Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I walked down here.

You did, too?

Nice. Good day for a walk.

Yeah. Yeah.

Light drizzle.

Light cruise.

Oh, nice. What are those episodes?

Middle school football, yeah. I would like that, yeah. Yeah, not me.

Supervising's hard work.

I wish we had black football at your home, sir.

Welcome to... Yeah, no, definitely not.

I guess we can roll. Are you ready, Josh?

Okay.

Okay. Planning Commission meeting September 3rd. It's 530. I call this meeting to order. Roll call, please.

I'm here. Ray Pippenich. Present. Leslie Alvarado. Here. Ron Grant.

Here.

Steve Light is absent. Maria Pena is absent. And Jared Gossin.

Here. Excellent. Thank you. The Pledge of Allegiance, please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Got a lot of attire here. Next is the approval of the agenda. If all have reviewed the agenda, may I please have a motion to approve with a second?

Motion to approve the agenda.

I'll second.

Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor, raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. Excellent. That is unanimous. Next is the approval of the minutes from the June 4th meeting. May I please have a motion to approve those if you attended along with the second?

I motion to approve the minutes as presented.

I second.

That motion has been made and seconded. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye, thank you. Next is the time for public comment. During this portion of the meeting, anyone may speak on any subject that does not later appear on the agenda. Five minutes per person will be allowed. And I don't think we have any publics here, so we'll move on from that. Moving right into... zoning ordinance amendment, legislative public hearing. Now is the time specified for the commission to conduct a legislative public hearing to consider zoning ordinance amendment number 113-26, City of the Dalles, and adoption of resolution number PC63426, recommending city council to approve of technical, corrective, and conforming amendments of Title 10 of the Dalles Municipal Code related to the city's floodplain development regulations and FEMA's 2024 pre-implementation compliance measures. the commission will make a recommendation to the city council which will make the final decision on the proposed amendments the applicable criteria standards policies and laws are identified and addressed in the staff report including exhibit a findings of fact and conclusions of law the commission will base its recommendation on those materials and the testimony and other evidence in the legislative record anyone who wishes to testify must be recognized by me before testifying when recognized please proceed to the microphone or unmute if participating by zoom and state your name and mailing address for the record Generally, the public hearing will proceed with the staff report and commission questions, followed by public testimony limited to no more than three minutes per person and staff response and commission deliberation. These are the rules. Are there any questions about the procedure? Okay. The public hearing is now open. Do any of the members of the commission wish to make any disclosure, including an actual or potential conflict of interest or abstain from participating or voting on this matter because of a possible financial benefit or detriment resulting from this legislative action? I do not. No.

No. No.

May we please have the staff report?

Yeah, good evening, Chair Cornett, Commissioners, Joshua Chandler, Community Development Department. This next item here is similar to an item that we had for the hearings officer. This is really our last meeting we had, we went through and had a series of some cleanup to our code. And this is really similar to that. That's effectively what this is. This our uh the city adopted new flood code provisions back um july 2025 this was being a compliance with fema's pre-implementation compliance measures we completed that but then there was a couple loose ends that we needed to tighten up and that's what we're getting to this evening there are no changes to those provisions anything substantial by any means but really these are just to clean up uh And that is really kind of the straightforward background to all of this. Also want to provide in here that have included in the staff report, aligned with FEMA, we have received in recent weeks that are those maps that we've been waiting on for, 12 years now um are getting closer to the finish line so we they're anticipating sending out a letter of final determination which is basically accepting fema accepting these maps after that the city has six months to go through the adoption process the city and the county because these are county maps so i'm working with uh wasco county to get those going Um, ultimately, um, the discussion for this evening, not much of one, like I said, I'm happy to get into all the details. I, you know, staff did provide kind of some bullet points of, um, the details of, of those changes that we made as like, you know, I can't reiterate it enough. These are not changing the flood provision standards, flood code that we went through all that exhaustive stuff that we did last July. I'm not changing any of that. This is really just some cleanup text and things throughout, um, we followed our typical public review or our public noticing requirements submitted in the paper submitted to department of land conservation and development we have some findings included in your staff report those are exhibit a proposed amendments are included as exhibit b as well as you'll see the red lines exhibit c with that i'm like i said i'm happy to get in further into the weeds but i do feel that this is a cleanup pretty straightforward for you all And with that, staff recommends move to recommend to City Council the approval of Zoning Ordinance Amendment 11326, adopting the amendments and findings attached herein. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Does anyone have any questions? Nope. Does anyone care to get in the weeds on this? I just have a quick question.

go ahead uh do we it sounded like the the maps theme is still producing so at this moment we really don't know what changes that would change or the maps not even changing since i wasn't here last year to go through all of this with you guys oh yeah yeah no our maps so we currently use maps from 1984 you can imagine technology from 84 um

doesn't help our situation. Recent development, we've actually been working with a recent development, and they are struggling with that aspect of here we have to use an old map, a map from 1984. Development has occurred over the past 40 years. The site is clearly out of the floodplain, but it is mapped within the floodplain. So we still have to apply flood code standards. To your point, these maps, yeah, they actually changed significantly, I would say, between 1984 and now. Some big changes that have occurred, like in our port area, in the Lone Pine area. Those are some changes where you'll see where land is, you know, properties are kind of coming outside of the floodplain. But there's other areas in town, like on our west side of town, that we're actually seeing more properties that are now added into the floodplain. So the preliminary maps were produced in 2023. We provided, we had a comment period, a public house and a comment period, comment and appeal period. We received some comments in 2023, which resulted in some additional engineering work done to these to tighten up on some of the information that they had. And then from there, we sent out another appeal comment period in 2025. It was around the holiday this last time. These are both 90-day appeal periods. No comments received at that point. So then they move into a final mapping phase. And I mean, here we are, the final mapping phase is about nine months ago, I think is when it ended. It's just a real slow moving at the Fed on these. Like I said, the current administration has really cut back on a lot of the funding that's associated with the map updates. I was actually at a training for a floodplain. You know, floodplain work down in Salem in April, and what we found out is basically current administration, they've kind of moved some money around when it comes to FEMA. So a lot of the map updates, that program is dwindling. There's not a lot of funds left in it. Thankfully, we were one of the communities that was far enough over the hump that they're going to push all of those through. So like I said, I mean, we had... you know, 90, 95% of our maps, everything was finalized when all this has been changing. So long story short, yeah, there are some big changes to those, but the prelim maps that we've had since 2023, as far as like Columbia Riverside, um, those have been about the same since they were released in 23. We still have to. Call them preliminary maps. Whenever development comes in, we still have to use the 1984 maps. Even we, even though we know the information. is incorrect on some properties, we still are legally required to use 84 maps.

Got it. And this is part of this is just really getting all that up to date and getting the maps up to date as part of it to fit those FEMA regulations in order to complete this mapping process.

So not with these tonight. So this tonight has nothing to do with the updated maps. This only has to do with our flood control provisions. And the flood control provisions are basically applied to any property that is mapped within a floodplain. I'll provide it as kind of a staff update. But with this information that we received from FEMA and working with the county, we are trying to get those maps. We'll be getting in front of Planning Commission and City Council within the next three months updating these new maps to get these on the rolls. And everything's digitized now. They're all in our GIS system. It's far more detailed information than what we have now.

Got it. Okay. That addresses my questions. Thanks so much. You bet.

Okay. Any other questions? In that case, we move on to public testimony, but again, there is no public here. Does the commission have any final questions for staff or anyone who has testified? That would be a redundancy, so no. Is the commission ready for deliberations?

Yes.

Okay. i think we've liberated this enough so anyone is feel free to make a motion please and that motion would be on page 23 of 69 your packet the staff recommendation

I make a motion or move to recommend to the City Council the approval of Zoning Ordinance Amendment 113-26, Adopting Amendments and Findings Attached Herein.

Motion has been made. May we have a second?

I'll second.

Excellent. A motion has been made. It has been seconded. All in favor of adopting resolution... Excuse me, all in favor of adopting resolution number PC634-26, recommending city council approval of zoning ordinance amendment number 113-26. Raise your right hand, say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, that is unanimous.

Great, thanks.

Yeah, thank you. All right, next topic, discussion item, housing code modernization and middle housing policy discussion number two. This is a continuation from our last meeting.

