City Council - workshop

Amen.

I can.

you

I call to order the work session of the Willisville City Council for July 20th, 26th at 5 p.m. I'll start by asking council members for review of the agenda and items on consent. Are there any comments? Any councilor general concerns? Okay. Next, we turn to council input on board and commission appointments and reappointments. If there's any individual who wish me to consider for the appointment on the Planning Commission, I think that's the only one that's before us. I could use those names now to consider. Councilor Skoll.

I'd like to make a recommendation for Mary Pettinger. I've reviewed all the applicants and her applications seem to be done very well. She has a good amount of qualifications. She served on several committees and graduated from the Civics Academy. And she also has experience in teaching and in land use in Oregon, land use laws and everything. So I would put her name forward to interview. Thank you. All right, thank you.

Anybody else on council? Councilor Cunningham.

I've had a few people contact me with their interest. I think all of them were highly qualified. Those people included Katie Dunwell, Jenny Hill, and John Badajo. John Badajo is a former first citizen of Wilsonville, has extensive background in planning and logistics through the military, and is a extremely volunteers a lot of time in the community. Miss Hill is a local realtor. She has a lot of conversations with a lot of people in this community about what they're looking for, what they're looking to see this community provide. And I think she would offer a unique perspective for our planning commission. And then finally, Katie Dunwell, who's served before on our DRB and of course on City Council, has a great understanding of how the city operates and things get done.

Of the three, is there any order? The order you present, is that your order?

I would probably say Jenny Hill, John Bedio, and Katie Dunwell.

Okay, thank you. City Council President Berry?

I agree with the first nomination. I think that should make an excellent candidate.

Which one?

Mary.

Mary Pettinger?

Yes.

Okay. Any other councilor comments on this? Okay, thank you everybody. Take those names under consideration. Turning now to our work session. First up is housing statutory compliance.

Good afternoon, Mayor O'Neill and city councilors. I am Kim Reibold, senior planner with the city's planning division, and I'm here tonight to kick off part two of the Housing Statutory Compliance Project. As you're aware, the overall Housing Statutory Compliance Project started, we started work on this about maybe eight or so months ago. and split this project into two parts, one of which dealt with required process changes to residential review, which were adopted by the city council last month and are in effect as of July 1st of this year. The second part of this project will turn its focus to changes that mostly came into place during the 2025 legislative session through House Bill 2138, which tackled a variety of topics related to middle housing, tree codes, middle housing land divisions, and some other code cleanup related to housing. We're also going to be looking at some other bills that have come about over the past handful of years that the city has not yet been able to assess and incorporate into the development code. So with me tonight is Lee Alligood from 3J Consulting. They're our partner on this project in assessing the code. And Lee will kick us off by providing some background on the statutory requirements that we are looking at with this part of the project.

Great, thank you Kim. Good evening Mayor O'Neill and council members. I will give a quick overview of the project purpose and the requirements, prevent the code audit assessment, and then we're looking to gather input to inform the outreach that we're planning and the development code amendments that will ultimately come out of this effort. So the primary focus of part two is on the provisions of HB 2138. As Kim mentioned, the city has maintained a list of other needed code updates based on recent legislation. And these additional items are addressed in the assessment that was included in your packet for tonight's meeting. And to support the primary focus of this project, we'd like to engage you and the public on tree removal and preservation standards for residential development, which Kim will speak to in greater detail later in the presentation. So you can see here our schedule. We are currently in July, 2026. We've published the code audit memo. We're holding these work sessions, outreach and draft code amendments will occur in the fall. We are aiming for hearings at the end of this year and early next year. January 1st is when HB 2138 is effective. You can see that that effective date is before these amendments are expected to be adopted. And that's true of many of the other amendments that we'll be making. In the interim, staff will be applying state law directly while we're developing these code amendments for you. So the city has a robust tree program and has been implementing the code for a number of years. HB 2138 requires that all cities or jurisdictions have to create clear and objective tree removal standards for residential development. As Kim mentioned, it also includes looking at streamlining the middle housing land division process. And there's a sample here from Lake Oswego that shows how an attached triplex might be divided into three underlying lots. The city does have a process for this currently, but there'll need to be some small changes to comply with the state law updates. And there are also different types of residential uses like single room occupancies that need to be addressed and incorporated into the code. So in addition to HB 2138, there are other legislative actions that are addressed in the memo and the matrix that you all received. And so that includes affordable housing provisions, such as allowing additional units if there's an accessible or affordable dwelling unit included in a middle housing development. There's a, looking at the definition of household, state law prohibits defining household based on the number of people in a household and their familial relationships. So we'll be looking at that. Updating where uses like family childcare homes and childcare centers, residential treatment facilities and treatment homes, where they can be located in the community without a special level of review. We're also looking at removing reference to the city review of condominium plotting. The process for a condominium plot would remain the same, but the city doesn't have a formal role in the legal component of the condominium plot review. There are provisions that allow the conversion of commercial buildings to residential without zone changes or variances. There are also provisions that prohibit requiring frontage improvements for alterations and renovations in certain cases where a building doesn't expand and the use classification doesn't change. And finally, there's some provisions specifically to natural occurring hazards and destruction of residential uses, providing an additional amount of time for people to pull permits and replace those dwelling units to allow them to get through insurance or any lawsuits that may come out of those hazards. And so that is the ultimate overview. And I'm going to hand it back over to Kim.

Thank you. I just wanna, before we get into a deeper dive on the tree requirements that we have before us, I wanna provide a little background on how our current tree preservation and protection codes work, particularly as it relates to residential development. Because this is the one area where we are required to move to a clear and objective process, but we do have some policy choices for how we decide to do that. The current code was adopted by the city in 1996 and it strives to consider tree preservation as an equivalent design principle to other aspects of development that might be considered. Considering it on an even level such as you would with street layout or where you're placing uses and buildings, we also want to be able to think about how different design alternatives might result in tree preservation. The pictures that are on this slide are some examples of how The city has done that since the tree code has been in effect. The upper left picture is actually early on in the development of Villebois and you can see how some of those existing trees that are there were incorporated into the straight tree network and into open spaces and that was a very important principle in the layout of that neighbourhood. Since then we've taken similar approaches as we've evaluated development in places such as Frog Pond West. And so we have as examples here at the Willow Creek Oak that was preserved during development of the neighborhoods there, as well as preservation of tree groves and using those tree groves as open space in the neighborhood. And you can also see how the city prioritized preservation of existing mature Douglas fir trees at the Vuela development. And so the way our tree code has been written and used allows that flexibility to look at a site and think about which trees are worthy of preservation and think about how a site can be designed to achieve that preservation we do this by requiring a tree survey with development that provides information on the location of trees species of trees size health and other characteristics and for any trees that are removed with development the city requires one-for-one mitigation and if that's not feasible payment into the city tree fund With House Bill 2138, the city has to develop clear and objective tree removal standards for residential development. So this is very similar to other standards that the city has developed over the years for residential development, things like numerical, quantifiable standards for setbacks or building height, we kind of have to now take that approach with trees as well. Notably, the statute does still allow for cities to offer an optional discretionary path at the applicant's choosing. So because of this, we are considering a process change for the tree surveys that I mentioned whereby we would treat these similar to traffic studies that the city actually maintains a relationship with a traffic consultant that then processes all of the traffic studies. We're considering doing that with tree surveys to ensure quality and consistency in our analysis of development. Some considerations in actually developing the standards for tree removal, that is clear and objective. Things we could consider would be species to prioritize for preservation, certain characteristics of trees, whether that be health, size, location on a site, whether or not the trees are alone or in groves, as well as, as I mentioned, retention of the current standards as an optional alternative discretionary path. So these are some ideas we could consider in developing that code. We presented this information to the Planning Commission at their work session earlier this month and sought feedback on these questions as well. They didn't have necessarily any strong feelings right now about specific characteristics to look at. They did think that Going to the community with visual preference information to actually be able to see what examples have looked like over the years could be helpful. So tonight we're just hoping to get similar feedback from you to give you an opportunity to ask any questions you have about the statutory requirements and the code changes that would come with those. but then really try to get any initial feedback you have on potential considerations for development of a clear and objective tree code. And in particular, if there's anybody you would like us to talk to or any specific ideas you have for outreach that would inform your decision making as we move forward. So with that, we are happy to answer any other questions or hear what feedback you have. Thank you.

Council President Berry.

Thank you for your update. You mentioned potentially looking at having a consultant that would write all the reports for any kind of applicant. Did I understand that correctly? Yes, that is correct. Did the Planning Commission give you feedback on that?

