City Council - Regular Meeting

Can you guys hear me? Can you hear me? Nope.

Kim, can you hear us?

I can hear somebody now.

Kim, can you say something now?

Hello, hello? Yes.

Can you hear us? Yes.

Oh, okay. Excellent. Very good.

So that works for me. Thanks. Thank you very much for this.

One of those has fallen over the line.

Okay, sure.

Originally, the text was Sherwood, Oregon, spelled out.

Kim, do you want us to go back? No, you don't need to. I was watching what you guys were doing. Yeah, I think this is where it's from. Yeah, they call this our agriculture slide.

Yeah, and so we wanted to look at the history, but also what's still happening right now. And it came up in our discussions that Sherwood used to have onion farms, or maybe still does, but onions were a big product here. And of course, today, grapes are... or an important thing, I just was hearing a thing, are an important crop in this area. And in order to bring in the idea of how people were interacting with this as well, we looked at different tools. We looked at several different antique or old fashioned tools. And in the end, somebody had the idea in one of our work sessions that a horseshoe would be a great way to symbolize the idea that people were involved in the cultivation. And something that kind of echoed the forms as well of the onions and the grapes in a better way than like a scythe or something like that that was very more difficult to read. So the work sessions, I would say, as we went along were highly collaborative. We would come with some sketches and We would talk through the ideas in the sessions. And this one, I think, was the last one that we finished. It went several rounds trying to figure out what is the most important ideas to talk about. And then we were also looking at where we can take some forms that can be repeated in different places so that they can tie together aesthetically. And you'll see in some others, a similar pattern to what got used as our onion flower, the allium at the top, is echoed in some of the pattern work in other pieces as well. This piece is meant to honor the mascot at the high school, while also talking about hawks and birds that are in this area. And the idea came up that, you know, an arrow, a traditional arrow would have fletching that might have been made from a hawk's feather. So that seemed like a natural way of tying those ideas together. And I believe this one is meant to live closest to the high school itself so that it's the farthest west.

People can stand at it and look at the fields, the short high schools.

This piece is meant to honor the indigenous heritage of the area. So it is showing camas flowers along with trilliums and the pattern work along the edges. And in those little wheels are meant to evoke the idea of basketry.

So it's like a woven basket full of... Yep.

You're almost looking down. Yeah.

Does anyone recognize the deer?

Is it Rudolph?

It's our roundabout friend. It's John Deere. This is a little echo to tie it in. I love what you did with the deer.

Yeah, we thought it would be important to tie in some of the existing bits of artwork that are in the town as well to make them all feel like they're telling a story together. And so this one is about the paths that both people and animals travel. So we pulled in some of the pattern work there as symbols from forest service maps, giving indication of what type of terrain is in different areas. So we have some marshland and forest in there as well. This piece is about timber and also how people interact with the forests in the area over time. As we worked through this, I think the one piece that really stayed consistent was the idea of the saw blade because that's a very clear way of indicating that people use these forests or working forests, but also including the acorns and the oak leaves in there tells a bit of a more layered story because the indigenous people would burn the valley in order to clear the trees and that allowed for more camas to grow and the oak savanna that was present in this area. But since that burning has not been happening, the Douglas fir and other evergreen trees have moved in. So it's kind of able to tell a couple different stories about how people have managed the land over time and what's here today and in the past. This one is all about migration of people moving into the area as railroads came in and also bird migration since there's big refuge just out of town that's full of birds. And I think anybody who lives in the Willamette Valley is just like sees these geese and ducks migrating twice a year through the town. So we like that idea of migration as a simple way of tying together. movement of people and movement of animals.

And Sherwood was originally planted because the train was coming through. So yeah, it's perfect.

And then this piece, we wanted to bring in something that actually showed the bridge itself. And a lot of the area has been and historically was marshland. We had tried several different ways of representing the idea of the bridge as a connection piece. Right when we first engaged on this project, some of the stuff that we talked about early on was that the highway had really divided the town and made it so that it was very hard to cross without a vehicle. And it's such a long wide stretch of road um and the bridge gives a way for people to feel more connected across that so the idea of connection between the community um was important for us to to bring in here as well and when you stand on the bridge you can see that there's still wetland areas right there so And then this is our beaver and building. So we had a tour of town. Yes, many iterations. The brick foundry was an important thing in the history of Sherwood that kind of moved forward, moving from probably timbered buildings into more durable structures. Uh, and the, uh, the beaver of course is symbol of industry and also is an animal that lives in wetlands. Um, and then we also, as we were sketching out this beaver, I mean, we drew so many beavers and so many different ways of incorporating brick work and, uh, What we ended up really liking here was that the pattern work underneath that shows the ripples on the water was really inspired by that concrete work that's already on the bridge. So sometimes it really helps when you're working through things and it's just like, gosh, how are we going to tile this together just to look at what's already there and pull those little bits and pieces together.

Just for those listening, because I think most of us know this, that most of the out of brick where that brick came from Sherwood.

That's right.

And here we just wanted to show a bit of a conceptual mock-up to see how these are going to live in the bridge themselves. So what are the names of these? The Belvedere. Belvederes. They will sit inlaid within those Belvederes. I believe there's four that are going into those types of locations. And then there's also four that are slightly larger that are on the ends of the bridge as well. So one thing that is... always a bit of a struggle as we're working through these processes is that the black and white renderings of the drawings are, you know, very obviously high contrast. There's nothing more high contrast than black and white. But when we actually have them cast in bronze, they no longer have that really high level of contrast. And so we felt like it was important throughout the process to kind of make some Photoshop mock-ups and figure out like, what is this going to kind of look like really?

I'll put that one back up. It's better to look at the word questions. But we'd love to have any questions you have. The cultural exhibition that can speak to the process of the image.

I'm very proud of their work.

Tim, I have comments, but not questions, but I'll let Kim go. Kim?

