Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. I'm waiting for are we okay. I would like to call, the Planning Commission meeting to order. It's in the, Hanlon Commission chambers at the Lippe Lippe Public Safety Facility at 1234 Lynn Avenue in Oregon City, Monday, February 23 at 7PM. And, can we call the roll?

Yes, sir. Commissioner's laws? Here. LaSalle? Here. Meinig? Here. Gamont? Here. Henderson? Present. Vice chair Dole?

Here. And chair is? Here.

Okay. So our first, our first item on the agenda is the public comments on non agenda items. So if anybody has any comments they would like to make on anything, city related that is not on our agenda this evening, now would be the time to come forward to do that. You would have three minutes. Hearing none, we'll move to the next meeting or the next, the next item.

We have a public hearing item. It's the, Park Place 2 subdivision, file GLUA twenty four zero three four, SUB 2403, GEO 2407, NROD 24032, natural resources overlay district adjustment. And I believe, we have to read the spiel on the, quasi judicial public hearing requirements. Is that correct? Okay.

Yes, sir. So public hearings on land use applications are scheduled for tonight, and our role is to conduct the public hearing and to make decisions about the matter before us. In making those decisions, we must apply the applicable codes and laws and cannot vary from the cannot vary from or change those laws or codes. A staff report has been prepared for application and has been made available to the public seven days before this public hearing. The staff report identifies the approval criteria that apply to each applicant's proposal.

Staff has analyzed the criteria which has been which which are contained within the staff report. The hearing procedure that the Planning Commission will follow is set out in state law and the Oregon City Municipal Code. The hearing procedure steps are shown on the public on the, Planning Commission website. Public testimony will be called in the order that it was requested. If you wish to testify in person, please fill out a speaker slip, which looks kind of like this.

And it is available in the back of the room. If you wish to testify virtually, you will be called either from a request to speak email to city staff or in advance of this meeting or by raising your virtual or physical hand when I ask if there are any others in the audience who would like to participate. For the public record, please begin all testimony stating your name, the city of residence. And if you'd like to receive a copy of the notice of decision, please state your mailing address or email address to receive any more information about this hearing. Testimony and evidence should be directed toward the applicable approved approval criteria.

If you believe other criteria apply in addition to those addressed in the staff report, identify and discuss those criteria and explain how and why you believe they apply to the application under consideration. Any person may submit written material while the public record is open on each application. Any written materials received by the city staff during the time period in which the record is open will be placed in the record. Written materials submitted during the public hearing must be presented to the city staff in order to become part of the record. And if a person intends to do a PowerPoint presentation, reports, pictures, or other exhibits used in their oral testimony to be placed in the record.

Copies must be submitted to city staff while the record is open. If they are not given to staff, they will not be included in the record. Any person wishing to get a continuance to present additional evidence and testimony or to keep the record open to respond to new evidence must make that request before the public testimony portion of the initial hearing has been closed. If the Planning Commission makes a decision in which you disagree, any issue that you may wish to appeal must have been raised before the Planning Commission in order to be considered by the City Commission and in the event of further appeal to the land yours to the Land Use Board of Appeals. Without raising the issue on the record with sufficient detail and accompanied by statements or evidence allowing the city and all parties to respond, the issue will not be considered on that appeal.

In addition to participating orally or in writing and raising all issues during the planning commission proceeding, the filing of an appeal must include the required fee. A city re a recognized neighborhood association may request request a waiver of the appeal fee subject to the requirements set forth in our municipal code. In addition, the failure of an applicant to raise the constitutional or other issues related to the proposed conditions of approval with sufficient detail to allow the local government or its designee to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in circuit court. Now we will go ahead and open the public record for this file. And members of the planning commission, are to be unbiased, and I will, just go around the horn, for each one of you to identify any potential conflicts or biases.

And or if you've visited the site,

you can state such at this time.

Commissioner Laws?

I have been around the site because I have friends. It's our neighborhood school around the area. I have friends up in the area, more of my kids' friends. I, otherwise, you know, don't it's our neighborhood school up there. Otherwise, for my neighborhood association, and I was Elyville neighborhood chair before. Otherwise, I don't have any bias. I don't have any conflicts of interest.

So any of those relationships do not allow or do not create any bias in on your part for making a decision on this item tonight. Correct? Correct. Okay. Commissioner LaSalle.