I think we had a couple of commissioners suggest that that seemed like a reasonable approach.

I mean, to me, that seems reasonable also, just for consistency and fairness. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Schell.

Relative to tree replacement, I have several questions. Being involved in the HOA in Villa Blah, the neighborhood's probably about 20 years old, and so if I understand, if it's a removal, it's a one-for-one replacement? Will there be any setback rules from the homes? A lot of the trees that were planted way back either have root balls or they're interfering with the homes now, damaging the homes, and we as the HOA have to basically mitigate that situation on a yearly basis. So my suggestion there would be some type of rules that would affect the replacement in terms of what type of trees you're using and what the setbacks away from the homes would be, considering growth over a 10-, 15-, 20-year period, and also height, too. We have some pretty large trees that are probably upward to 60, 70 feet, I'm just guessing. But at some point in time, they're gonna need to be dealt with. And as we work into this with any of the new development, I think that should be considered.

Thank you.

Councillor Shevlin. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. May I ask a question about something other than trees?

Yes.

Okay, good. Thank you. I just wanted to note that we are a tree city, a very proud tree city. So it appears that it shouldn't be too difficult for us to come into compliance with the requirements because we've already got quite a bit in place. But my question has to do with the prohibition on requiring a traffic impact analysis or exactions for most middle housing development. I'm not quite sure what was the purpose of prohibiting the traffic impact analysis. Could you help me with that?

Sure. I can't tell you that I understand the practice of prohibiting it. I know that in practice, in some cases, a traffic impact analysis would actually benefit the developer because it would support requiring less than might have otherwise been supported. But that is the legislation that was adopted.

All right. Well, maybe we can find out a little bit more about it. I mean, are we, so we're prohibited from conducting the analysis, which means that we could face some sort of legal issues if we actually conducted the analysis. Is that correct?

Correct. So my understanding, and I don't want to fully speculate on legislative intent, but particularly with middle housing developments, a lot of these types of developments happen in an infill settings where you have an already developed area. And I think in some cases these were seen as burdensome to developers when you're already kind of in an established network with traffic infrastructure. I think in the Wilsonville case, this isn't or has not historically been as common. It could be more so over time. Typically, if you're dealing with only, let's say, up to 12 units, that's something that often can be dealt with via a smaller scale study and or traffic memo. But again, we would be prohibited from requiring that as part of an application process. So certainly if we tried to do that, I think that's something where I most likely see that a developer would just say, no, I don't have to provide that, I'm not going to. And then we would have to process the application without it.

All right, thank you. Councillor Cunningham.

Can you expound upon, there was one bullet point that said residential allowances and non-residential zones. What would some examples or what would that look like?

Sure. There are certain zones, essentially everything except heavy industrial, where child care centers must be allowed. Residential care homes and residential care facilities need to be allowed in residential and commercial zones, I believe. And then there's the provision that allows for conversion of a commercial building to residential use in all or part of it. without requiring a zone change or some kind of a variance approval or something similar. So some of these aren't directly housing-related bills, like the Child Care Center and residential care homes, but they're looking at making sure that these facilities can be sited in areas of the community where they are needed.

How does that play into something like a mixed-use building with ground floor commercial?

That's a great question. So there are a couple of things at play here. One is SB 1537, which is mandatory adjustments. And one of the provisions of SB 1537 is that an applicant can request a waiver or an adjustment to a requirement to have ground floor active uses or commercial uses in some conditions. I think part of what we'll be doing through the development code amendments is figuring out what it might look like if someone wants to convert a commercial use to a residential use. and what combination of tools they might have to make that request, and then what ability the city has to shape what the outcomes are. So we're still in the early exploratory phases of that effort.

So it would be a possibility to convert that ground floor space to residential then?

If they requested an adjustment through SP 1537, they can request an adjustment to that requirement in some cases, most cases.

And I would note that the adjustment process in 1537 is a temporary process. So that's why we are not addressing that in the development code that will sunset. So the development code updates that we will be looking at, the bill that speaks specifically to conversion of commercial uses, that would be something for existing development. So again, I... Don't want to fully speak to legislative intent, but this I think came about in more of that vacant office building type of situation where you hear a lot about this in Portland where there's questions of, well, why we should be able to make it easier to convert this vacant office space into a residential use. And so I think a lot of that was the genesis behind this bill. We don't have a ton of office building square footage in Wilsonville that is in that circumstance. But technically we have to allow for that per the statute.

Yeah, that's a little concerning. I know you won't speak to legislative intent, but as I look through this list, it sure appears like there's a lot of frustration from the governor's office around unmet housing goals as this just opens us up to having Our ability to control our zoning and how we plan our city and where we put certain things and how we set things up kind of blows it up in our face to chase after those unmet housing goals. It's frustrating.

In that particular scenario, the conversion of non-residential buildings to residential, it doesn't waive any of the other building code requirements or structural code requirements, which tend to be as onerous, if not more onerous, than land use requirements. Thank you, Council Member Cunningham.

Bringing us back to trees, my input on that, and then I'll yield to you in a second if I can. And maybe I missed it, a focus on native trees seems to me important. I think that a lot of my neighborhood The native tree was planted by the prior owner of my house, for example, and the tree that was put in based on city requirements was a non-native maple tree. The other thing that I know both, and I'm just observing what's happened in Maury's Landing especially, but where these trees are placed in relationship to the sidewalks results in sidewalks deteriorating a lot quicker and being a hazard to residents. And if I remember correctly, it's the resident that has to replace the sidewalk, I believe. Right. So to me, that's a problem. Uh, and, uh, so those are the things I would consider. I'm for traffic studies and community developments. So I disagree with that being removed. I was on the DRB when it became very important. concerning a community that was getting an increase of traffic. So I personally have a problem with that. I concur with Councilor Cunningham's comments that we have some things that are deteriorating local control from the legislature and the governor that if we don't follow the rules, we end up losing funding in other parts. So it's kind of like we're held hostage in many respects. So with that, Councilor, skull.

Just two quick questions. Uh, could you define allowances for childcare homes and centers? Uh, it was under the impression that, uh, they were already permitted in these areas and there's a lot of childcare homes throughout the communities here that are actually licensed. Uh, personal homes are licensed for childcare activities. So is there a specific definition for that?

There is definition of what qualifies in ORS. I don't have it in front of me, but essentially you're correct. Um, they have been allowed. This is one of those situations where, because the code doesn't speak to it, it's one of those things that staff has had to track when we get these applications in, because we just, because it's not in our development code doesn't mean we can disallow it, but it's more that the development code doesn't provide us with guidance that those uses are allowed in those locations. And so we've been applying statute in those situations directly. So we would like to just codify it to be consistent with what the state is requiring here. There are some minor changes that have been made that expand upon childcare centers versus family childcare homes. which I think the family childcare home is maybe what you've been seeing more of in the neighborhood context. And so making sure that those changes that have been most recently adopted in statute are included in what we're putting in the development code will be important as well. Okay.

The reason why I ask is my business takes me into a lot of these daycare homes and childcare homes and for inspections and all that. I see and I check for state licenses, but I don't check for... local or community licenses or approvals or anything of that sort. They're not required to show that. So I'd be curious about how that's gonna be managed.

So essentially if they have to come in for a building permit, it's like any other outright allowed use. So the corollary being a single family home, essentially the family childcare home, what statute tells us is that this is also allowed and it's allowed just like you would allow a single family home. And so what happens is when the building division intakes an application for any sort of interior work or anything that might be happening to allow for that, planning staff will get a chance to review and sign off. but there isn't necessarily a land use process that that applicant would have to go through.

Okay, thank you. Last thing, circling back to the trees. If there's any activity, that's probably primarily for Kim, if there's any activity of working together on that tree process, I would like to volunteer for that. In our HOA, I think I've got one of every condition blocking visual for traffic, sidewalks, house interference, and so I'd like to work on that with you.

Great, thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Cunningham. Yeah, back to the trees. I support what Councillor Scholl and Mayor O'Neill said about the types of trees that we're looking at. I have had some conversations with some citizens as well who have had damage to their homes, the structures, sidewalks, all those things, and a lot of times in those discussions it's because the wrong kinds of trees are being planted. So I think anything we can do to have more focus on proper setbacks, putting the right trees next to sidewalks that aren't going to push them up, are going to grow those roots down, not out and up. Anything we can do there, because that becomes extremely expensive for our citizens. We have our sidewalk fund where we try to help out as a city, but recently we decided to kind of piggyback our graffiti enforcement and proactive, or I guess reactive, reward work with that. So anything we can do to just work smarter and not harder on the right trees in the right places, I would be in support of that because it gets very expensive. And I'm sure that 60 or 70 foot tree in the HOA is not going to be cheap to have to deal with when it needs to come down.