I love it all. When I saw them in our email, I was like, wow. I don't have any suggestions, changes, culture, arts. You guys did an amazing job. Thank you. I love them all.

Right.

Yeah. You're going to let the mayor go last.

No, I'm asking if I can go. Oh, yeah. Thank you. As I was mentioning before we started, I also felt very similar to Kim. And, you know, I love the history, the wildlife, the nature, the cultural, you know, the indigenous people, all the representation. But I also love that it's very... like natural and kind of almost understated. It's not, we're not really trying to like make really bold statements. We're just telling a story and it's the story of the area and it's done in a really beautiful amazing way so i love it all except the logo uh the s logo with the hat because we've we've had a lot of conversations around we're as a council we're having conversations around updating this town the city logo potentially down the road what we want to do with that and my concern is we're stamping something that is a logo for for all intents and purposes on a on a piece of bronze that's going to sit there for 50 years it's going to become an unofficial logo if nothing else and It's a little bit concerning to me. Maybe we can just take the hat off of it and it's just an S, but then it's not a logo really, it's a monogram and I could probably be a play with that. Or there's some other maybe. I know, I realized there's something needs to go in those two spots to kind of tie it together. It doesn't have to be a letter or it could be something more esoteric or something, but. That'd be the only thing I would change. And just because my concern is becoming a logo of the city, even though we haven't had a conversation around, is this the logo we want for the city? So otherwise fantastic.

We do have a, uh, one of our projects and our goal setting was to work on the branding of the city. So you just need to be a little careful there. I would agree with that, but, but I would, I just want to add, I agree with everything Kim said, I agree with everything. Doug said, the additional thing I would add is I love that it's timeless. It's not the issue of the day. You know, I want something to be able to look at it in 50 years and have it still resonate, right? And I love that about this.

And I think I get your point completely about the logo. I think the thought before was wanting something, some sort of a simple symbol so that if it's expanded off the bridge into Old Towne, or wherever, I'm sure, but that it's tying it together. So I think that's why we were going for something to identify it so that it could grow.

Even though, but I mean, my perspective was if you put that on these aids, which I'm supportive of doing, if the council, this council or future council does more medallions, and if we have a branding effort, then we can replace it on those future ones. So, Chad, there was one of the cultural arts commission talking about just the S. It really was just maybe an S, and then they were able, that didn't, someone did a rubbing that you wouldn't know that S was for what, and then with the hat.

Traditionally an S, like, it's a sewer. Like, I don't want an S. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay.

Down the road, we could redo all of our manhole covers.

Has there been any discussion about what kind of logo you're, you know, the city's?

We've had some very rudimentary, I think, unofficial discussions.

I don't think we've had it. I think we're more at the kicking off the project stage right now. We do have, Ryan just alerted me, we do have in our code, our current logo is enshrined in the ordinance. So we potentially have a potential issue if that gets perceived as a logo too.

Interesting. So would you have a city logo versus an arts logo? I mean, that's kind of what we were thinking to identify this as an arts logo, not necessarily like a placemaker. Yeah, for the city. the artistic efforts that would be in different places, but not the city, maybe. I don't know. Yes, Kim.

I just, I understand where Doug's coming from, but I don't actually see that as the logo, nor would I want our city logo on these. I find it more of just a part of the art on the thing. And I like the S with the hat. I mean, we're Robin Hood, we've had that for 50 some years and that's not probably going away. So I just see it differently.

Tim, could I? Yeah. So I think council gets to decide what the ordinances are. Council could also make a finding specifically that says, in terms of their ordinances. So I don't see that as an impediment. Just wanted to alert the mayor that presently in our code, our logo is enshrined and it says this shall be the logo of the city, which is interesting, but it doesn't preclude council from doing something different. Your concern isn't whatever the ordinance says. My concern is what public perception might end up being over time. What if we just have the hat? What about this? Interesting.

I will say the only thing is that the hat can't actually get any bigger. um because it's already taking up the full space but that was too small yeah we would probably put it outside i want to make sure it's something well yeah one one consideration we had was that because of the belvedere shape people are approaching it more So people generally will be approaching it from one direction. And so we wanted it to feel like it was speaking to them in that direction. If you were going to replace the S, I would just suggest it be something vertical so that it can fill that space in a more natural way.

The writing is sideways in that area. And so if you turn it on inside, it's closed in the same direction as the writing. I don't think it would necessarily. I'd have to see it, but it could work. It might not work. I'm just throwing out ideas on the fly. I'm not having any time to think about this.

I have a question, though. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think the public would link the artwork on the bridge to any kind of a logo that the city would use for official logos on their shirts or paperwork and things like that? What do you think?

I mean, that's an interesting way to ask the question. I don't know, but when I look at this, first thing I see is that looks like some sort of logo of something. It's supposed to represent something, whether that's a city or something else, like I don't know, but it's clearly a symbol that's being put on there for a reason.

Right, and then how much of that symbol would be relatable to the average person people moving through the city, people that are exchanging communications with official communications, T-shirts, things like that.

When I first looked at it, it didn't pop as a logo to me at all, just a nod to our history because we were named after Shorewood Forest. So it wasn't until you mentioned it that I go, I guess that could be a logo.

Yeah, I can see that.

To your question... I'm not too concerned about it interfering with the future logo that we do. That's just kind of my take.

Kind of that question of, like, how do we work in, like, the really quaint literary Sherwood Forest Robin Hood notion without having a Robin Hood hit over your head? Yeah. You know, it's not denying that, like, as a big part of our town, um, that needs to be in a subtle place making. There's also a lot of people doing rubbings now. Yeah, rubbings. That we also want to make sure these pieces of art speak to that movement. And if someone did a rubbing, I would like them to know it's showing.

And we also talked about continuity, that there would be an element that was on all of the medallions. So this is one element that is on each one.