I'd like to declare ex parte contact. I have attended the Park Place Neighborhood Association meetings Mhmm. In regard to this subject several times. And per the city attorney, this does not preclude me from taking part in this discussion.

And so any of the ex parte contact really has not caused any bias on your part to make a No. An unbiased decision on on this item tonight. Okay. Great. Commissioner Dole?

Yeah. No conflict of interest. No bias. No ex parte contact. I am familiar with, the general area.

I have no conflicts or bias. Commissioner Manning.

I will state I live in the Park Place neighborhood, but I can't I feel that I can we get all the facts and apply them to the criteria. So at this point, I have

no bias, no conflict, no ex parte contact, and I do know

the area. Yeah.

I hear you. Excellent.

Oh. Alright.

Again, I live in the Park Place neighborhood, but I feel like can, take the facts and apply them to the criteria. So at this point, I have no bias, no conflict, no ex parte, and I I know what the

area is. I know where there is.

Great. Commissioner Goumont, is that how you pronounce your name? Goumont. Goumont. Thank you.

No bias. Don't live in the neighborhood. Haven't visited the site yet, but plan to as far as ex parte, I saw several Facebook posts in various groups, but just mainly trying to rally people to come give us their comments here.

So I look forward to hearing from everybody. Great. K. Seth, commissioner Henderson.

Yeah. Thank you. In all of my five days as a planning commissioner, I haven't had any ex parte contact in terms of bias or conflict of interest. I do not live in Park Place. I have toured the site, though driving around it, you can't really access it without crossing property lines. So, very limited exposure to the actual site itself. Being fully transparent, I am on the board of the HBA Greater Portland. I believe the applicant is a member of that organization, though I have never had any contact with any member of the applicant. Okay. Great. Yeah. So we all

know that any any ex parte content gets directed towards staff. We do not make any attempts to answer any of the questions that other folks in the public may have.

Excuse me. Okay. Great. Chair, so because we've heard two ex parte contact disclosures, now would be the time where we would ask anyone if they would like to rebut the substance of those communications.

Very good. Thank you. Is there anybody that would like to rebut, the, testimony tonight from the part of the commissioners that they had ex parte contact? Hearing none, we will go ahead and move along with the meeting. And, I think we'll have a staff report

now from mister Pete Walter. Thank you very much. Good evening, chair SP and planning commissioners and members of the public. Thank you for coming. My name is Pete Walter.

I'm the planning manager for the City of Oregon City Community Development Department. And I'll be providing a 15 slide presentation this evening. And I'm sure it will prompt some questions, and there will be time available to answer questions once I complete the presentation. First up, the file number that we're reviewing this evening is one of the, four various planning files that you mentioned in the preamble. This is NROD, NROD, Natural Resource Overlay District, file twenty four zero three two and consists of a type three natural resources overlay district adjustment request for the Park Place II subdivision.

And I'll briefly explain the review criteria that's applicable to the various applications in this that we're talking about. Tonight, there is an application for adjustment to the Natural Resource Overlay District Standards, and I'm going to explain what that is. This is a discretionary review by the Planning Commission concerning a protected natural resource. The relevant criteria are in Oregon City Municipal Code Chapter 17.49, and the adjustment criteria are in Section 200 of that chapter. The city has a consultant for natural resources overlay district reviews, David Evans and Associates.

They have reviewed the applicant's natural resources report for compliance and have recommended certain conditions of approval. The second part of the application is the majority of the review criteria in your long staff report. It concerns residential development And under state rules governing housing, application review criteria for housing must be clear and objective and be able to be approved by staff through a Type two process. And that concerns the chapters that are listed here. And so I know there's going to be some confusion in the audience and that's perfectly okay.

If you can, please direct your public comments to one or the other of these things because the staff and the city is bound by the criteria that are clear and objective. And that includes things like lot size, setbacks, traffic impacts, anything that is an engineering standard that has quantitative analysis associated with it are all governed by our municipal code in the chapters that are listed here. When discretion is required, in the case of natural resources, that bumps the level of review up to what is called a Type three review, which is what this public hearing is all about. And the city attorney may wish to Okay. Chime

Great.