Thank you. Thank you. I think you got our input on the tree part. Yeah.

I think so. We will report back later this fall if we have any follow-up questions, and we'll bring forward draft code edits at that point. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next up is the Town Center Development District, excuse me, District Ballot Title and Polling Results.

Okay, Mayor, I'm going to, I'm going to start this one, just kind of kick it off, and then I'll turn it over to our consultant. This is actually a two-part item for you. We're going to talk about the results of the recent polling that was done for a town center, and then we're going to talk about the ballot title for a town center development district. That's why you see City Attorney Guile Hinman on the Zoom right now, she will talk about that piece of it. And then as folks are kind of getting set up here, let me just kick off the conversation about the polling. So in June, Wright Communications did a polling of the community to give information about Town Center. And this is really just a data point for you. ONE OF MANY DATA POINTS THAT YOU WILL GET AS YOU DECIDE IF YOU'RE GOING TO PUT URBAN RENEWAL ON THE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER. TONIGHT THE CONSULTANTS ARE GOING TO WALK THROUGH WITH YOU WHAT THE RESULTS WERE OF THAT POLLING. IN YOUR PACKET WAS A COPY OF A PRESENTATION AS WELL AS SOME OF THE RESULTS. SO YOU HAVE THAT WITH YOU. And then with that, I'm gonna turn it over to the folks from Wright Public Affairs, and they will, I think, take it from there. And so this is, I think Jeremy's gonna start us off.

Yeah, hey, can everyone hear me okay? Yes, thank you. Great. Thanks for having me. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person, other side of the country right now. Tonight, I'm going to briefly talk, walk through a little bit of the mechanics of why we poll. It's always good to level set a little bit about our, you know, the purpose of this. And I'm handed over to Maggie from Patinkin Research Strategies, who will, there in the room, walk through the actual results. Again, Jeremy Wright, Wright Public Affairs. We work with cities and counties and school districts and community colleges and anyone who's interested in understanding the perceptions of their community, understanding how they feel about possible issuances of bonds and levies, and then figuring out what makes the most sense to go out and place on the ballot. Our work here has been with producing the information you're going to see tonight. Why did we pull? We poll because polling is a scientific way to provide you with statistically accurate data that allows you to sift fact from fiction and make smart strategic policy decisions. What oftentimes happens is that when we're engaged in public policy, that the loudest voices in the room sometimes dictate or the ones who show up at meetings or whoever are the ones who dictate policy because they're the ones who are there. or who have provided comment or show up at a community meeting. And what polling allows you to do is get a understanding of your community writ large in a scientific way that reflects everyone who is part of the City of Wilsonville Voting District. Next slide. So what are the basics of polling? It's a quantitative versus qualitative, which really means, and I believe there's another slide on this, next slide, which really means that there's many different ways we gather opinion as public agencies. The one on the right, the qualitative, the feeling ones, which are things that I call the opt-in. These are the things that, whether it's you send out a community survey, send out a web survey, you're asking parents to get involved in a school or PTA thing, or you ask staff to be involved, or folks come to a city council or board and they testify. or you have online feedback, or you have a community neighborhood association meeting. All those things are what we call qualitative input, and they're very valuable. They're very important because that stuff allows us to begin to understand where your community is at, what the general zeitgeist is, so to speak. which then allows us to do the quantitative, which is the polling we're going to present tonight, which is the facts. And what does that look like? We want a verified sample of voters. So we're saying, OK, if we're looking at a November 2026 election, let's talk to folks who are actually going to be likely voting. And we want to make sure that that group of voters, and I'll talk a little bit about the process, looks like you targeted election. We do a statistical sample. And so that's a random sample of the folks that we're calling. And then we make sure that we know a margin of error. So again, understanding that we have enough folks who have responded to have a good margin of error so you have good data. And you do calling not through, hey, I want to take a web survey, but actual reaching out to people through live callers or text to web, which is we did live callers in this case. Next slide. Always say this, polls are a snapshot in time. Very often what people do, unfortunately, is take something they saw six months ago and say, well, the poll said this. And so what you're seeing tonight is where the residents of the city of Wilsonville were at the time of us taking this poll. Now, polls can be helpful in telling us, OK, where do we need to go? If we give people information, if they learn about this, Does that change their mind? That type of stuff is excellent to use polling for in terms of understanding where people move. But they are a snapshot of where your voters are at the time we did the poll. They're not going to predict exactly what will happen in any given election. Finally, next slide. How do we poll? And then I'll hand this over to Maggie. Just because this helps answer questions we always get. We get a list of every voter in the district. So there's a voter file, which is, you know, the Clackamas County elections there. And then we look at the target election date and say, okay, in this case, we were saying, what does a November 2026 electorate look like? Meaning the circle of people who are actually going to vote, which is smaller than the total circle of people in your community. uh and then total registered and then the people who are going to vote in one specific election um so we create that universe to say okay what is you know who's november 2026 what does that look like and maggie will talk about that in a minute and then we randomly call and text them until we keep it takes a lot of calls these days you get people to answer the phone but we do and out of that we stopped calling in this case we had a 400 sample um And so people go, 400? How does that work? And that actually, when you do the math on it and the work that Maggie and her team does and the Patinkin Research folks do behind them, it gives us a margin of error of less than 5 points, 5%. So we're able to accurately weight that number to reflect your entire community. And then we make sure that the universe is reflective of what we think the November election is going to look like. And then we analyze and report the data. And that's what we're going to report tonight. When you do polling, you get these huge reams of data. And then we have to synthesize it up into something that's digestible. Wanted to start with that as a level set, happy to answer any questions about methodology or purpose, or just go ahead and let Maggie do the presentation on results.

You can go ahead.