And it's a historical element as well, right? Like Sherwood was named after Sherwood Forest. And it's like the beaver, like the clay, the bricks. I think it all ties in together as a historical motif.

How long would it really work? It's too small.

I don't think it might work on its side, but I'd have to see.

I don't know if I'd recognize it as a hat if it was.

That would be my concern. It's one design that kind of up and it started looking kind of acorny.

Yeah, the light acorn was definitely. Yeah.

But I do think it would be best if it didn't have just on its head. Yeah. Yeah.

A full member. As if we had an archer with a bow and arrow. That's too much of a high school.

Hat on the beaver. What? Hat on the beaver.

Yeah. I like that. You know, right? Getting it over. I know. We're going to save it. I'm just going to put it over. given thoughts and questions, this is really helpful to hear. Yeah.

I mean, I think we can't make decisions in here, obviously, but from a consensus point of view, I think most everyone is okay with it, but we'll think about it. If you come up with something better, that'd be great. But I don't think there's overall, I think all of them are great. I think they tell a story. Um, I think the public will love them.

They really are fantastic. I think I've seen, you know, Generation 1 or Version 1 to where they all go to be really interesting. I was certainly impressed.

Yeah, came a long way. and kind of found the design vocabulary. Yes. Yeah.

Dan was great to work with. I just want everybody to know that Dan was very collaborative and took our suggestions. So thank you.

I think that was a really important part of the project as a whole was that it wasn't about me just drawing some things and being like, here's your stuff. But every meeting that we had, we workshopped it and we, made changes and that just helped push them forward a lot. It was a great committee to work with.

Hey, Craig, could you just send a note to the counselors that aren't here and just let them know how this went and just see if any others have concerns about the

Awesome. Thanks for having me. Well done. Thanks. Very well done. Thank you.

On to the toilet, though. Yes. We're already there. Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Do you like to keep this key for your boss.

All right. So we're under our next item, which is, Eric, we'll just take a five minute break while we get everything ready for the next session. All right, Greg's over. We're back in session in our work session. Our next item is housing in Sherwood. Eric, take it away.

Yeah, so we're here to talk about really it's the work plan, but also the policies for housing over the next meeting from one to four or five years or so. It comes out of a... Well, let me start with this. The purpose of the work session is to get some direction from city council. So we're looking at, in some cases, we're scoping these projects. In other cases, they're just beginning to get underway. In some cases, we haven't even started scoping. So it's a good first, very, very early opportunity to get some feedback from council on all of these projects. We have the whole, really the whole planning department here, minus Christine, who is our administrative assistant. So I wanted all these guys here just to kind of show you who's going to be doing the planning work over the next, you know, few years and have them kind of hear correctly from you guys as well. So we've got Sean, the planning manager, and Art and Hugo, who are our planners.

Awesome. Welcome.

So just in terms of what we're going to go over tonight, so we'll go over the council goal and policy background. So kind of the impetus for the whole presentation. Art will talk about kind of the big meaty housing study that we need to do, which is the housing production strategy and housing capacity analysis. That's the analysis that we did every six years previously. Sean will talk about Old Town and the plan and Sherwood West and both the planning and then the implementation opportunities in those areas. And then Hugo is going to talk a little bit about the upcoming development code updates that we have. Some of it is driven by state mandates, of course, but to the extent that we can add on to that or land those in a way that worked for our council goals is sort of the goal. And then, of course, just a discussion with everyone.

Sorry, before we get started, Um, this is why I can contextualize all these things as we go through them. What is the, what are the outcome looking for in this conversation or are you all are looking for it in this conversation?

I think so. We have a council goal, which is on the screen there, promote and monitor diverse housing that will accommodate a wide variety of life stages and needs. During the council goal setting, we got just a little bit of further direction, which is you guys really wanted to define affordability for Sherwood. I think really what we want to know is, With all of these studies that are coming up, plus these planning efforts, is this going to get us there in terms of meeting the housing goals? Or do we need to add something else? My opinion is that there's going to be a lot to chew on over the next one to four years, where if you wanted to do middle housing, if you wanted to do more multifamily, if you wanted to do whatever, I think the opportunities are in front of you. through the current work plan, Sherwood West, Old Town implementation, housing capacity analysis. And the question is, do we need to do more to meet the goals?

So as our discussion, are we supposed to be having the conversation about defining what affordability means and what kind of affordability and diversity we're looking for?

I think what we'd be looking for is that, so to the extent that you guys are ready to talk about that and give us that feedback, absolutely. And we would work that into, we would take that now. And as we do all of these plans, we'll work it in. To the extent that it needs to be a bigger study, like we need to go talk to the community before you guys make any decisions on policy issues. then we can start a process now. So I think it could take a lot of forms. My just opinion recommendation as staff is if we have a really good framework right now, we're going to get into it a little bit. We have the comprehensive plan policies, plus we have the Sherwood West that's coming up, plus we're going to have the housing needs and housing capacity analysis and production strategy. All of that is going to allow them the opportunity to get into policy. And so what I'd recommend is you will have your opportunity to get into the policy and determine the outcomes for housing.

So that we're not necessarily giving policy direction today, but through each of these individual efforts that are going to be coming over the next months and years.

Correct. Correct. And to the extent you have really early feedback on, hey, make sure this project hits this kind of general target, we'll hit that now because we're doing scoping. So we need to work it into the contract with the consultant. We need to get money for it. It'd be good to know that now. So is there specific feedback you're looking for today? whether or not the work plan is adequate to achieve the housing goals, I think is the first question. And then if you have any specific early feedback on the specific projects that we have in front of you at this point.

Okay.

Thank you. That's very helpful. Cool.

This whole thing is going to be incredibly frustrating. Try to contain yourself. Um, and where we're falling, there's, there's kind of, there's two buckets. I mean, in my mind of this, there's, there's, there's, there's rental housing and there's owner occupied housing. And I'm not aware of anything you can do on owner occupied housing. to determine affordability other than square footage?