As far as public comments, tonight staff is requesting a continuance of this public hearing. We're going to have a public hearing. We're going to hear all your comments. The record will remain open for all public comment. Those comments may be emailed to me at this email address, which is on the public notice.

We ask that your public comments be directed towards the applicable approval standards, And we will post all public comments received as they come in to the project website, which is listed here. It was also on the public notice. We will address the comments in the staff report. And we're having a running public comment summary that will be updated as we go through those. And that summary will also point to which chapters of the municipal code apply to a particular issue or topic so that it's kind of a key to what we're looking at in that staff report.

And it's a long staff report. So to the extent that we can, we'll try to provide page numbers, but we may just refer to the actual code sections. We'll address all those comments received to the extent that they're relevant to the applicable criteria prior to an April 13 Planning Commission hearing. And now I'll go into the application with a description of the existing conditions. This is approximately 55 odd acres in the Park Place neighborhood, which is in the Northeastern part of the city.

It is located between Holcomb Boulevard to the North and Redland Road to the South. Livesay Road intersects that area and is a small county road, shown on the southern portion of the development area. I've shown the, purple, shaded areas here are the mapped natural resource overlay district, this is the adopted overlay that the city has adopted. And when we regulate streams and habitat, this is the overlay that we start with. And it shows that the stream to the north, which is known as Tour Creek, which is a perennial stream that flows into Lyssey Creek and the intermittent tributary to the southeast flows into Abernathy Creek.

This is from the applicant's report and it shows it's a zoomed out aerial photo of this area. The tax slots are indicated in orange and the checkbox indicates whether that tax slot is involved in this application. And we can refer back to this if need be. This is the excerpt from the applicant's plan set that indicates the two areas of the Natural Resource Overlay District that are being affected. The northwestern portion of the site has been proposed to impact the Natural Resources Overlay District with a sewer crossing of Toor Creek, which would connect the subdivision to an existing manhole in Holcomb Ridge Subdivision.

That's a span of approximately 300 feet, I believe. To the Southeast is where the subdivisions water quality facility also known as a storm water pond or storm water detention facility, various names, is proposed to gather the majority of the drainage that would be resulting from all of this new impervious surface area. And that has to follow a variety of standards including the city's storm water and drainage design standards in our city code and also particularly for natural resource areas as a set of standards applicable to stormwater design and stormwater ponds as well as utility crossings. And I'll explain what those two standards are. The first type three adjustment the applicant's requesting is for the sewer line crossing of Torre Creek and the two standards that are not met that are requested for adjustment are the disturbance area, greater than 10 feet wide.

If this application is approved and construction proceeds, there will be temporary construction impacts as well and we have to take those into account. And the second standard that was not met and for which an adjustment is requested is that new utility lines, any kind of new utility lines, sewer, water, storm pipes, sidewalks, and those kinds of things within a public right of way, that's the norm. Normally, want our public improvements that are draining, the sewer or any of the drainage facilities going into a new public right of way. That is the norm. If a sewer or utility crossing is proposed outside of a public right of way, in the case of the natural resources area, that is a type three review.

And that's what the Planning Commission is being asked to review tonight on this portion of the property. The standards are in 17.4914, A and D in this case. A type three adjustments also sought for the storm water facility, because there are disturbances proposed within the drip lines of certain existing trees. The encroachment with this, storm pond would exceed one half the distance of the Natural Resources Overlay District corridor. And when I refer to the corridor, I'm talking about a regulated distance from the protected stream that can vary from 50 feet to up to 200 feet depending on what the resource is.

And if you're encroaching more than half that distance with any kind of public storm pond or drainage facility, that is a type three review. Also, the storm pond is going to impact more than 1,000 square feet within the existing Natural Resource Overlay District and that requires a type three review as well. And the criteria that are being used in this review are in seventeen forty nine, subsection 200, adjustment from standards. And that states that if a regulated NROD use cannot meet one or more of the applicable standards, an adjustment may be issued if the following criteria are met. I'm gonna explain what those are.

This has to be prepared by an environmental professional in a written report and that report must be reviewed by the city's environmental professional. And that, request is processed as a type three and must demonstrate that all of the following criteria are met. Firstly, standard A, that there are no feasible alternatives for the proposed use or activity to be located outside the NROD area or to be located inside the NROD area and be designed in a way that would meet all of the applicable standards. B, that the proposal has fewer adverse impacts on significant resources and resource functions found in the local Enrod area than actions that would meet the applicable standards. C, that the use or activity proposed is the minimum that is necessary to meet the development objective.

