Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I think the other person came up and did like Yeah, I did the same. The one on the right hand side, it was the left that was My name's Chris Grant and I am the new fire marshal. Jay Wood is retired so I thought I should come down and uh enjoy a planting day. Paula Paula Webb web that's okay is my bestie. Okay, excellent. Yeah, nice to meet you. I got an email from you today. Yes. So, John, how are you? Well, good see you. Hey, nice to see you, sir. Yes. Hi. How are you? Good. Hey, what's up, Cody? Doing great, man. Good. Hi. I um brought in you're open budget in case you dying to see that. I am dying to see it. How you doing, buddy? Good. How are you? Good. Trying to selling lots of houses. Also trying to. We have this meeting outside. What do you think? [Laughter] Uh, is this Got it. That's okay. Yeah, it's super nice out. It's really hard really hard to really hard to say no on a day like this. How's the beer salad? Good. this month already. Nice. Last month was That's so great. Really?

Everybody was sl What do you think causes that? I think just either people not drinking as much or some health type things or also weather related type things. Yeah, I can see that. But once uh once the uh kickoff of spring break and it was started getting people going through like yeah I just brought your cake last week like yeah bring nice let's see so like last month okay got it yeah I feel like with February and like late February it was just like winter again people just just powered down it's definitely kind of kind of like watch spending too once Everybody actually starts getting those tax. Yeah, for sure. Restaurants and nice wasn't too bad. I'll have to explore new areas. Yeah, that's good. Downtown Portland. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, it's Yeah, it's changing big time. I was there, dude. when we went down there. I think we're there like two years ago, you know, because we like we go there often enough like you like kind of like see some of the carnage and And then like two, like I said, two years ago, we were downtown like on Grant and uh weren't that far in. Either way, we were downtown, not downtown, still on the east side of the river and you're just like, "Oh, like you know Yeah.

[Music] Oh, yeah. For sure. Oh, yeah. Dude. Yeah. The uh the train station, Union Station is still gnarly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're just like, "All right." But there's like those people are just like so like in their own world of like what whatever issues they have. Like you can walk right past them. They don't even see you. Oh, yeah. They're just like whatever they're doing, dude. Like they're just doing it. Yeah. I walk by one, you know, usually they burst and like you just like walking by this guy right next to him and he has little outbursts and just immediately like flipped on like kind of snapped back at him and just looked just kind of went away. Yeah. Take me back to the Uh, when's the last time you've been in in? What? Last time I've been to the brewery. I wanted to go Tuesday night, but you guys are closed. I needed I need a Detroit style bed. Uh, I think I think just a couple weeks ago. I went I went in for lunch. Pretty soon. Nice. the coach. It's kill it's Is it kill the keg Fridays or is it kill the keg starting now? Starting now. Starting now. Got it. All those all the dark beers just all those winter beers going to be going. I have to balance that out, dude. I got a pretty big bike ride planned on Sunday. I can't I can't spend there's a balance to be achieved there. going. Uh, so the gravel grinder in Der,

you know, that's April 28th. So I'm going to go do that loop on Sunday and scope it out and then Yeah. You know, have shorter rides in between and then go do that again on the 28th. Yeah. Rock. What's that? Oh, sorry. Meeting time then. [Laughter] Um, okay. Planning Commission, April 3rd, 2025. It is 5:30. I call this meeting to order. Paula, may you please have the roll call. Present. Cody Cornett present. Grant present. Ria Pena present. Pippenich present. Popoff is absent and Nick Cortella is absent. 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, justice for all. All right. Next is the approval of the agenda. If everyone has read the agenda, may I please have a motion to approve with a second? A motion to approve the minutes. Okay. Or I'm I apologize. Uh approval of the agenda. Second. Um approve the uh motion to approve the agenda has been made along with a second. All in favor of approving the agenda, raise your right hand, say I. I. Thank you. Next is the approval of the minutes from the March 6th, 2025 meeting. If everyone has read those minutes, may I please have a motion to approve with a

second motion. Go ahead to approve the uh minutes. Thank you. And it has been seconded the minutes from the March 6th U. Those in favor of approving the minutes from the March 6, 2025 meeting, please raise your right hand, say I. I. I. I. 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. Anyone in the public care to make public comments? Planning meeting because this is where it all happens. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, in that case, that'll that'll conclude that part of public comment. Next is a discussion item, planning commission restructuring opportunities. Uh, thank you. Chair Cornet, uh, Commissioners Joshua Chandler, Community Development Department. Um, as mentioned here, our our one item on the agenda is discussion and we've briefly touched on at the last meeting and this is this idea we're taking a look at, you know, two different approaches to restructuring the planning commission. Um, as you know, the planning commission plays plays a crucial role in ensuring sustainable development, balance balancing community needs and guiding responsible land use decisions. Uh so as you know we meet uh regularly scheduled meetings occur on the on Tuesdays excuse me um the first and third Thursdays of of each month. Um get into that a little bit these two options we're talking about uh potentially reducing those down to one meeting a month. The other is the introduction of a hearings officer and that is something that is is going to

take up probably the majority of this discussion. And I think this that first key point is is pretty easy to discuss here. So um diving right into it. Uh planning commission meetings as I mentioned first and third Thursday of each month. Um one of the options we are looking at for restructuring the commission is reducing that down to uh just one meeting a month. Um the basis behind this really is you know taking a look back at you know statistically all of the um information that we have. Um well, you know, dating back about 11 years from 2013, you know, 55% of these meetings have been cancelled for one reason or another. Um I am not really in support of just having meetings for meetings and and um I want to use people's time wisely. Um there is the ability I mean here I think we might look at a pretty short meeting. Um we could you know when you reduce it down to one meeting a month you can kind of load up each of those meetings and have more you know thoughtful discussions more full meetings. Um but really that is you know one of the things that we looked at is just reducing the number based on just the fact that we less than half of the meetings over the last 12 years have been cancelled. So we are sending out a lot of meeting cancellations more meeting cancellations than meeting invites. So, um, this has ranged through the years. I think last year, as you know, we had a lot of cancellations. Um, there was some staffing shortages playing into that. You know, as I was looking back at the data, I was thinking to myself, is it just something that's been happening recently? And it's just there's waves. There's waves at times. Some years they're up, some years they're down. Co, of course, was kind of a blip in the in all the scheduling. uh recommendation that we would have is um actually moving it so that the if we were to go this route the first um the first Thursday of every month is what we