So I think the bigger issue in my mind that kind of gets to that is part of this, and I think this may require several conversations, is just defining what affordability means in these terms. Because when you say affordability, some people think, you know, old school, low-income, Section 8 housing. Other people think we just need, to your point, Keith, different size housing. right but i think i think kind of defining that and then you get into a further step saying okay where do those different forms of housing make sense in our community i wouldn't put um low i wouldn't put low income um you know red constrained um housing out on the outskirts that needs to go along our bus lines you know and and near our uh where all the uh the uh You know, grocery stores are and all that kind of stuff. So I think there's maybe there's a conversation is going to come out of this kind of setting some Goals and policies around that, you know, where does it make sense. What does it look like, but I think for sure what in general, I think, is where you're going to this.

I'm sorry, I'm skipping ahead further, but that just So if you're doing if you know we obviously love owner occupied That may be going away, maybe not. But if it's owner-occupied, great. Okay, my assumption is square footage. Then on the form, how do you factor into the affordability when they have HOA dues? And if it's attached, a five-plex or a ten-plex or a blah-blah-plex, HOA dues blow stuff up. from living with your, so that's in my mind. And then if you want that, you're doing things to drive diversity of size owner-occupied, how do you prevent that from becoming? Yeah, all great questions. I think, yeah, yeah. Right. Let's let him get out.

And then there's a whole wrinkle site. That's just my first blush on the owner side. Well, let's let him get to their point.

Bro, we know they've already answered all these questions. No, it's all good input. And I think maybe I'll just respond to that and say, you know, we play a certain role and everything that we're going to talk about here is a certain role that we play as local government, right? We're not, for the most part, especially the city of Sherwood, we're not developing Or, you know, there's really no housing fund. There's no local tax for housing. So we are really acting as a policymaker, regulator in some cases. The states turn around and say, you've got to do this and this and this. Absolutely. Provision of infrastructure is maybe the most important thing, you know, that we can do in terms of, you know, accelerating housing. But there's a certain role to be played. And it generally is going to have to be housing for the department or for a housing provider. So let's respond to that.

Well, I would agree with that, but the folks in Salem are saying other things. Absolutely.

And I think to the extent where in this presentation I have kind of that early, I guess, set expectations for like what, A, what is the state mandate? What part of this work plan is the state mandate? Because a lot of it is. And then where we think there might be more local discretion and where it is probably not going to be. And I mean... I think you're right, there is gonna be some frustration in trying to achieve some of the local priorities

an adoptive providing that i think as we go through this and we have the different meetings especially when we're talking to the public that we're very clear every time what's coming from the state and what's coming from sherwood because um the community needs to be educated on that too because they tend to think it's just us doing these things when a lot of the a lot of this is coming from the state yeah yeah great all right let's jump in um so the policy background really is the

most of our housing policy exists right now. We do have a housing needs analysis as well as for 2019. There's some policy in there, but the comp plan is really what articulates, I guess, the clearest and most direct policy. So I just want to read, just going to read a few of them, which I think gets to this question of like, what is portability for Sherwood? And just to kind of to show what's already on the books. Policy 3.1 provide opportunities for the development as a range of housing types that are attainable to current and future households at all income levels as described in the Sherwood Housing Needs Analysis to maintain Sherwood's high quality of life. So that's the policy 3.1. 3.4, for example, support housing affordable to Sherwood residents and workers at businesses in Sherwood, meaning the workers that work here in the city. including housing options for first-time homebuyers, new families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. The reason I pull this up is just to say we've done some good groundwork already. So to the extent we just need to build on this as we move forward, you know, that could be a good, this could serve as a good foundation as we keep moving forward. Art's going to talk about the housing capacity analysis and housing production strategy, and maybe I'll just practice this with, this is, I haven't seen it before. anchor. This is replacing the 2019 Housing Needs Analysis and really is the foundation for policy decisions and policies that we're going to have to adopt in the future. It is a state mandate, came out of a bill from 2019, and Sherwood's responsibility is to finish this by the end of 2014 and send it over to our team.

Yeah, so really just to kind of repeat a little bit of what Eric said, kind of a why are we here? So in 2019, the Oregon legislature passed HB 2003, which requires cities to complete a contextualized housing need and a housing capacity analysis and a housing production strategy. Sherwood's deadline for the contextualized housing need and housing capacity analysis is December 31st, 2027. Deadline for the housing production strategy is December 31st, 2028. So in essence, the contextualized housing need will analyze current future housing along with population market trends to evaluate housing choices and identify housing issues in the city. The housing capacity analysis analyzes whether a local government has enough buildable land within its urban growth boundary to accommodate the allocated housing need over a 20-year period. And then the housing production strategy is the implementation plan that identifies the specific actions the local government can take to promote the development of needed housing over time. So this last one, the housing production strategy is probably where your input will be kind of most valuable and where we'll kind of reach out the most. So just a few kind of follow-up notes. This is a state mandate and some determinations might not be within our control. We've submitted a scope of work to the DLCD. We actually did that weeks ago and then received it back this afternoon. So it's pretty fresh. Staff hasn't had time to kind of go through it all, but we'll be doing that in the next few days. Provided there are no edits, then we will go out for an RFP and the project will move forward. So again, this kicks off this year. We're currently kind of penciling in three work sessions with you to kind of keep you briefed and get your feedback and input.

