixed use building on those clear and objective standards. So in residential design, you should have a mixeduse section that was clear and objective considering a mixeduse building and that could only be there. So in this instance in this section where it says the predominant building material should be characteristic of central Oregon such as brickwood totally unapplicable and I could not enforce it

on that instance. So I would have to have something my question. So, do we do we need to make explicit somewhere in here about how these standards will apply? I mean, it seems I'm thinking of the buildings that we have had coming and we've had a couple mixed use buildings, right? So, I guess the question is should we make it clear what how standards will be applied to them? Yes, we will. We need to and we will. Okay, that was that was really my main comment on that section.

Anything else on the non-res? Sorry, I'm trying to read the room for for our to the benefit of our our parties online, too. Go ahead, Matt.

All right. Um, so item number three relates to drive-thrus and drive up uses. um you don't really have um current standards related to these uses. Um we just have some you know kind of context around this which is that these are often in locations you know along larger streets and in uh kind of um high-profile locations. They have impacts on pedestrian safety on access things of that nature. And so the question here is and and so we've identified some potential standards that you could apply to these types of uses that um are being used in other cities around the state. Um and so you know do you want to see us continue to kind of refine those standards that we've identified so far for drive-throughs and drive up uses but apply them to those types of uses?

Yes. Yes.

Were you taking a vote now or what? I guess I guess some people are talking about it. Some people are are not with agreeing with whether he wait. Okay. What did I say? Yep. Are you is it time to take ask some questions about this right now or Okay, go for it. I thought I read that there was something about a 12% grade. It was a minimum or the maximum you could have going into a drive-thru. Did I read that wrong? You guys really see that? I'm I'm navigating to that section. I don't know where I am right now. That that Yes, it limited uh the the queuing area to a maximum of a 12% grade.

Yeah, that's like not safe. I mean, 6%'s not safe for a drive in my opinion for any kind of drive-thru situation. That's really steep, but whatever. I don't know. Maybe there's engineers that say it is safe. Yeah, I I think there's You have nothing now. So, you know, if you think it's putting something in there, I No, because I can't ride a bike up. So, uh, yeah. don't think it's countd

what what you have is nothing now. So I think that the intent is this is a a use that is high-profile typically a highly corporatized architecture uh and a lot of traffic and often to some of our people a lot of lights and a lot of activity. It warrants a little more scrutiny and maybe some prescriptive look than than what we have now. I'm not all I'm talking about is a grade of the driveway going up to it. We got we got it. Everyone else comfortable with putting some standards in there and Okay,

Matt, you're up.

All right, next one. Okay. Uh so going to talk about the next three items in here and start with transportation access and circulation standards and these are in kind of a couple parts of the document 43 to 47 and 51 to 55. Um so you do have standards related to these things um in your code. Now, you know, the the intent is to um to some degree limiting driveways in terms of both um not reducing mobility and also not impacting pedestrian safety as much or reducing on street parking to a degree. So, those are all kind of the some of the impacts that more driveways can have on what's going on around them. Um so we are recommending updating your access management standards using some of those provisions from the model code to balance those things to balance you know the need and ability for people to access um property and we wouldn't you know eliminate access but we want to kind of limit access to some degree um to make sure we're balancing access needs with those other needs pedestrian safety on street parking you know ability to have street trees etc. Um, and so, you know, want to check in on your uh thoughts on that that approach generally and any specific items you saw in this section that you had questions or concerns about. I think for one other feature too, this came up. Um this is really this section appears in two different titles, the land division title and um the zoning title. Helping merge them into one kind of single area that helps talk about access management whether you're creating a partition or not is I think is a useful useful approach that that

this starts to consider. So rather than have them spread out fully outside of the zoning code um you know I think is one one of the remedies we're hoping to use to make this thing a little easier. Could um can we talk about the spacing access spacing? I'm on G page 45160 which is 40 I don't know what page of the PDF.

Did you 49. Yeah. What what comments?

Well, I'm trying to understand clearly. So, the other thing that gets really messy here is then we have all our engineering standards. And so, you ain't going to try and develop something. You have one set of standards in one place, one set of standards in the other place. Um, G1, what what does that say? as measured from the sides of the driveway. So that's two driveways have to be that 22 ft apart, not including the apron or what what the ramp on the sidewalk. What's that called?

Two feet of straight curb. Correct. Correct. Not not including the what you call the the wings or approach. Yeah. Yeah. So, and the point of that is to allow there to be a parking space between those two driveways. If you if if they get smaller than that or very much smaller than that, then you're eliminating the ability to have any this is in our this is in our current code set. Correct.

Yes. Um, and we have I guess my my comment is and and this is on the same property. Correct. Not necessarily on the same street or block base. Okay. They could be separate properties.

Okay. So, what how how does um I don't I don't necessarily know how we do this now where you know got we got plenty of driveways that are less than 22 ft apart that exist currently in town. Um so how does this work in the event of redevelopment of one of those properties? uh oftentimes we'll end up with a design exception from engineering or a redevelopment of a site that is legal yet non-conforming and that the redevelopment makes it no worse. So that right so you can get the design exception from engineering for some of their standards but we don't do we have a mechanism in this to get a design exception in our code set. How does that work?

It says within our code set exceptions may be made by city's engineer. Got it. Okay. Um, does Yeah, that's it's written in there. So, that's actually on page 46. Okay. I I know I was I've used that exception. I'm just trying to figure out where that was and if that was remaining. Okay. Um, is is 22 the right number here? Is that do we have any other You have a different number to suggest or are you asking where it comes from? I would might throw out 20 or as a as just a question, right? We were

22 is pretty that's a pretty standard number. It's based on the typical or not even typical, but the potential length of a vehicle and trying to provide a little bit of shy distance on either side of it. So, you know, people don't park perfectly. So, you're trying to maintain enough space for a vehicle to park there recognizes that vehicle length varies, but 22 is pretty standard. you can use something less, but you're trying not to sort of tighten it up so far that people end up, you know, going into the apron of the curb cut. So, it's there's no you you could vary these things by a foot or two. You wouldn't want to vary them too much, but um that's kind of a best practice number.

Okay. Um, I mean, we have 18 as a required depth for a parking space. And certainly that's because, yeah, somebody pulls into that parking space that pull up to the front. So, you don't need the shy distance when you're parking in a parking space versus when you've got driveways on either side of where your vehicle is. And that's the idea behind a somewhat wider space than what you've got for your typical driveway space within a parking lot. Okay. So, Bill, just for example, um the internet has told me a Subaru Outback is 16 feet in length. 22 feet will give you three feet on either end of it between your driveway. So, a Rivian will be larger.

Well, that that that's exactly my question is like I mean my Ford E350 is 19 and something feet 20. That's a giant vehicle, right? And you know, AI has currently told me the average car length in the United States is 14.7 feet. So 22 seems like a lot. Again, we can go lower. That is a best practice kind of number. You that's what that's what I was asking the question is that's what we had in our code set and that's the answer from us anyway and 22 other code sets about 22 is what we typically see in other codes. Okay.