would look at having those planning commission meetings. Uh the reason being is we also have um our urban renewal agency which the community development department supports uh occurs on the second on the third Tuesday of every month. So, um, selfishly for our staff when we have two meetings in one week, it is it can be pretty brutal as far as preparing the packets that go into each. So, kind of taking a look at that and not wanting to uh, you know, um, thinking about overall uh, team bandwidth, meeting preparation, these timelines, different constraints. Uh we would recommend if this is the option to have these on the first Thursday of each month. We do understand that this could pose a potential uh potential uh conflict with typically New Year's Day or Independence Day could very well fall on one of those first Thursdays. Uh we think we can mitigate that just with future planning uh planning ahead. Um also there is the ability we can always schedule a special meeting. So special meetings can be we've done them here before when we've had to reschedule things. So special meetings can be planned. Um, the second point of this this discussion tonight, the idea of the hearings officer to kind of keep in lock step with that, we could potentially if we were to go the hearings officer route continue to have two th you know, the first and third Thursday, but that that third Thursday would be um the evening where uh we could have those hearings officer hearings. So, um, that's just the option that we're throwing out there. And maybe before we jump into the second item, just wanted to get, uh, the

commission's thoughts on that. Any comments, concerns, questions? Yeah. I mean, I think I think going down to one meeting a week with special meetings as needed is great. One meeting a week. I'm not sorry. One meeting a month. Yeah. I would like Yeah. Sorry. Um one meeting a month. That's a lot of meeting. Um and I have I have always thought about like you know you got the staff that are on salary working 40 weeks. So 40 hours a week already you know adding these meetings to it. If we can make better use of our time and especially your time in that sense I think that's that's going to be better for everybody. Great. Great. Yeah. Well, with uh I appreciate that. Appreciate the comments. Um I think that was the easy one. So, we'll jump on to the next. Sounds like we have full support from the planning commission. Looking ahead, just to give you a heads up, we'll touch on it at the end. Um after this, we're actually going to have a com, you know, this discussion will be presenting to the city council. So, the city council is the ultimate authority to make changes to the planning commission. Uh but it is good you know as we go into those discussions to hear the qu you know any concerns that the planning commission have may have with any one of these topics so we can relay that information to the city council so they know so they can make the best decisions. So the next um item here is the adoption of a hearings officer into the land use review process. So hearings officer is an is an impartial third-party land use attorney which would be contracted by the city of the Dallas to review specific types of land use applications. Uh this professional would ensure that the city's land use processes are efficient and partial and compliant with established legal standards. The use of a hearings officer

has been successful around successfully implemented around the state. Um other communities such as Wasco County uses a hearings officer, uh Dashuites County, the city of Happy Valley, the city of Salem to name a few here. So the hearings officer is would be responsible and this what we are bringing you what we are proposing would be responsible for reviewing land use applications that require decision making beyond simple administrative processes. So, and when we're looking at land use processes, um the city of the Dows is a little more unique. Uh but most, you know, when you look at the structure of land use, you're basically your applications are type 1, 2, 3, and four here in the Dows, they are ministerial, administrative, quasi judicial, and legislative. They mean the same thing. Type one through four, what I just listed, ministerial up to legislative, same thing. Um, as you may know, ministerial applications, these are building permits, these are signed permits, change of uses. These are things that are handled by a planner in the office. Uh, the next step up is an administrative application. Administrative application is u something like a minor partition or a subdivision or a site plan review. And then there's quasi judicial which come in front of the planning commission. So there's those ministerial administrative applications that the planning commission doesn't even review at this stage. So we wouldn't be implementing the hearings officer into those reviews at all. It would just be for this quasi judicial step. So quasi judicial examples of those conditional use permits variances which are some that we've discussed just in the recent months. But also what the planning commission hears is the um excuse me appeals to those administrative actions which you all have heard quite a few appeals. Um so administrative action director makes a decision on administrative action.

There's an appeal period. That appeal then comes in front of the planning commission to decide on then your decision as you know your decision can be appealed to city council. city council is the final say for the city of the Dallas when it comes to land use decisions and sorry unless go unless it's appealed again unless it's appealed to the city council level in which case it goes to Luba. Yeah. So still though um the city council is the final say for the city. So the city's final the city's final decision is the city council actions. Um, any city council decision, any city council land use decision can be appealed to the land use board of appeals. Once it goes to land use board of appeals, it's out of our hair. We're more kind of in the background. City attorney gets involved. We assist through the process, but it's handled by um attorneys at the state level. Okay. So the hearings officer what we would be proposing these specific applications we would be talking they would basically be stepping in for the planning commission to hear some of these cases that the planning commission hears. So we're talking about these appeals to the administrative actions. So that would be something that a director makes a decision if it's appealed goes to a hearings officer. The next would be taking a look at those type three applications or our quasi judicial applications. These are those conditional use permits the variances instead of the planning commission overseeing those. a hearings officer would. Um the others would be um the other thing to touch on here is appeals of a quasi judicial action. So that's something I'll touch on in this next section here. So appeals of quasi judicial actions as you know as I just mentioned those go to the city council to make that decision. So the city's final decision which we were just talking about it's currently the city council. Uh the city council is responsible in this process. When you establish a hearings officer, the city's

council would be responsible for determining whether the hearings officer is the city's final say on an application or not. So there is an option that a hearings officer decision could be appealed to city council to have city council make that final say. or there is an option where the hearings officer's decision is the city's final decision and then that can be appealed to the land use board of appeals. So effectively what it does is it takes that land use decisionm out of the hands of the local authorities and it goes to a contracted third party attorney. What about um um okay so let's let's take the you want to go ahead go ahead you may have my same question I don't know all right so let's take like the basalt commons project for example yeah so it comes to it came to planning commission appealing no it came to planning commission for the variance excuse me not the variance that that conditional use permit for the height. Yes. That was a quasi judicial which came to you first. You had the first bite at the apple, if you will. Right. So, we get that and then we make our decision and then our decision is appealed regarding the property owner to the east and then it comes back to us. We make our decision. Then if he were to appeal it again, then it would have went to city council. Correct. Yeah. So that one was like a there was there was two applica there's three applications in that one project. The one that you didn't hear was a minor partition. That was a replatting of land wasn't really contentious at all. The

other was the variance that was increasing the height. That was quas judicial. The type three application started with you. You were the very first decision. It was appealed and when that was appealed it went to city council. The next application that came in was the site plan review. We reviewed the site plan review that the director made the decision on that. That was appealed came to planning commission. That was appealed by the furniture store owner. Correct. And that did not get appealed to city council. Okay. So in this case where if we have a hearings officer, it's still three separate applications. So that hearing off that hearings officer would have heard that well of those three applications he would have heard two of them the so if the height and the site plan review the site plan review appeal correct okay y yeah I'm just the reason I ask is just let's say he was sorry let's say he was to make similar decisions as we did would the process for those appeals still go to city council. That is the that would be a decision that city council has to make. And it would also, you know, to to move the conversation along with city council, it would be great to, you know, maybe walk away from this discussion today maybe knowing what the planning commission is recommending in that case. So there is the option that the hearings officer that's your final say and I can say I have included in my staff report staff's recommendation um I thought about a little more I you know maybe recommendation is a little more split but staff's recommendation is that the hearings officer's decision could be appealed to city council part of the reason that's staff's recommendation here is that is a conversation that I've had with Wasco County that's currently what they're