I have a question about that because the old H&A process in my mind was really problematic because especially at the time, a lot of the growth expectations were based on historical growth, you know, and, you know, we had a The recession in 2008, we have market ups and downs that drive people buying new housing. that the housing units analysis since it was only looking to past it wasn't aspirational at all in terms of what we're trying to achieve and I'm just wondering in this new housing capacity analysis are we going to be in a similar quandary with that or what's what's new about what they're doing with this new process that's better than the old process I don't know exactly how the

It was done initially, it was done at the state level. We've shared the numbers a few times. Do you have, Mandy, do you have the numbers over the one year and 20 year? I do. It's about roughly 140 units per year is what our target is. And if you recall from our annual housing report, we've been doing about 80, anywhere from 75 to 100 houses per year. So it's a little bit higher than, it's significantly higher than what we've been doing. we can get back to you on exactly how they determine that number and if it is based on historical growth, likely in some form, absolutely, it's gonna be based on historic trends. The main thing that's different in this process is that first contextualized housing need. Really, the requirement is for some pretty robust you know, equity-oriented community engagement. We're going to have to work that into the naturalized housing need. And really, it's going to try and answer, I guess, to your question earlier, what types of housing and where. Um, before it was just based on our zoning. So we would just say, like, look, we have the land to accommodate all of the housing. Thanks. And it didn't really take. We didn't really have to take into consideration location. Um, it's going to get into a little bit more detail about, um, the types of housing, meaning unit size as well. The old housing needs analysis didn't take into account unit size. And so we might, for example, we might hear from the community, we have an aging community. We have a lot of seniors. Therefore, we don't just need to hit 140 units per year. We need to have 20% of those be ground floor accessible units. That's Or, hey, our family size is now smaller. Therefore, we can't just zone for 6,000 square foot lots. Now, actually, we need to plan and actually try and achieve smaller lot sizes and smaller units. So that's the biggest change, is that it's contextualized to the need that comes out of this CHN.

Would you agree with the statement? So two more thoughts, and then we'll let you go on. First one is, would you agree with the statement, Jim, We're micromanaging our zoning for lack of a better term. So instead of these broad swaths of categories, we're probably going to have more categories geographically and then in our zoning process.

That could be one of the outcomes. I think that really what it's going to lead to. So the contextualized housing need is what I just described. The housing capacity analysis is kind of your basic housing lands inventory which you guys are probably familiar with yeah and then so that's that and then the housing production strategy is really what i think what you're asking about and that's it could result in what you're talking about about more nuanced zoning but really the requirement is going to be that we adopt policies not necessarily just zoning and the zoning code that requires xyz but it could be a number of other policies as well so it could zone, more traditional zone. But then we say we're going to do a vertical housing tax abatement program. And we will do that, by the way. And then we're going to have to show that we actually did it. And then we've sort of taken other policy steps. So it's not just zoning. It's any number of other policies.

I'll just do my second one real quick.

Sorry. We'll go finish off the stock because my next one is different.

So what Tim was saying, finishing your thought, it feels like the state is going to hold us accountable to a strategy that meets our needs. And then historically, developers, they're not accountable to that strategy. They're just going to build whatever they decide they want to build for all the different reasons they decide they want to build what they're going to build. But at the end of the day, if all the developers keep doing that and they're all building these kind of things and we're not building these kind of things and we haven't hit our goals that the state might hold us accountable for. So are these tools the way that we're going to be able to partner with developers or incentivize developers or potentially force developers in some case? I don't know if this is even possible, but like, I'm trying to figure out how do you get, like, you know, the market to meet the goals that

the state or the cities decided you have to have. And to your point, like in Sherwood West, you know, we came up with this concept of like middle housing only zoning, which I still think is a really good idea. Most jurisdictions around us have taken their single family detached zoning and said, well, you can build all these other types there. So they basically said, hey, developers, you still get to choose, which makes it hard to hit some of these goals, right?

I think maybe we're ahead of this process a little bit, right, in establishing that zone because we are trying to get the outcomes and not just to look at it. But I think, Councilor Scott, you have a good point, and it's kind of a, you know, it's a balancing act between us being so, I guess, top-heavy, you know, that it's because you're implementing state requirements, we're just not going to do it. And letting the market actually do what it needs to do and have a project pencil so developers can have a successful business. It's going to be a balancing act. And I think what A key question for me, and we can look into it. My understanding right now is that we won't necessarily be penalized if we don't hit the target, the actual hard number, as long as we are showing progress in terms of the strategy, right? If we say we're going to do a vertical housing program, and we do a vertical housing program.

It doesn't matter what the outcome is. It only matters that you have the right strategy.

Yeah, it's so typical. But that gets to your point of like, we should take all the right steps. And if we have a recession, what are we going to do? You know what I mean?

So it's like- I can think about the scenario where, you know, let's simplify this, right? We need to build 80 units of this and 20 units of this. And the market comes in and builds the 80 units and then no one ever built the 20. We're not hitting our goal, but it's not really our fault.

I don't want to be like- Yeah, right. Well, it's a real concern because they have, in some cases, they can force us to adopt their model code.

And so we have to insert situations, but right now that that's a very based on outcomes or that's what I want to clarify. Yeah. And I think Because that's concerning. I think if we truly make a good faith effort and show progress towards the production stress, we say, hey, we're going to do vertical housing program. Here it is. And that 20%, that should have been then developed at an affordable rate. The developers never come. Even though we have a good program, hopefully we're not penalized for that.

Then maybe the policy has to be, okay, developer, you have to build 20%. You want to build this thing. you either have to build 20% of it that meets this need that we have. And then the other 80%, you do whatever you want, or you have to do some swap with some other developer or whatever. Right. So that you can't build any of it unless you're willing to build this for the outcome. Yeah.

There's a risk there is that you don't get any of it.

Right.