[clears throat] which put a put a put a star next to that and ask a question

Matt keep going in the uh okay thanks sorry um the next item here is is landscaping standards um So Kevin mentioned earlier that you know we had done this code audit and the code audit actually also looked at previous audits or reviews of your code and one of the things pointed out in a number of those is that your landscaping standards as written that apply to you know a lot of types of development within the city really are not clear and objective. They especially as they apply to residential development they need to be made more clear and objective. So we are recommend recommending using at least the model code standards for landscaping as a starting point um to provide some more clear and objective um standards for landscaping and just better you know address impacts of development um promote climate friendly sustainable development practices. Um so that's sort of the general uh general goal here. Um but and first and foremost is to make sure you've got some clear and objective standards that can be implemented um without a bunch of discretion for landscaping. I can add into that there's there's landscaping standards in the subdivision ordinance and the uh zoning [clears throat] ordinance and this is putting them all in one spot um to keep people from having to go back and forth. Would this overlap with the townhouse landscaping we were discussing earlier?

It it could I think um with if you wanted to provide an option um for this for larger projects uh certainly we would want it to harmonize. So in this instance you see applicability shown in here um you know we we could relate it to multi-unit mixed use commercial industrial change of use. So you could you could list that this is really set aside for those pieces. Um you know but but we would absolutely want to be explicit of what what does this thing apply to? You know townhouse could have their own standards built into the townhouse section. Uh we could roll it into here, but if we if we did roll it into here, we would have to be very careful about being explicit about what applies to which though.

Yeah. I mean those are the kinds of things that we will be addressing as we're combining producing the combined code that I mentioned earlier. I mean you know folks who have mentioned this are right we are looking at some of these things somewhat out of context because we don't have the whole thing in front of you because that would be an even longer discussion to put it all together in one piece first. So yes, I mean the short answer or what Dustin said is we will make sure that these do harmonize and that it's clear where we've got standards that apply to let's say all residential development and there's additional standards or not on top of those for town houses for instance that code will need to be clear about saying standards in this section apply to landscaping and these additional standards apply as well if that's the case. So the in the blue there there's a couple different highlight colors on here. Blue is determined to be not clear objective or a question and then there's like there's a bright blue or a teal blue and then there's a light blue. I'm looking at bright blue or the teal related to

watering six page 69 of 160. Teal was supposed to be the not clear and objective language that should be removed, right? Or and it is being or things that need to be addressed. The blue highlights not clear and objective, right? And some of those things we just highlighted. where this came from sources that we thought, oh, this is generally a good model, but some of these things need to be adjusted to be sure they're clear and objective. We highlighted those specific um items.

Section you might be looking at is that your current code is most of the stuff you see in just the blue writing is stuff out of your current code that's left in there for your context of this is these are your current standards. And then where it's highlighted in there is where we were showing you where they are not clear and objective.

So your your color is indicating location uh highlights calling out often from our code. Um not clear and objective, not enforceable. So, I'm rolling through pages like 75 76 like that's blue. That's our current code. And it's also in a light blue. What? What is is that model code? That's model code. So, once you get to 75, it's light blue. It's not the teal highlight. So, that is got it. That That's model code. The other uh the other one above is

some stuff from Sandy in there is is really the more the non-clearing objective. So model code you mixed with mixed with Sandy. Yeah, there's it's a little confusing because uh when we made a comment, it decided to like I let the whole section when we made a comment and right which was probably just it's for some reason the system made things blue and uh that was not quite the way it showed up when I did it. But um

this is this particular section for me was really hard to figure out and go through because it seemed overlapping and conflicting and confusing and highlighted and not highlighted. And I think I would need to see something cleaner to get an opinion in this section. That's helpful, Bill. That's good. So from from the report recommendation is to update the standards taking some of the cues from the model code. Um you know promotion here's still promotion of climate friendly and sustainable places. uh and overlapping some of our our storm water and kind of small format developments that that really we have no like are completely absent. You know, runoff storm water management, low impact development, um shade, urban heat island, all these things never existed when our code was written. There are some things in overlap to the comp plan and some of those, you know, kind of city policies that I think could be better articulated in ress that have to be clear and objective. So, back to the back to that theme. So, that that's our recommendation as we go a little further in articulating that. And I think yeah, absolutely. It's again back to the goal of it needs to be usable. Um, that's an organization and refinement. This one did get a little um it's a little unwieldy because we didn't want to eliminate everything and refine it before you got to see the refinements. So, back to Commissioner Irving's question is like to see the body of work needs to be organized in kind of one voice. I guess the other comment I have on this on this on five and then on six we're

going to go into on tree preservation is just around the whatever staff believes is enforcable. Um I think that's maybe a question based on current staffing for code enforcement. How do are you going to know if a tree dies after a year and is replanted or not? So I just just to I guess take that I'm sure you will take that in consideration as you're writing it up just to make sure that it is on paper but also

yeah and that's you know part of that is the the plans that are required you know not only like do you have a good inventory what are the conditions um you know right now in tree preservation it really shows up in land division it doesn't show up in the commercial stuff um or in the commercial site plans it says where feasible So it's right off the bat I can't enforce it. Um so I think you know getting to six it's you know the basic question is do do you believe having an enforceable tree preservation or mitigation is should that be in the code like that because right now it's it's limited in its application and it's even more limited in what I can enforce. So, you know, having that in or out is is is a

Are we on six right now or did you jump it? Did we jump?

Uh, I think we kind of bobbled back and forth. [laughter] Well, the preservation part of uh trees is there if I'm tell me if I'm wrong, but if someone had a lot or a with any size lot with trees on it and they could go and cut all the trees down in the city limits, they could clear cut the lot without anybody saying anything about it. That's totally legal. But if they came in here, if they came in with a plan to develop that lot, then they'd have to do a tree survey and preserve trees on the lot. So you have nothing to keep people from cutting all their trees down in the city on any lot or any amount of land they have. They just go clear cut anything

today. Correct. Okay. Is there any way of mitigating that or not? Is that what you're saying? You have no way of Yeah. enforcing anything. You just can't do that. That's just

Well, I I don't have those tools right now, but they are available. So, I've definitely worked in a municipality that postated that and said, you know, if you if you clearcut and you come in within a certain amount of time, we we will recognize that. that's actually even more enforceable now because of this you know of Google Earth and the technology and availability and really some of the aerial photo and information that we have going back to you know actually readily accessible for the past call it 16 17 years. So we will have a good opportunity to look at a canopy if somebody clearcuts in advance and we could postate to say if you do this we will back we will backdate to 5 years or something along those lines.

Yeah. I try to get out in front of that disincentive to say you know we want to we'll cut before we before we apply. Yeah. I've seen it done on both sides of it and I think you need to be able to to keep that from happening one way or another. I don't know what it would take, but it's a it's a pretty good loophole in my opinion. As long as long as there's general like again to the preservation is not in there or is not defensible as it is now to do that and consider disincentives to cutting before application.

I think that's that's clearly a workaround. It's not in the spirit of the code, right? So, I think that it would be nice to fill that gap. Yeah. Have some controls there. Take We'll take that into account.