doing so it's a local example that we can pull from. Sorry, say that again. So, hearings officer makes a decision, it gets appealed, goes walk council has the final. So, Yep. It goes to the board of county commissioners. Yep. So, when you look at it, um you know, there there are pros and cons to it. Pros obviously there's the the final say is is the local authority. Um there's some cons in that potentially, you know, maybe not as impartial. Um, but you can also look at in the event a hearings officer makes the final decision for the city, you can imagine how much time that would cut out of the overall land use process. So the land use process in the state of Oregon from the day an application is deemed complete, we have 120 days to make a decision. And some of these projects slug along and they go up to 120 days and then an application can be appealed to Luba and then that's even longer. So we can have some very long applications to build build out subdivisions, build out multifamily projects. If you do the hearings officer, you could effectively you could probably cut that time in half. I may be jumping ahead here. Is there any opportunity for us to recommend and ultimately the city council decide this for certain things to just have the the hearings officer be the final say and then not certain things um go back to city council. you know, maybe some things that require maybe a little more local touch or that would where perhaps the applicant and the general population would appreciate a local touch. Um, I mean, I could haven't looked into that. I don't know if our our city attorney Jonathan Cara has any comments on that right off

right off the bat, Jonathan. In the sense of basically certain certain applications can be appealed to city council, certain can't Yeah. Can you can you all hear me? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I'm I'm currently on the road. I apologize. Actually, we can't hear you. We can't hear you very well at all. Is this Is this any better? A little bit. Yeah. How about now? Yeah. Okay, great. Sorry about that. Again, I'm on the road, so if I lose reception, I'll try to be quick. Yeah, there's no there's no reason why the city couldn't have um uh different appeals processes or different hearings officer uh you know, implementation for different types of applications. But, uh, I think that it it would be worth having a conversation as to why, um, the planning commission would want to reserve that. And I know, you know, you mentioned a local touch. Um, but I think it would I think it would be a much a much harder way. I think you would have a hard time articulating exactly which kinds of applications or at least I can't think of any off the top of my head u that the planning commission would want to reserve. And I know that Josh is still going through his staff report, but he hasn't he hasn't really mentioned yet, you know, what what the planning commission's role would be if all qualitations. I think that frankly that would free up the planning commission to focus. It would shift the focus of the planning commission in a in a different direction. Usually um the planning commission handles both applications and you know everything else. But I think if we start to remove the appeals process from your agendas, it would free you all up to do some engage in some long-range planning for the future of our city. And I think that that would be something the city council would be interested in too. But um to answer your question in a

really long-winded way, I don't believe that there's anything stopping um the city council from implementing a hearing officer in in some situations and and not in others. So Okay. Yeah. So and and thank you, Jonathan. Um, and yeah, I'll I'll continue to go through, but I just wanted, you know, that is a point, you know, the city's final decision. Did Did we answer your question? Um, Commissioner Case, I keep going. I might have more later. It's fine. Okay. I mean, I have one, but it's fine. You feel free with this discussion layout format here. Feel free to interrupt me. You know, it's not like a typical process where I'm, you know, you know, going through the staff report, you know, step by step. I kind of want this to be some open dialogue for you all. So feel free to interrupt me whenever. I do have a question. I think that I mean like what Jonathan said like it does move us to a different direction and while I appreciate that like so how would we I mean I don't have time every day to go through all the things online to see you know what I mean? So like if we have a hearings officer are we still getting that information and are we still you know what I mean? like because I think that that removes us from some of the things that are going on and then people talk to us, you know what I mean? Or ask questions and things and then we don't know anything if we have a hearings officer and then it just goes directly to city council. that makes me feel like we aren't really here doing a job that we're supposed to be doing besides long-range planning, which I understand and I think that's very valid and very important, but daytoday stuff that we're in the weeds with currently from time to time like we would not necessarily know about that and that feels that doesn't feel great. Yeah. So, it's and I I value that opinion. I um I'm not sure where it's at in the staff report, but the idea around it would be if we were to go the hearings officer route, all of those items that are discussed with the hearings officer,

they would be brought up in a staff update every single planning commission meeting. Okay? So, at least once a month, you would hear about the decisions or the applications that were heard by the hearings officer. You may that process would you'd probably hear about it after the fact. Mhm. So that might, you know, require some tweaking. Does that feel I I don't I mean, sure, like, I understand where it's coming from and I understand cutting time and all the other I get it. It just doesn't feel like it's real purposeful then, if that makes sense. Yeah. So, it's purposeful. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's I But I understand the other purpose of us and that's the longrange plan. Like I get that if that makes sense. like I that's not an issue, but that the stuff that we currently see, not that we all need to have our hands in all of it. I'm not saying that either, but but knowing about it so in a staff report after the fact is fine. And if you knew about it ahead of time, like these are the things that are going before the hearings officer, you know what I mean? I mean, and I know that might be duplicate information. I I don't know the answer. I'm just saying like that just doesn't it doesn't feel great as a planning commission that should know all of those things and we're finding out about it after the fact if that makes sense. That's that's yeah and it could be planned before you know it could be you know knowing that we have a hearings officer agenda up for applications on the agenda those those I don't know I just Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, it's no problem. Yes, sorry. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to jump in. You know, I I don't think there's anything stopping um the planning department from sending out a an email. I mean, we already issued notices of like, for example, notices of appeals, right? Um and those go out to the planning commission and to parties of record. And so I I'm not

the but I think we could very simply notice the planning commission of these kinds of like you know hey officer this is the submitted notice of application just to keep you guys in the loop. Um that could be something that we you know um interject into our current process. Mhm. Yeah. And I think it would be I think it would be similar in the sense that I mean right now I mean I believe you're all receiving notices every time we have a minor partition that goes out that you may not hear you may not need to know about. Someone's replotting their land. They have three lots and they want to turn it into one. You're all receiving those notices already. So it would be a similar process. I think we'd probably but something to be mindful of, you know, and make sure that we do it in a you know. All right. No, no, it's a good it's a good comment. I appreciate that. Yeah. Um I think uh one of the things that comes to mind for me is the size of the area of the city versus some of the other mun municipalities that you've mentioned. You know, Wasco County as a whole having a hearings officer. That's that's a lot more land. Uh same with some of the cities that you described. Um and being a planning commissioner, I don't think that we've been over stimulated with the amount of u you know quasi judicial hearings that we've had here in the past. Um, so I I don't know if a city our size would really warrant having a hearings officer to where we would have to pay uh somebody for their time. I mean, I understand it does speed up the