D, that fish and wildlife passage not be impeded. E, with the exception of the standards subject to the adjustment, all other applicable NROD standards can be met, and finally f, that the applicant has proposed adequate mitigation to offset the impact of the adjustment. With respect to those criteria and for the rest of the criteria in chapter seventeen forty nine, staff which includes engineering staff and planning staff work together to, craft some recommended conditions of approval. And rather than list all of those out, I've just summarized them in these bullet points here and you're welcome to ask questions about them. Firstly, that the pipe where it crosses the creek have pedestrian access for maintenance, by city staff, and for other reasons.

Mostly, we are requiring pedestrian access for maintenance at this point. There has been public testimony that it would be nice to have pedestrian access as a recreational amenity, but that is not part of the Park Place concept plan. The second bullet, the stormwater design must be consistent with the stormwater standards in seventeen forty nine one five five, that the pipe will be bridged and sleeved, in accordance with this engineering department's stormwater design standards to protect against potential leakage and facilitate maintenance by the city. Public utility easements are required. We will require, as we always do with natural resource overlay districts, there's the initial approval and then it goes through a detailed engineering review.

And, the impact area can change slightly. It could increase, it could decrease. So we always require an updated calculation and analysis of what the impact in square footage is going to be and what the mitigation plan will be to offset that impact. So we have a condition to revise and update the mitigation analysis and plans, prior to issuance of any construction permits since there will be design changes and engineering. We're also requiring that all mitigation be located outside of any PUEs.

Reason for that is if the applicant goes to great expense to, install shrubs and trees and plantings of that nature, including potential, irrigation lines and things, we don't wanna have to tear those up to do maintenance and then have to replace it. So to the extent that we can, we're gonna locate the mitigation sites and the replanting areas outside of those PUEs. And finally, there are recommended conditions of approval for lighting not to be directed into natural resource areas, a protective covenant or conservation easement so that the resource area is maintained properly. Evidence of any state permits pertaining to wetlands or state regulated streams, those are separate permits from the city. And in tree protection, fences and measures for any trees that are required to remain in the plan.

The applicant is planning to remove trees and we do have standards for the mitigation of those removals. This is a excerpt of the mitigation plan proposal and I know the applicant has some updated slides for mitigation that they're gonna indicate when they give their presentation. But the sewer pipe crossing has mitigation proposals directly within the impacted area and also adjacent to it. The total Enrod impact from the pipe crossing is approximately 5,500 square feet and due to lot impacts about 4,700 square feet. The total mitigation area proposed here is approximately 18,734 square feet.

Mitigation for the storm pond has an impact area which is 26,624 square feet. The applicant has delineated the resource and applied the required 50 foot buffer and based their calculations on that. They're showing a mitigation area both within and adjoining the NROD that totals approximately 50,000 square feet of mitigation all told. Some of mitigation area, because the corridor itself is in what is called a degraded condition, I. E.

There's a lot of blackberries, invasive species, bare spots, it's not a pristine native landscaped area. Some of those mitigation areas would consist of just removing of the invasive species and reseeding with a native meadow grass mix as opposed to planting shrubs and trees in every single square foot of that area. But where it's most needed, directly adjacent to the impact areas, there will be, plantings that meet the NRUD requirements. And within the NRUD report, there's a lot more detail as to the numbers of plantings and those sorts of things. And we have conditioned, as I mentioned, an updated analysis prior to construction.

So there's gonna be a lot more discussion about this and I don't wanna belabor this too much. Our recommendation, is to take public testimony. First the applicant will speak. We're recommending a continuance to April 13 with the record open. The reason that we're recommending that, we had recommended March 26, but it turns out that there are two big items for the planning commission to consider and we wanna be sure that we have a quorum on March 26 as well.

So, with the applicant's agreement, we're hoping to get that, continuance to April 13. All comments we'll receive, will receive will be compiled and updated. The record will be opened. The other part of this is that our natural resources committee, I am the staff chair for or not chair, sorry, liaison, is entitled to review of land use applications, that potentially impact natural resources. Their meetings do not always coincide with public hearing notices and those sorts of things.