All right. Yeah, I think that did pretty much answer the question we had on number six there. Um so, I'm going to bump to seven um and eight. So, item seven relates to standards for fences and walls. Um and so the um there are standards in the the model code we've talked about for fences that are different than the city standards. Um we are recommending pulling some of those standards in from the model code to replace some of the city's standards including reducing fence height along streets from six to four feet in residential zones. So that's one recommendation and just again generally updating some of the current standards with some of the standard from the model code for fences and walls. So wanted to get your thoughts on that one. And [gasps] Dustin, anything to add to that one? I wanted to make sure I got that one articulated right.

Yeah, back to fences and walls right now. Um there's there's only a couple things that you have, but I think what what we see is there's there's a big opportunity for some, you know, probably some misses. And you know, that one thing that we'll look at and we'll make recommendations on is, you know, we don't want to see a proliferation of fence canyons, especially along public walks. um you know six foot chain link fence in your neighbor's front yard against your house is totally permissible and maybe with some concertina wire. I don't think that's necessarily what the code is intended. Um but I think I think it's you know without overstepping the the purpose of this and uh would be something to say you know that would be a good opportunity to address what we see as a code gap. two issues in particular just that I think about.

So, let me let's be clear on this. You're talking about if someone builds a house and they have a 10- foot setback from the sidewalk and you know that you can't build it, you can't between the sidewalk and their house, they can't put anything over higher than four feet. If they want if they want to screen themselves from people walking by looking in their windows, they have to keep it at four feet. Four feet. Okay. which wouldn't work obviously but is the alternative to that they could like a robar gravity or right sure we we don't have a landscape setback except probably where some visibility and sight triangles come

yeah obviously okay so that that's an option for people might we have something similar with retaining Well, you have to get engineering anyway. Anything over four feet. So, it's kind of the same. Yeah. Okay.

This would also be, you know, along sideyards and corners rather than having the fences come all the way out to the sidewalk, which feels like you're walking against the fence. um giving people an opportunity to do their corner and provide that privacy, but probably stepping it back and allowing a little bit of shy space between that um where you could landscape and and it gives a little bit of a um again it it's the balance between Yeah, I know. If I get here, you got

I got a I got a comment on page 92 of 160 C 1 A2 which is a fence may be constructed to a maximum height of 6 ft where the fence is of open chain link or other see-through composition that allows 90% light transmission. So, we're allowing a chain link fence in the setback to six feet on the frontage. Am I reading that correctly? I caught that too. It seemed weird. That [snorts] two fences sections that

Yeah, I think this is where we we there's two now because there's a couple of options and directions for you to go. Um getting your feedback on those. So that's where so you can put it area six foot length or feet right on the sidewalk. Yeah, I don't think that's that's not what what we intend but again it okay well that that it seems like facilitating proliferating when someone wants a sixoot fence to make it a chain fence in the front yard is not what we want. No, I I agree. Right. Good. This is these are the reactions that we're trying to get out of

thought that too.

The next one uh I have is concerned with is that same page B which it limits your fence height based upon how far your neighbor's house is from the property line. Most setbacks are only five feet. So if your neighbors is only five feet from the property line, then you can only have a side of 5 foot high fence on that side, which doesn't make sense to me. We've got a lot of places where houses are pre-existing, non-conforming, don't meet setbacks, and someone's two feet from a property line, and maybe you actually want some to screen that neighbor. Um, I don't I don't think the proximity of your neighbor's house to the line should dictate how high your fence could be on your property.

I think six feet is I think 5t's too low. I've built houses very close to each other and people they don't want people looking each other's windows. They need some privacy. I think five six feet is fine between the houses between the house. Yeah. So, that's my opinion regardless of of and I guess non-dependent on the bill. I think what you were saying is make your fence choice independent of your neighbor's property.

Yes, that's that's this I would strike the except the fence um shall not exceed the distance from the fence or the wall to the nearest structure on the adjacent property like that last strike the accept portion. So correct what Dustin said. I remember what he said. I think I think Bill Bill doesn't want the the neighbor's house to dictate what your what your own fence could do on your property. The way this reads, Mike, is Yeah. If the neighbor's house is only three feet from the property line, then you can only put a three-ft tall fence. Yeah, that's a

which doesn't that doesn't make sense. Okay, another question on 93E permitting. That sentence seemed to the first sentence there. What I guess the question is what do we what can we regulate? What are you intending to regulate? What process does someone have to go through to put up a fence? Uh this is not a land use approval. This would be a permit. So you got to get a permit. approval. Do you have to get a building permit right now? Like a building permit?

Depends on the height of the fence. Yes. Uh some fences over six feet tall do require them now. Yes. Um but that this would require some level of permitting, maybe a zoning check off to say this thing is located at this location. So type one be like uh a ministerial review requiring some level of inspection and approval. You're allowed to have what a a fence over six feet now with a building permit. There you you can, but it it will dictate certain locations. So, the location will change based on if it's over that tall.

I didn't know that. I I when I'm reading this, we should that is is the way this reads is that for uh you're going to be required to get a permit to put up a fence. Is that right? I think what this is is this decision that needs to be made. Yeah. Is it do we want is a type one approval required or is it not required? put up the fence and then it's complaint driven. Um, that's a decision the drier will need to make.

Is there is there no no ability to to implement criteria without permitting? I mean, without making permit required, we we can't specify criteria. It's you can it just it sets up for some pretty difficult conversations when someone is not required to get a permit even if it's like a a checkbox permit uh and they put up a six feet fence or a fence that doesn't comply uh and you go out there and say you didn't get a permit and now you have to take this down because it doesn't it's a code enforcement issue. That is bad operations. So, it's very difficult to start dictating um design standards, if you will, or zoning standards without some check in on something like this. Um, you can put it in the code, but if you're not asking someone to submit, you're kind of relying on it. You're you're you're hopeful that they they get it right and you have a hard conversation if they don't. solid owners, but I think

need to set some standards and have people know what they're allowed to do and and like you said to go back after the fact. It's that's not a pretty deal. I've dealt with that before, too.

So, what does staff have to opinion on this topic? I mean, it seems like this is a lot of paperwork and process that seems like people build fences kind of often. I would rather do paperwork than have somebody cut down the fence that they put up um over the weekend, which becomes even more paperwork than probably all the fences becomes the discussion I have uh to take down one that wasn't didn't require a permit and got put up. I I do like the idea of having some especially along the streets as as it's asking in in uh the section 7 to reduce it from six to four where where it's in the residential zone along the streets. Um and like you said just having a checkbox permit seems pretty reasonable.

What's the process for a quote unquote check checkbox permit? How long does that take? It could be as simple as an online application uh with your plan and just allows people to read the rules. It's a simple form. Yeah. I just concerned with anything taking more time or more money, but having someone read read what's read what's what's required and that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I think what I heard from staff is this would reduce time and money spent by the city um compared to somebody coming in after the fact and having to take something down.

Well, I'm concerned about time and money of our population. Yeah, I again I think we could make it more process trying to do something. So, I'm just be streamlined. I I think we would be looking for something that is has the least amount of rigor but still effective. Yeah.

And of course it takes more time like if you have to ask permission it's going to take more time. That's absolutely. So we will you know we we are trying to I think this would be intended to be the most limited assurance that people knew what the regulations were and we had some level of expectation that that we understood that they knew what they those were and and we were kind of moving in the same direction. I think Bill's mainly worried about the time, the time issue. Like, could you come in and ask for a permit to do a a fence and then a month later it comes off the engineers's desk or the city's desk or is it is there any way to put the time?