process. Um, but I do think it also gives a sense of the community to the uh citizens to know that they can send the emails. we have them in front of us. We do have a hearing process and you know we can keep it open to the public. It gives it a little bit more transparency. Um so I Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's a good point. I didn't include it in here, but I do know that there is the land use attorney that we were connecting with to provide this information to us. He kind of he goes out and he serves communities in eastern Oregon. So he comm he he serves some pretty small communities. City of Hood River is also looking into implementing the same thing. They're half the size population wise. So I do hear your points though. Um and yeah, that's what this is all about. Wanted to bring it. Yeah, go for it. So the hearings officer, would it be in a format similar to this or would it be they come to your office and read all the things and ask the questions? You know it like what what does that look like? Yeah. And if uh you know I'm happy, how about I dig into this a little bit more because I think I might answer some some more of these questions. No, it's all good. I know I I kind of took us off. So I'll I'll dig into a little bit more. Um so the legislative actions to point out legislative actions, those would still be handled how they're being handled. Those are those those zone changes, comprehensive plan amendments, zoning ordinance amendments, you know, our RV park code when we did the density changes. All those outside of the hearings officer's purview, they would not touch those at all. That would just be city count, that would just be the planning commission and the city council. Um, looking at the cost analysis of this, um, the cost of a hearings officer ranges depending on the attorney where you're at in the state, they're ranging from about $135 an hour to $350 an hour. um cities, some cities, larger cities, definitely larger cities,

um have a salaried chief hearings officer. Actually, the city that I worked at before this, the city of Jacksonville down in southern Oregon, it's about 2,000 people. They have a hearings officer. So, um there is there is a wide range that it's a it's it's it's a format that's available in the land use process. So, it's something that can't that's tailor fit to the community. So, that's the one thing to keep in mind. And it's not a one-sizefitit all type of thing. Um the city of course with this, you know, there is that chief hearings officer that's salaried. That's not something we are considering here. Instead, the city would be looking at something, you know, establishing an RFP process, looking for requests for proposals, requests for qualifications for um land use attorneys to be able to go through a selection process that way. Um staff is proposing um an allocation of $10,000 into this next fiscal year. Um of course that is all going to be dependent on these conversations with the planning commission and city council, but with our budget process occurring right now. Um it was something that we felt that we needed to get the money in there in the in the event that this is something that would be considered potentially by the end of this year or next year. Um we base that amount on um the average amount of applications that are heard. Um about seven or eight applications have been heard on average over the past about 11 years. That same time frame that I looked at for um meetings and cancellations. Um city uh excuse me the Wasco County um they they can't say enough good things about it. Um the Wasco County's community development director has actually mentioned she may come to city council to discuss. Overwhelming success over there. Um their planning commissioners have really appreciated the process. Um what they have done with fees is they have actually it's resulted in a 10% increase in their application fees. So to try to

offset what we're doing is we're budgeting $10,000 in the fiscal year budget. Wasco County how they're doing it is they are actually increasing those application fees and uh she has mentioned over there um Kelly uh director Kelly Hley Glover has mentioned um those their applicants haven't haven't winced at the increase in the fees just because the process has been so streamlined. Um so the process for implementing a hearings officer um there's multiple code amendments that need to be made in um titles 10 and titles 11 of the Dallas municipal code various changes need to be made. Uh the commission's bylaws need to be changed because you know all throughout it currently reads that the planning commission makes these decisions. Uh we would go through a request for proposal process which I talked about. Um there's the coordination and consultation. This would be something, you know, working with the city council, planning commission, city manager, and city attorney to ensure that these changes align and the implementation timeline. Um staff's, you know, um confident that we could, if this is something that's supported, is something that we could implement by January 1st of of 2026. Community engagement, I think we touched on this a little bit. uh community engagement um is something we want to be we want to ensure that that's still very much part of the process. It's uh it's part of our you know community engagement is one of the cornerstones of the statewide planning goals. We want to make sure that people have a voice in this process. We also want this process to be flexible. Um so ensuring public involvement is key element to this change. uh promoting transparency uh meeting with hearings officers uh will remain acceptable to the public. Um Wasco County's example, they are able to basically meet people where they're at

and um they have provided virtual meetings for them. Um they are, you know, some some prefer, you know, in some formats, some prefer those those evening meetings, some prefer meetings in the daytime. I've always been one to think of I know sometimes meetings can go along, but I've always kind of been one that's more in support of night meetings because I do believe we're all busy. We all have jobs and to give people in the public the right to hear about something, they should be able to get there um after business hours. So, um but those can all be adjusted. Public hearings can occur regular. What we're thinking is our regular historically time our historical time slots which I mentioned earlier the third Thursday staying at 5:30 to accommodate community members who want to participate um dur outside of those business hours. Um these meetings can be held similar to what they are. They can be held in person. There can be virtual options. Um we can make it you know basically it would be the same type of format here. Uh so pros and cons jumping into that the pros of uh implementing hearings officer. He hearings officer brings specialized legal knowledge. They are land use attorneys. Um efficiency delegating their tasks to them can cause uh it can streamline the process. As I mentioned um they are impartial. So the use of an independent third party ensures decisions are made without political or community bias. And this one, I know that we've talked a little bit of having that local feel. I can't put it enough. We shouldn't be putting a local feel into land use decisions when we're talking about clear and objective standards. That'll be kind of my point for the evening. Um, also reduce planning commission

burden. And I know it sounds like um maybe this isn't something that's really being considered. So maybe I'll just bypass that and jump to the next. Uh, so the cost is one of the cons. I mean, as I mentioned, you know, we're we're estimating or we're budgeting $10,000 for this. So, there is a cost to hire someone out. Um, the appeals process is something that we would need to work on to adjust. Um, that is something, you know, we we need to figure that out whether or not it's the hearings officer is the final say, what the case may be. Um, workload for staff really kind of stays the same. we would be preparing meetings. Um maybe we wouldn't be putting together public meetings but we would be preparing that information whenever a hearings officer um meeting is needed. And um one that is a little bit it can cause a slight delay in the process is um there's typically a hearings officer needs time to deliberate on the issue before um det before issuing out that decision. So, as I mentioned, um, staff coordinated with the Wasco County Planning Director as well as a as a well-known state land use attorney, uh, to gather all the information here. Um, these really were based on, you know, just trying to set to assess best practices through this whole entire structure. Um, we do want to touch on once again, you know, when we'll get into it, we just really want to determine, you know, if this is something that we go forward with, what the city's final decision is. I think that's very important. uh fis uh financial considerations will be something that we will always need to consider throughout the process whether it's an increase in fees or whether we are looking at continued contract