It is, yeah. It's an extension here. Ultimately, you know, I think we had a pretty great discussion in June about middle housing, some of these changes. I think as staff really started opening it up further, I mean, we're talking about a pretty significant code change. I think we settled on some pretty solid changes. gave staff some great foundation to move forward, but then we really started getting into the weeds. A couple things. You're not going to have the pretty pictures that you had last time. These slides are going to be kind of boring, but it's going to walk us through, which was a pretty long memo staff report. I just tried cutting it back as much as I could, but the last discussion really kind of covered at a high level, and then we got into the weeds. So apologies if it was a little too long, but I think it – I'm very confident that what we received, the information we received in June, the information we'll receive tonight is going to give us what we need to move forward with these code amendments. So with that, let me share my screen here. One second. Okay. I think I've done this before. All right. So tonight really was going to be a really high level of what we discussed in June. We're going to review the remaining policy choices that we have in front of us. We are looking at ultimately explaining staff's evaluation, which I just touched on here a little bit. We're getting into the weeds. We're obtaining some additional direction from the Planning Commission. And then just something to keep in mind that these aren't code amendments that are being considered this evening. Like I said, I just felt that there was enough substantial changes that we hadn't maybe gotten into the last time around that it seemed more appropriate to bring a discussion in front of you all before we decided to move forward with an amendment that we could have effectively changed so significantly during an adoption hearing that it would have required us to come back or something like that. Uh, so the recap, I think one of the, some of the big changes here, um, that commission was in support of, um, four or fewer dwelling units would equal a ministerial application or a type one application, meaning that is the building permit, right? Cause we discussed the fact that currently how it is, you want to build a triplex in town. You're going through a site plan review process, which is a land use application process. Once that's done, then you do your building permit process. In this case, four or fewer, you're basically wanting to build that triplex, same triplex. You're going to submit a full package construction set of plans like you would do with a building permit. Staff's going to review it. You go about your way. You go to Wasco County Building Codes and move on through that process. Lot and dimensional standards. We talked about removing. There was support to remove lot widths and lot depths. I think this is something that really speaks to irregular lots. It speaks to just the fact that, I mean, that's not... We don't live in a world with a perfect grid when it comes to some of the land that we have. Of course, some of the older lots are that way, but I think just having the ability to remove these and really focusing more on lot sizes and density to determine what your lots are going to be is I think going to create far more flexibility in what can be developed in the community. We talked about greater flexibility for smaller scale residential developments. These were specific to like our CBC zone and maybe give some credits to some, you know, effectively if you have an existing building in the CBC zone, maybe they can't provide two parking spaces. So maybe there's like a half reduction for maybe a duplex. I brought up an example of an individual that really wanted to convert his current single family home. a small single-family home in our downtown. He wanted to convert it into a duplex. He couldn't because he couldn't provide parking. So just trying to find a little bit more flexibility for some smaller-scale residential development. And we talked about our current residential design standards and reevaluating what we have. We have an existing menu, if you will. You choose between if you're building a single-family home or a duplex. You choose six out of 10 design standards. We'll get into more of those this evening. That was one thing that we talked about at the meeting, but we'll discuss it in greater detail tonight. So the remaining topics, and I just wanna let you know in your staff report, the first or second page of this, these are numbered, but throughout the rest of the staff report, they have letters on them. So just typos on my end, apologies for that. But these topics we'll talk about, RL zoning district, lot size and density, townhouse development and middle housing land divisions, manufactured dwellings, adaptive reuse and residential conversions, residential design standards, cottage clustered standards, and development incentives, utilities and infrastructure. So the first being RL zoning district, lot size and density. So we talked about the fact of removing the sizes, those dimensional standards we were talking about for your lots, your lot width and your lot depth. And more on this emphasis on your lot area and density. We have, you know, board members, remember those who were sitting on Chair Cornett, I do know, was sitting on the board at the time. I think it was in 2022, the city went through a pretty significant density code update. So this is, you know, we focused at that point on getting more detailed into what density is. So I think this gives that opportunity to focus more on that. You know, in the low density zone, it is by, you know, what the name says, you know, it reflects a lower density development pattern. So the key question, you know, as we talked about with the housing production strategy, Action 2.1 talks about allowing triplexes, quadplexes and cottage clusters in a low density zone. So the key question here is how much land should be required for triplexes and quadplexes? So the existing maximum density in a low density zone is 8.7 dwelling units. Don't worry, we didn't just throw a decimal in there. This is based off of the overall size. So we broke everything up. We had a minimum lot size of 5,000 square feet. You go up, you multiply everything by 43,560 square feet for an acre. That's where we got the numbers. So then we came up with this rounding ability, which is in our code currently. So the 8.7 is just showing that. Basically, you factor that down to the size of a 5,000 square foot single family home lot. So with that, if you factor it in, it would basically say single family homes and duplexes are 5,000 square foot lot for everybody, right? The reminder is House Bill 2001 requires that we treat single family homes and duplexes the same way. So we can't require a duplex to be a 10,000 square foot lot. We have to treat it like a single family home. So then when you look at, you just factor in the maximum density, you look and there's that jump. So you have a 5,000 for your single family duplex. If you just apply the existing maximum density, you're gonna need 15,000 square feet for a triplex, 20,000 square feet for a quadplex. So there's considerable more amount of land that you need when you go up. This would effectively still achieve what the housing production strategy says. It would still allow triplexes and quadplexes in the low density zone. But the question we have in front of us is, is there an alternative to that? And then some of the consultant work we saw, there was a recommendation of keeping the 5,000 where it's at for your single family and your duplex. And then going up 2,500, so to a 7,500 for a triplex, 10,000 for your quadplex. As you can imagine, it's considerably more dense when you do that, but it is an alternative to consider here. The effect is that it's an alternatively increases your middle housing capacity in that low density zone. So it is an option in front of us, something for the commission to consider. So we kind of throw out these options for you for discussion this evening. Retain the existing density framework, which is that 8.7. That factors into a 20,000 square foot lot for a quadplex. Establish what we just discussed here, which is the 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000. or develop an alternative middle housing standard. One thing, I'll jump into adjustments in a second here, but in the italics here, you'll see the RL lot area decision also informs our next topic that we're talking about for townhouses. So in selecting this $5,000, $7,500, and $10,000, We'll get more into it when we talk about townhouses, but when you look at it in the sense of just equal numbers for dividing land, it works really well. If you have a quadplex, and it is 10,000 square feet and you do a middle housing land division and turn it into townhouses, then you have 2,500 for each. And of course the state or what our code currently says is a duplex is effectively, it's on a 5,000 square foot lot, but basically duplex is your 2,500. So it's kind of just this like factored number and that's what we considered here. So that would effectively be that option too that we're talking about. And but one thing to consider is when if the commission is interested in that, that that more dense development for option to the thing to consider is adjustment, the adjustment process. So there's an adjustment process that the city already has and adjustments or, you know. We don't process a lot of adjustments. I always tell people they're like mini variances. It's basically a menu of certain things that we can be flexible on with your development. For instance, a setback, a five foot setback, you can reduce your setback a little bit. You can increase your lot coverage a little bit. You can increase or decrease the minimum lot size. So that would be something to consider here as well for this discussion is if you were to go with option two, do you want that to for sure be the minimum and lock it in? Or do you still want to give someone that ability to go through an adjustment process? So for instance, if you were to build a quadplex on a 10,000 square foot lot in the low density zone, which is already far more dense than what the zone allows, they could effectively go to the hearings officer and request a 20% reduction to that. Then you'd be looking at a quadplex on an 8,000 square foot lot in a low density zone. I'm not going to fill anybody's head with any ideas. That's pretty dense for our current low density zone, just for consideration when the current minimum lot size in the zone is 5000. So you can imagine it's quite a few, you know, you're packing it in there a little bit more. So some questions for the commission, and this is what Commissioner Gossin question.

Oh, I thought you were done, but continue on. I'll wait until you finish up.

okay yeah so i'll go through these and then i kind of want to open it up to the commission because this is well at the end of each of these sections we're going to have some discussion items these discussion questions keep it open-ended you can ask questions try to address these because this is what's going to guide us to make guide us through the code amendment process So ultimately, which lot area approach should we use? Should the minimum lot areas be fixed or should adjustments remain available? And should this framework also establish the basis for townhouse MHLD standards? Without us getting into the next section, this question might be a little too early to be asking, but that's what I was talking about, that 2,500, that gradual approach, 25 to 10, one unit to 400. So I just kind of wanted to start from here. Maybe Commissioner Goshen, if you'd like to go first, and we can just go down the list and open it up to the rest of the commission.

Yeah, my thoughts on this, especially with that adjustment, would be to look at potentially even, if we are going to allow adjustments, doing a bumping up another 2,500, essentially for triplexes, 1250. And then for quad plexus 1500. If we're going to allow those adjustments. Now, I don't know, you know how complicated that is. But I really would be concerned that people would, you know, do that approach where because they could adjust it, and it's allowed to put it on the 10,000 square feet, but then actually reduce it like, I'd like to build into the code something to buffer that if we're going to allow those adjustments, but that's my thoughts on the matter.

Yep, makes sense.

Any thoughts from anyone else?

You know, I think I agree with Commissioner Gosner that, you know, if we have that minimum, then, you know, we shouldn't be able to have those adjustments because it is at a very small scale. But, I mean, it also gives us a chance to develop in, you know, 10,000 square foot footprint.

How often does that adjustment process get utilized for this kind of development?

I mean, is it essentially... Well, the state implemented mandatory adjustments, which is qualifying housing. There's an affordability component to it. But... Not too, too often. Honestly, we don't see a lot of adjustments. But for an administrative, it's a pretty low bar. I do know when I first started with the city, 2018, between 2018 and 2019, we went through two pretty contentious appeals based off of... an adjustment process. An individual was trying to, a local builder was effectively going through, he was about two years too early for middle housing in the Dalles is what it effectively was. And he tried building a little bit tighter, a little more dense and using the adjustment route and was appealed. And I think one of the one of them went all the way to luba so it was you know a bit of a process um but not not too too often no i would just say though that it would give someone the ability to to reduce it a bit i guess i'd be inclined to look at utilizing the suggested alternative alternative minimums

that you've got here, the $5,000, $7,500, and $10,000, and just taking the adjustment off the table, just make it clear, reduce that question mark and uncertainty if what it's really creating is more space for litigation.

Yeah, that's fair.

I also like option two the best. And I think that that framework should also establish the basis for the townhouse middle housing land development standards.

Okay. Yep.

Easy math. Consistency is good. Yeah.

Yeah, because one thing I didn't, and while I'll get into it, yeah, sorry, I'm jumping ahead here because I feel like the two, once we start talking about the townhouse thing, I mean, you're kind of making, we're asking questions on really once you get into the easy math, I think it's even, it's clearly laid out in the townhouse section for sure. All right. Well, thank you. We'll move on to the next.

Everyone good with all that? Just one clarification.

With that one, that option too that we're talking about, is that are we still required to allow those adjustments? Or is it like we can lower the adjustment threshold?

It seems like the majority of people want... No adjustments. Do you want adjustments? Okay. So, yeah, three out of five of us want no adjustments. So, yeah, it's just off the table.

If we're going to go with number two, then that would be my opinion is no adjustments. Like if we were going to allow adjustments, I would say to increase it to kind of allow that buffer period. I know it's not easy math, but I would just, yeah, if someone built something like that, Like, I know we need to build more houses and make it more easy to do that. But at the same time, we don't want to turn our low density areas into what don't feel like low density. OK.

There you go.