You get held accountable. I mean, so. Well, but just one more thing on that, that, um, that balance that you're talking about. One of the reasons I liked the idea of this, for lack of a better term, like micro zoning, is the one of the largest costs to build a house is the land right and like if you have commercial and housing lands they get valued at a different price per acre just based on what you can do with it i don't see why there's any reason you can't extend that into housing so if you have cottage cluster only zone land or middle housing only zone land that's going to set want to make sure we're kind of thinking about those. The second thing real quick, I don't want to hold up too long, and the housing capacity analysis, can we introduce into that analysis the infrastructure constraints that we have? This has been a challenge in Salem, in Metro, because they'll look at our land and say, we have this many acres, yeah, great, but there's no sewer, there's no water, and I think it's part of that capacity analysis. We have to have a category that says all these sections of land are disqualified because we don't have the infrastructure to support houses.

We probably don't have an answer on that today, but we could... We can find out.

Even if we just have to add it into the report so we're on the record with it. Yeah, sure. That's important.

I guess the only other comment I'd make, unless Art has anything else after this, we did preliminarily confirm with the state that Sherwood West can be used as part of these three studies. So we can use the land in Sherwood West to do the housing capacity analysis and also the housing production strategy, which is Anything else to add? No. I have no reason it wouldn't have been because it's still being appealed. If we had not done the UGB expansion, cities are not allowed to use urban reserves. Sure, but we didn't. We didn't. And that was why it was smart to do it. Because historically, you could use urban reserves. Actually, I'm not sure, but cities are concerned not being able to use urban reserves. And I think the housing needs analysis, it did include Bruckman in the past, so it was different before. So anyway, Sean's going to talk about the Old Town opportunities.

Yeah, opportunities in Old Town. With the recently adopted Old Town Strategic Action Plan, so many of these policies that will likely come out of the House of Production Strategy you could immediately look at implementing through the plan. I mean, the plan already recommends funding sources and creating tools to create a mix of uses, but also housing. So it prioritizes housing. As you know, the Urban Renewal Agency has several lots in Old Town that are vacant that could be utilized for multifamily or other kind of mixed use housing types to either further those goals and policies city. Plus, there's a lot of undeveloped or underdeveloped private lands. And of course, one of the main incentives in the Old Town Plan is creating incentive programs to increase density, really, in Old Town. So either through a local improvement district, like Eric mentioned earlier, the vertical housing designation, or possibly amending And then, of course, there is the upcoming Sherwood West comprehensive and master planning. So, here again, you know, the council talked about this at length, but, you know, looking at, identifying where the 31, approximately 31 housing units with or creating an average density of 9.2 units per net acre could occur in Sherwood West and creating policies around that. Where do you want that density to occur? A mix of housing types with multifamily, cottage clusters, single-family either attached or detached. Really, through the Sherwood West comprehensive master planning, that's where the council can consider strategies and incentives to encourage housing production through both policy that then staff could further implement. So that is another tool that you all will get to weigh into on housing, housing type, And then even get into the affordability question and how you see that play out in Sherwood West. So it's, you know, it's a large area that obviously you all get to plan and set the policy.

What is, for Sherwood West, what is the definition of nine units of burned out acres?

So when you get into net acre, it's land that you basically build on that excludes any kind of environmentally clean land. So steep slopes, the creek beds, the wetlands, and I believe it also excludes the right-of-way.

And only the residential zone. Yes. So it's not commercial land, it's not industrial land.

Yes. And I believe our agreement with Metro

If you did 10 units an acre on residential land, there's not enough seekers.

So if we want to have planter strips with sidewalks and trees on every residential street, I'm just saying that, that wouldn't count toward the 9.2, right? Correct.

Any, I guess, thoughts? And we really wanted to highlight these two points. areas because we think it's kind of the lean area. The other area we would add, if any, and here's the Brookman addition. So that's basically where, really where a growth is going to occur. It's going to be in Old Town. It's going to be in Brookman. And then longer term, it's going to be insured with less. Some, but very minimal opportunities in terms of redevelopment of single family track homes and infill in that regard. So we draw that HDR zone behind that. I don't know, Ross. And the Ross. Yeah. So we changed. Yes. So that's a few area, I guess, parcels vacant. There's a little bit on Sherwood Boulevard. There's that one. And other than that, pretty minimal.

And down in Brooklyn, it's stalled because of sewer. Yes. But also to get that road connection. Yeah.

Yeah. The road to nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. So I, my only thought on this too, as we work through this is this housing zoning by housing or housing type for specific zones is really important to our overall strategy. So as you work through that, if there's any doubt about whether we need to do that, we definitely need to come back to council. One of the ways we sold this whole plant to Metro was the fact by using like cut So if you come up with something better, great, let's talk about it, but that's got to be a key part of it.

Unless we literally master plan to the granular detail. Say, okay, guess what? If you're going to give a giant line of this, that's there.

Well, I think we need to do that. We need to do both. Because we need to protect the master planning process as well. Because I'm sure there'll be... You're going to say, yeah, guess what? You're going to put a triflex here and you're going to put a deflex here and a couple of close cluster areas. Yeah, and I agree. I'm just trying to protect us from future legislation as well, where they come in and take away the master planning process from us. Yeah, and that's good feedback.

It's good to have this work session now. We're getting into the scoping now with Metro for Sherbrooke West. So doing the detailed master planning, I think we can chat internally and bring to you guys options for getting not only through comprehensive planning, but also to master planning. Because when we get into that level of detail, it's going to be more expensive. We need to figure out road alignments, topography, and environment. If you want more certainty, frankly, it's going to cost more. So we need to, it's good for us to know that now so we can either request the money from Metro, figure out a funding source for this as we go forward so we can actually land it. You guys aren't disappointed with the level of detail that I know.

I know with some previous master plan communities in the area, they partnered with like a lead developer. Absolutely. Master plan itself. Something we should consider as we get down the road.

Definitely. So we can definitely look at. that. If there's a large property owner, certainly an option would be to partner with them on the master plan. That's going to be a little bit more back and forth, of course, because they're going to be at the table. I think that's a better chance for success. Maybe it's multiple properties. That's great feedback as well.