budgeting every year um in in the fiscal budget and then to improve clarity um applications. One of the recommendations we had from the land use attorney we worked with was to try to align our our the terminology type one two three and four. That was his experience to try to try to align that so we can kind of shift around. Not a big change I wouldn't think on our end. Overall um this is kind of I think we kind of jumped around a little bit on this which is which is fine which I wanted. um next steps looking ahead is I'd like to get some more, you know, insight from you all on what you're feeling about this these potential changes and we will be discussing this with city council at our April 28th meeting and incorporating these comments and see what the next steps would be after that. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. We can dig into any finer details, go from there. I have I have finer details if you don't mind. Okay. Um, so I want to clarify something that I said earlier when I said that the hearings officer or certain decisions made by the hearings officer could either be a appealed to city council, not us. And other things could be just appealed directly to Luba. For instance, I think we could do it based on like geography. Like if there's a land use decision that happens within the historic downtown, those should be appealed to city council. Other things should be appealed directly to Luba perhaps. Um the reason that I said, you know, a local touch on some of these things, yes, the planning commission is, you know, we base our decision on the black and white of the code, clear and objective. We know that. But there's some things when they're escalated to city council where that that personality

on that board has a little more influence on the decision than what we can on this on this commission, right? Um the sign thing for instance, billboard decision. Um, the other aspect of that local touch that I that I meant when I said that is we see and and we make decisions that if they weren't in front of us, we wouldn't know that they the RV parks, for example, if we didn't know that those decisions were happening and that so many of the community members felt a certain way about it, that would not have initiated us to make those changes in the code. Same thing with the um density issue that we had with that um property on West 15th. You know, we only knew that because we went through that appeal process and we're like, "Oh, we need to change the code." So, I think that it would be important for us if these hearings officer meetings are indeed um accessible to the public and recorded that if they are to go to the hearings officer and no longer to us that we have to watch those and stay informed on them because that's the only way that we're going to know what what the people are dealing with, you know, and that that is what I'm afraid of losing. But again, it would be up to us if the information is available for those publicly accessible meetings to just stay informed on that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I would just be a little bit nervous about the latency, but again, if we're on the planning commission, that would just become part of our responsibility. Yeah. Got something to piggyback on that. Um I definitely um how would I word this? just it did there doesn't seem like

there's a whole lot of benefit. I I understand that some people are some areas are just love this process. Um, but I do think it puts us out of touch on the information on on how to work on the long-term planning and, you know, we we would be raising costs and I don't think anybody wants to raise up, you know, the the cost of applications um when we're more than capable to uh oversee these hearings. And then, you know, we'd have to go through bylaws changes. Um, you know, we would the staff would have to put a lot of time and effort into making this come together before January 2026. So, um, you know, when when we weigh the pros and cons, I I just don't see a big benefit from this. Oh, uh, actually, Addie, you go real quick if you don't mind. Um, I was just going to say that I feel 75% better knowing that the hearings officer, it would be a public situation much like this because I think that whether we're on the planning commission or not on the planning commission, a it's available for us to see or to attend um and keeping our Thursday schedule. So, we may not be sitting up here, but there's no reason we couldn't come and and listen so that we were engaged. And that's what I was missing like on that. That's that was that was the piece for me that um that brings it all home. I do think it's probably much more efficient. I think they are would be um knowledgeable in the area that um we

potentially are not. Just because we're community members doesn't mean that I I don't know a lot about land use. I do a lot of research before I come to things, but I don't that's not my expertise and it's not going to be. Um, and I think so that was the piece I was missing. So I'm grateful to see that that's there because I do think that that people are still able to share their testimony and share their conversations or, you know, share share all that public information so that they they're essentially switching out spots with Cody, you know, realistically and and listening to all of that. And there's no reason. I think it streamlines things and I think feel better about it now. But I'd like, you know, like I still think we could work on the behind the scenes like figuring out what those look like so that if it is going to be something contentious or something that could be appealed that we would need to know about, we would have a heads up about that as far as that's concerned like like um you know, Jonathan was saying like an email about things like that, you know, just to give us a heads up of what's happening so that we would be forewarned so that it would be a a smooth transition. And those are kinks that'll just have to work out. And um anyways, so that that was just my comment. Okay. Thank you. Well, I think just real quick, those appeals wouldn't come to us. No, no, no. But but we need to know about them because we are commission. So that's what I'm saying. So like if we had the information, that's what I was afraid we were going to be missing is that if we're not involved at all, then we're just getting a report that says, "Oh, this is what happened." Well, that's great, but what if you know what I mean? cuz then we're still in the we're still on the planning commission. So, we're still going to be approached for those conversations even though it doesn't come to us if that makes sense. Yeah. No, I get you. That's that's what that's the piece I was missing. So, that makes me feel a lot better. Not that that matters, but there you go. Um Jonathan Cara, thank you. Yeah, I mean um you guys are all mentioning

the nothing here is unique to the Dallas, right? Um and so as this process was being um developed in Oregon and and in other states throughout the country, uh planning commissions everywhere were having the same kind of conversations. And so um I'm encouraged to hear that we're having that kind of a conversation here tonight. Um as far as I I just wanted to address a couple of the of the concerns and maybe offer a different perspective. And so, uh, I think Commissioner Grant mentioned, you know, um, and I think Josh mentioned earlier the the proposed budget here around $10,000. Josh, is that is that for the fiscal year? Okay, that's correct. Okay. Um and so that would be a proposed budget and and budgets um budgets are estimated guesses and um oftentimes for for example the legal department for the city of the Dallas frequently over budgets and so I you know I think the budget this year for my department was like $670,000 but I don't think I've ever spent more than about half of that. Um, and so that's probably on me. Not a great, you know, uh, example, but, um, it doesn't need to be terribly expensive. However, um, I think that a part of the conversation that I see frequently overlooked, uh, not just on this planning commission, but just generally on on the conversation of planning commissioners versus hearings officers is the actual reduction in and in and cost to the city. um that is in theory associated with the fact that a hearings officer as a land use professional should be making well-reasoned and wellsupported decisions and I'm and and this is not a jab at the planning commission and you guys have all been great and I know the work that you all put into this but in theory you know 10 years from now none