All right. Thank you. So the next is talking about townhouses, middle housing land divisions. We won't get too much into the weeds about middle housing land divisions this evening. At a later date, staff has already started laying out, I've probably mentioned this before, the framework of some code amendments for our land division standards. middle housing land divisions though that's it's a state state mandated process um although we don't have it in our code we have processed a middle housing land division and it's um we we do this at times when maybe our code isn't keeping up with the state's pace for housing which is common everywhere because the state is like so much faster in changing the rules than any community is. So effectively, middle housing land division, it is a process that we have gone through before. We actually have a six plex in town that went through a middle housing land division. So effectively, they were approved for a six plex. We processed it like a multifamily development, but then they came through and divided it up right on the and right on the lot lines, right on the zero lot lines. So that was their process. I won't get into the weeds on it, but the reason we have it here is just as additional framework when we talk about these numbers and these lot sizes. So for reference here, whenever we talk about a parent lot, that's your original, that's the original site. So in this case, original townhouse development site, your child lots, those are the smaller ones. We take a lot, you divide it up into multiple, those are considered at times child lots. Currently, uh, we were, we allow, um, currently the minimum lot size for a row house in the Dalles or a townhouse is 3,200 square feet. Um, our current and minimum density zone currently is 5,000. So there is a reduction this 3,200 for a townhouse, but it's also tied to something called a density transfer. Um, in the time I've been with the city, never processed a density transfer. So I'm not really going to get into the weeds of that, but just wanted to let you know what the number currently is. So the staff would be considering 2,500 square feet for the middle housing land division child lot. So effectively, you're going to have your single families to your quads, but then you're also going to have this townhouse carve out. That townhouse lot size would be 2,500. So the 2,500 would apply only to a townhouse child lot created through a middle housing land division. That doesn't mean that an individual can come in and request to divide their property just up into a $2,500 lot. It has, or 2,500 square foot lot. And I was that she would be nice. Um, It has to go through a middle housing land division process to get there, right? So I want to be very clear about that. It's not the general low density lot minimum anymore. The townhouse may remain on one parcel. You don't have to go through a middle housing land division. You can do a condominium type of development as well. And as I talked about, we will be, when we update our land division code, we will formally bring the middle housing land division process into the city's code. So this kind of touches, like I said, on why we got to this 2,500. I think the 2,500 is when we look at it, we currently, I think it allows for, with HB 2001, we can start building duplexes on every single family lot. so that's a rental that's a rental situation well with the middle housing land division you can then build your duplex a year later you can go through a process and get it divided or you can go through the same process so then you're turning that rental what was a rental into more of this ownership type of model so having the 2500 and it broken up like we did with the five five thousand seventy five hundred and ten thousand makes that easier. And you go up to the 10,000, that's going to be four units. That's going to be your quadplex. That's what we've made the decision on that anything up to four is a building permit. So it's all kind of fitting together, right? So I think this is kind of a simple question. I don't even know why it is a question because I think we kind of, you know, resolve that a little bit, but Wanted to bring that up with the commission because it would be a change from our current 3,200 is a commission comfortable with making the, you know, a townhouse lot, the minimum lot size for a townhouse 2,500 square feet. Yes.

All right. I just have a quick question for clarification purpose on that. Yeah, you bet. In this situation that can't be like two buildings that are then split up and they say it's a duplex. It has to be attached, correct? In this situation. Cause I'm just worried about potentially if, if someone like, oh, we built a second property and then they split it up and they got around the 5,000 minimum. by chopping it in half, but because they had two different buildings, it allowed it versus the 5,000 limit.

Yeah. I think I get what you're... you're asking here, that $2,500 would only be tied to a development that was approved through a townhouse approval.

Okay.

That answers my question then. Okay. And it's also an important distinction, and that kind of reminded me about something, so thank you. It's also an important distinction here of, like, the townhouse is an interesting model overall. It's not... Here we're talking about, you know, up to four units and it's going to be a type one application. But to develop a townhouse, to develop those lots is not a type one application. You have to go through a middle housing land division or before middle housing land divisions, you had to go through a subdivision or a partition process. So the end result of actually constructing those, I was thinking the commission is in support of up to four units, right? It's going to be a building permit. You're going to build your four stack right there with the building permit. But to divide that land or go through that process will require a type two application. So that's just want to be very clear about that, that I'm not sure we can get around that process. So but at least it takes at least it it makes it an easier process once you go to construct.

Okay, what if you have a four-pack, they're all attached, and they're just right down the line, and it went through this... Let's say someone built this quadplex right in a row, just rectangles. Each one was 2,500 square feet or met that 2,500 square foot minimum. And then in three years, it's full of tenants. And then that developer comes to those tenants and says, hey, do you want to buy these? And then each tenant wants to or they want to put them on the market or whatever. Could they then do that land division after it's built?

Yes. Yep.

Just draw the lines.

Yep. It's just, it's going to be one of those things. It's always good for planning purposes ahead of time, you know, and that's going to be something we're not going to get too far into the weeds about utilities here, but that's one thing when I met with our site team and our local utility providers, something that's very interesting of creating your development in a way that it can be divided, right? Don't, don't develop it with one master line coming in. If you have one master, one water line coming in, then you want to divide it later. It's going to be a bit of a headache instead of develop it. Even if you're building a quadplex and even if it stays as an apartment unit, it's, preferred. I don't know necessarily if we can require it, but it's preferred that you're going to stub every single unit in because then you can break it up easily. Otherwise you're going to be dealing with easement situations. You're going to be dealing with, um, um, I'm going mobile. Thank you, though. It's just a detail. That's just something that we'll address further with our utility providers on just exactly how that's going to work. But best practice, if you're thinking of having those stacks, it's best to have utilities separated.

All right.

All right. So this might be looking at the screen thinking, how did we turn into this conversation about manufactured dwellings? I think it's an interesting one. I think it's one that ties in really well to middle housing, ultimately. You know, manufactured dwellings, you know, state law generally requires that they're processed the same as single family homes, right? If someone comes in, they want to place a manufactured home on their property, we're going to process them the same way that we do in the Dalles, here in the Dalles, that we do a stick bill. The difference is, and I think it's a very big difference, The difference between manufactured homes and mobile homes, right? Mobile homes, of course, are on wheels. Maybe they're sitting on a foundation at some point, but the manufactured home, I think we all know, it's built in a factory. It's brought onto a site. It's put onto a foundation. It's treated like a single-family home. But there also are sections in the code that require different things for manufactured homes. That might be slightly different than single family homes or a stick built home. So we're continuing to evaluate everything associated with that. Those will come out in our final code amendment process. Our code amendment, as we bring it forward to you next time around, but this is just something I wanted to bring kind of open up the conversation here. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot to discuss on it, but I did want to bring it to everyone's attention when we start talking about the implications of middle housing and manufactured dwellings. So there's a couple of things that are unique in the DALs. One thing that is unique with our code is the fact that single wides are currently only allowed in our medium density zone. So Doesn't come up too often, but we have at a development interest on the east side of town. It's in a high density zone. Individual looking to place a bunch of multiple single wides, these prefab units. You can't do that because it's not in a medium density zone. Historically, the west side in the medium density zone, it was historically a manufactured home, mobile home zone. That is really what it was probably before it became part of the city. So that's really when you look at our, if you look at a zoning map and you look at where the majority of medium density is in the Dalles, it's on the west side. It's like 95% of our medium density zone is on the west side of town. That is the only area where you can build a single wide zone. So staff is, you know, ultimately looking as like, what's, what's the requirement? Is there flexibility at the, at the state level should manufactured homes, you know, like single wide, should they be, you know, restricted to that side of town, um, or to that zone specifically? Um, And then also looking at manufactured dwelling parks, this is another interesting thing. There's this current threshold that if you have four manufactured dwellings, it is required. It's considered a park. So there you go through a manufactured dwelling park process, which is kind of like, I mean, probably the precursor to cottage clusters. Ultimately, you know, it's like the thing with them though, is there is a one acre minimum of, for those manufactured dwellings. So if you have four manufactured dwellings on a property, it's on one acre, that's not very dense and you can only have it in the medium density zone. So it kind of contradicts the medium density at the minimum medium density range. So when we, you know, ultimately should we be applying the same, you know, general residential standards where they address, you know, we're addressing the same outcome, you know, instead of looking at something for the unit that it is or how it was built, should we just be looking at them between that one and four range that we've talked about? If someone wants to place a manufactured home on their property and they want to place four of them on their property, right? Why should we be treating it any different than if it's four stick belts built on somebody's property, right? So we'll be looking to... verify what potentially in our code is out of, you know, state law. You know, if we're obviously we must we need to comply with state law. So that's going to be some additional with there's these are a couple like this is some low hanging fruit, I think, but we'll take a deeper dive into this just to see like what we need to comply with when it comes to state law. And, you know, through the whole process, we do want to avoid, you know, distinctions based solely on the construction method. treat a manufactured home like a stick built is ultimately the goal here. Also some discussion questions. Should manufactured dwellings be treated like other one to four unit housing options? Should single wides be allowed wherever single wide, wherever single unit dwellings are permitted? Is the current four unit threshold for manufactured dwelling parks appropriate? and um which sections of article 6.120 standards are actually necessary i think that one is potentially um in the weeds a bit for this conversation that is i think um a question that staff is going to continue to analyze like i said that's the really the question of we have residential design standards and then there's another section that has manufactured dwelling requirements, right? So there's just some, we're trying to bridge the gap between the two. So just wanted to open up this conversation here, ultimately, and I think I skipped over three a little bit in the sense of didn't discuss that four unit. And if we're talking one to four units for a building permit with a stick built, should we treat the manufactured homes the same way? Cause right now, if we don't change it, if someone wants to place for manufactured homes, they have to treat it as a manufactured dwelling park and it's required to have one acre minimum. So, and I'll open it up to the commission.