So we kind of have to call their meetings ad hoc when the need arises. We don't, the NRC does not review a lot of applications but they are entitled to comment on them. So we are gonna, present this to the NRC on March 11 and bring the comments back to the Planning Commission on April 13. And with that, I'd entertain any questions you have. Thank you, Pete.

I'm sorry. My mic was off. I apologize. So we can have the applicant come up and present.

Good evening, My name is Harlan Barrow. I'm the land development and acquisition manager for ICON Construction. Welcome. Just briefly, wanna thank, city staff for the effort in putting together the staff report and reviewing all the materials. And now I'll turn it over to Hayden with, Amario to make a presentation for you.

K. Thank

you. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Hayden Wooten with Amario Design. I'd like to reiterate what Harlan just said there and thank Pete for all his time on this application. He's been incredibly helpful throughout this process, and he has covered just about everything I was hoping to cover tonight.

So I will keep my presentation here fairly quick and then move on to answering any questions you guys might have. So if we can move to the next slide and get this started. So quick project summary here. Our subdivision is gonna be about 59 acres, as Pete mentioned. We'll have 219 lots in two different zones, but the primary zone is going to be r five.

We will have then 16 ish acres of open space set aside primarily in the natural resource overlay zone. As Pete has mentioned, this meeting is fairly limited in terms of the decision criteria applicable to this project. We have that listed as seventeen forty nine two hundred. And then just to reiterate, staff has found that with conditions, we are able to meet all other relevant decision criteria and standards. Next slide, please.

So here's just an overall image of our project to provide some context for where things are located on our site. Up there in dark green, we've got our open space tracks. So this will be the area set aside. No improvements. In red, we have our emergency vehicle access providing another form of accessibility, connectivity, and blue is our stormwater pond.

And then so it's helpful. We've got the Enrod boundary highlighted there as well so we can see in context where things are located. Give everyone a second to kinda take that in. Next slide, please. So Pete has already shared plans for our impacts, and so we can kind of breeze through these fairly quickly.

They are the same images and same numbers shared in staff's presentation. And so the next slide here you'll see will be the mitigation plan we have put together so far. Obviously, this will be refined as we continue to have conversations with staff in the next month as we visit with the natural resources committee and then work through engineering in the future. But as of right now, you can see where our shrubs, trees, improvement areas are gonna be located. You can see some generalized quantities there based on our impacts at this time.

So this will be for the stormwater pond. Our next set of slides will be the same information for the sanitary sewer connection. Same map that Peter's already shared. And now we'll move on to the mitigation plan for the sanitary sewer system. Similar situation, trees and shrubs called out, and then the areas will will improve the existing conditions as well.

I believe that we got a few more slides left. So just to reiterate a few things here, we have provided adequate mitigation, in line with the applicable code section. All proposed plantings at this time are based off of Oregon City's approved tree list. And then we have met the other applicable criteria in the natural resources code section. Now for the last slide, it's fairly simple. If the commissioners have any questions, we'd be happy to dedicate some time, and answer any of those.

Do any of the commissioners have questions of the applicant?

Yes. Go ahead. So

one of the approval criteria in seventeen forty nine two hundred is there are no feasible alternatives, for the proposed user activity. What other alternatives did you guys investigate for the sewer and or water facility that were ruled not feasible? Thanks

for the question. So with regard to the I'll start with the water quality facility first because that's the easiest. It's at the bottom, where the water wants to go. And it's adjoining an appropriate discharge location. And per the standards, all the water would be collected and not leave the site at any rate greater than it already is.

With regard to the sewer, there were, three other options that were looked at, over time. The proposal right now is the shortest route. The alternate would be to go out live, say, down and around, down to Redland and over to, I forget the name of that street. It starts with an A. Abernathy, which is about a mile and a half, almost two miles as opposed to 500 feet or so.

Another option was to, go down from Livesay to Redland and then, run a new line along Redland all the way over. And then a third option that was looked at quite a while ago, but, city engineering staff didn't really wanna pursue it was a pump station, which would gravity feed to the pump and then pressure feed back up to Holcomb and go out that way. Thank you. Sure.