of you could be on the planning commission um and it could be filled with different people but the idea there is that one day the planning commission could make a decision based off of something that isn't substantial evidence that's in the record. The planning commission in theory could make biased decisions for uh their friends, their family, um whoever the case is or the one that supports their interests in a way that that isn't obvious. And I think the idea behind a hearings officer, one of the things that I personally like very much about it in my capacity as the attorney for the city is that in theory um they shouldn't be making any decisions. is based off of anything other than what is written in our code and the code uh title 10 which is the code that you all use whenever we're having um anything before the planning commission is is never going to change without the planning commission's involvement as as chair Cornet mentioned and so as I tried to say earlier it definitely involves a shift in the planning commission's role in our city and it's in in in a lot of ways a less direct role but in more ways I think it would result in a more direct role in the future of our city's planning. um you guys would have more time to approach code changes and we might I mean it's been quite some time since we've had a substantive code amendment before the planning commission and so you would hear less hearings and not all the hearings are super um uh controversial. Some of them certainly can be, but again, in theory, it should be it should be less expensive for the city um to pay a hearings officer to make sound, reasoned, wellsupported decisions based off of the text in our code that

you all write or or direct, you know, me to write. um than it would be for let's say a biased planning commission one day makes a decision just to support the needs of you know their own personal interest or the interest of a family member or a friend or a business partner um because those kinds of decisions will will nearly certainly always be appealed and the amount of upfront cost u associated with staff time the planning director's time the city attorney's time um and that's not even to say the outside council's time that we would be engaging in for those kinds of appeals. Um $10,000 is is a bargain. I think it's almost like you're buying insurance. Um coupled with the fact that hearings officers um the hearing that the hearings officer would be presiding over is always going to be open to the public. And I think Commissioner Casease mentioned um not only can the public attend, but the planning commissioners themselves can attend. um if you want to have the most um you know boots on the ground type of mentality here, there's no reason whatsoever that a planning commissioner couldn't attend. Um and so there's lots of opportunities I think for this idea to be a tremendous success. There are absolutely investments in time and staff time, the planning director's time, the city attorney's time right now if you know if we were to go down this road to get this to get these changes implemented. Um I'm not going to say that there aren't uh you know that there isn't uh but just like everything else, you know, a step at a time and uh I'm certainly not complaining about any additional work there. That's that's the job. Um and and that six month not the six months, excuse me, the January 1st deadline that the planning director mentioned um and that Commissioner Grant referenced I I think that's aspirational. I don't I I know it's

aspirational rather it's it's certainly not a set in stone kind of a deadline and so hey if it doesn't happen until February or March next year you know it's not the end of the world for anybody. So, I just wanted to get some of those thoughts u you know expressed and hopefully it's helpful as the rest of this conversation develops. Um yeah, thank you. Thank you uh Commissioner Pipenich. Um I appreciate Jonathan's input there. That was sort of the thing that was running through my mind was that if we're doing our jobs right with the review, we should be coming to the same conclusion that a hearings officer is if we're basing it off of the facts in front of us in the code. Um that that that shouldn't change the decisions that are coming out of the city um for these kinds of uh actions. And so if it's creating a situation where the process is more efficient for the folks that are looking at doing development city then I think it's a positive opportunity for us to continue to make that develop climate better. Um so appreciate appreciate that and the insight into sort of what that process looks like for staff. Um, and would just be interested too in some of Josh's thoughts on some of the things that could be spending time on if we were shifting some of this responsibility to officer. Yeah. What are what are we going to do with ourselves? I was going to give you all a bunch of time off. No. Um, so coming up some of the things like we have flood plane amendments that are coming up. Um, we are working through we just started. We'll be having some first meetings on an economic opportunities analysis that is uh we have an advisory committee uh

set up for that and we're going to be working through that process which is going to result in some potentially some uh code amendments but definitely some comprehensive plan amendments. So those will be in front of you um probably around uh July or August. Um we also would be looking at you know the potential for some sign code updates. those would be things that would be happening at some point in the next year. I'll say that just you know do due to overall bandwidth. So a lot of um you know taking a look at code amendments, taking a look at different studies, being involved in things like the housing production strategy, the housing needs analysis. So that would be looking at more of your your visionary type of of products that you would be working on compared to day-to-day current review uh permit reviews. Uh to Jonathan's point, um you know, there there are there are some of those contentious applications that I think those those that you know the community uh may may get one way or the other about and there may be this this need or this want to try to to to support and have that local feel on it. But there's also some other things that come up that we still have to bring in front of you like a sanitary pump station, like a new substation, like an electrical substation, a water reservoir. These things that are necessities to the city's utility infrastructure system that there is really no gray area. They are the only reason they are coming in front of you is because they are conditional use permits and you are here to basically just I think well I won't say you're not you're here to just agree with the director but in those three examples that I brought up they were very quick meetings because there wasn't much to them. They were additions to the city's infrastructure. So those are the types of things that would be heard in front of a hearings officer. So, um,

just my two cents. Happy to answer any other questions. Um, any other comments that you all have? I mean, like I said, I want to I want to have bring this in front of our city council and maybe at the end of all of it, um, maybe I just want to do a checkin. Do you think this is a conversation worth bringing in front of the city council? Maybe that's I think it I think it would be. Yes. I think it would be a good idea. Um, in response to Commissioner Grant's thoughts and mine, you know, the cost it's going to cut. Let's say we're going to budget 10 grand for this. maybe look back over the past handful of years and say, "Okay, out of all the try to put a cost on your time that this hearings officer would be taking, like if this hearings officer existed over the past whatever five years or handful of years that you've been looking at this, you know, I know that's kind of hard to assess because it's, you know, it's salary, but just, you know, break it down to the extra hours put in that your staff wasn't doing something else for some of this appeal stuff that you know or or just you know the different kind of prep that you would need for the type three and type four meetings. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you if you can put a number on like this is what we're going to pay a hearings officer and this is what dealing with this in the way that we are right now cost us now. I think that would be able to create another contrast of of deciding one way or the other on this decision. Yeah. Well, we'll uh we'll put our heads together on it. It it it would be a a difficult exercise, but we'll see what we can do. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And and I think, you know, it it comes down to just time is money. And, you know, how much how much time how many hours a week are you guys or a month, you know, are you guys actually spending

on stuff that this hearings officer would would just Well, the thing to keep in mind is that, you know, we would be preparing the same information for a hearings officer that we would be preparing for you. So, I guess the question is how much do you think you're worth? Me? Depends who's depends who's asking. Um, but I think that, you know, when Okay, what I'm thinking about is hearings officer makes a decision, it gets appealed. It's not coming to us anymore to then come to city council. So, that that step is gone. If we are able to send most if not all of those appeal appeals to Luba and we skip skipping city council, then in some cases that's two steps. They're eliminated. That's your time exclusively. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. I mean, I could put my head together with Jonathan on it to see if he has any ideas. Yeah, maybe he does, right? Yeah, I can jump in just to sort of, you know, uh, brainstorm this openly with everybody. You know, the hardest part of my job in a lot of different ways is taking a tremendous amount of technical legal information and turning it into something that's digestible for someone who's not a uh legal professional or is not in, you know, in the case of uh land use and development is not a planner or is not a u land use consultant. Someone like all of you. The hardest thing, the easiest assignment for me when I'm writing something is, you know, I can write 20 pages easily. But to take those 20 pages and to turn it into one page of