I think that manufactured homes should be treated the same as stick-built homes. And I think that in regards to number three, that the current four-unit threshold for manufactured dwelling parks, if I'm understanding this correctly, I think that should be eliminated because it should just be treated... manufactured homes should just be treated as single-family dwellings. If you wanted to make a manufactured home park like that one that they're doing off, well, that's not really a manufactured home park. That's the one off Kingsley, like East 16th and Kingsley, that five-acre lot. Right. That's not a park. It's a development.

Correct. That's a subdivision that is going to place manufactured homes on it.

So that's true, manufactured homes like single-family.

Yeah.

So I think it should be more of that. I don't, I personally don't see the benefit for manufactured home parks. We have a few in the Dalles. They work great. They can cycle through their, you know, because that, that manufactured home is personal property. People can take it with them. they can sell it to the park, the park can replace it, stuff like that. I think there's enough turnover within those and that we have, or there's enough possibility for turnover within those as far as like the housing structure itself to not have to make space for more manufactured home parks in the Dells.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Just thinking out loud, like if we were to treat them a single wide the same as a single residential unit, couldn't you just do like a cottage clustery kind of thing? Like that would already, if it was treated in that same fashion, you would still be able to have that sort of multiple unit set up. I mean, I think the ownership structure is like the different differentiation there. Like if you're just planning out the spots versus like doing a development.

Yeah, I'm having a little bit of a, so when I think of manufactured home, a manufactured home is what you see going down the road.

Yeah.

The trailer, right? It doesn't have wheels. They're built on a steel frame and that steel frame is then placed on a a central support system and it's cited. So a single wide is just one half of that. Um, they are not affixed to a proper perimeter foundation. That's it's skirting. You know what I'm talking about?

Um, some single whites can be on a foundation. So that's like park models, right?

So that's the difference that I'm trying to determine like is

is a it's two different type of houses yes they're both built to standard building code but do we allow both of those or do we allow so one kind yeah so manufactured homes are effectively i think the most common manufactured homes are singles doubles and tries right they just connect together whatever um When you have skirting effectively, you're talking mostly about probably a mobile home. I mean, you can still put skirting around a tri unit. You could put it on a double unit. I guess the difference is

one of those homes that you see going down the road can be moved again. They can pop those off their central support systems, those two I-beams that go down the middle, put them back on the trailer and take them away. Is that a manufactured home or a mobile home to you?

And more importantly, to the code.

Yeah, I mean, I would say... I mean, I would say you could move any manufactured home, even once it's put on a foundation. Even though it's put on a solid foundation, you could still effectively move it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because there's also like those, they're not modular homes. They are the size of a single wide home. They come in on a trailer, but they're like super cool shed roof, like the really modern stuff like that. Those don't have I-beam support structures. And you actually place those on the cement foundation and bolt it to the foundation.

yeah and there's a big there's kind of a big distinction with um building codes ultimately so manufactured homes are definitely they are processed at wasco county building codes you get a placement permit um but i think yeah how they come here and how they can be moved again i think you know you definitely see them you know differences in in some of them um Yeah, I think one thing about mobile homes, I think mobile homes are like very, I think everybody's pretty familiar with a mobile home. It's very much built on a chassis, I think is one of the biggest things with it. So I think I, I don't know if I answered your question and if you had one or...

I mean, I think maybe the question is like, are we talking about one of those things or does this. Like we're, we're talking about the things that are like going to be put on a foundation versus something that's on wheels that is going to move again. Or are we talking about those things collectively? I think that it matters. Yeah.

I mean, for this conversation, I fully intended on having, it was based around, um, unit that comes in and is placed on top of a foundation. And if you place one of those, you're going to Wasco County building codes. That's kind of how I have looked at it. Mobile homes, um, actually in the Dow's, I think we have, there's like a code. Mobile homes are more and more rare even. Um, and then you start getting into the conversation of like tiny homes.

So real quick, this is the Google machine saying this. The main difference between a mobile home and a manufactured home is the date they were built and the building codes they follow. Mobile homes were built before June 15, 1976, while manufactured homes are built after that date under strict federal standards set by HUD. So anything that we deal with now that is a new build is a manufactured home.

Right. Right.

Even if it's the same.

But yeah, because the biggest one are like the what we hear are the park models, the park models, which are designed to have your front door on the small side. to fit into skinnier units. Yeah. That's what we're having here as far as the conversation, like the mobile home. Like, I mean, we don't even regulate mobile homes. I mean, we're asked every year, Portland state, we do a, uh, we do, um, um, a housing survey every single year. And they always ask us how many mobile homes do you have? We answer every single year. We do not regulate mobile homes. So if a mobile home is coming and going and to your point, um, they're old pre, you know, pre 76 and they have a shelf life. So if somebody, you know, they're, if someone has a decent mobile home now, they've taken great care of it. It's probably undercover. It's probably, you know, so, and for this conversation specifically, that's the manufactured home that we're talking about.

Okay. We treated the same. Yeah. Context.

Okay. The, the manufactured homes as the single home.

home or manufactured dwellings okay manufactured dwellings but but you're you weren't necessarily saying as a mobile home though like as a manufactured yeah yeah yeah and the mobile home conversation is one that will probably address in the years to come about the new mobile home is the tiny home right it is um you're not going to get a permit from wasco county when you have a tiny home So they're more so regulated by the DMV.

So the question is, are we allowing single wides? And should they be to stick-built home standards within the code?

That's the question. Yeah, because how it is currently is that if somebody wants to place a manufactured home in the city of the Dalles, they can place... They can place a single wide, a double, or a tri in the medium density zone. But if somebody wants to place a single wide because they have a park model, they have a small lot, they have a high density zone, they cannot place it in a high density zone is how our code is currently written. So that's one of the key questions here. And then the other, yeah, it's based on this threshold for manufactured dwelling parks. I will say that this process here, we weren't intending on opening up the specifics of the manufactured dwelling park structure because I still think that that's heavily regulated through the state. There's a framework for manufactured dwelling parks there. Um, and it creates, you know, I do believe if somebody is still, you know, proceeding, you know, wanting to process manufactured dwelling parks, um, or expand a manufactured dwelling parks, if we did anything to implement the, you know, expanding our manufactured dwelling parks, I think we could hurt the existing supply that we have because you'd basically be, we'd be creating a nonconforming uses or, or, you know, So I think it really just comes to that fact of right now, if you have four or more manufactured homes, it's a park. But if we're saying that one to four stick belts is a building permit, then maybe it's one to four manufactured homes being placed on a property as a building permit. I think that's kind of the distinction about that threshold that I was trying to get answered here.

That makes sense to me. If we're going to treat them similarly in all the other areas, that having that threshold for four units on a parcel and treating it the same makes sense to me versus having them have to go through that and have the very different density requirement.

If we're putting four units on an undivided parcel, is that essentially a detached quadplex?

Yes. And that's how we would be, and we will emphasize it in our code amendments, but that is something that... hopefully it's not a, you know, I'm dropping the bomb here with everybody, but when I've been thinking about all these triplexes and these quadplexes, I've been thinking in my head, they can either be attached or detached. So if that doesn't change anybody's opinion along the way, but that's really where the state's moving because right now we currently allow detached duplexes and we've actually found some flexibility. I remember, uh, One instance, an individual came in and he wanted to build his single family home. Then he wanted to do a garage with an ADU up top. As we were looking at it, the way the slopes and everything, you know, talk to him like this. This garage is too tall. It's it's taller than your house or close to it. And you can't have that. That can't be an accessory dwelling unit. So the option for them was, well, I'm just going to treat this. I'm just going to call this a detached duplex. It could build a taller than the single family home if you wanted to. So what we have found with that detached duplex option, it's almost disincentivizing. building an ADU. In ADU, you're confined to a square footage, you're confined to a height, all these things that are associated with an ADU. If you want to build something a little bit bigger, you go the detached duplex route. And you're going to get you're going to pay a little bit more on your utilities, but you're going to be able to build what you want, compared to being so restricted on those ADU requirements. So yeah, the same would be for you know, deep detached quads,

I can't attest that it is only marginally more cost effective to, as opposed to a detached, because you still have to pay your park STC and you still have to pay if it's detached, your sewer connection. So the only thing that you aren't the only, you can use the same water connection. And if it's an AD, you can use the same meter, electric meter. Yeah. But if it's detached, it's gotta be separate water meter and a separate meter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and I'll give a plug to the Parks District. They're actually going to be presenting here to city council here very soon. They just changed their system development charges. And it's actually, we've been seeing these increases over years, consistent increases since, I think, 2021. And we have heard from people, they're getting higher, they're getting higher, they're getting higher. They are there. You know, you pay your parks SDC and you're paying more to the parks than all your SDC is paid to the city. They now are basing it off of a square footage and they're basing it off of I think it's 500 square feet or less. No SDC's. So it's trying to take a look at multiple cities have done it where you're basically scaling those SDCs where they found out the minimum square footage that's been being built in the DALs, at least over this last year. They came up with that average. And that average, I believe, is what the current cost is for an SDC. And then they scaled it down and then they scaled it up. And we've seen what they saw out in Newport, for instance, where they introduced scaling of SDCs. They started to see smaller units being built.

I have some comments back to the mobile home and that development because we're really looking at if we can put these on low density areas. That's the big question as part of this. I would say that to allow that would be good but to also put in that it requires a foundation as well because one thing that you'll run into is you can't get a non-foundation mobile home financed through a bank. So what happens if someone puts it up there and then no one wants to buy it? You can see that in a situation where it could start to fall into disrepair depending on the situation. But if it's more easily financed, homes could change hands because that's what we're looking to do here is bring more homes, make homes accessible for people. Having it to where it's still able to be financed I think is going to be a big thing to allow that to kind of not fall into that trap of having more derelict homes that can't change hands because the rules weren't made to that way. So that's my thoughts on mobile homes, especially single, even double or triple wide units. You mean manufactured homes. Manufactured. Sorry. Sorry. Well, not mobile. Too many back and forths. But that's what I think a good approach is based on our conversation, at least in that regard. But I know there's a few other questions that we need to go through, too.