Other questions? Yeah. Actually, I have a question about why we're even discussing this tonight. Because on the type two planning commission staff report and recommendation on page 71, it states the physical extent of the bridge and whether it is feasible is still unclear. The applicant has not provided a detail on what a bridged sewer line will entail, and additional information is needed to determine if it can technically be accomplished.

So my question is, without this information from the applicant, why are we even discussing this? We don't have enough information. Another question. Page six of the same document, item 34, discusses the applicant constructing the bridge sewer main. The bridge sewer bridge section of the sewer main shall be of material consistent with the city's sanitary sewer and design standards as appropriate by the city engineer.

Can you explain or describe the construction of this sleeve and has it been approved by the city engineer?

Certainly. Thanks for the questions. So as this is still very preliminary, we did the best we could to, you don't usually do the engineering ahead of the land use approval. The engineering comes after land use approval. So a detailed engineering plan is not typically part of a land use application.

We have done, the preliminary work, to identify where where the bridge abutments would be and how we would get down to placing the bridge abutments. That's what's holding the bridge up on either end so we could identify, the N rod impacts based on our preliminary design. We have talked with, several bridge manufacturers. We have looked at the manhole location where we'd be connecting to to understand that the elevations from where we are to where we need to go will work. And so from a preliminary standpoint, it is a feasible option.

The bridge itself would either be, of wood construction or of metal construction. With a deck, the pipe would be under the deck. Per the condition of approval, the pipe, which would meet city standards, either plastic pipe or metal pipe, would be inside of a sleeve. And the bridge, would provide, access for maintenance. So if there were any issues with the pipe, they'd be able to get out there and deal with it.

It'll be kind of an arched type bridge for the suspension support. It would be constructed on the east side and pulled across with two cranes sitting on either side by the bridge abutments and then placed. And then at either end, the underground pipe would be connected to what would daylight travel under the bridge and then go back underground to connect to the manhole in the existing street.

Would that span be supported by suspension

Yes. Wires or By no. By itself. The bridge itself is self suspending.

Oh, so how how long is it

that that the arch? Depending upon the actual angle, somewhere between three hundred and fifty and four hundred feet.

Oh, so it'd have to be a pretty substantial construction to not have any supporting.

Correct. They they do it all the time. Yeah.

Okay. Let's see here. Page six item 35 refers to a public easement utility easement made at each end of the sewer line, especially where it connects to Oak Valley. So can you kind of help us with the description of those easements? Is it is it roadways or paths or what?

It would be an easement. The pipe would be traveling in underground.

Oh, I see. Okay. So when it connects to Oak Valley, is that connection at a public property or

Once it gets to the it gets to the right of way, that's public between, where our property ends and to get to that right of way is, crosses a, city property and a private property that we would need to get an easement across. Okay.

But you haven't gone to that point to to look for easements

from We've discussed it with the property owner. We don't have it in place yet because we don't know we don't know all the requirements. Sure. Okay.

Let's see here. You've answered some of my questions already, so I'm going through my list here. Oh, on page 72, it refers to the proposed sewer system for this development. She'll take into account the final routing to Redland Road. So how can we be sure that this is only a temporary fix with the money you'll be spending on this bridging?

So, I don't know if you can show the overall site plan again real quick. It's like at the second thing of our slide presentation, I think. That one. It's a little hard to see, but, you can see how Holly comes down from the Northeast and travels across the south part of the property and then ends at, the emergency access that's in red. There would be a sewer main, stubbed to the end of Holly that if ever in the future Holly were to continue down to Redland, the sewer would be able to go with it.

So this temporary structure would could be many, many years.

It could be. Yes. I mean, the the city sanitary sewer master plan calls for a main trunk line to go from Holcomb down to Redland. So at whatever point, if and when that ever happens, the the sewer going across the bridge would not be necessary.

Let's see. You've already I had a question here about consideration of other ways to connect, but you already covered that quite adequately. What kind of protection is planned for the stream bed during construction?

So the ravine is very steep. We're working up near the top. We're not getting anywhere near the bottom.

Stuff falling

down. Sorry.

So if

we're not

maintaining that Excuse me, chair.