All right, thanks, Jeremy. All right, so again, I'm Maggie Simich. I'm from the firm Patinkin Research Strategies. We're a public opinion research firm that does, as Jeremy noted, lots of research for local municipalities, community colleges, school districts, all sorts of local jurisdictions. As Jeremy noted, our methodology was a survey that equals 400 likely voters within the city of Wilsonville. We used professional interviewers to both cell phones and landlines. We used a voter file-based sample, and then we used both quotas and weights to reflect a likely November 2026 electorate. We were in the field June 16th through the 18th of 2026. The margin of error is going to be plus or minus 4.9 percentage points to the 95% level of confidence. We also have an arbitrary break at age 50 in terms of how we think of sort of younger versus older voters, and then because of rounding, it's occasionally the case that things don't sum precisely to 100%. So starting now, just a little bit on the district voter demographics, just to give a sense of what Jeremy was talking about, about the difference between a likely November 2026 electorate and just sort of the general population of registered voters within the city of Wilsonville. Just to give a sense of that. The main thing I would flag, so we used historical data to determine what this likely November 2026 electorate looks like, the historical turnout information. We have sort of individual level past participation in elections. And we use that to develop who's likely to turn out in a midterm general election in Oregon. The main thing I would flag about the difference between a likely November 2026 voter and sort of the total voter population in the city of Wilsonville is that the likely November 2026 population trends a little bit older. So in the population as a whole, you have 49% who are over the age of 50. When you look at a likely November 2026 electorate, that's 62% who are over the age of 50. And similarly, you have a lot more seniors over age 70. So as opposed to 22% of the general registered voter population, they make 30% of the likely November 2026 electorate. The other piece I'll emphasize in terms of where there's a difference in terms of these two data sets is in terms of partisan registration on the file. The likely November 26th electorate is just a bit more partisan in general. So you have fewer of these non-affiliated independent voters and comparatively more registered Democrats and Republicans, which makes sense for a partisan election. All right, so where we start? We asked a question about the trajectory of the city of Wilsonville. So generally speaking, do you think things in the city of Wilsonville are headed in the right direction, or do you feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track? And voters are divided. So 45% say that they say the city is going in the right direction. 43% say that it's going the wrong track. As Jeremy noted, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, so that is statistically even in terms of the number who feel that the city is headed in the right direction versus the wrong track. We then tested sort of mocked up ballot language. This is best practice for these types of ballot initiatives. This is the one piece of information that we know that every voter is actually going to get, which is the exact wording that's printed on their ballot. So we said this November, a measure may appear on your ballot for the city of Wilsonville. The measure reads, vote to create an urban renewal district in town center should the district adopt proposed ordinance number 905, establishing an urban renewal district to address blight in town center. Now if the election were held today, would you vote yes or no? We start with a plurality in support of the Urban Renewal District. 45% of voters start out voting yes, 36% voting no, 20% undecided. The intensity of feeling is fairly weak with only 18% saying that they feel that way strongly in either direction. So 18% say that they're voting yes strongly. 18% think that they're voting no strongly. When you sort of sum up the folks who have not strong opinions or are undecided, there are sort of a lot of empty heads that need filling. Folks don't have super strong perceptions either way as a starting point on the Urban Renewal District. We then tested individual projects that could be a part of urban renewal file measures. So next is a list of potential projects that could be funded if this measure were to pass. And we look at the top tier. These items on this slide are sort of the top tier based on the total percent who say that they favor those projects as well as the percentage that say that they favor those projects strongly. At the top of the list is constructing a gathering space and parking garage, as well as limiting building height to prevent any construction beyond five stories. We then have sort of the middle tier of projects, which still get to a pretty high percentage of voters who say that they favor them overall. You know, you see from a lot of these, you have majority support with intensity of feeling right around a quarter or more. That middle tier projects includes creating a food cart and small business incentive program, addressing blight in Wilsonville town center, constructing a transit hub. infrastructure, so roads, sewers, sidewalks, and water lines, and then constructing mixed-use buildings with apartments and condominiums on the upper levels for individuals, families, and seniors. All right, so now diving into the town center development specifically. We had sort of a few ways that we tested the popularity of the Wilson Town Center plan, specifically in the urban renewal districts more broadly. In terms of the Wilsonville Town Center plan, we asked favorability on the plan itself. It got to 39% who say they have a favorable perception of Wilsonville Town Center. On the other side, you have just over 32% who say that they have an unfavorable perception. You have 17% who say that they have a neutral perception, and then 12% who say that they've never heard. So a plurality having favorable impression sort of off the bat of the Wilsonville Town Center plan. Interestingly, we then asked a question, so this is after we had asked ballot language, sort of explaining a little bit more about what exactly an urban renewal district is. So some cities in Oregon create districts to help pay for infrastructure and public improvement in areas planned for future development without increasing local property tax rates. In Wilsonville, this type of tool could be used to help fund roads, sidewalks, utilities, public gathering spaces, and other improvements needed to support the city's Wilsonville Town Center plan. Knowing this, do you support or oppose using this type of district to pay for improvements in the city of Wilsonville without raising taxes? That question gets to 52% who say that they are supportive of that and 27% who say that they oppose it. I want to note that the percentage who support that is higher than the number who initially start out going yes on the urban renewal ballot measure. What that tells us is that voters don't intuitively know what an urban renewal ballot measure is without a little bit of explaining. So just the ballot language alone that's on the ballot doesn't really give voters all of the information they need. When they learn just a little bit more sort of like in English explanation of what urban renewal district could do in Wilsonville, you see an increase of about 10 points. over where folks start. We also asked a question about how much folks know about the Wilsonville Town Center plan. And there's a pretty high level of awareness. You have 57% of voters who say that they know either a lot or at least some about that plan, 34% who say they know not too much, and just 7% who say that they haven't heard anything at all. Overall, that's a pretty high level of awareness about something like this. We then did an exercise where we asked folks sort of how they would, which name resonated the most in terms of how they would describe the town center plan. And the one that comes out on top is the town center development district. In the middle tier, you kind of have urban renewal district or the Wilsonville economic improvement district. We also tested Wilsonville community investment district, the gateway district, community investment area. So really the town center development district is one that makes most intuitive sense to respondents. We then tested a series of, um, specifics, um, including both arguments sort of in support of, and in opposition to, um, a potential urban renewal measure, um, and sort of key takeaways from that exercise. Um, it was really clear. We had sort of like multiple data points throughout the sort of supported these, um, first, what Wilsonville residents want from a town center development district. These items are rank ordered based on their priorities. Um, they want a downtown Plaza or gathering space. They want a food court or small business incentive program. They want more jobs and increased property values. They want a parking garage that helps alleviate street parking. They want to address blight, and they want to create a transit hub. What they do not want is large apartment buildings, a plan that increases taxes, a plan that impacts schools specifically in terms of their funding, and then apartment buildings over five stories tall. With that, happy to take any questions about this polling.

Council. Any questions? I think you're off the hook. Oh, I take that back. City Council President Berry.

I don't really have questions. It's a lot of data and I think what was stressed at the beginning of the report is that this data reflects one point in time. I find it really helpful. I really appreciate it. I think finding out that people prefer to call it actually I probably need to see the slide, but the town center development area or district came out on top and that people want to address the blight and see gathering places. And I think that reflects what I've been hearing from the public. So I appreciate having a poll that is statistically sound. Thank you for one point in time.

Councilor Skoll.

Just one question regarding the, let's see, there's seven options to name this project. How are the names generated?

Those were just sort of brainstorming with folks on city staff, knowledge from sort of other urban renewal districts and how they're titled. So, for example, the Gateway District is a, you know, it's something that we saw in, in other parts of the Metro area. Um, so based on either where we've seen other cities, how they've, we've seen them refer to our renewal districts or just sort of general, uh, ideas.

So in terms of when you were questioning the respondents, uh, the question was based around if you had the choice to name this, which one would you pick?

That's a great question. Okay, sorry, I misunderstood your initial question. We had a list of these options, and then we asked which are the two that they thought were the most descriptive, that they sort of felt resonated the most based on what they had learned up until that point in the survey.

Very good, very good. Great information. Thank you. Councillor Cunningham.

Yeah, I noticed. So can you go to that last slide that... That one. I noticed that our packet is slightly different. It doesn't include the large apartment buildings in Wilsonville under do not want. So I'm wondering why there's a discrepancy between that one and our packet. How was that piece of feedback gathered? Where did that come from?

That's a great question. That came from one of the items that sort of asked about limiting development to five stories tall in combination with some of the statements for and exempts that showed that folks were interested in housing or at least mixed-use development, just not necessarily over five stories tall, sort of when you combine findings from those two sets of questions.

Okay. And then I noticed, too, that And the question was asked about the mid in the mid tier project section, it talked about mixed use buildings with apartments and condominiums. Based on our financial feasibility study, condominiums are virtually non existent. But I guess there's no way to discern whether or not that was the draw for people. Is that right?

Yeah, unfortunately we were unable to sort of parse what the support is for apartments versus condominiums specifically since we mentioned both of them in tandem in that question.

Okay. Were any questions, was there any polling done regarding number of housing units or density of residential units?

That's a good question. We did have a question that talked about the, we specifically asked about sort of like large apartment, whether folks wanted large apartment buildings. And that was something that it looks like 25% of voters said was a very convincing reason not to support urban renewal. But otherwise we didn't specifically ask anything about density. And then my number of units, sorry.

Yeah, and then it lists the top tier and the mid-tier projects. Were there any other things that were asked about that aren't included in here?

No, the top tier and the mid-tier were fully inclusive. There was nothing that tested below that 51% favor.

That's all I have, thanks. Thank you. Councillor Shevlin.

Thank you. I really appreciate the work on this. I appreciate the discussion between qualitative and quantitative data. I have a question about whether or not you collected any anecdotal comments. There were some comments that were presented during the polling. Comments say, we've heard around town that parking may be a problem. Then the question was, is this a Very convincing or somewhat convincing or not too convincing reason to support the project. But I'm just kind of looking on to Councilor Cunningham's questions about density and size of buildings or some of those things. Were there, I didn't see any collection of anecdotal comments. Was there an opportunity for that?

So in this survey there was not, because of the way this was set up as sort of a statistical scientific survey, it was really limited to these sort of close-ended quantitative questions. It didn't have sort of open-ended commentary in it. So that's not sort of something that was addressed in this particular research tool.

Sure, of course, thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, thank you for that piece.

What's next? I think the next item as part of part two of this item is to talk about the ballot title, draft ballot title language. I'm going to turn it over to the city attorney who is remote and I think going to take it from here.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Amanda Geil-Henman, city attorney.

Good morning. Is it morning?