Is that a building code thing?

Well, we do. I mean, I haven't looked at the code on that specific question, but I think we'll have to look at what it says and line it, but building codes is going to have a lot of control over it. But there's also... I know it's in our code. There is language about foundations. That potentially is already covered or contemplated in our code. It may just need to be refined.

That would be the one sticking point I would see just from going through the process. I actually grew up in a lot of manufactured homes on the west side as well as out there. My dad laid a lot of carpets. There's a few things to consider uh when those are being done and the one other thing i was thinking of uh you know i you mentioned getting rid of the four like unit i would still say to keep some sort of thing on that like but maybe increase it if the minimum lot size is eight or if the minimum units is currently four to make a park like i could see raising that to something like eight And because it's required for one acre, which if you have one acre, that's getting to 40,000.

Yeah. And I think it's, I mean, it's a good point. I mean, I think it's part of a broader discussion when it comes to manufactured dwelling parks. And I think we're going to touch on this a little bit when we talk about cottage clusters, like the, the goal of HB or excuse me, the goal of our HPS action 2.1 is to allow tries quads and cottage clusters in our low density zone to They're going to touch on some of these other things, but maybe to avoid some scope creep and some sanity. Well, you know, hold back a little bit. But I think to your point, as far as increasing it, I think a fair number would be five or more is a manufactured dwelling park. And then if we want to get into the weeds at a later date about the fact that, you know, acreage requiring that acreage is maybe too much or whatever the case is, then that's something we can discuss, you know, at a later date. But I think just keeping that four, keeping four as the number that we're always going to be capped at for those building permits. But that'd be my recommendation. Yeah. Well, Crystal's taking notes over here because I'm hopefully...

We have recorded into the microphone.

Yeah.

How many more? Just so we can all just get like a little mental framework of.

Yeah.

How are you in here? How many more? Yeah.

So there are, this is four of seven. This one right here. Yep. I told you, no pretty pictures, so I know we're probably getting sleepy here. So we talked about adaptive reuse and residential conversions. Our code currently allows for duplex conversions. And It's, you know, basically right now, single family home, there's a process to convert it into a duplex. This came about through HB 2001. So potentially looking at expanding that to triplexes and quadplexes. I brought up an example before of, you know, maybe a 3000 square foot Victorian. Maybe someone wants to turn that into multiple units. That's the type of thing that we're talking about here. recognizing these established setbacks, placement, site conditions, you know, you could say that, oh, yeah, you can convert this into a quadplex. However, now you need to meet all these developmental standards. That's not going to be helpful to anyone, right? You know, you have to understand that the building is existing there. There's going to be maybe some nonconformity associated with it. So this is a discussion about that. So the question is, you know, applying like a minimum lot area, should we be applying new middle housing minimums to conversions? That was the example I just brought up there. Developmental conditions or dimensional conditions, retaining those lawful nonconformities if they're not increased. So let's say someone, the setback in the zone is five feet, but the house is currently built at four feet. Talking about that type of scenario of can they just increase the number of units if they're not going to be touching that setback? That's what this conversation is about. Then also extending the parking, extending it, you know, development properties for, you know, giving some more flexibility beyond the CBC zone. And that would be a big policy question right now. You know, we talked about in the CBC zone. I think there's that justification with the CBC zone for the fact that this is the oldest part of town. Right. This is where the Dow started. And this is where they buildings were built with, you know, large lot coverage, you know, extending, you know, currently 60 percent is locked in these big Victorians.

Right. And you're splitting them up. We don't want people to split them up to where someone's living in a shoebox. That would be my concern in those situations, depending on the developer.

See, personally, I would disagree because that is a space someone can choose to live there or not. If someone wants to make one that small, there are people that just need a place to sleep. That's just all they need. I think that the market will let that person know if that is a place that is actually a viable rental.

Would you say then that it's more of like amenities? Like is there a shower and a sink and like enough things for you to live there and cook food?

Well, I mean that's – I think that that is what determines and what qualifies a dwelling. A room cannot be a part of a duplex. Like you can't have like I want to make a duplex – Here's a two bedroom, one bathroom house. The one bedroom, one bathroom in all the house is one side of the duplex and one room is the other side of the duplex.

Yeah, no, that's a scenario. And there's going to be some additional information that we add in here. The state, once again, has some new requirements coming. But SROs or single room occupancies, effectively, is kind of what you're talking about. We would have little regulation on that. That really just comes into like a roommate situation. Let's say... So I think the difference here is like maybe... you have this, this Victorian example, this old house example, you have a single kitchen and you just want to turn it up into individual. You want to, you know, basically separate little living quarters for people, but they don't have kitchens. It's just one central kitchen. Let's say that's like the SRO model. That's a, that's a roommate model. Effectively, you know, the city is not going to be coming in and regulating people for renting out five rooms in a house. Right. A quadplex scenario would be a scenario where each individual unit has a kitchen. And a lot of what you're talking about, too... Great points. A lot of what you're talking about is regulated by building codes. Perfect. Yeah. We wouldn't get too far into the inner workings of it. They would have square footages. They would have height requirements for different rooms. You can't legally create a room if it's under something like seven feet or something like that. If the ceiling has to be more than seven feet, building codes is going to be the ones that... you know, goes through that process.

As long as we had protections in place like that, then I'm, I have no issue with that. That's, that would be my main concern is, you know, we get these people that are splitting things up and you make it look really great on the internet. You know, the person signs and moves across the state to just find, Oh, I live in a shoe box that looked so much bigger. Uh, I only say that because I've seen this strategy used when selling homes, uh, a lot. So, uh, you know, I'm trying to look out for those people that, you know, I don't know if you have ever been in that situation looking for a home and then you see this thing and they make it look really great. And then you finally get there and it's nothing like what it seemed. So, uh, that's, that's the situation I would want to avoid.

It is highly recommended to go view the house that you're going to live in or buy before doing so.

Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.

People completely from that, especially in this room and with the code changes that we're making.

Yeah.

So anyway, number one.

I'm supportive of the additional flexibility. I suppose well.

Number two, should existing buildings receive flexibility for minimum lot area requirements? Can you explain this real quick?

Yeah, for sure. So that's your scenario of, let's use the low density for an example. You have a 7,500 square foot lot. So with this new framework, that gives you a triplex. Well, could someone turn it into a quadplex?

For existing buildings, right? An existing building, exactly.

Yeah, and this is all with a low density. Just looking out through the lens of the low density, you would apply it to the others, but that would be the case. They're not expanding the footprint any further.

I would support it.

Wait, support what?

If they're not expanding the footprint. Yeah, see flexibility for the requirements if they're not expanding the square footage of the existing building I support it if they are wanting to expand the square footage of the building don't support it Even if it's a house that's in less than 10,000 feet, which is the the cutoff for a four plex You're saying if it's less than 10,000 feet, it could still be a four plex if the house is big enough If it was a triplex. Okay. And then they're wanting to convert it to a quadplex. Yes, I support that.

Okay. I personally think it should remain consistent with the 5,000, 7,500, 10,000 that we discussed earlier just for consistency. At the same time, I mean, I'm not going to like down the sill by any means.

I understand the consistency aspect, but if it's an existing building, we're not adding any square footage, get more housing units. It makes sense to me, but I get the like, keep it consistent thing as well. So.

And there, and there could be a way, you know, maybe like a, you know, something to, to address both of those concerns. Right. maybe the flexibility in that for parking in that scenario is maybe not something that's supported necessarily. You know, let's say you don't have the minimum lot area that you need this triplex example. It's only, you know, you want to get that, that quadplex, which only have 7,500 square feet will maybe require that plot quadplex to have all of its parking spaces. That would be something to consider, but just kind of thinking through some ideas.

Is this something that could be done, um, with a review by any chance, like where, where you, where you have that situation where they could apply for the exemption and then it would be a human that would review the situation or, you know, a group, do we have framework for that in the Dells right now?

Um, I mean, No, like a conversion. It would, as human as I can be, I think that would, yeah, ultimately it would be, you know, someone from our team reviewing these scenarios when they come in. Okay. I guess the question is whether or not if someone wanted to just add an additional unit to their property, but they don't meet the lot size and it's an existing building, they're not touching the footprint. Yeah. Basically, it's whether or not the city is going to deny that request or allow it to move forward.

Sounds like we want to allow it to move forward for more housing.

I'm kind of tore on it. Just for, like you were saying, with consistency, I just don't want it to open up that can of worms for somebody to talk about the lot size and bring that point up in future conversations. If they want to build something new and we just shut them down and say that they can't and then they take a look at this and I mean, if we're consistent, it would just be, you know, I mean, obviously we would be able to say that, well, this is for existing buildings only, but, you know, is it something that they can bring up in an argument?

I think it's for consistent. We just have to make it explicit. It's for existing buildings only. Yeah. Right. And we also have to think, like, when we're having these conversations, guys, like, we're talking about, like, maybe this will happen once every two years. Like, this is like... not high frequency stuff. Yeah.

And more power to the human who decides they want to build a triplex on one of these and then is smart enough to figure out how to make one of the units big enough to then immediately turn around and add it, add another unit, whatever.

Not like whimsical, like off the cuff ideas like the,

No, I feel like this is like an old farmhouse and somebody's like, I can make this into an upstairs downstairs. And that's great. Do it.

I mean, we haven't really received a lot of like maybe think outside my head to duplex conversions over the past. Six years, maybe. I mean, it's a big question to your point. I mean, it's like the utility thing is big. I mean, we're not going to see a lot of conversions. Sometimes it's easier to just build brand new than do a conversion with all that you're going to be putting into it. Yeah. But what we can do, we could also come back to this if you'd like to, to that, or make a decision now, either way.

I think, and we're just going to go with majority here, I think we would be allowing, number two, we'll be allowed.