Okay. Okay. Suggest Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. Let's let's keep all of our comments quiet and let the applicant provide the testimony that

So we would be, following all appropriate erosion control measures to make sure that nothing falls downhill. It's basically when we get down to where the cranes are gonna sit to place the bridge, it'll be a flat pad on either side. So we should be able to have good control over that. There's no, once we have the pads built, there's no other and and the, bridge abutments in place, there's no other activity other than bringing the bridge across, and that's done with the cranes. So What about we feel pretty confident that we won't be, causing any impacts to the stream or the rest

of the Enron. What about the cutting down of trees? Wouldn't that have an impact?

Yeah. There are trees in the area that will have to be cut down, but that'll be done in a way, you know, better than nature and the storms are doing it so that it

won't cause more problems. Excuse me. Excuse me. Quiet, please. That that brings me directly to my next question. What kind of seismic and tree fall protection is planned for the final project the final product, I mean.

The final

what what kind of you've you've you've finished building the bridging of the sewer. Yes. What kind of protection is provided for tree falls on that product and seismic protection?

Tree falls on the bridge? Yes. So the pathway down to the bridge on either side the bridge itself is suspended over the trees. There's no there's no, trees higher than the bridge in the middle. Well, now let let me let me looks like this. Yeah. But at each end, there's gotta be trees. And there's

At each end of of the bridging, there's has to be The trees

in the immediate area at each end are gonna be removed. That's part of the mitigation plan.

Okay. And seismic protection?

The bridge will be designed with seismic in mind. Yes. For the bridge abutment with a geotechnical engineer.

That's all the questions I have.

Commissioner Laws.

So, commissioner LaSalle commissioner LaSalle brought up sedimentation. And what my concern is is I've seen it as well in terms of Oregon City, in terms of development runoff. We have some creeks around all around Oregon City, and I've seen it, you know, a long time, seen a lot of development runoff of sedimentation and dust and air pollution and how that impacts our creeks of our city. You said that you have a method of making sure that doesn't happen. And, obviously, this is a crucial area in terms of runoff because it would eventually go, you know, into Abernathy Creek, which runs off.

You were saying saying that you have your methods of having the cranes down, but what I'm concerned about is right in that area of Enrod, it would actually go into the creek. I you said you had ways of preventing that. Could you go into more detail about that other than just having the equipment there? And then also how you'd address air, you know, air pollution because likely this would happen. What what months would this happen and what you would do to prevent that?

So, first, with regards to, the methods, we'd follow the city's stormwater manual for construction activities. It involves, silled fences and straw waddles that, you know, are are tubes of straw, basically, that act as a physical barrier to any dirt or rocks or anything getting off the property, off the area. This would probably happen, in summer months, and so we'd be following the requirements for dust suppression, wetting it and such. Basically, on either end, we're gonna have to cut an access way down to the pad that ends up being the pathway to get to the bridge when we're done. And that, you know, can be done in a controlled manner, excuse me, to keep the dust down during construction.

And overall, one thing that, to note anyway as far as future runoff, by doing, the development that we're doing and the lot builds and the requirements for collecting and treating stormwater, there'll be a lot less runoff, and erosion potential for that area of the Enron.

And then, you were talking about cutting down trees. You know, the thing that I'm concerned about is Enron area, it's crucial. Every tree of the area holds up the area, right, in Enrod. And then, obviously, you know, some trees might be in the way of what you're doing. Has there been an inventory already done on, possibly what ones can be saved and, you know, ones that you know, obviously, Park Place is really known for having white oaks in some areas and, you know, native trees kept there possibly because of the fact that it is the most crucial to keep the area safe in terms of, you know, keeping less, you know, areas from being eroded possibly.

Has there been an a tree inventory done?

Yes. There was an original tree inventory done back in 2021.

Uh-huh. Well, and

I know that.

But as as part of our work, we did have an arborist look at the, impact areas, and that's part of our application submittal shows what trees, in the area that we'd be working would be impacted. And our mitigation plan follows, criteria. And, I think we're planting at a three to one ratio or something like that. And for the Enrod, areas, there's no white oaks that would be impacted. It's mostly all cherry trees.

It's just the more established trees are gonna be the ones that actually hold up the new trees because new trees take years to develop versus established trees are the ones that are gonna be crucial in helping protect the area.

Right. So the the impact areas would have, like fabric put down to prevent erosion and have, you know, plantings of shrubs and other things to and the seed mix to, further help with that.