condensed and concise information, that takes hours of my day. And I'm not saying that this planning commission has done that to me um in too many times. But I gotta be, you know, candid. In, you know, in theory, the amount of work that I think Josh and I would have to do or the planning director and the city attorney would have to do um to prepare for an appeal would be significantly u less than it currently is. Um just because we're the audience for the things that we would be writing or preparing would be an um you know, a land use professional. Um, and sure the staff reports might look the same, but how Josh spends a you know, I don't know how much time you spend Josh just developing powerpoints for presentations to the planning commission because frankly it's it's complicated and if you're not kneede in the trenches with us every single day, which you absolutely have no reason to be. Um, and I'm glad that you're not just for your own selves. Um it's hard and and again just putting this decision in front of a professional it has a lot of benefits. So I just and a lot of them are not obvious. So I just wanted to mention that. Yeah. I mean that's that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Yeah. Um I had something else I was going to say. I think for me personally I have no Now, I think for me personally, I have no qualms relinquishing this stuff to a hearings officer. I do agree with what you're saying about, you know, just being involved and staying involved. And, you know, we're here in the community. We're here dealing with these issues with people. Like, we're all living here together. I think that's really important. Um, and I think that we handle it really, really well, but we have to think about the people that come after us. Are they going to be able to handle

it as well? we're not all going to be doing this forever. Um, I think that we do a really good job at remaining impartial and looking at looking at the data and looking at the clear and objective guidelines that we helped create in in making these decisions, but I can't I can't say that for whoever's going to be here next. You know, can I just jump in one last thing? I just wanted to mention um it's part of a it's part of a cycle I think to have a hearings officer who's involved um to to make decisions based on the code that the planning commission would be more um able to draft and so the legislative policym which is a you know in Oregon land use law the planning commission's recommendation to the city council is a requirement and so in theory this should lead like I'm talking like 40 50 years from now right if all things go okay. It should lead to a much more transparent and fair and um consistent system because decisions will be made by a land use professional and the policy would be attended to successfully by the planning commission who would have more time in theory to address bigger issues. Yeah. I mean and well also we still make the code. I mean the decision is still being made off something that we touch, you know, drafted and and help make. So, and we are still there for the decision. We just get someone else to interpret it for us. And in a lot of cases, I think that's going to be in most cases, I think that's going to be very very helpful. Um, in some cases, I think that the community may want to hear hear that decision from someone who lives here and, you know, maybe a little bit of a background as to why as opposed to some semi-nameless, semi faceless. I mean, I know they'll have both of these things, but you know, just some buddy that no one knows and that they could say like, "Well, this guy's making decisions. He doesn't care about us." You know, we don't want that. That makes for disgruntled folk. Um, so I think that

some of the decisions we've made have been helpful that they've come from people who live here also, and we can say that. That's kind of my only apprehension, but at the same time, the code's there. We built it. We made it. We follow it. Um, I think that we can deliver those answers just a little bit differently, but the answer is going to be the same no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I guess sounds like we will present this to city council. Appreciate everybody's comments. I guess um maybe the the point that we touched on a little bit ago um kind of in the beginning of it, is there any feel one way or the other? Maybe if I could hear from all the all the commissioners on it. um of that that final decision so I can present that to city council to say, you know, really this is what the planning commission is recommending maybe. Um, would you like to see a process where the final decision is at the hands of a hearings officer or would you like to It sounds like you want to kind of keep it local a little bit the best you can or would you like to make it so that we keep it how it is and the city council has that final decision. Granted, this would be a recommendation from y'all and it's going to be up to the city council to make that decision, but it would be nice to let them know what you are thinking when we have that conversation. So, there's the two options. Hearings officer makes the final decision or the city council makes the final decision off of a hearings officer appeal. Can you speak into the mic, please? I don't have uh any recommendation on on that for myself. Okay. Just because you don't agree agree with that. I mean, I don't like you don't Yeah, I don't

dislike the idea. I am just, you know, I think that we will at some point possibly need a hearings officer. I just don't know if it's 100% necessary at this time. Um, that's and I just had those questions and those statements. um you know keeping it local and and um providing trust within the community of you know when when you were mentioning about the faceless nameless person. Um I think that just kind of comes to mind but yeah I don't I don't think I have anything to where I could give a recommendation. I would um I mean I would recommend that since we would like to keep that local flare, whatever you want, however you want to say that. Um you know, or the local decisions at the local I think having it go to the city council as the appeals would be a good way. I think we could always go back and redesign that later um after a year or two. I mean, I maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure. But I'm just, you know, I mean, like potentially we could do it for that RFP, for that contract, and then the next time the contract comes up, we could say, "No, you know, it's working really well. We like how it's working." Um, the hearings officer could be the final decision. Um, that may be a way to get our feet wet, so to say, as far as that um would be, and then um the city council still would have that final decision um if there was an appeal. That would be my recommendation. Yeah, and that is consistent with what we mentioned in the SAP report is consistent with what Wasco County is doing now. So, if it doesn't and if and if it doesn't work that way and we don't like how that works, then I think we

could go back to the drawing board and have it stop at the hearings officer. Uh Carrie, yeah, that makes sense to me. Um to to keep some place where folks have a local a local opportunity to be heard if they're concerned about a decision before it goes all the way up to the state. and it feels uh far away and impersonal and like somebody not from here is making a choice that has a significant impact on our community. And hopefully the council continues to take the information and make the appropriate decisions moving forward um uh based on what the hearings officer is coming through with um and the information that the community members are providing. So, I think I think that makes sense and and like Addie said, if we don't if it doesn't feel like it's working in a couple years and come back and and make another shift, but I think it's a valuable thing to try to try to keep. Uh, Maria, Commissioner Pena, are you muted? You are muted. Okay. Um, my decision is um I think it should I'm kind of an all or nothing type guy. So, I feel like the hearings officer should be the final decision for the city. And the only reason that I say that is because I think that if we are to it's really tough to say. I'm all

about the efficiency and I'd like to keep things moving and I know that's a big frustration for anyone who's doing any kind of application developer is just like you know you've already made the choice to get it done so like let's get it done. Um, if it if a decision is appealed, I think it should go back to city council instead of directly to Luba. Is that possible? If a decision is appealed, what what kind of decision? Okay. Hearings officer says this is the deal. He's the final word for the city. If that decision is appealed, can it go back to city council at that time and then go to Luba or does it just go to Luba? Well, well, if the final decision is with the hearings officer, the city's final decision is the only kind of decision that goes to Luba. Um, yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So, that's that's possible. But often times often times when a case goes to Luba, they don't actually make any substantive decisions. So, let's say some somebody appeals uh a decision by a city council that's and a city council or a county commission denied an application based on something that wasn't in the record, right? They just they had some sort of bias or or something like that. LUBA is not going to say, "Okay, developer, your application is actually approved now because that county commissioner was biased." What Luba will say is the county commission's decision was biased and so it is void and so the case has been remanded which means sent back to the county in this case this hypothetical case um for a redo effectively and in which case they were under now that now there's a judicial order like a judge has ordered the case to be remanded back to the decision-making body whoever that is