Oh, it's well into the morning. Okay. It's about 3 a.m. here. Okay. Matt Lorenzen should be setting up the slide deck. I can't see the table though, so okay. Thank you, Matt. So this evening I will be discussing the Town Center Development District ballot title, draft ballot title that's in the council's packet. And Matt's also there to assist if there's particular questions on the draft plan that will be coming before council here shortly. Next slide. So by way of background, In 2019, as this council knows, following a community planning process, the council adopted the town center plan. In its listed economic development strategies, tax increment financing, or TIF, was identified as one potential funding mechanism to help implement public improvements to support the vision and development of town center. To evaluate the feasibility of using TIF, the city completed the town center urban renewal feasibility study in 2023, That study analyzed redevelopment potential, financing capacity, and possible public investments that could be supported through a town center urban renewal area. The study ultimately informed preparation of a proposed urban renewal district that was referred to the Wilsonville voters in May of 2024. Although the measure was not approved, the planning, financial analysis, and community engagement completed during that process provided a foundation for future consideration of a revised proposal if council so chose. So then in March, 2025, the city council identified revisiting a town center urban renewal district through community education and outreach among its council goals. Consistent with that direction, staff conducted community outreach and updated the financial analysis and redevelopment assumptions through preparation of the 2026 town center urban renewal feasibility study. And that feasibility study was further updated in June of 2026. And the updated study reflects current market conditions, revised project costs, and a more conservative redevelopment scenario than previously evaluated. So the revised proposal also incorporates previous council direction, as I mentioned in June, intended to better align the proposed district with community priorities that the council had heard. Included in these refinements were reduction of redevelopment assumptions and associated tax increment revenue projections, lower proposed maximum indebtedness, a shorter anticipated district duration, removal of the proposed I-5 bicycle and pedestrian bridge project, addition of economic development incentive programs, supporting food carts, and the recruitment and retention of small and locally owned businesses. Next slide. So what this all leads to, what this information leads to, and as a result of the May 2026 initiative petition that was passed that adopted a new charter, an amendment to the city charter. One of the provisions that the council must undertake if it wants to refer to the voters, an urban renewal district, is that now we have to have a proposed ordinance for the electorate to vote on. So what staff is doing now that should be coming to council in the next couple weeks is ordinance number 905, that ordinance is set up to adopt a plan and report to establish this district for town center. So ordinance 905 would establish the town center development district and also adopt the plan and accompanying report. However, ordinance 905 would only be considered by the council for actual adoption after a vote of the electorate to adopt the ordinance, consider consistent with the new charter amendment, conferral with overlapping taxing districts, hearings before planning commission and city council, and required statutory notice. So essentially, we're going to, because the charter amendment requires that an ordinance be proposed to the electorate for a vote, that ordinance will be prepared, it will be provided to the electorate, and then if the electorate adopts or approves that ordinance, we still need to go through the remaining statutory processes for approval of that ordinance. and that's where the conferral, the hearings, and the notice come into play. We do anticipate that the ordinance plan and report will be presented at a work session the last week of July, a special set work session with the city council. So I will say that you're all viewing this draft ballot title somewhat in a vacuum rather than with the context of the ordinance that it's referring to and the planning report where the information is coming from. So just be aware of that as we're having a discussion about the draft ballot title. Next slide. So a draft ballot title or a ballot title is a requirement, a statutory requirement under Oregon law. to accompany any ballot measure that's being put on the ballot. And there's three main components to the ballot title. The caption, the question, and the summary. The caption is limited to 10 words and it has to reasonably identify the subject of the measure. The question is limited to 20 words. It has to plainly phrase the chief purpose of the measure so that an affirmative response, so a yes to the question, corresponds to an affirmative vote on the measure. And then finally, the summary is limited to 175 words. The summary must be a concise and impartial statement summarizing the measure and its major effect. The summary is different than an explanatory statement, which is a different description of what the measure is accomplishing. That is limited to 500 words and not part of what is considered the ballot title.

Next slide.

So questions for council, understanding that you will be looking at a draft ordinance plan and report for the work session plan for the last week of July, and I anticipate you'll probably have some more questions and updates once you're seeing the context under which the ballot title has been drafted. Right now, what staff is looking for are if there's any questions, considerations, or revisions that council may want to see at this next work session, along with the draft ordinance and accompanying documents. and I will turn it over back to the mayor. Thanks.

Councillor Cunningham.

I had a question about the wording used in both the caption and the question, and the summary, I guess, of Wilsonville Town Center Development District. If I remember correctly, when we've put similar things to the voters in the past requesting approval for funding of Tiff, we've used the words urban renewal, and I'm wondering why this language change has occurred in this ballot title.

Yeah, that's a great question. So we've done both. So if you're familiar with the WIN program, the WIN program, when it was the ballot title for it, it was called the Business Incentive Program for Investment and Job Creation by Manufacturers as an example. So we've done it both ways. However, the difference here compared to what we've done before is the fact that we are putting forward an ordinance. We've never been in a situation where we're putting forward an ordinance and a plan. What we've done before is having voters do an advisory vote on a concept of developing a plan and report in a district. So here, what we're doing is we are trying to match the language that voters will see, assuming that that's how council wants them to be drafted, that voters will see in the ordinance plan and report. So the language is trying to match those two things for consistency and not to confuse them. We struggle ourselves in referring to the town center plan versus the town center district and the plan that is going with that. And so we're trying to create, make sure that we're being very consistent with our language. But at the end of the day, it's council's prerogative, what language you use in the ordinance plan report and the ballot title.

So I don't recall ever hearing it referred to as a Wilsonville Town Center Development District before just the last several, until I saw this packet, that's the language that matches the polling. Does the polling have anything to do with it?

So what we took from the polling is that that's how our electorate understood or best understand what this is trying to do. So again, we're trying to limit the confusion around what this is.

and it's not to stay away from the words urban renewal?

That's not our intention, but it is council's prerogative if that's how you want. If that's a suggestion that council would like to see a revision to include that language or change that language, we can make that change.

To me, it feels like that's what it's been colloquially referred to in our community, and that's what people know this funding mechanism as. So I think that would be the most accurate thing to ensure that our community is getting the straight shot from us on that.

I'll add briefly that the plan document itself, which, as Amanda noted, you haven't seen yet, it reads the Town Center Development District Plan, subtitle, An Urban Renewal Plan of the City of Wilsonville, Oregon. That's just a consideration, not necessarily a rebuttal to what you're saying.

Yeah. And I guess thinking about that, there's probably not a ton of people who are going to go very, very much further past just this ballot title. And I'm not sure that we're going to get. as much understanding about what they're looking at or what they're voting on with this change in language from what was used two and a half years ago and has been the conversation in the community for a long time around Town Center.

Yeah, and one thing I will note, Councillor Cunningham, to your point, one thing that we have talked internally about a potential revision that we may be bringing in at the end of July is actually adding we'll have to change the word count because we'll go over otherwise, but is to add a web page that will have all the information available. Yes, it will require voters to have to go outside of the voter pamphlet, but making it very clear where the information on the ordinance plan and report can be easily found on a web page.

Very good. Okay. Councillor Shadlin.

Thank you. I respectfully have a different opinion than Councilor Cunningham about the wording. I personally like the Town Center Development District. If the intent is to be clear about what we're trying to do and not hide away from urban renewal, when we know that urban renewal, those terms itself, they're hard to grasp. Even the polling showed that. And then when it was explained a little bit further than people more likely to support the project. So I feel that calling it what it is, that we're developing the district, and this is a plan to develop the town center district. And then if there is a way, though, I don't disagree with if there's a way to fit into the word count and say what I believe Mr. Lorenzen just said, that it would be an urban renewal plan of some sort. We need to be transparent. There's no question about that. But I still believe that the intent of the project is to develop the district. And if we use the language that polling the citizens that were polled that said, oh, yeah, I like that one more than the other five or six or seven that were offered, that I believe that that is a reflection of what our citizens that were polled felt like. The wording represented the project. Thank you.

Councillor Scull. I would agree with Councillor Shevelyn. I have no problem with the Wilsonville Town Center Development District in certain terms. I'm sure that once we get the full text of the package, TIF, ORB and Renewal, we mentioned throughout that package in certain places and everything. And the other thing I would like to touch on is right now, And since 2019 town center has been a plan. And hopefully when we get past this boat, uh, if it's approved, then we turned into, it turns into a town center development district. So it matures in the process is that, uh, as we continue down that path of approval and, uh, it becomes a district and then can be developed, uh, per the plan. So, uh, I don't have a problem with this. Thank you. Yes.

Council President Berry.

I also agree. I like that we're really working hard to make things really clear and easy for the layperson and our voters to understand and that the simpler that we can make it and if we can have links. I think Amanda you were mentioning that maybe there would be a link for additional information that the voter can refer to. I think that's a really great idea. But I like the title, The District, especially now that we had the results from the poll and we had favorable results from the people that were talked to that represent the voters in Wilsonville.

Mayor?

and can i just clarify one thing and um you know i'm not the pollster in this but the question that was specifically asked was indicating which um which they which the person being um questioned what was the best way to describe the district so it wasn't necessarily oh i like this term it was how did they from their understanding of what was described which word best describes it. So again, kind of getting to that point of we want to be very clear and precise with our language because it is a very confusing topic.