I think the building permit's got much less time than that. I also don't think it's an engineering matter. I think that's that's the first thing is this should be sometimes. Yeah, this should not be an engineering feat. It shouldn't be a structural feat if it's under six feet or under. Um, shouldn't even be a building matter. We're looking at the same week. I mean, is there any way even saying is it a month? If it's a month, it's ridiculous. If it's a matter of a few days or something, then I think I think the expectation would be a short turnaround, not a month. Yeah. [laughter] I I don't I haven't I haven't done one yet.

Yeah. Yeah. That's Bill's main concern, I think, is putting the owner on the owner and making an ownerous If we had a great application, I would love to do it over the counter. Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, I got some some concern about the about the about this. I guess it seems um I mean got two two questions here. One, are we do we need to add more strict criteria or reduce the types and scale of fences that can be built? I guess is the first question to answer because if we're going to do that then we then it looks like we probably need a process to permit them. We don't do if we don't take that action. We is there a problem now that needs to be solved? Like do we feel like current current fences going up are inconsistent with character of neighborhood? And like what's the problem that we're solving? Making fences of a certain type of form.

I can tell you examples of fences right now. Several spots where it's really inconsistent and really ugly in my opinion. Okay. And should be regulated. It should have been compliant with current code. Uh yeah, that's why that's why we're changing things or trying to Yeah, I I think we we see areas that they're very much permitted and allowed or unregulated uh with some I would say unintended consequences that if we looked at the circumstance and say, you know, if if everyone followed suit with that, would we have a very undesirable outcome? I think that's we've seen this show up and um I think it's it's worth bringing to your attention.

Um not sure if you guys are familiar with uh that Belmont like curves where I I believe Mike you had a a project there um the fence that separates Bo edition from Belmont. Um that kind of a thing. I feel like if you're on on that side of the road and you're a pedestrian walking towards town, you're, you know, you have like five or six feet tall uh fences, which if you're if you're on the say the west side of that street, you know, there's trees between the street and there's a sidewalk versus on the east side, it's it's just this big wall and not really a sidewalk. But but that's but that's and that's also the interface between county and city right there too.

Yeah. And it's the it's the backs of the houses too. That's the only thing that for me comes to mind. And like, you know, obviously this code is more so for future fences. And um yeah, if if it could be something that's like over the counter, like I'm getting a permit to cut down a Christmas tree type of deal, that would be that would be about the extent of regulation or just letting the people know that what what they're what's expected of them in the way of building a fence. I mean, that would be and they sign off and say, "Yeah, I understand this." And then there's no excuse if they go out and build it wrong. That that's pretty simple, too.

I'm just really disappointed I won't get to build my combination straw bell tarp barb wire fence that I plan to do it now, but fine. Get out and build it right away. this we I think we trying to again can't say it's over the counter but I think we're looking at a a limited the the limited amount of of application as necessary to get the job done on on something like this

I'm just looking at the retaining wall section there um says that you can't have more than four feet of retaining wall so under this code that the cooperative housing retaining wall would that not have been allowed? That's a great question. Uh that's one of my uh retaining wall that often comes to mind. That retaining wall is actually in the right of way. Um so we could uh you know maybe before design standards are up, we we could have an opportunity to discuss the uh the success or lack of success of that in your opinion. But the ultra block wall on Sherman West 13. Yeah. Yeah. That's in the public ride ofway. So then they would

the standards did the standards didn't apply in the right of way.

It I wouldn't I don't want you to give up on that issue because I've it comes to my attention often. So, um, we we can if if you believe maybe that the standard that applies to private property would also be possibly useful in the public domain. Um, we I I'll mark that down if you want.

Uh, just kind of one more thought on the kind of the complexity of like walls and fences. I I think I would be cautious of anything that requires real specific and clear knowledge of um lot boundaries uh just because there may be some ambiguity. You don't want someone having to get a you know survey in order to put events in. I mean you may but I don't think we want to. That's too ownorous. Yeah, that's certainly on them and and encroachments happen and and that's something that would be Yeah, I just discuss between the neighbors certainly. Yeah, I just worry about that going through a perennial process and then there being ambiguity around law boundaries.

You you shouldn't be required to get the survey, but if there is a dispute, then there's a dispute. Yeah. You're not sure, but maybe but but maybe watching out for kind of distance from uh those kinds of criteria that might trigger that sort of conversation. So, just a thought. How do we feel about that, Matt? That was good uh feedback for this and walls. Yeah, appreciate it. Um, all right. Can I should I jump to lighting?

Yes, I'm going to assume that's a yes. Um, so next items on outdoor lighting. Um the current code has some regulations, you know, that are intended to reduce impacts of lighting on neighboring properties that apply in commercial and industrial zones, but not really with enough detail to be particularly effective in our um estimation. We do recommend additional outdoor lighting standards that would um shield um lighting from adjoining properties that would um that would you know direct lighting downward. Um and we are recommending including some of the types of dark sky approaches that one of the commenters mentioned earlier. um and applying um the those approaches to requiring lighting plans for future commercial industrial mixed use and multif family or multi-unit development. So want to get your take on that and you heard some of the comments um earlier on from um the person who spoke Mr. Hendricks I think um before the work work session got started. So just thoughts on outdoor lighting standards and I guess any thoughts on dark skies standards. I think that what you put in here uh was a great starting point, but I really would also like to see additional dark sky specific guidance to be considered. I was thinking about the section last night at 11:00 at night laying in bed while the neighboring office building parking lot lights were shining in my bedroom window for no apparent reason. Uh so I think it this is more important than probably people think it is if they think about it at all.

Agreed. I'm all for dark skies. Go for it.

I I'm definitely all for protection of other people's private property. Um when it comes to light flooding into somebody's bedroom. Um the only thing that I am hesitant about with some of the dark dark skies is that I think we have to take into consideration that we are not a big city, but we are a city. Um, and some of the dark sky stuff is, you know, maybe that that belongs at the county level or in more not within the city limits, but uh I am also would love to be able to see all the all the stars within the city, but I don't know that that's what makes sense for a city. I think it depends on the situation and I don't know if you can differentiate between one piece of property and the next with I mean it's like our building downtown is lit up like a I mean it's like a spotlights everywhere and there's no one living next door or across the street or anything so it's I don't think it's bothering anybody but we've gone without lights and had you know people sleeping down below and trying to break in and you know you know just people sleeping in our play structure And if you know we have cameras so we can see what's going on. So we had to put more lights up for that purpose.

Yeah. But if we if anyone was living next door and you know our lights were shining in their windows, we'd probably mitigate the the light somehow. And then out on May Street, a block from me, Mike Cutler had to put up a they made him put a street light on up where it was nice and dark out there. I look out my window and I think there's a full moon every night. It's that bright. It just like and Frank across the street from him just I mean Frank Lemon to me I can't believe what he has to put up. It's really bright. Yeah. And it's not shining down. It's just like the whole neighborhood. that that's the type of thing that have protection from.

Well I mean you need the lights are not a problem. It's just the the way it's designed and I think there's lights out there that make a lot more sense and just you know lighting up the whole you know two two square blocks. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. Great.