If they're in on the plan, there's horse trading that goes along the way, but you're much more likely to get an outcome a lot closer to what we're looking for. That's the other way. Yeah.

On the hospitality zoning, it's kind of related but not related. There's been suggestions that we zone that commercially and do a hospitality overlay, which is a really bad idea because you can do housing in a commercial area. So we need to really think closely about how we set up that kind of unique zone so we actually get the outcomes.

But I'm not opposed to some housing in the hospitality zone, but we have to be able to control it. Yeah, like housing over retail. Yeah.

Climate, technically, but yeah, I would say the foundation has to be like industrial employment. It really is an industrial employment, you can put a hotel. So we've seen a limit.

or just to bring it to light, can we just create a new zoning type that has no base zone under it?

Same for me. Well, we've been talking about this several years ago with both the individual, like Connors Cluster Zone and others, but also the hospitality zone specifically. Instead of saying it's a commercial with an overlay or an industrial with an overlay, it's no, we're just creating a brand new zone. I don't see anything from scratch and defining what it is and what it is.

So like all these state laws where they say, you know, you can build housing in commercial areas, we're just trying to avoid having our whole hospitality zone. I don't have an immediate no to that. I'd like to look at it. Do you have a...

I don't have an immediate no to it. I mean, at the end of the day, a zone is just a land use, right? So I think the key would be

when we establish that. So that's not something defined by state statute.

No, I don't think so. I think that, well, there might be some statewide planning laws to consider, but goals to consider. But I think just early feedback would be as long as we can show that we are complying with the basically HB 2001. And, you know, is this going to say you have to allow middle housing in areas that allow single-family residential, for example. So if we're not allowing single-family residential, we've had this conversation a few times, I think there's a case to be made, right? So it's going to go back to what the law actually says, and if it falls out of zone, do we comply? And then there's, of course, some more sort of broader background laws about have we through that zone zoned enough to meet the target? Have we contextualized the density and design standards to meet the need of whatever ground floor or unit size or lot size or whatever? So I think as long as we check all the boxes, I think there's an argument to be made that you guys have that, could make that call. I think it's definitely a question for more research by Kerry.

That'd be cool if we can do. that's obviously we need to be compliant with these state laws. The other thing that's in the back of my head too is some of these very, very large interstate developers that are private equity going to come in and make really novel cases just to get their way what they want to do you know we had the case where they wanted to put that 90 plus unit apartment building over by providence and they're they made the case that they could take all the parking capacity away from everybody else even though it wasn't thoughtful so well we went on that one but i just we also need to be thinking about that too and just what that looks like so i know that's a lot but

reminder now as we as we set up the the scope for sure with West and you know if Carrie and Ryan need to look at that because the consultants gonna it's gonna be a consultant led project of course default as well but we need to work that into the expectation of the contract well that that's that's the direction where it is I know we have plenty of time so we can circle back to anything the last sort of more less of a long-range planning project more of a code update is Hugo will talk about, but it's really getting us up to speed on all of the past really 10, it's really been about 10 years of housing loss. So Hugo, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Eric. So just zooming back out, there's been a lot of state mandates and legislation that will pass, not just in the last 2024, 2023, but kind of going backwards a lot. And we just need to do a little bit of housekeeping. And it's either, or it's potentially already adopted into the code, but there's just the fine tuning that it needs to be because it might conflict with other sections. So it's partially adoption, it's partially cleanup. But when we're looking at these state codes that we do have to implement, you know, there's the code update. There's the direct application of state law. Some of these pieces of legislation have a sunset clause. So they'll end, I think, in 2032 is one piece of them, right? So it's just kind of for a defined period of time. So not necessarily calling for a full rehaul or revamp of any code sections in particular.

Code language.

Yeah, this is in here until this day, and then it goes away. It's actually automatically expired.

Yeah, well, what we're saying is we're not going to change the code. If someone comes in and says, hey, this state law exists, we say, you're right, it does, and in your application, we will acknowledge it. That's a direct application. So it's basically not worth the code update if it's not acknowledged.

Yeah, we want to, I think, be really strategic with our resources, right? And kind of putting all this energy into something that's eventually going to go away doesn't necessarily make sense for staff inherently. So we devise pathways that align with other jurisdictions that are also having to deal with similar issues. There's also the charter amendment application that I'm going to lean on Eric and Ryan to kind of talk about a little bit. But I know that we haven't had anything come in yet that's solidified that would conflict with our charter amendment, but the charter amendment does take precedent. And so we're just going to kind of, if anything does kind of come in, lean specifically on that piece of local legislation. These are the recent amendments that were passed a couple of days ago. Sure. Yeah. So potential code updates, just to kind of give you a bird's eye view of what's coming down the pipeline. You're looking at just kind of an update to land use procedures. There's the clearing objective standards, specifically applying to housing structures and tree code. Um, then you have single room occupancy units. That's something that the state is fairly recently. Um, and then there's apostles.

Maybe, maybe a college SRO single room occupancy to, uh, Dormitory is maybe a little bit more accurate, where they have a room. You basically just either rent or I guess purchase, I guess that could be a compromise as well, a room. And there are shared restrooms, shared bathrooms, and something historically prohibited that.

So this state recently said you can't prohibit these. You have to allow them or what? That was okay. That was what they did. So we have to address that.

Is there... Yeah, you see those in college towns a lot. You know, they get out of their first year. So I see them in the Bay Area with rents. Yeah, through New York. They're in the mid-cities. But I would say it's actively fellow towns. The prices they're paying, you know, for a single room, you're still paying $1,200 a month. It's kind of crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the last one I'll just add here is there's been also updates to the middle housing and land division standards. This is a piece of legislation that a lot of cities are also direct applying, but they've also recently updated them to kind of ease those prophecies for applicants. And so we're just trying to come up with internal procedures primarily to kind of address those updates.