Anybody else? Okay. I'll just add from my perspective, I concur with Councillor Shevlin's comments. I think if we can fit urban renewal in that word count as as Councilor Shevin was suggesting is a possibility. I'm very much open to that. I do like the title. Thank you. Anybody else?

Okay, thank you.

So what's next after the city attorney on this project?

So I think that, and Gina can correct me, but I believe that we are planning a special set work session the last week of July where you will see then a full draft packet of the ballot title to ensure with the ordinance plan and report as drafted to see if there's changes that you want to see to the ordinance plan and report and correspondingly to the ballot title. And based on your feedback tonight, I will work up some additional changes. Okay.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. With that, is there anything else on the town center tonight? Okay. The work session is adjourned at 6.10 p.m. We'll resume at 7 p.m.

you

Thank you.

Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You

I call to order the meeting of the Wilsonville City Council for July 20th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Will the city recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Shevlin?

Here.

Councillor President Barry? Here. Councillor Cunningham?

Here.

Councillor Scholl?

Here.

Mayor O'Neill?

Here. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to approve the following order of agenda?

I move to approve the following order of the agenda.

Is there a second? Second. If the motion has been made and seconded all those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

The motion passes five, zero. Good evening, everyone. I hope you've all been enjoying your summer and I hope you enjoy the world cup final. If you're like our family, uh, it was an enjoyable long game. Uh, this is our first regular city council meeting in several weeks. While council has held a few special meetings to address time sensitive matters, we did not have a regular meeting earlier this month because of the Independence Day holiday. It's been a busy few weeks on the mayor front, but rather than take council's time this evening, I'll be submitting my written mayor business report to the city recorder at the conclusion of tonight's meeting as part of the official record, which anybody can take a look at if they're interested. Our next regular city council meeting will be held on Monday, August 3rd, beginning at 7 p.m. Next, under mayor's business, we turn to the city attorney, Amanda Gal-Himmon's employment agreement. Before we take up this item, I want to thank the city attorney, Amanda Gal-Himmon. Amanda has consistently served this council and our community with professionalism, integrity, and sound legal judgment. I appreciate her willingness to work collaboratively throughout this process and the thoughtful approach she brought to these negotiations. Councillor Cunningham and I represented the council during the negotiations. From my perspective, the discussions were productive, respectful, and focused on reaching a fair agreement. I also want to thank Councillor Cunningham for his time, preparation, thoughtful participation throughout the process. was before council this evening as the final agreement that was a result of those negotiations. Councillor Cunningham, would you like to offer any comments at this time, or do you want to reserve them later?

No, I was just going to mirror your comments. I think that our city attorney does a fantastic job. She works very hard, and I think our discussions with her and our work together on this were Very good, so appreciate the effort put together.

Thank you. With that, Councillor Cunningham, can I have a motion to adopt City Attorney Manigault-Hidman's employment agreement?

I move to adopt the City Attorney's employment agreement. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, any further discussion on this? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five zero turning. Now there's no communications tonight. Uh, so we'll move right into citizens input. This is opportunity for visitors to address, uh, the city council, any manner concerning city business or any matter over which the council has authority is also time to address items not on the agenda. or items on the agenda that were not scheduled for a public hearing. Staff will make every effort to respond to questions raised during community input as quickly as possible following the meeting. Please limit your comments to three minutes. When making remarks, please address the council as a whole and not any one member individually. You may use the podium or sit at the tables in front of council, whatever makes you most comfortable. Please speak into the microphone at either location. To comment before council in person or virtually, you must sign up by completing a speaker card at the side of the room or by using the raise hand feature in Zoom. Please provide your name, address, and topic. Information on engaging with city council can be found on the council webpage, willsonvilleoregon.gov forward slash city council. As a reminder, when you begin your comments, please state your name for the record and your address or indicate that your address is provided on your speaker card. Please know that community input is a time for council to listen, receive feedback, and hear directly from the community. To keep that process fair and respectful to everyone, council members generally will not respond to individual comments during citizens' input. If we respond to one speaker and not another, it can create the impression that some viewpoints carry more weight than others, and that's not a way that serves the public well. If follow-up is needed, staff or council members can connect with you after the meeting. Counselors are also free to share thoughts during counselor comments later in the meeting if they choose. You're always welcome to submit information writing, by email, or to schedule a meeting with me or any member of council. With that, I'm gonna call, there's a person online first. Ryan Shera. with Schnitzer properties.

Yes, good evening. Sorry, I was muted there. Can you hear me?

Yes, thank you. Go ahead.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Good evening City Council and Councilors and Mayor. My name is Ryan Scherer. I'm with Schnitzer Properties. I'm reaching out this evening in regards to the Basalt Creek Master Plan, which is currently going through its process through Planning Commission and I understand in a few weeks there will be a work session and a hearing and before City Council. The reason why I'm here tonight is to address our concerns with the current development standards that are being proposed and to request either a working group comprised of industrial operators and companies and industrial brokers and developers to help improve the development standards so that those standards do not hinder development as our analysis that we attached from Johnson Economics clearly outlines what the impacts would be to future tax revenue if the current development standards were to be adopted. So again, It would be great if there was a working group when we took more time and didn't rush into the hearings and the work sessions and develop a code that industrial operators could actually have a functional site as well as industrial owners can own for the long term and for the success of a Salt Creek which also these standards will apply to future or to the existing Coffee Creek as well. And yeah, that's our request. If we could do a working group, if not, we would also, the second ask would be to have multiple work sessions and more time at the work sessions beyond three minutes to talk about some of the intricate details behind industrial. We understand industrial is unique and there's a lot of times reasoning and education behind some of the things and the reasons why they are designed and developed the way they are. And that's it for me. Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you very much. Next, Eric Winters.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilors. My name is Eric Winters. I've lived in Wilsonville for 21 years, and my address is on file. I want to talk about the draft ballot title presented in work session. A ballot title for a city measure is supposed to describe a legislative act. You begin with a proposed ordinance. You identify its subject. You determine what it will do, and then you summarize its effects. That's the sequence. The ordinance comes first. The description follows. That's not what happened here. The proposed ordinance has not been released. The public has not seen it. There is no proposed legislative act for this title to describe. So what was the title derived from, if not the ordinance? The answer is clear because the staff report told us the city paid for a political poll. That poll was completed a month ago and only released to the public today. This was not a survey of what all the residents think. Anyone who said they weren't planning to vote in November was dumped from the poll. The people surveyed were sorted by party and then messaging was tested on them. This is not how a city communicates with its community, it's how a campaign finds voters it needs and learns what it needs to say to move them. It tested voter support at the start and at the end and measured how many points certain messages moved it. It tested six names for the district and reported which tested best. It tested arguments for and against and scored each for how convincing it was. That is not research into what an ordinance does. It is research into what sells it. And you can see the result in all of this by what the title leaves out. It doesn't even tell voters it is urban renewal. We just had a big election about urban renewal. Why? because Development District apparently polled better, even though it's not a term used under Oregon law. This proposal does not even identify that it involves public debt, much less that this debt financing won't pencil out without the construction of thousands of new apartments. Traffic is not in the title, the effect of the fire district, police, and public schools is never mentioned. The poll told you all of these are strong community concerns, but they were skipped over. The information voters are worried about is what the information is the information that the title limits. And that's not an accident of drafting. That is what happens when you write a title to persuade instead of to inform in may 58% of the city passed the right to vote. And that came after a loud expensive fight over a simple question, who gets to decide whether Wilsonville takes on urban renewal after a fight like that, The staff should be bending over backward to give voters a fair process. Instead, it used public resources, our tax dollars, to test which words work best and built the title around the answers. That is the city putting its thumb on the scale in this election. It's wrong regardless of what you think of Town Center. I'm not asking you to oppose Town Center tonight. I'm just asking you to take your thumb off the scale, finish the ordinance, direct the city attorney to write a title that describes what it does, keep politics out of the process. If you want to describe the parts that poll well, then also describe the parts that poll badly. If the plan is sound, it will survive an honest description. Thank you. Thank you. Tristan Roland.