So with the one things that we're looking at is, you know, the applicability of of these standards, you know, we have street standards and those requirements, um, are there circumstances where you want to include or enforce, you know, residential versus commercial versus multif family? Um, you know, there there's some of these things. Do you want to administer this down to the individual dwelling units, you know, backyard or is there a limit that you recommend that we that we apply like that we don't apply? Because some of these things when it comes to land use applications, they will require submission of lighting details of, you know, lighting experts. If if you want to mitigate spillover lighting offsite, we will have to put that forward. At at what point do you want to require those things and at what point do you want to uh have this is there is there a roll off of application to where it's we have recommendations maybe for individuals uh and then we have requirements for larger format do you have any any sense new applications commercial applications industrial applications or any steep application that you get out lights over that makes sense I mean from you know from here on out they just make it get the most in unimpactful street lighting you can get for you know for spillover purposes.

Sorry that was streets and commercial. Yeah why not? Okay. No I just I just point I mean it's all the dark side right just you know keep the try to keep the light going down instead of out to the sides. that seems real res like Mike hit the nail on the head with the light that is super annoying to me. I'm like why did someone have to put this in? That's the one that Mike had to put out front of the house on Main Street like and that was a requirement by engineering is that this is a question for staff the street it Bill it depends on the street we're talking about Main Street correct y

and whether or not it's in yeah whether it's inside the city limits or outside in the county's jurisdiction but I think you're talking about a spot that's inside the city limit so city does have standards for street lighting and uh we work with Pacific power um who provides the specs that are available. So, and and owns and operates the lights. It's true. Yeah. Well, it's kind of it's kind of weird that we're trying to do all this dark sky stuff and then you know, we're just these giant street lights are flooding everything. I don't really get it. Well, and you know, like a main thoroughfare, you know,

some light is likely needed throughout If it's in the city, if it's a commercial zone and somebody lives next to a commercial zone, I'd say that, you know, the expectation that it's going to be more lit up because you're next to a commercial zone should be understandable. Similar to, you know, being in a residential zone that neighbors, EFU, uh, standard orchard practices is something that's, you know, they can't sue over. And so it's like, you know, light versus the occupational hazards. It's, I think, kind of a good analogy of what to expect if you're, you know, if you're on 12th Street and, you know, in in the Heights District and you want it to be dark. It's like, well,

no, I'm not. Yeah, I'm not against street lights. I'm against the type of street light that would that would spill over unnecessarily. If you don't have to have that, that's all. Yeah. So if we just get it to go like a certain a certain angle of cover they have that yeah

so there there's the the public domain in the streets and those are really our standards that we set and in combination of pack power uh there's also then the p the private domain so when someone develops their site I think you know we we have we have kind of two different animals here Um, so on the public side, I clearly hear you all requesting that the street lighting that we use within our domain be a little more subdued. Um, on the private side, really, you have one generalized statement that says generally lights won't be bad. They will not spill over. That is that is provides zero. Well, one on the residential side, it's completely uninforceable. I can't enforce it one minute. Um on the resident on the commercial side, you see instances where unnecessary glare is varies based upon you know the person's own individual needs. Um having some standard of approach um starts to provide some provides common level of expectation. So um you know Kevin and I have used um some of the the manuals for the illumination engineer society. They start to vary based upon is it a residential zone? Is it a commercial zone? When it hits when the two collide what do they look like? It provides some standardization and science on how much is too much and how much is really kind of sufficient. um you know providing some ba we we have a recommendation you provide some baseline and some common ground for for these circumstances rather than just leave it up to everyone's own interpretation. I I would like I would like that in the residential zones required lighting is not coming onto private property. Like if we have to put street lights up

in residential zones, I don't think someone should be burdened with the street light beaming into their front yard. That'd be kind of diff. And I and I see that happening now, though. You can mitigate that a little bit with the direction of the light going down, but I don't know if you're ever going to be able to completely eliminate that. That's pretty that'd be that'd be like a height the height of the light off the ground, the direct the angle of the light.

Yeah, there's there's things you can do. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I don't know if you could I don't know. Because a lot of those ones are they're 30 feet up in the air and they just go they are generally aimed down but they're so high that they go you know 2/3 you know 20 ft into the front yard. There should be a way to funnel the light down in a in a reasonable manner.

And I I think more of this is actually going back to this. I mean the issue that I'm talking about is required light lighting that's being required by the city. So maybe if we're I don't know people have this opinion but this would be a feedback loop to get this into some sync up with engineering standards.

No. Um, nine nine and 10. Yeah, nine and 10. Uh, Matt, I think you you have a a parking discussion for residential parking.

Yes, I do. Thank you. Yeah, so these are the last two items. They're both related to parking. Um, so parking um the current zoning code requires two parking spaces and this is what is required as a minimum um per single dwelling. two spaces per duplex and townhouse unit, one and a half per multi-unit or multif family um dwelling unit. Um you know there's a lot of discussion um around how the cost of providing parking impacts housing costs. So we want to acknowledge that. Um, state requirements over the years, over the last several years in particular, have been for cities over a certain size to reduce how much parking cities can require. Um, particularly cities over a certain size and cities in the the Portland metro area. Um, and the state does not allow um cities to require additional parking spaces for accessory dwelling units. So, we're just kind of acknowledging all that and asking a fairly general question of, you know, what what feedback or input do you all have for the city council as we think about updates to parking requirements for residential uses? Did I get that? Get that right, Dustin?

Yeah. Okay. Looking for input? Yep. Guess what? I have a comment. [laughter] shot. I almost beat I almost beat you to it.

Well, um the one specific comment I have is uh we've we've gone down to a single dwelling, a single parking space for middle housing or units that are under 1,200. Um, and most multi-unit dwellings like apartments are going to be smaller than that, right? We're going to have 5 400t studios. We're going to have 800 foot twobedrooms. Um, you could do all that in middle housing with one parking space. And here we're requiring one and a half. Um, or at least we currently do. I'm on 104 page 104 multi-unit buildings. I think that should my opinion is that should be lower should be 75 or one

for what dwellings multi- dwell multi-unit dwelling. Okay. Right. Like an apartment house. Okay. Yeah. I mean an apartment house we can you can do a cottage like in you can do middle housing. You can do a 500 foot cottage and you have to do you can do one park onebedroom cottage and you can do one parking space. If you do a 300 square foot apartment, you have to have one and a half parking spaces. Where are those? Those units are they building some?

Yeah, but the unit the units right behind um uh I'm running across this because I'm looking to try to do an apartment. Um, but this is the requirement like the units that are up behind U Naker up Clearwater like those any any any new apartment buildings are going to be those are that small? Wow. Okay. Well, I mean you're not you're not 400 600 I mean you're not you're not building 1,200 foot apartments usually right now. Yeah, I think point point well taken. Yeah. Other thoughts about this one? parking requirements for residential generally or specifically to different types of units.

Yeah. Well, the only other question I have is for me a duplex and a townhouse at least in Hood River are realistically kind of the same thing or or they they have the same form factor pretty often. We don't have a lot of overunder duplexes. There's if we have any, they're side by side and they're really look just like a townhouse. So, I'm I'm wondering why they would be different. I don't know what I think they should be, but I don't know why they should be different. Well, wouldn't a townhouse be one dwelling and duplex be two? And even though they're they share the same amount of space, likely you would have more inhabitants, so likely they might need more cars.