Okay.

Okay, number three. Can existing lawful NACA formalities remain? So you got a house that is old. There's a bunch of wild stuff going on inside of it. It should be brought up to code. It won't. Should we allow it to be a duplex? Okay, so I'm thinking of an example. So you have this top down house, you know, daylight ranch, enter the back, the kitchen downstairs doesn't have a proper range hood or with proper venting. This is the type of stuff you're talking about.

No, that's building code stuff. Yeah, anything like definitely versus five foot. Yeah, this is talking about just, you know, allowing that, you know, conversion to move forward if they're maybe not meeting their setbacks or they're, you know, exceeding their lock coverage or something like that. That's like looking at it kind of from the outside.

I guess what would happen? Like, let's say that you say no, then what?

There would effectively be something along the lines of it needs to, you know... Potentially go through a process of like, you need to bring that into conformance before we allow a conversion to go through.

And, and just to be clear, this is more like external we're thinking about, not internal. Yep. In my opinion, I would say yes, because we're thinking of these, like the old Victorians, these old houses, things that have been grandfathered in before we had these laws and, i would say yes to allow it in that case because what are they going to do otherwise either they're not going to move forward with the project or do a bunch of land adjustment with a neighbor yeah i want to do that yeah okay so you're yes i i'm yes i know i'm a yes yes i think i think

I think I'm also yes because the frequency at which this is going to happen is minimal. Should parking flexibility extend beyond the CVC district?

And this is under the conversion scenario still?

This is under the conversion scenario. Still low density, I presume.

Well, it would apply to all of them, but we've used this load density as just an example. And yeah, this would be kind of that discussion we were just having. Let's say somebody has a triplex and they want to convert it into a quadplex, but they only have three parking spaces. Is there flexibility? Are you going to make that fourth unit have a parking space?

So this one I'm a little torn on. Here's why. So I live on East 13th, East 13th in between Lewis and Clark. And my street's full of cars, which is fine. And there's a lot of streets in town that are full of cars with cars that go all the way up to the intersection. Like you're like in the middle of the street when you're at a stop sign. If we were to demand... parking on these conversions outside of the CBC, that would be taking cars off the street, which I think would be a higher degree of livability for everybody. But at the same time, it's not like making conversion is going to make more people in the house. It's the same number of people living in the house, most likely. So I don't think that by not extending, it's like there's going to be more cars parked on the street. You get what I'm saying?

If we do allow flexibility, there are going to be more cars parked on the street.

I think if we allow the flexibility to not mandate parking outside of the CBC, it will allow these conversions to happen. Whereas if we were to be like, nope, you have to have parking restrictions in whatever medium, high and low density zones that it, it will be impossible because there are houses, a lot of houses in the Dells that like you, you can't get parking. You can't get parking on the property doesn't exist. Whether it be it's, there's no alley in the back or it's on too much of a slope or whatever.

Or is built by a stonemason.

Yeah, so I think that...

I don't know. No, I'm with you on that because it's going to be very rare that you have a huge house that you're not going to have a proportionate amount of cars for those residents, whether or not you're splitting it off into different units where one person is going to live... in this unit but it's really four people but you'd probably have three to four people anyways with cars anyways in the same situation so it's it's like you said it's just going to inhibit that version yeah yeah it's gonna it's gonna make it to where we don't have those conversions which might be helpful for opening up more units for people to live so so if i'm

I'm tracking a little bit here. I just want to throw out like an, an option, like in your scenario and your neighborhood, let's say there's a house, decent size house. They have no parking and it's currently that existing nonconforming. Would you be in support of allowing that to become a quadplex with, with no parking flexibility?

I think there should be flexibility in some cases to not require it. I think there are a lot of areas in town where you could park more cars on the street and it wouldn't bother anybody. And I think it's a significant cost to add the off-street parking that's increasing the cost to the person developing that unit and passing that on to the folks that are trying to rent it or live in it.

A lot of flexibility.

I think so.

We're allowing flexibility.

And you're going to let me choose one number. Okay. That works. That works. I'll turn the dial. Don't you worry.

I have a really good idea for that flexibility. What if we tie that flexibility to that number to the zone? Like the high density zone environment might... We might require... less because you know high density we don't expect parking anyways and that's going to be our our downtown buildings right is going to be high density is all the way up to 14th street oh it's all the way up to 14th oh it's that's awesome it's more walkable where like you might not need like i walked here yeah we walked here i walked here i i don't want great idea i don't want to talk about that now just because that's a lot so like i'm giving him ideas that's all yeah thank you it's

Great conversation, everybody. It is 7 o'clock. Just to give you a heads up. We're going to move on to the next one. This is the fifth. This one is actually a little heavy. Um, this one is, uh, residential design standards are current approach. As I mentioned, it's a six of 10. You choose, uh, that we have a list of 10. There's actually a list of nine and the 10th is another option approved by the director. Um, ultimately in my, my practice has always been, if somebody prevents a decent argument, just an email, a picture showing what they're doing, I'll approve it. And that's basically how I've treated this. Um, I'm not an architect. I'm not a designer. And I do think everybody has a different perspective on what they think looks good. And if somebody is even making an attempt to show that this is the design feature that I want to move forward on this building that I want to build, I'm going to give those people the benefit of the doubt to go forward. So that has always been my approach on it. If I had more of an architectural background, maybe I'd be a little more strict on it. But I also... we shouldn't, it's not clear and objective. It's not clear and objective. It's not up to one individual to be making those decisions on why, you know, a design feature to move forward. So model code, we talked about the ONA model code. There's clear and objective development outcomes more so than standards. And we'll kind of touch on that. So examples, you have street facing windows, pedestrian entrances, parking garage, you know, discussing how a garage and parking is really important. impacting your street face right you know there's um everybody knows about snout houses probably snout houses or our houses with a garage that is um the house is set so far back and the garage is really what you see when you pull up to that house right so the question is keep the keep the menu move to some outcomes or use kind of a hybrid approach So we would also then take a look at this. Currently our design standards are kind of sprinkled throughout our code. We try to like bundle this, keep this back into the one to four unit and just come up with that baseline of four units, basically one to four units. They all have to follow the same design standards effectively. If it's detached, then they're all going to have to meet, you know, each individual unit's going to have to meet those standards. If it's one building, that whole building has to meet it. So there's just, you know, every building effectively has to go through and meet these design standards. Townhouses, ultimately, those would be really treated kind of the same, but there are some additional things associated with townhouses. Manufactured dwellings, as we've talked about earlier, we will take a closer look to see what is required at the state level, but just try to get a little more even throughout our code so we're not flipping from one section and saying, oh, it's a manufactured home, so therefore I have to flip over here. You have to meet these standards, but then we flip over here. And then five units or more, cottage clusters and ADUs. We're not really going to touch on those right now. The thing about ADUs, we don't require design features on ADUs. We have some specific standards that you have to meet, height, things like that, where your windows are located for privacy purposes ultimately, but those are like the extent of ADU design features, and that's pretty consistent throughout the state. ADUs are extra units. They're not going to be something that we treat through the same process that we do like a single-family home. um i guess i jumped right through it my apologies i may have missed a um slide here but ultimately wanting to take a look at you know we talked about this list we talked about expanding this list and i think there was also a comment that kind of resonated to me i think uh commissioner alvarado i think you mentioned it of like you know, controlling too much of this, then we're, you know, kind of looking like an HOA. We're kind of like creating CC&Rs for the community, right? If you're coming up with like strict design features. So one approach is we have these six, we could expand it to 20 and an individual is still required to choose those six. The ONA approach is really looking at kind of those outcomes. And when I talk about outcomes, it's like, how is the building coordinating with the street, right? How are those pedestrian entrances? And I think one way to describe it is, I think an interesting note is you can have two developers or two people that are meeting, they're checking the boxes of this menu. They're gonna check these boxes of bay and bow windows, a 312 pitch on the roof. All these, you know, front, front covered porch, recessed entry. These are some things that we have. Another one is a design feature that we have is a carport attached car. But that's a design feature in the current code. So as long as you check that, that's one of them. So you're moving forward. Someone can have and someone can check all those boxes and still have a unit that's not really interacting with the street as much as it could, for instance. You can check all those boxes and then still have a front face of siding. Let's say T111 siding, just on the front face. There's no windows because you can have your door on the side. So you can have, or you can have an individual who meets all the design features and they're putting it on the front facing side. So you can have two totally different models and it's just a matter of how they are kind of interacting with, ultimately interacting with the street. I think the Ona model is looking more at that. There is like percentage of glazing, for instance. So you have the front facing and this is being used throughout the state. So if you have your front face, of the wall it's effectively you need i think it's like uh 15 glazing on the front of the building so instead of you're you're not going to have a building that just has siding facing your sidewalk you know you're going to have a little bit you're going to have an opening on it you know it doesn't necessarily need to be a door but you can have just you're adding those few features um But I think the biggest thing, when we look at expanding these design elements, the pros, there is some flexibility. And it's familiar that people have. But one of the cons I have seen is that, well, first of all, I don't think that they're valued the same. Because if all you're trying to do is just check these boxes, and it's just to kind of move on to the next round, I think, is kind of how we see them. The other thing that comes up is manufactured homes. Manufactured homes are always having a difficult time meeting some of these design standards, like a 312 pitch on a roof. I think it's greater than 412 pitch is what it's something along those lines. 412 pitch. There's a lot of times where manufactured homes aren't meeting those pitches. There's a lot of times that a manufactured home, I mean, it's coming in one unit. It's really, it can be kind of difficult to have a front covered porch. So therefore, whenever you make a modification to a manufactured home, honestly, it makes that process more difficult because when you're going to place a manufactured home on a property, you're going to building codes and it's a pretty streamlined process to place a unit on a property. But the minute you're attaching something to what was manufactured in a factory, it's a whole thing. So we have seen in the past, I think, the units that struggle to meet our design features the most are manufactured home units. And for a long time, there was a shift where we made it so that the front door had to face the street. Well, this commission approved to add some flexibility to that. And I think that flexibility follows what the owner code has already done. We did this two years ago or so. We're basically... you need to have a clear pedestrian path. You can't have your front door on the back of the house, but you basically, if you want your front door on the side, it just needs to have a clear pedestrian path. That created more flexibility for manufactured homes. Because one thing we were seeing when you required that front door to be on the street phase, we were seeing manufactured home owners coming in, then they would have to build a little bump out to the side of the manufactured home to put a door on it. just so your front door faced the street. And then they were going through all these steps and all these headaches. So we created, you know, it gave some more flexibility. Um, so yeah, I think that, you know, the basis there's, there's the design feature, there's the owner base. And I think some of the pros with it, it's just clearer. It's a, you know, there's, it's, it's a bit more, um, I mean, it's very clear. Like I said, when it comes to this, like 15% or whatever the case is, percentage of, um, glazing that you have but it's not something for instance like our design standards where one of them is a commercially available siding that that's no joke one of our design standards so are we saying that commercially available siding is far more superior than than custom milled siding right you know you're not going to meet that standard if you custom milled this from some old oak on your family's property, right? There's also a mixed approach to it, and there's a mixed approach, and it's effectively just making sure that building orientation meets, access meets. The city of Malala is actually doing this where it's like you have all these elements and how it's reacting to the street, but then... they're still requiring, then they have a list of about 20, and they still require that each unit select four of the 20. So we already have some of the elements that the model code is talking about. We already required pedestrian connectivity. We already require access points, you know, where it's located. So really, it kind of opens it up to the commission of really what you're looking for when it comes to design features. And I'll just... I think there's these questions up here for you, but... Yeah, ultimately, if we're looking at expanding our menu, if we'd like to move more towards this this route, I didn't go through all the details of this on a route, but it's really what is it's it's a model code. It's what's being adopted throughout, you know, communities throughout the state. The thing with the model code, just like how it sounds, a community can take a model code and adopt it. And that's their new municipal code. That's what model codes are designed for. And then what design features do you think are worth keeping? As I mentioned, some of them are our design features are your covered porch entries, you know, this like additional gable, that commercially available siding carports. Um, I don't know how familiar this commission is with, I think commissioner Cornette recently built, you're probably familiar with some of those design features. Are there any that are worth keeping, um, adding to, um, And yeah, I just kind of wanted to open this up overall of how this commission feels when it comes to design standards.