I'll start by, oh, my name's Tristan Roland, address is on file. I'll start by correcting Eric Winters when he says 58% of the city voted for it. It was 58% of the people who voted in that election, which was a small fraction of the city. So I'm here to talk about what I think is the greatest threat to Wilsonville, and it's actually a group of people in the city, Unlike them, I will be specific about who they are. There are people like Kristen Roach, who if she uses my testimony online, I'll wear it as a badge of honor. Thank you. And Eric Winters, Doris Whaler, Adam Cunningham. You guys know the list goes on. And I'm calling on people to take them seriously when they say the things they say. For Councillor Cunningham, I would encourage people to watch his YouTube channels, The Cover Officer and Officer Blue Gun. They're very enlightening and pretty shocking, personally. He's all the time. These people, if you are a single mom, if you like to ride buses, If you live in low-income housing, if you live off of food stamps, they're coming after you. They've proven themselves that they're going to come after you. And I have had it with this group, and I have had it with people who want to capitulate to them in just compromise and whatever. It is time to fight. We have to fight because in this next election, we cannot afford to do anything but win. Thank you. Maureen Jackson.

I'm sorry, I'm here as the representative Ah, okay. Thank you for letting us know you're there, but you didn't have to fill that out. All right, Elizabeth Peters.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Elizabeth Peters and my address is on file. I watched the work session today where you talked about ballot title language for the town center plan. And I have a question I would love to get an answer maybe by email later or whatever works for you. How much public money was spent on this poll? A poll that informs staff what language to use to sell this plan to the voters. That just feels wrong to me. It feels dishonest. and a poor use of our tax dollars. I'm disappointed. I think you can do better, and I think the voters deserve better. Thank you. Thank you.

Becky Fromhart.

My name is Becky Fromhart. I don't think my address is on file. 7399 Southwest Woodbury Loop.

You can say it's on the card and that's okay too. Thank you.

My main question is why are we voting on an urban renewal in November anyway? Because I thought that there was something that was decided upon in 2019 and I'm not, this might be like an innocent, uneducated question, but I just don't understand why we're voting on an urban renewal district, whether the wording is this or that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that it, everybody?

Okay. Now turning to councilor comments, liaison reports and meeting announcements. Council President Berry.

So again, thank you everybody for taking your time to come to City Hall to give your testimony and to listen to what the City Council is working on. right now. I don't have too much to say. I do want to point out that part of our city council packet is once a month the city manager provides reports from each department head and I find these reports to be really useful because I volunteered for the library. That one always has a place in my heart. So in this month's report for the library, Just want to point out that we had a staff librarian, Greg Martin, who's worked for the city for over 25 years, recently retire in June. And in the article, and I would agree, that he was much loved by the patrons and the staff alike. He had dedication, compassion, and a sense of whimsy. He was known for consistently going above and beyond to help those in need. And to me, what is being said about Greg also reflects what I think of as so many of our staff people here at the city. We have really dedicated, hardworking, professional staff, and I just would like to acknowledge that and say thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Cunningham.

Yeah, I'd like to thank everyone for coming this evening, spending their time with us. To go through some of that citizen input, Mr. Shera provided Johnson Economics report to council, which it appears to show that the typical flex industrial site plan that Schnitzer, I guess, is accustomed to kind of building, it looks a lot like the recent industrial development in Sherwood. It compares that with our local standards, and it shows nearly a 50% reduction in assessed value using our standards. This is a second Johnson Economics study that has been presented to this council in the last month or so, and both of them are showing that our city code continues to be a hindrance for developers and continues to make things unworkable. Mr. Shera, I know that he and some others came to the planning commission meeting recently and they were afforded three minute opportunities to speak at the podium during citizen input. It's not a real effective way to have a conversation with the city and that's concerning to me because here we have a developer that has aggregated almost 50 acres of property in the Basalt Creek area. They can be a huge, huge boon to development, to kicking off an urban rural district in Basalt Creek. to adding to that urban renewal tax increment financing with kind of a job-ready situation up there. And they're here in front of us in three-minute increments. West Hills came and has had two meetings with us, the opportunity to communicate. And I really hope that Schnitzer is offered the same opportunity to come, given that they're the largest land holder in our planned Basalt Creek area. So I hope that we can find a way to have better conversations with them going forward because this Johnson Economics report that they sent us, it's pretty enlightening. Besides that, I'll go ahead and reserve the rest of my comments.

That's all I have.

You're reserving to come back? No, no. I'm finished. Thank you. Councillor Shevlin.

Thank you, everyone, for being at the council meeting this evening. I'm sorry I'm not with you. So thank you for accommodating my digital presence. Of particular interest, that of a meeting that I attended this past week was a group by the Friends of French Prairie. This is a group, I'll remind everyone, that the city of Wilsonville is also represented in this group. And I hold the honor of representing our city. This group of cities are cities that are south of the Willamette River in the French Prairie area, which includes Wilsonville as being at the very northern end of the French Prairie the other cities such as Canby, Woodburn, Donald, and Aurora. So this time we had a presentation and a discussion about the emerald ash borer, which our city council has been educated on before, but this is quite an infestation of this insect that is killing the ash trees and has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in the eastern part of the United States and is definitely making its way in the west now and on the west coast. Recently, the ash borer has been found in the cities of Tualatin and Newburgh and Silverton. So it's creeping around us. And most recently, this was part of our discussion at the meeting last week that I attended, Woodburn was found to have 40 trees that were 40 ash trees that were basically killed, had to be removed by the Emerald Ash Borer. There was a representative at the presentation from the Oregon Department of Forestry and also the Woodburn Special Projects Manager, Renata Wakely. In a particular interest, Ms. Wakely made a point of how important it is for city council to be aware of The financial impacts should the emerald ash borer be found in one city because of the expense of having to remove the trees and having to replace the trees. There are a lot of restrictions around how those trees, the timber from the trees, once they're just taken down, how it has to be destroyed. You can't be transporting that wood. You can't be selling it for firewood, moving it around the state because of the infestation problem itself. In our work session today, we had quite a discussion about trees and putting the right tree in the right place and being responsible, being a responsible tree city as Wilsonville is. And what Ms. Wakely shared with us at the meeting last week was how important it is for a city to have a plan in place for if and when the emerald ash borer is discovered and then planned for the mitigation. And so there is a template that she is, and I'd be happy to share that with our city staff. But one of the things she suggested is that each city undertake a tree identification program and process so that we really know where these trees are. And oftentimes that education, identification processes on public land, but not necessarily on private land. So also educating folks that may have these ash trees on their property to know that they could be at risk for the infestation. So the whole key on the education was to slow the spread. There's ways to do that by identifying trees and which ones would be at risk to educate our citizens and then to have a plan in place with our staff and then also for city council to be aware of the potential financial impact should we have an infestation. So that's all I have, but I thought it was of particular interest and wanted to share this evening. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Councillor Skoll.

Okay, during the last couple, well, my meeting notice, past meeting notices or meeting activities on file along with my future meeting was with the city recorder. Did participate in the Korean War Memorial Ceremony or attended it. and everything, and it was a great ceremony. The mayor spoke along with a cast of others, and there was a lot of good stories, and it was a very emotional event. I wanted to mention something that, as I looked across the audience, it was impossible not to recognize that your future generation, there's a lasting legacy that have left for future generations. And as I looked across the audience, it was impossible not to recognize within the next several years, many of these veterans will no longer be with us. That reality made the ceremony especially meaningful. It was a privilege to stand alongside of them, thank them in person and honor their commitment to preserving freedoms that we enjoy today. Their stories and service deserves to be remembered long after the last Korean War veteran has passed, and making it our responsibility to ensure that their legacy is never forgotten. And so I hope that in coming years, more of the Residents and people attend these ceremonies to remember the war veterans and the Korean War veterans and everything and make these a special event. And I feel very privileged and honored to have that memorial here in Wilsonville. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. City Manager Troja, if I can just let you know that I am also interested in hearing more in some way, but I need to, we'll probably need the city attorney to weigh in on what we can hear right now with respect to Schnitzer Properties concerns and the comments. To me, I agree with Councillor Cunningham that that's something the Salt Creek, Coffee Creek. I've been advocating at my meetings if there's something that's impacting our ability to develop that. I don't want to overreach in areas where we have to wait until it comes to council, but I'd like to have more information on that as well. So with Councillor Cunningham and I, if there's a possibility, at least have some further conversations with us either offline or in a future work session. So I do concur with that.

Yep, we can do that.

The next item is our consent agenda. Will the city attorney please read the items on consent or the assistant city attorney please read items on consent tonight.

Resolution number 3275, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville authorizing the city manager to sign a professional services agreement with Corolla Engineers Incorporated for owner's representative services for the water treatment plant operations and maintenance contract. Resolution number 3276, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with WSP USA Incorporated to provide engineering consulting services for the Beckman Creek sewer interceptor and trail project. Capital Improvement Project numbers 2107, 7054, and 9150. Minutes of the June 15, 2026 City Council meeting.