Well, a townhouse is not freestanding. It's attached, right? Let's say Yeah. current I think current that we we evaluate this as per unit. So a duplex comprised of two units. A townhouse typically comprised of two units. So this this two per is per unit. So a duplex requires four. A townhouse comprised of two individual fee simple lots also requires four. So currently the code does not differentiate between the two. Th this code is differentiating or at least the one I'm looking at on 10 page 104 and I was wondering why they were different.

I think what we're looking at Dustin is uh the state requirement for the one parking space per duplex is in this code that presented. Yeah, that's bill that's changing state law. Okay. Which again seems weird that that's less than or one and a half per for multi- family dwellings. Good idea.

So what is presented there is what you have and what is required by state law. We are asking do you want something different? It sounds like there's some thing that maybe you do that that one and a half maybe it is one space per unit across the board but that's the feedback we're looking for definitely for the multif family be great to have a I mean one I feel like would be sufficient per unit especially considering that we want to have as many dwelling units as possible

and then you get into lot coverage and it starts to get tricky. parking is any way you look at it. I mean, no matter what you build, it's just there's no there's no there's no happy way to deal with it. Yeah. The thing that I I just try to think of it practically is that typically you would have the zoning you would have an apartment complex in it. It it lends itself to not necessarily needing a car. You know, you might be able to get around on a bike. One would hope. Yeah, for sure. Well, just based on zoning, you know, like where where you can do that closer to amenities. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, you're not going to the small especially the smaller units can get away with the one like if you have a studio that's, you know, what do you 400? Three square 300 is small, but you know, 4 500. It's No, I I I don't like paving for parking. It's just a necessary evil. Yeah. You try to mitigate it the best you can to try to make a you know make a nice balance. Did you say it was a state for duplexes for duplex? I feel like

the categories are a little strange here that duplex is one multifamily one and a half. It seems like if you're going to do duplex at one, why can't you bring multifamily and town homes down to one as well? Yeah, you could. And that's kind of the question. um too much. You can't require more than one. So um per the state, but the state allows you as the city of a size you are to require more. And that's what we're asking. Yeah. Do you want to require less? Detached single family. Maybe that's two, one and a half. I think we should reduce that one to one as well.

Reduce it as much as possible. I agree with Bill on the multif family and the comments made about where they're built and how I I feel like we do a lot of planning for parking like with without a consideration for what the future of transportation in our city looks like. And we're planning for things that exist now. And I think that that is foolish in my opinion. I I I always Yeah, I always thought that like Okay, so I'm get I'm getting it for the sake of time. Core of you that think multif family should be one based around the state's preeemption

of a duplex being one and the city's own most recent code for middle housing that was one per and town homes as well. Dustin. Yeah. Hey, I have a question about Yeah, I Yeah, so the question Yes, I I would say town houses as well, similar to duplexes in my opinion. What What are there any town houses or duplexes that don't have garages? I mean, are is that pretty I mean, so that so that was one of the comments that someone had on the side of this

parking thing. if do you want to use a garage as a parking spot and then the driveway going up to the garage is I built a million houses like that one out of 50 people use that garage for their car. It's a gear garage. Yeah. So I mean I'm not saying don't take I'm saying don't take that away but it's just reality. I mean that's so if you're you've already got a parking spot you know whether you've got approach to the garage or to including the garage either have one or two and probably two. So you're kind of get no matter what you're going to have two. So you can say one, but what does that mean? You're going to not have a garage or alley loaded ones are where uh you don't always have a driveway and put in the garage

where you could where you could not have a garage you can park a car in. You could have a you could have some pull your car in and have a little 4x8 storage area or something at the end of your driveway without a full garage. Yeah. But people do want garages for the most part. I'm just saying anybody who's building anything new for sure. I I agree. I agree with you. But I guess the question is what what the market wants and does do we have to require it? Yeah. I I mean it seems like we should let the market decide what they want to do. But we while the city also including some sort of backs stop is Yeah. I think just one Yeah. There's Yeah.

is enough. And if the builder wants to include more, which might make it more marketable, more power to them. But yeah, I'm just I'm just I'm just stating set a baseline. And I'm just stating you already have two. Yeah, that's all. I mean, what are you going to consider the the parking spot, the garage or the driveway? Yeah. If you don't have a, you know, if you don't have a driveway, you've got a you got one parking spot and you're okay. So, I don't know if that's any anything that means anything. It just I I feel like we have pretty good direction on this one. I got one quick question. Have you ever Have you ever seen code that parking is based upon the size of a unit? Yes.

I mean, you know, like I'm thinking of the I'm on the board of the community land trust and we're going to be building some units and because of the way our development ordinances work, we might be going down the PUB route versus using our middle housing code. And if we did PUD and we made the units detached, we're going to have to provide in two parking spaces for a 800 foot cottage unless we we can get a 1537 exception for it. I think I I think in that case you would just do the middle housing instead, right?

No, you it middle housing is there's a bunch of reasons we don't want to do middle housing. So, so Bill, are you advocating for us thinking about um providing reduced parking requirements for smaller units regardless of whether Okay. Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. All right. Thank you. Is that better than I did? Okay. All right. I'm I'm going to ask can I I feel like we've gotten good direction and good discussion on this one and I'm going to suggest we move to another parking one if that's Sorry. I just have one just one more question. Sorry, just a clarification maybe. Did we come to some opinion about also one for single family like one per unit and that applies to single family as well or was that just a did you that out?

I support that but we don't have to all agree that I mean I support that as well and I do think that the market will take care of of that situation if it needs to. So I'm supporting that. Yeah, I think it'll I think it will support diversity in product type. One clarifying question, Matt. And this Kevin, I'm going to jump in real quick with one question. I'm wondering if the commission's opinion on this would change at all if there were no on street parking available based on street classification requirement for bike lanes, whatever the, you know, uh, circumstances were. If you didn't have on street parking, would your opinion change?

No, personally. would be market driven, right? Yeah. They'd have to decide. You make a dumb decision, you're not going to sell to figure that out yourself. Thanks everybody. Thanks, Matt. Do we get to move to number 10? Let's go to 10.