I think moving more towards the ONA type makes sense. That seems like Oregon housing needs analysis. I mean, I haven't reviewed those, so take or leave, but it doesn't seem like the design features we've been talking about really seem to have a rhyme or reason.

um so i don't feel like it's valuable to keep them unless there's a purpose that i'm missing i'm kind of looking at that hybrid a little bit just i mean kind of get what you're saying with the the menu and some of them are you know, just kind of being able to balance out with a little bit both. It has some flexibility, but at the same time it gives you, uh, an ability to, you know, kind of keep a certain standard that doesn't get too crazy and out there.

What, what exactly, what exactly is hybrid? The expanded menu that we have now and the owner style.

Yeah, effectively.

So I think, you know, I think that our menu right now, the things that should be added to it, like take the last 10 to 15 directors, um, director's choice stuff, add it to that menu so that it's 20 or 25 and people still choose six. Um, I think I need to see an owner style, um, outcome to get a clear idea of what this is. I do think that a clearly defined pedestrian path is critical. I think the 50% glazing on the front of a house, the faces of the street is critical. That's about it.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely leaning towards more the ONA, but I would just say to you, Joshua, If we were going to do the hybrid, what do you think we could add to the ONA in addition that would help the DALs? That would be my only other consideration is, you know, go with the owner, make it a little bit more simple, but is there something that owner has that isn't meeting what we want here? You know, something about facing the gorge or windows. I don't know enough about design standards to tell you outside of that, but that's kind of my, my feeling is go with owner unless there's something that we feel that owner isn't achieving for what we want.

Yeah. I would say, you know, ultimately the owner approach is just very, um, I say it, you know, basic it's, it's, well, it's broad instead of being so specific to, I mean, one of the things that is specific about is the amount of glazing, but that glazing doesn't have to be this bow window or this bay window. It's just saying that X amount of glass has to be on the front of this building. Right. Um, you know, it talks about setbacks for garages and where garages are placed and things like that, which we already have some of those standards. We already have 20 feet that's required for a garage. So I would say, though, it doesn't get as much into the weeds of saying, you know, this type of siding or this type of roof pitch, you know, because the other thing you struggle with with our current, I do think our design standards are a bit out of, So out of date, I know when we started to see a lot of, you know, in the past decade, we've seen a lot of shed style roofs. You're not going to meet the standards of our code right now, you know, and it's becoming a very popular, it has been a very popular building design. And I think, you know, out in the Lone Pine area, you know, I think that there's some neat architectural designs out in the Lone Pine area. I think people have done a really nice job out there with the different designs. I remember at one point an individual came in. I personally thought it was a pretty neat house, had all these different, you know, things about it. I think they only met three of the standards that we had in our code because it was so modern looking, right? So I think you avoid, and I think if you go with this owner route, it does become a bit more timeless because I think you can achieve some of the same things with so many different architectural styles.

I also just don't feel like the city needs to be regulating folks' personal style with their house. Some people need their style regulated. The market will choose for them.

Yeah, own a style then for question one. Okay. Number two, is there some design features that are worth keeping?

I think we... That kind of answers that.

That kind of answers that. Is this thing standards already achieve the desired outcomes? I think garage standards, the pedestrian pathway like that. Anybody stop me if I need to. Should one to four unit housing share a common design baseline?

That's the whole thing. The idea about the fact that it's just like. What's that?

They can be detached.

Well, I think that's maybe a separate. It's more so the fact that if someone comes in with a single family home or if someone comes in with a quadplex, we're going to apply the same design standards between one and four compared to right now how it's built is in our code. If it's three or more units on a piece of property, it pushes you into this other design standard section so it's more i think the question is more along the lines of if we're using one to four is our threshold four is our threshold we're going to treat design standards the same way too yes please i like it all right yeah all right so um Cottage clusters here. I'm smiling. I don't know why because I'm taking up your whole evening here going through this, but it's really helpful. So I appreciate you hanging in there.

We appreciate you.

Yeah, thank you. So currently cottage clusters are allowed in the medium density and the high density zone. But the goal with HPS was to allow cottage clusters in the low density zone. um so what they are everybody's probably familiar with them by now they're smaller dwellings organized around a shared open space Currently, the density in the medium density zone for a cottage cluster is one cottage per 2,000 square feet, one per 1,500 square feet in the high density zone. There's also a common space requirement that requires 400 square feet and a private open space that requires 300 square feet per cottage. And there's some additional design standards. And I'm just really bringing these up to you to show you kind of what we look at. Once you go cottage cluster route, it's different. You're dealing with all different standards. We have an entire section that deals entirely with cottage clusters. So in the low density zone, if we allow cottage clusters in the low density zone, one thought here that I wanted to share, and this goes back to our first section that we were talking about, The goal, I believe, of course, I'm in the world of focusing on building as much housing as possible, right? But I think the focus and the sentiment in this community is low-density zone was designed at a lower density, and there was a purpose behind that. So when we talk about developing cottage clusters, the idea here is that once you decide to build a cottage cluster, you are required to meet the minimum density of the low density zone. So what we talked about earlier, we're allowing some higher density when you build up to a quadplex. The minute you go to the cottage cluster route, it's going to be a less dense development. Um, so that is, like I said, that's kind of the difference of what we've just talked about instead of that five, 7,500 and 10,000. But the minute you go over that quadplex, your density is going to be kind of reduced down because it's going to give you more of a development that probably fits more of that low density zone.

Yeah.

So ultimately, you know, when we look at cottage clusters, that's what we've gone down a rabbit hole with on cottage clusters is and our team has been discussing this for a while is what is the real incentive of building a cottage cluster in this community? Before we started having these conversations, right now, today, you can go out and you can build multiple units on a high-density or medium-density lot. Someone could come in tomorrow, and they could propose to build six whatever-sized units. And it would be considered a multifamily development, but they're all broken up. Someone could come in. Yeah, detached. Someone can come in. They can build their own cottage cluster development and they can build that cottage cluster to the development standards that are laid out in the code currently. The minute, you know, for instance, one of those being, I think it's like if you have five units, I think it's five units or more on a piece of property in the high density zone, you can build up to 45 feet tall. That's what the code currently says. I think it's really designed for a combined building because it might be kind of silly to build a single story or a single unit that's 45 feet tall, you know, four floors may not work out. But what we've experienced, and we've talked to people in the past, is they've come in and they want to go this cottage cluster route. Well, the minute they go the cottage cluster route, they're reduced in the height. They have all this additional open space, all these things that are associated with it. Someone, how our code is currently built, is someone can build a more effective cottage cluster using the regular design standards and the regular development standards that are already laid out. than going down this path of a cottage cluster. So it's one of the things I brought up here is it probably requires additional conversation at some point with this board to figure out what's a real incentive. How are we going to incentivize people to actually build those cottage clusters when you're talking to medium density and high density zones? I think the real incentive in a low density zone, it's immediate. We don't allow cottage clusters right now. So we're now creating a pathway for people to create create cottage clusters someone can come they have an acre of land and you go to low density zone you got an option now i'm going to build a subdivision and i'm going to go through and i'm going to put in this all the public infrastructure and do all that work or i'm going to take that acre of land i'm going to build a cottage cluster i'm going to build it how i want to build it it's going to have this open space that's a huge incentive for a developer now so ultimately when it comes to development incentives just wanted to bring this up because this is another aspect we've talked about manufactured homes parks we're not really going to touch and get too far into modifying too much of the cottage cluster code the goal here is really to just add cottage clusters into our low density zone so how do we do that So the questions we have in front of you, should the RL cottage clusters use the density framework or should be a different density? Because like we talked about, you know, you're going to be able to build a quadplex now with 10,000 square feet, which is far more dense than what our current density says. So should we require cottage clusters to just follow the low density, current low density framework?