Thank you. City Council President Berry can have a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

I move to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motions are made and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. The motion passes 5-0. There is no new business or continuing business tonight, so we're moving right into a public hearing. Turning to our public hearing, I call to order the public hearing regarding proposed ordinance number 904 on first reading. I'll ask the Assistant City Attorney to read the ordinance number 904 summary.

Ordinance number nine zero, or this is the first reading of ordinance number nine zero four and ordinance of the city of Wilsonville approving a zone map amendment from the future development agricultural holding FDA H zone to plan development, industrial PDI, regionally significant industrial area, R S I a zone on approximately 33 acres located at two six one two zero Southwest Parkway Avenue for a Cisco facility expansion and master plan.

Thank you. Assistant city attorney clue. Do any members of the City Council wish to abstain, declare a conflict of interest, report any ex parte contact, or any information gained outside of the hearing having, have all members, hearing, excuse me, I went too quick. Any conflicts, guys? No. Seeing none in whole, abroad, okay. Have all members familiarized themselves with the application?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. Does any member of the audience wish to challenge the participation of any member of the City Council? Seeing none. For all those wishing to testify, please beware that failure to raise an issue accompanied by statements or evidence sufficient to afford the City Council and the parties an opportunity to respond to the issue precludes appeal. to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals based on that issue. Testimony and evidence must be directed toward the criteria that staff will describe or other criteria in the plan or land use regulation which you believe apply to the decision. City Council meetings are open to the public. This meeting may also be attended remotely in accordance with Oregon law. Information regarding how the public can attend this meeting remotely and give testimony is posted at City Hall and on the city's website. Notice was given that testimony could be submitted for the record in advance in writing by email or mailing it to the city recorder. Testimony may be submitted in writing at any time prior to the closure of the public hearing. Once the public hearing is closed, no further testimony in any form will be accepted. If you want to provide public testimony remotely during this meeting, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or press star nine on your telephone to notify the city recorder you wish to speak when the time for public testimony is called. If you're having difficulties with these instructions, you may call 1-669-900-6833, and when prompted, enter webinar ID number 815-3605-6468. Both numbers are shown. on the screen. When called upon to testify, state your full name and address for the record. A request from those providing testimony not to repeat testimony that has already been given to the city council, simply indicating you agree with the prior testimony given by a speaker you identify as sufficient. At this time, I call for staff to present the proposal and list the applicable substantive approval criteria. I think I should have opened the meeting. It's 7.35 p.m. Or actually, we'll go back, 7.32 p.m. Took three minutes to read that. So staff, proceed.

Thank you. Let me pull up our presentation for tonight. All right. All right, thank you, Mayor, Council President, Councillors. I appreciate your time this evening. My name's Chris Myers. I'm a senior planner here at the City of Wilsonville. And tonight I'm here to talk to you. I'm bringing you ordinance number 904, Cisco Property Zone Map Amendment. But before we get into that, as required by statute, I would announce that the criteria applicable to this application are stated starting on page four of exhibit D of the packet for ordinance 904, which has been entered into the record. Copies of the report are available at the side of the room and on the city's website. So with that, there we go. Just to give you some visual context of the subject property, it's an approximately 33 acre property due east of Parkway Avenue and of course Interstate 5. So you can see it's directly south of Target and Costco. And then the existing Cisco facility is due east of the subject property that we are talking about tonight. So on June 22nd of this year, DRB panel B approved these eight requests as part of the Cisco facility expansion and master plan application. Now these are not a part of tonight's discussion. I just put them up there for reference. So you can see that the larger application or the total application is quite large with a lot of moving parts for tonight. We're here to discuss zone map amendment zone 25-0002. And that is the subject property I just showed moving from future development agricultural holding as a zone to the planned development industrial regionally significant industrial area zone. So approving, oh, I'm sorry and I also forgot to mention the same DRB meeting in June the Panel B recommended that City Council approve this zone map amendment. Now approving this amendment is actually gonna do two things. Number one, it's gonna bring the subject property into compliance with our own comprehensive plan where this property is designated as industrial. It will also, the second thing it will do is it will bring this property into compliance with Metro's Title IV map in which case, in where, this property is zoned regionally significant industrial area. So we're basically just aligning this property with our comp plan and with Metro's plan as well. So here on the left of the screen is the existing zoning today. The salmon color is tax lot 1100, the subject property for tonight. The existing facility, sorry, Cisco's existing facility is the lighter colored blue, On the right hand side is the proposed zoning where tax lot 1100 will become that darker blue, the planned development industrial regionally significant industrial area zone. Now this doesn't have a whole impact on tonight. I just thought I'd show you a glimpse of the future of that site if the zone amendment is approved, the zone map amendment is approved. This is a rendering of the full build out after two phases of construction for the Cisco facility. And as you can see just to the left of the screen is Parkway Avenue and I-5 just to the west of that for reference. So staff's recommendation is to approve zone map amendment 25002, moving the subject property from future development agricultural holding to planned development industrial regionally significant industrial area. So that is the conclusion of my presentation. Just a reminder that the zone map amendment and other information can be found in exhibit D of the packet. Excuse me, and also a reminder, the applicant's planner is in the audience tonight if we have any questions or whatnot. So I will open it up for discussion or questions.

Council, any questions? No questions of staff. Any questions from, or excuse me, comments or input from the Assistant City Attorney?

No comments, Mayor.

Okay. And the applicants here, does the applicant have a presentation or any comments that they would like to submit? Come right up here and make sure the mic's on when you talk there.

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. Actually, I don't have anything to add. I just want to thank Chris for all his work on this project. Like he said, there's a lot of moving pieces, but we're excited to get to this point where the DRB has approved the master plan expansion and then tonight's for the zoning map amendment. But I'm here if you have any questions.

Any questions for the applicant? Thank you, nothing further. Members of the audience who wish to speak for the application, and for or against anybody, okay. I'll need you to fill out a card. I'll give you a few minutes to do that. We need to have it for the, yeah, you can go ahead, Ms. Whaler, to do it after, but please, we need it for a record for the, you're welcome.

Doris Whaler, I live at 6782 Southwest Whaler Way in Frog Pond. I've lived here 60 years, so let me give you, some of you won't know the history about this piece of land. For many years, the prior owner, Ralph Ellickson, tried to get this changed to commercial use because it faces onto the freeway. Many suitors came calling for this piece of land, amongst them Cabela's, Home Depot, Lowe's, and a couple of others. However, Metro had decided, and the city agreed, that this should be regionally significant industrial land, and therefore they would not change from industrial to commercial. Therefore, it makes sense to me that Cisco, adjacent to this piece of property, was a reasonable solution to having this piece used for good use. So I support the Cisco application. They've been a great company here in Wilsonville for many years, and what they have presented is not questionable at all. So I just want to say I support this fully. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for submitting a card for the record. Appreciate it. Anybody else? Mr. Hickey.

I had just one question for the, uh, the city of the developer is what about the, uh, widening of the road? Cause that road is narrow now, and there's going to be a lot more traffic. I assume there's going to be a truck traffic and things like that. So how does that fit into it? That was my only question.

Sure. I'm happy to answer that. I just want to be clear. It is not part of the zone map amendment. This has already been approved by DRB. Having said that, Parkway Avenue will get a full build out. It'll get an expanded right-of-way width, sidewalks, bike lanes, trees, a full build treatment to accommodate the truck traffic that we would expect to come with that facility.

And that would be before they actually construct? Concurrently.

So technically, yes, in the road, the certificate of occupancy and functionality on the site, the build out of the road would have to come first. However, there is an avenue by which, I don't want to get too deep into it, but a local improvement district could be created. We're discussing it with them, in which case construction may not have to finish before they can start operations. But it is absolutely a part of the application and of their approval.

Good, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Sir, could you please put your name and your address on the record?

Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Wayne Hickey.

He's got it. Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody, anybody else for as proponents, anybody in opposition that wants to give public testimony? Okay. Do we have anybody online? Okay. Okay. Any further Comments from staff or the applicant in light of the comments that have been made by the public?

No, sir, I think we're good. Okay, thank you.

Hearing no further questions and everyone having a testify, I hereby declare the public hearing closed at 7.45 p.m. It's now time for the council to consider ordinance number 904, on first reading, can I have a motion?

I move to adopt ordinance number 904 on first reading.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, the motion adopting ordinance 904 on first reading has been made by City Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Skoll. Is there any discussion? Okay, hearing no further discussion, I call for a vote on ordinance number 904 on first reading. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Okay, motion passes unanimously at 5-0. Okay, city manager business, any?

I have nothing this evening.

Okay, any city attorney business?

None tonight, Mayor.

Okay, we're adjourned a world record in my view at 7.46 p.m.

Amen.