Okay. Thank you. Um, so this is the last one. This is related to commercial parking standards. So, outside of a couple of zones there, um outside of the waterfront district in the downtown, um your current code standards for parking don't require a certain number of parking spaces per square footage of development. That is kind of a common practice in a lot of communities is to do it that way. But you um allow for a fair bit of flexibility and you require somebody to say, "Here's how many parking spaces we need for our business." and um and sort of make the case and then provide that. So that does provide a lot of flexibility. It also makes it challenging for staff to evaluate, you know, whether that's the right amount or not. Um, and the question is, do you want to stick with that approach or do you want to move to a more prescriptive approach where you require a minimum number of parking spaces per thousand square feet of floor area and that varies by different types of businesses, which is kind of the way I would say most communities um in the state do it. Um, so what do you think about that? keep the current approach or move to that more

um kind of measurable approach somewhere in the code. I wasn't quite sure because I was going from code to code. I wasn't sure but was there an approach where we had some standards but the developer could also present an alternative parking plan to justify something different. Is that was that the way I was reading the code or not? Dustin will not be able to explain it. It's very ambiguous in the code. I mean, as when I was reviewing it, [gasps]

yeah, the co the code um but for those areas that have some um count per square foot, which is the requirement basically says u one for each of your employee and as many needed for your customers as as are as needed, which is unbelievably flexible. I mean it's unlimited flexibility to to tell your story. However, what it requires is exercise of discretion on behalf of on behalf of the staff which moves it into it moves it out of clear and objective and something we can just do um without sending it to the lay loose process. So the upside is it's incredibly flexible. The downside is in order to determine it's being true or not, we move it to land use. And so that becomes that that's just that's the way it is and it just becomes a little tricky. So in downtown you went through a parking analysis. You did a full inventory of square footage vacancy rates and you came away with 1.5 per thousand which was the the assumed demand. Uh and then in the waterfront you have restaurant, retail and basically industrial uses and you have a rate that's set for each of them. So you have a mathematical rate. Isn't this

I was I'm trying to ask a question and to be be more clear about my question I guess. So when I was reading the stuff in the packet, I saw all the square footage allocated per uses, but then I thought I saw something where a developer had an opportunity in the event they thought that their use that there was some different need based upon the use type than um than what was stated that they had the ability to go through some formal process and present like a plan. not just made up but by like an engineer.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Uh I we were we were missing you. That that's not in the current code but in the packet on page 119 there's a parking demand analysis which allows them an opportunity for to make to make their pitch.

Right. That so that that made sense to me if we had some some specific standards but then if someone wanted to do something different or justify something different they could go through a process to do it. That that made sense. And and I will just note that a lot of cities, you know, either they have that or they have a kind of a numerical standard for most types of uses, but there's some types of uses for which they don't have a numerical standard because it is it can vary a lot. So I'll say like for certain types of public facilities like a pump station or a wastewater treatment plant or things like that, there is no numerical standard per square,000 square feet because it's it doesn't make sense. And in those cases, the applicant does just what you described and what the code um potentially could allow for, and that's to show their own demand analysis. So often you'll have that situation for certain types of uses um where it doesn't make sense to specify it. But for most types of uses, you've got some kind of numerical standard. But yeah, you can have the ability to kind of come in and make your case if if you think, you know, those standards don't really fit your situation very well. Does does the suggested code allow for users to buy parking spaces?

We've got uh existing provisions in place for the inloo parking fee. Is that what you're referring to? We had some testimony about that a little bit earlier tonight. So, existing code does allow um for certain types of development, the developer to buy their way out of the parking requirement by paying a fee. Yes. And that would continue with this uh

Yeah. And I would recom I would recommend that that stay in COD specifically for downtown to where Oak Street Cascade um and a vast majority of Colombia. Everything built within the first 110 years of this city in the historic district was built without parking to not force the issue of requiring them to only provide on street parking to satisfy their redevelopment to give that flexibility. I will, you know, in defense of downtown in that respect, I will absolutely recommend a fee and loop for that. Um, the other option is to require no parking downtown. I mean, and that and that is that may seem radical now, but u prior to 2006, there was no required parking within central business district and it and it built out in the way it did because of that. So um you know fee and loo now has been used various states of you know success um but it is a program that that provides an option other than providing than paving or or nothing. It it's to me it's something in the middle uh and really it's up to you know the fee determines its strength. Do you want to make it more strict? The money goes up. Do you want to reduce its its impact? You know, it it's kind of variable based on amount. So, um yeah, I I will absolutely make that recommendation to staff to maintain that program, especially for downtown.

Yeah, they we've heard in the past is that without that provision, you basically suggesting to the developer they should tear down historic buildings to provide parking. question. Is there any methodology behind the way the inloo fee is set unrelated to this but it seems like that's that's going to be a pointed issue in our upcoming discussions.

Yeah. Uh down downtown uh it was based upon when the demand was set for the amount of spaces per thousand. We calculate the number of spaces required based upon what the blend of downtown was and that's the rate for for Inloo. And then uh the study also included basically what what the city was uh assessing and what the the outcome was for the for the developers um which helped inform the rate at the time or in 2019 anyway. Does the rate change as land becomes more valuable? The rate can change every single year based upon the adoption of fee schedule.

In our current ordinance or at some point in our ordinance there was a requirement that 50% of the parking was provided for and 50% could be in loo. Is that accurate? Not in the past decade at least to my knowledge. Okay. Lou 100 100%. I mean it makes to me it makes sense for a a downtown business district to you know no choice. You tear down old buildings. Yeah. I mean make parking

doesn't really function as a proper city if you don't make people walk some distance. if during the congested time, you know, drop offs, things like that. So, it's in place in the Heights as well or is that FE foo is available in the Heights as well. So, really the city the three areas are the waterfront urban renewal zone, the Heights and uh and the central business district are are the three zones that uh are eligible for Fanloo. Sorry, what were the downtown heights and waterfront? Oh, gotcha.

Okay, perfect. So, commercial parking rates, uh, some sidebars, but also a limited or an opportunity for the developer to argue their case. So, in in this, the demand analysis was something uh it does become a land use decision at that point. I mean, that's just Um, any any input on how to how to balance this?

Well, I I suppose outside of the districts that you pointed out, we do have requirements, right? So, like if uh for instance, like where Rosar is, there's requirements there that would not be eligible for inloop. Uh I don't believe bro outside the heights outside the district but however um that use really doesn't have a set mathematical formula is they're required for the number they basically the code says you need to provide as many as needed for your customers or pay in l

uh they can't pay in l because they're not in the district same with like uh Safeway and and on that's cas [laughter] [snorts] um rates are basically determined by demand and and and calculated and argued every single time. Yeah. And I mean I think anybody that's going to be in business in whatever area commercial area I think it's we can kind of leave it up to them what they think they need. And I think people will either go there or not based on the convenience or lack thereof. And

when you talked about when you said rates, you mean elo rates or what do you mean? I'm sorry. The parking rates, the rate of parking. But it sounds like the recommendation from the team is more structure and like staff would would appreciate more structure.

Correct. That's that that's the proposed. That's the proposal. Yeah, some some structure is good or I mean really if you're if you're going to say the developer has to come up with the number I mean that that's also you know not unpre it wouldn't be an unprecedented position for cities to say listen you have we're we're not going to mandate the number it's not going to be public opinion that is up to you to figure out and if you need a 100 spaces you're going to provide us 100 and if you think you can get by with zero you're going to that's up to you is so that's not that's not unusual

problems that are that you see that are being created from the current scenario people are underestimating people are overestimating you know uses change slightly and parking isn't adequate things are spilling out onto the public parking like what's the problem we're solving here

well I think the I think some of the issues um you know we're starting to increase density of housing um which which puts pressure on the street at the same time trying to not build overly size overly large sized streets in the name of livability. Um and that's that's real tension on the commercial side. You know, we drive further away and probably drive more than we have in the past, which is an unfortunate circumstance. Um we see tens of thousands of more visitors every weekend than we have in the past through longer points of the year. Um but we also are trying to not turn our town into parking lots. Um so there's that tension of of accommodation and and and convenience and you know you see the shift in technology. Um you know the advent of more autonomous vehicles. Um you see a push for mass transit um you know here but also the limited availability and the struggle to provide it in a small town. So these are all the things that we're looking for you the uh to provide input and and from your perspective on um you know there is no there's no perfect outcome here the commission do we feel like that's something that the city needs to have a heavy hand in or is that something that we think that the market can decide on its own?