based off of the local code to make the decision consistent with the local code standards. Now, when when it comes to drafting, like let's say the city council takes the recommendation to explore this idea and they direct the planning director and me to get working on this. We could, you know, in theory absolutely include a provision in there that says the, you know, for example, the hearings officer is the city's final decision maker, but if it goes to Luba and is remanded back, that decision would go to the city council because at that point, it's a completely different process. And so, does that answer your question? Is that what you were trying to get to? Yeah, it does. So, in that case, I think that yeah, I I think that the hearings officer's decision should be the city's final decision. And I think that it should become the planning commission and the city council's formal responsibility to just stay super informed and super on top of these decisions that the hearings officer is making. You know, maybe the planning chair needs to and the and the well, I'm sure the mayor would be listening into the hearings officer's decisions, but I think that the planning commission chair should be present or at least semi-engaged in these. not engaged in participating but just like be there. You have to be there. Yeah. Um and then city councilors, the mayor, they need to just be informed on that stuff too so that they see what's happening, they see what the people are saying, and I think that that involvement is important. I think it's critical. Um but I think that efficiency and getting things through the system is is equally so. Um because I I look at some of the city council agendas. I look at a lot of the city council's agendas and they're lengthy. I mean, there's a lot of stuff on there. So, I think to help lighten their load, I think that's I think that's important. Like, we we're a growing town. We have a lot of stuff

to get to. That's kind of my that's my take on that. I to an existential point, I I don't like the fact that we're kind of removing these bodies from the process. the planning commission, the city council and stuff, but at the same time like this is all going in one direction. You know what I mean? A a town is either growing or dying and we're growing. And I think it's important to lay the framework appropriately for that. Better to do it now. Sounds good. Yeah. I appreciate everybody's work and discussion on this. Um, as I mentioned, we'll be, you know, taking this your comments to, uh, city council on the 28th. Speaking of busy agendas, hopefully I can get get on it. Um, but yes, that that is a great point. And I mean it it last year we had some horrendously long city council agendas. But uh it sounds like though um I will be bringing to them that it sounds like the consensus of the board here is really to kind of keep the maybe the city council is that last decision. You're singled out here chair cornet. Yeah I'm an outlier. Yeah. Um but yeah like I said I do appreciate all the comments on this and it is it is a different idea. It's totally different idea. It's a total restructuring of what has been in place for many many years here in the Dows. So, um yeah, with that, I don't have anything else on this topic. Okay. Do you have any comments or project updates? Yeah, so um after all this and we talked about restructuring and you know um reducing the number of meetings, we I think we're going to have you know probably like three meetings

coming up in a row. Um but seriously, if we like drop it to to one meeting a month, uh we would just make sure that we kind of frontload those and um it's totally doable. Um so the next meeting um is going to be on the 17th and this is you should have received a notice uh sometime today. There is a it's a notice of appeal. So the subdivision that you worked on for that variance application up um the subdivision behind the hospital. So that has been appealed by the neighborhood or at least one individual. Um and it it seems like there was that there was about um 15 neighbors I think that tagged on to the appeal. So um we will be presenting that to you at the next meeting. Um, following that, I believe there's, you know, coming up at the first meeting in May, there is a, um, I think it's a conditional use permit for a project over on the west side of town. This is another one. It's for a storage facility, but it is a conditional use permit because it's in our general commercial zone, which is a zone that's typically for retail. So, um, um, and then after that, I I would have to to take a look again what it is, but um, those are the two items coming up. Um I'm not sure if I mentioned at the last meeting um the Basalt Commons project we are working through the building permit review of Basalt Commons now. Um we did approve one subdivision just uh two subdivisions were approved um the one that was appealed as well as there's another uh subdivision over on the west side of town. It's off of um off of Kingsley and like 15th. Uh it's another about 25 to 30 lot subdivision. Um, and then we have we're actually reviewing one more right now that's like a little sixplex type of uh townhouse

subdivision. So, um, staying very very busy. Extremely busy. It's springtime has hit and we are in full full gear. Where where's that sixer you're talking about? Um, it's off 9inth. So, that area of 9inth where they we took down the old house and we punched the new the utilities through. So, it's it's over there. It's a really Yeah, it's a nice little nice little spot now that they have full utilities. It's a good There's We're probably going to see a little bit of development pop up over there now that that that house is out of the way. Brand new utilities in, great views of the river. So, yeah, quick question. Yeah, since we're talking about it. So, the East 21st subdivision that we did the lot depth variance on, block depth variance on, if we had a hearings officer, that wouldn't be coming that wouldn't be appealing back to us, right? Yeah. It would be appeal would appeal, excuse me, it would be appealed to the hearings officer, right? Correct. Yeah. Like stuff like that. I think, you know, I'm super interested to hear what these people have to say. I hope that they come in with substantive substantive criteria. Um, but at the same time, if it's if it's one of those things like we just don't want don't want a subdivision by us, that's not that's not helping us get to the next step and what the planning commission needs to do, right? I think yeah, that is about that's about it for for comments on my end. Okay. Okay, probably missing something, but uh commissioner comments or questions. I think last time we went over some uh you were going through interviews. I was just curious about how staffing is has been going. Yeah. Yeah. So, we um we are hopefully going to be

finalizing um the the process, the interview process for the community development administrative assistant position. Uh Paula's old position, so she can kind of move into the other aspect. She she hasn't had really much of an opportunity to to take on her new job because we, you know, she's kind of covering two at the same time right now. So, um that's happening. And we are also um in the recruitment process for an economic development officer. Our economic development officer uh Dan Spots who was with the city for about a year and a half, been in the community for a very very long time. Um he actually retired um just about two weeks ago. So Dan and I worked side by side with the urban renewal agency. So uh he's dearly missed and uh we will find uh a replacement. Yep. It's where we're at right now. But yeah, otherwise I mean, yeah, it's a city-wise it's been it's been a frenzy of hiring a lot of, you know, our uh um hiring for a new finance director, um hiring for an assistant city manager position, um recently filled our deputy public works director position, our public works director position. So, um quite quite a few changes here at the city. It's great. I mean, it's great those positions being filled. Yeah, it is. Yeah. All right. I have nothing else. Meeting adjourned. I don't believe I made the next meeting. Okay. Mr.