Which would be 8.7 units per acre?

Correct. Should there be a minimum development site area? Should we retain the RL height and 400 square foot common open space? And should the RM and RH standards be left for a future date? Basically, that question is, do you really want us to dig further into the cottage cluster section now or at a later date? I would prefer the latter of those two, but I'd leave it up to the commission. So with these questions, I just wanted to open it up and get some guidance.

Let's try on this side.

I would say that they should be allowed if we are following our density standards that we've discussed as updating to, just because if they're not as dense as what we're allowing in our single family homes to be built in and duplexes anyways, I don't see where limiting that would be, because right now we're just saying no college clusters in the DALs is essentially what our code is saying. Minimum development side area?

Oh, we're just doing, just do question one for now. Just do one? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm back to you. Okay. I think that we should allow college clusters in RL zoning. I think that we, should increase the density. Not by much, maybe 50%. So instead of 8.7, it can be 12. That is 40... Hang on. That's 3630 square foot per... unit, cottage clusters are probably going to be 1,000. A cottage and a cottage cluster is probably going to be 1,000 square feet, maybe less. Let's say plus or minus 20% at the most. I think that's plenty of open space around each one to still retain an open space field that the low density zoning is going for. I say allow it up whatever the math is to allow up to 12 per acre.

Yeah, I think that we should allow.

Carrie, are you thinking?

Yeah, sorry. I don't know. I'm just split between it. I don't feel like I can make a decision.

I'll just make a comment. I would just say I'm against increasing the 12 if we're going to allow that in low density because then it might feel like we're putting high density in low density, but that's my only other comment.

I think that's lower than what we said they could do.

with like the townhouse yeah Cody's saying less than we would have allowed oh he's saying less oh I'm sorry I'm still allowing it but okay so the less dense than it could be it's less than what it could be based on the quadplex allowance that we're doing so you're saying make it less dense not more dense is what you're saying more dense than it is now less than

The 8.7? Yes.

Okay. I say 12 per acre. Right now it allows for 8.7 per acre, correct? I say allow 12 per acre. Because you are intrinsically getting a smaller home. Smaller houses are just going to be built. And they're limited in height.

Got it. So they're already regulated to be smaller?

Is there anything in the code that has to be smaller?

Yeah. Okay. If that's the case, then I would concur with that because they're going to take up less space. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks for explaining the math. Yeah, sure. So... One, yes. Should couch clusters use the load, is it? So, oh, so yeah, actually one, no adjustment to boost up to the 12th. Should there also be a minimum development site area? Okay, so this means, does it have to be on an acre? Can you like try to squeeze in a cottage cluster on a quarter acre lot, right?

No. Well, if you require.

No minimum?

No. Should there also be, oh, there should be a minimum.

I mean, is that math going to be what really dictates the minimum anyways?

I think market will decide some, right? You know, I would kind of look at this as like if I was a developer and I came in and I wanted to build three units or four units. I'm going to build four units at 32 feet tall using the current standards that you all just laid out. I'm going to do it on a 10,000 square foot lot. Instead of, I'm not going to use that 10,000 square foot lot to be confined to the cottage cluster standards. So a minimum development site area, I mean, it could be one of these things of like, Yeah, you could, you know, it's also going to be, you know, limited and regulated by your density.

Yeah.

So.

Like on a quarter acre lot, you're only going to get three.

Correct.

Based on what we were discussing.

So then maybe, yeah. I mean, so then it could be something of maybe let the developer in the market figure that one out because it's not going to pencil. There wouldn't be any sense of going that cottage cluster route.

Okay, well, I mean, it should be, I think, just for the sake of, yeah, I mean, there's some intrinsic restrictions already in there with our codes.

Maybe that's where I'm struggling is I don't know that regular cottage cluster requirements. I mean, I know what they are, but like how it has actually laid out in the code, I will admit I have not reviewed.

And that's fine. Since it was adopted, and I'll just give everybody a reference here, since it was adopted in 2019, we've had zero cottage clusters. I think we've had two people talk to us. I mean, everybody fantasizes about the idea of a cottage cluster, but then you try to fit it into this framework and you find out the restrictions associated with it. I mean, the strictions are in place to control that type of, you know, the massing and scaling that are in neighborhoods and things like that. That's why they're built there, but it does tie the hands of a developer. Yeah.

So do we need to set a minimum, or is the code in the market already determining that there's going to be a minimum?

Seems like there would be. Yeah, it would already determine before that. So I don't know if a minimum would be.

necessary I concur that we seem to already limit it with our code so like someone would want to have at least a half an acre I would imagine to do that and that would be the number that I would look at but it yeah yeah

Yeah, and we asked just for the fact that the medium and density and high density zones, the minimum size for a development area for dwelling units is 12,000 square feet. So it does require a minimum. Of course, you could run the numbers and figure out exactly what it all means, but there's also the restriction. In those zones, the minimum number of cottages per development is four. So we basically say that you... When you do three, you won't even consider it. We won't even process it as a cottage cluster. But it's also in those zones. Why would you go the cottage cluster route anyways if you could just build taller, right?

Okay, so there you go.

So no minimum.

That's what I'm hearing. No minimum, yep. Should we retain the low density height to... Wait, should we retain the RL height at 400 square foot Common space standards.

And I think that's a type on my end. I guess the question would be the height. Should we retain the cottage cluster height standard or effectively allow it to go to the RL height? How much? The height, I think, is 28 feet. And that's the thing about the cottage cluster. It would apply for your high density and medium density, too. It's like the 28 is... You're building cottages, you're building smaller units, but are you wanting those to be increased effectively? Would you want those cottages to be able to build at the same height that they're allowed if they were just building a regular home in the low-density zone? So would that...

I think we're about to ask the same question. Would that allow them to build beyond two stories at the current standard right now? 32 feet.

Yeah, yeah, you could probably get there. It'd be tight. But yeah, I think you could do three stories.

I would say to limit them to two stories just because you don't want them to be that tall, right? They're cottages.

Yeah, I'm proud of two stories.

Yeah, but I wouldn't want to restrict them. No, only one story.

That seems silly, too. 400 square foot minimum open space standards.

Yeah, and that's one that I think, for context, our consultant said when they looked through our code, they'd recommended that we reduce this in our medium and high density zones for cottage clusters. Cause they just felt like it was, there's a lot of space. There's a lot of space that you're providing on the development. If you reduce that, you can, you can pack more units in. But the thought that I had or that we're thinking through was if you keep it at that square 400 square foot, you're spreading the units out a little bit more, you know, and I think it's a little more, um, copacetic I guess if you will with the overall neighborhood because what you and I mean the decisions that you're making is the fact that you are increasing density these decisions you're making tonight you're increasing density in the low density zone how you know I still think personally there should probably be some guardrails on how you're increasing that but keep 400 square foot common open space

I'm for keep.

Can we explore that when we dive into the cottage cluster conversation more broadly? Could we keep the 400 for the low density and think about if it's worth shifting for the demon high? Yep. Makes sense then.

I like that idea too.

All right. And then number four, should our MRH standards be left for a future update? Yes.

Yes.

Right. The utilities and infrastructure, um, no action this evening. I just wanted to bring this up. These are some other stuff that we're considering here. Um, Just have some notes on here, making sure. I just wanted to get them up, mostly coming in your staff report, letting you know that we're having the coordination with, you know, our local facilities. We're making sure, you know, we touched on them a little bit ago with that townhouse setup. We're trying to figure out exactly how it's going to work. If we're talking, you know, utility requirements, there could be the fact that a lot of utility requirements are going to be addressed in other titles that the commission doesn't oversee. Right. So the commission oversees Title 10. So if we're talking sanitary requirements, that's going to be in Title IV, I believe. So it's just a matter of making it so that there's individual shutoffs, ultimately. We have some requirements to make sure. We required a few years back about making sure that we don't have daisy-chained units. Ultimately, you have... You have a sewer failure and one issue impacted another issue. That wouldn't be the case here because we've already made that difficult. You know, you can't really do that anymore. But it's just making sure that these units are set up in a way and our utility providers were very clear that, you know, they want it to be set up in a way that when developers go into it, it's very clear what you're doing when you're building middle housing for sale and or middle housing for rent, you know, just being very clear about that. um, That's it for this evening. It was great feedback. I really appreciate everybody sticking through this. This is gonna provide us the information that we need to move forward. November is where we are targeting having this conversation again, and that'll be moving it forward with the adoption process, getting it to city council, November, December time. So come the first of the year, the goal is still to have some middle housing these middle housing code amendments in effect. So that is all that I have for the evening.

Cool. Do you have any other staff comments or project updates?

I'll be quick. Our October meeting is going to be canceled. November meeting, as we just discussed, we might also be looking at updating those floodplain maps. We'll see how everything lands. The city's currently in the process of a development review audit with a grant that we received from the state. So this is a process. This is happening at the same time that that process is happening. And really what it's looking like is what is the process from the time you come in with a building permit to the very end, looking at these ideas of like a tiered, if everybody's familiar with the site plan review process, our site plan review right now is something that covers everything from food carts to data centers to 120 unit apartment complexes. They are not the same thing, right? So just taking a look at our process to figure out Streamlining, streamlining the path. If something is less intense, it goes down this path. More intense, it goes down this path. Establishing businesses, making establishing businesses easier. Currently, I have a pretty clunky process called the change of use process. Just taking a look at like, you know, starting a new business. What's that looking like? So this development review audit. We were able to do a program. So we have a couple of classes that are moving forward here come the fall term. One that's really exciting. We're still trying to figure out all the details coming up with the city of Hood River. Dustin Nielsen, the planning director for Hood River, trying to come up with a program.