You have to have a balance between uh developers just saying forget it. can't do that and so and and making it a reasonable option for them which is would be a little more flexibility I would say and let let you know let whoever the developer come up with a plan and run it by the city and you guys are giving some flexibility on here or is the idea to make it not flexible just this is what it has to be on the commercial side there is flexibility okay well that's what we're talking about so so we have we have options to to take this from, you know, that are that are much broader than the residential side. So,

but you you do you have to write into the code something specific or can you write into the can you [clears throat] is the code going to be flexible or do you want it to not be flexible? That's that's that's the comment you guys are asking of us. Yeah. I mean, it's it's flexible. It's flexible right now, right? On on you trying to make it less flexible. Is that the whole is that do we want less flex? We're we're curious in the opinions of folks in the community, including the commission council, fix it, if if I'm evaluating a development application and I'm just taking the plan that's in front of me because the developer put it there with no justification for the number of parking spaces. Is that okay? That's how it exists today.

Yeah. Well, you guys have to deal with that. We don't deal with that. So we Well, you may we bring it to funny death first. So you guys I don't see I don't see what you guys see yet hear about it. But yeah, that's a good point.

But there's also predictability too. You know that's this is the balance of um predictability versus versus flexibility. We you know we we can take for you know we don't want to take for granted that whatever information that's provided to us is is the gospel and can be trusted on every time. We want to provide scrutiny because there are circumstances where certainly the applicant or developer says this is sufficient amount of parking for our use. This is great and those people who are surrounding that area saying this is absolutely ridiculous. You are going to spill parking over outside this use. It'll never accommodate. Those are that that tension of interest that we are trying to somewhat uh adjudicate and and give those those folks at least some some level of of expectation here.

Right now it's right now it's it's nebulous. I mean right you're trying to get it a little more specific so you don't have to deal with you don't so it's not as flex I I mean I you guys deal with this stuff all the time. I might prefer to take your comments in your yes or not. My my direction or my comment would be that I like the flexibility and would like to continue to have the inloo. uh if if we want to grow as a city and accommodate as many people as possible, there's there's going to be some level of give and take and the people who are closer to the commercial zones might see a little bit of impact on the streets in terms of parking, but I think that's part of

a growth. Yeah. So, I guess my vote would be for continued flexibility and in loo But that's doesn't Yeah, I mean I I mean I would just I guess individually for giving you guys the tool you need to do your job and if you if you need and want more structure to do your job effectively. I I'm I support that. That's that's kind of what just express that it's that it's you know nebulous and challenging and difficult and ambiguous and those are all things I don't want to see. That's what I was trying to say a minute ago. I agree. I agree with that. Sure. Yeah.

Okay. So, it's some level of structure that's supportable. We're not pushing the parking mandates to a a suburbanized level. We're also not just taking anyone's word for it. Somewhere somewhere in between the two. Perfect. Maybe something that could go to a quasi judition with with that with that option of you to decide. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks, Sam. Matt.

All right. Excellent work. I'll say getting through all 10 of those. That was a lot of meaty top topics. So, thank you. Um so, kind of just a real quick review of next steps um before we finish up here. Um one is to take um the same, you know, um set of provisions for module 4 and the feedback we got from you to the council. We'll be doing that next week and talking through that with them. Um and then um updating modules three and four. So in each case we're updating the individual modules and then we're putting them all together into a consolidated um code. So those are really kind of our next two steps with the code. But before we finish putting together that consolidated code, we also want to get some more feedback from community members, other community members on some of these questions. So, we're doing these brief questionnaires um over the next kind of couple of months um while we're working on updating and consolidating the code and then also conducting these interested party meetings that I mentioned um uh and proposing to do that in the first half of December and then another one in January. So, that's what's ahead of us. Um so, it'll be a little while before we're back in front of you because that is all going to take a little bit of time. So, we don't have I don't think we have the next meeting with y'all scheduled, but we'll be working on um doing that over the next uh month or so is putting together a schedule for that. So, that's all I have for you. Um anything else, Kevin or Dustin?

As I say, we have a Sorry, I'm neither of you. [laughter] We do have uh if one more bit of additional feedback from uh from the public if everyone is can hang in there for just a little longer. Great. Oh, please state your name.

Tina McNney Hood River resident obviously. Um I just wanted to comment on the outdoor lighting, street lighting specifically. I have uh experience uh just being in homes that have extremely bright street lighting. Um it's very disruptive to sleep. It's very disruptive to animals. And a few things that I've read about that can mitigate it in addition to projecting the light downward and potentially not making it quite as tall are uh timed uh dimmer motion detection. uh I wanted to I know that that is more costly but it is much more uh helpful for wellness to have and safety that the lights are motion detection. So that's something I wanted to advocate. Also the the transition from [snorts] the sort of the yellow lights that you've all seen to the bright blue white super LED crazy lights that are they're very bright. um you know there are other options of different colored LEDs as well um that they do use in communities uh that are uh dark sky friendly and otherwise. So I just wanted to really advocate for some change to street lighting um is very disruptive in the more we get dense housing that we are looking that we want to encourage that in particular makes it even more of an issue. So, I wanted to say that I also wanted to advocate for a look back period for street trees. Um, in my neighborhood, there are people who regularly chop down street trees and leave stumps and there's been absolutely nothing that you can do or there hasn't been any enforcement uh of that. You

know, take down a tree, replant a tree. And I would, you know, generally support more structure for street plantings and the inability to just take down a tree without a permit and without a repercussion. I would also support a look back period of a number of years so that you could issue, you know, you could have people who they have, it's very clear they have stumps sitting in their their street. Uh I call what do they call that? the plantership

that you go back and make a street tree. I also would advocate for a street tree program that we could subsidize mildly in the city whether it be for all people or low income. Street trees are very expensive. They can be uh if you want the required, you know, three or four, I don't know the exact four or five feet. You're talking hundreds of dollars. And if there is something that we could do as a city, my neighbors complain about the price. If there's a way that we could advocate for a program or collect a program um or work with a community group to get more affordable trees, I think that would be also really good.

Great. Thank you, Tina. Okay. Anything else? That's minutes. Okay. All right. Well, that's the conclusion of our work session this evening. Uh, thank you, Matt. Thank you, Carrie. Yes. Thank you. Thank you all. Appreciate it. All right. Last thing. Meeting minutes from uh February 3rd, 2025. Has everyone reviewed these meeting minutes? Those of you that were there or not? Yes. Okay. Any questions? I guess my only question is, should I vote? Uh, I believe so. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Although you were not commission members, as long as you don't see anything that would get your attention. Totally. Okay. Well, if not,

no, you just have to Okay. Can we get a a a motion to Okay. All right. For second. Second. Okay. Great. All in favor? I I Everyone in favor. Okay. Everyone approved. Uh and now it's time to adjourn the meeting at what time is it? 8 8:35. 8:35. Thank you.