So that's what we're looking at in terms of code updates. And then really just some of the discussion questions. The first one is just sort of a preview of the work plan and the opportunities through Old Town for Sherwood West and partially through Brookman. And basically, you know, based on the upcoming work, is there enough work here for you guys to be involved and meet the council goal? Or do we need to chew off some? that we need to identify and start a process on?

I don't think so. I think we want to have it be as robust as possible. So if we need additional funding, we need to know that. I think keeping the council involved throughout the process is going to be really important. I'm not saying because we want to keep our finger on it, but there's going to be a component of this that's very political in Salem. And because we're doing a lot of work lobbying board changes to state law or fighting state law. So keeping that in the conversation is going to be really important as we craft this stuff.

Well, just like every damn session, they introduce another damn new law. Or multiple. More multiple. So that's my...

Yeah. Oh, no, there will be more. Again, this list is, you know, from current through this year. There was more.

To your first bullet point, does it provide the opportunity to meet the council goal? What specifically is the council goal in that question?

What was on the first slide? So I don't go back. I'll just read it all. That's fine. promote and monitor diverse housing that will accommodate a wide variety of five stages and needs.

Thank you. Yeah. So I would say they do provide the opportunity to meet those goals, like all the things we just went through. There's going to be tons of opportunity to get into the specific details to hit those goals on projects. I would say yes, it does. I think we've given you the feedback. I can't imagine that we need any more additional work on top of that in the short term.

The only thing I would add, it's not really an ad, but just more maybe a mindset, is feel free to be innovative and creative. Sherwood prides itself on risks and um so you know everything's on the table if you have creative ideas or innovative ideas and way we can achieve this yeah let's talk about it i appreciate that it's awesome yeah i'm certainly open to anything novel and new and exciting yeah it's going to help us other status paying somebody to create some standard housing plans and i'm not against the concept of saying hey

Ryan, new home builder. Here's an approved plan. There's three different models. Pick one, build it. Out-of-the-pocket expense is nothing, which is great. It's not unlike when my house was built. Here's our five choices. What one do you want?

What one can you afford? What's crazy about that is the builders have had that for years. They have these books. When you see a housing plan came

My follow-up was, okay, these bullets have these damn things. There's architects that are selling them for cheap, but if now they're going to be free, great, but it's my assumption, and I could be wrong, that they're creating not a single-family detached

as a traditional home builder. process or a program that the building codes division is implementing or dlcd that's sort of the the government-led path where they are actually it would be free so they're starting with an adu then they are going to do a single family home and then they do think after that they'll get into the duplex and triplex that would be kind of what you described a free free plan you come to the local government and we basically can't say We have to improve it. The other path is for developers to get their own home plans. And this would be kind of those cookie cutter ones that the mayor mentioned. They go to BCD. They don't come to us. They go to Building Code's division at the state and say, here's our plan. It meets Building Code, right? And the state says, yeah, it meets Building Code. back to the local jurisdiction. But the kicker and the key here, which we don't we don't love, of course, is they don't have to go through land use when they bring that unit back. And so let's say it's a it goes anywhere from an ADU all the way up to a 12 plex. have a 12-unit apartment approved. This meets building code, right? Yeah, it meets building code. Then they come back to Sherwood and say, hey, see this lot right here? This meets the state statute for a lot that qualifies. And we got this 12-unit complex approved at the state level. It just goes in. It doesn't have to fit into our zoning? It doesn't have to meet our zoning, our density, our design standards, our circulation. It's an override of local rules. On any lot in the city, we can't control even where... The lot has to meet the criteria in the state law, which is 0 to 20,000 square feet. It's basically infill up to 20,000. So anywhere.

So... Sorry. So...

Going back to that, this whole idea of the pre-estate plans. I have two. Well, my first question was, can we decide where someone's allowed to be? I'm not opposed to there being an experimental, hey, let's try some of these somewhere. But it doesn't sound like we can do that. Basically, they can go anywhere anybody wants to put them.

We can't say no to it. If that particular... building unit has been approved to meet building code at the state level and then come to Sherwood and the lot and size and trees essentially there's no trees there's no slope and it's and it's vacant then let's say it's a single family's zone essentially max say like i don't know 10 years per acre so it's in 12 plex on a 10 000 square foot lot which is you know like 20 units per they they can still get the improved weight supersedable so second second question around this concern would be is there any provision in the state of law that then

The savings realized by that actually go toward the buyer, sort of a renter versus like a developer saying, hey, I can build this. I can come up with my own design. It's going to cost me. They're going to have more overhead. I can sell it for X. Or I can adopt the state thing and I can still sell it for X and pocket the savings. You're hitting on a core problem.

Almost none of these laws, with few exceptions, put any accountability on the builder to build what we actually need and at a price point.

It may not even be driving any affordability changes if there's no accountability to it. Okay, we saved you 20 grand, 40 grand, whatever, but you need to pass that along to the consumer. Nope, not necessarily. Yeah. So it just feels like it's an opportunity for a dive to the lowest common denominator.

Hey, Eric.

yeah um does that apply any lot even if it's master planned or part of a master plan it's a good question and all of these new laws we don't know i think in our conversations with carrie in the past we've asked these questions about does this override master plan does that override man the answer we got is nobody knows yet nobody's tested it's going to be litigated here everything i mean all this stuff's brand new

And we've got to go through the process. And I think this law didn't necessarily say master plan doesn't or does apply. This law, for example, doesn't apply. This law, in the rule we're going through, rulemaking now, there is no mention of master plan communities in the state law itself or in the... So there's going to be a state law conflict that a court will have to... Well, I think Sherwood will make that call and someone will have to contest it. Yeah. Courts will resolve the conflict in the state law.

Yeah, that's the challenge. Well, we are out of time. Do you have everything you need for now? Feedback, yeah. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much. Awesome. All right. First up, next up. We are adjourned from the work session, and we'll start our regular meeting at 8.