And then in terms of maintenance, you know, obviously, being in an Enrod area, it's gonna take a lot more maintenance on that sewage line in terms of upkeep. Has there, you know, obviously been talks of long term maintenance in terms of obviously, it was talking in the you know, about it being more privately managed. Wasn't that right in terms of the I was trying to read through everything in terms of, just overall planning in terms of, managing it in the future. Could you go into more detail about that for public record?

For maintenance of the pipe across the bridge? Yep. So it would have cleanouts Mhmm. Across the bridge. So in case there was any blockages, those would be able to be taken care of. And per the condition of approval, the pipe would be in a sleeve, which would be additional protection against any leakage that might happen.

And then debris cleanouts regularly because we've seen that a lot in Oregon City where there's been a lot of, like, areas where there's, you know, a lot of grates and debris where they regularly have to be cleaned out or they're backed up, but especially in areas where there's, you know, a large degree of incline going downward.

Right. This isn't that steep of an area.

Yeah. I haven't been able to walk it. So

Well, the pipe won't be that steep of a slope. Okay.

Alright. Well, I appreciate the answers. Thank you very

much. Certainly.

Commissioner commissioner Dole.

Thank you, chair. Mister Harlan, I was gonna ask you to expand a little bit on the location of the stormwater facility. You had indicated that it's located at the, lowest point of grade and elevation, which makes sense. Water moves downhill. Was there any exploration in locating it outside of the Inrod?

There was. The level of impact we thought was reasonable given the mitigation we're doing. K. And it's sized considerably large to handle the entire subdivision.

Thank you for that. Am I understanding correct that based on the geotech report, there is no infiltration available? So this storm water facility is sized fourfold detention of everything that would

be coming off the development. Yeah. So, given the geological conditions of the site, infiltration isn't really something it would be great if it was, but it's not really, that available. And the ability to have, excuse me, the ability to have, like street side swells and other green type features, is kind of limited due to the topography because those type things, you can't have really much slope for them to be useful. And because this is a very, topographically hilly site.

A lot of the streets will have grades that don't really allow for that, which is why the water quality facility was larger.

That makes sense. How much downstream analysis did you do on that? How certain are you that that stormwater facility will never overflow and impact streams downhill from it?

Well, it's sized per the requirements of the code.

K. Thank you for that. I just wanna make sure. You had also mentioned that, city staff did not wanna entertain a pump station for sewer. Is that because they would maintain it? The city would be responsible for maintaining that facility?

Those conversations were before my time at ICON, so I'm not exactly sure what the opposition was. But generally speaking, yes. That type of facility would end up being a city maintained

facility. Is there any documentation on those meetings and conversations?

I don't have them Okay. Offhand, and I'll have to look and see if there are.

Okay. Appreciate that. We mentioned about sleeving the pipe, preventing leakage. Who's responsible for monitoring? Is there any conversations about monitoring for leaks?

So, we just got the staff report when it was released on Friday Okay. Or Monday. So there hasn't been really any discussion about it other than that there'll be it'll be sleeved. And, yes, there are ways to monitor for that to know if there's leakage occurring. Thank you for that.

It was also mentioned that there's approximately 16.6 acres of open space. I think I may have that number right or wrong, but I think I'm close. In your opinion, how much of that open space is actually accessible by the public and usable by the public?

Compared to now or in the future?

Now or future. Yeah.

Well, now it's not because it's, private property, but, you know, the area in the Northwest where the bridge will be, given its steepness, you know, some trails would have to be cut in to allow for that to occur. And similarly over by the water quality facility, and that's usually the case in in projects like this where there are, you know, areas that aren't buildable become open space. Okay. Thank you for that.

One more question, sir. Commissioner Manning.

No questions. Everything was answered.

Commissioner Gava? Any other questions? But oh, okay.

Yeah. I've got two quick questions. Try to get through 700 pages this weekend, so appreciate if we're taking a step back here. So looking at the map, did I hear that this sewer solution, the bridge, is a temporary solution? Is that the word I heard?

It's temporary in the nature of the in the the sense that, the city's sanitary sewer master plan calls for a main trunk line to go from Holcomb down through the project and then down to Redland Road. So if that were ever to get constructed, the crossing over the bridge would not be necessary.

So I was in reading through the narrative and the application, so I think it's Tax Lot 502 is what we're talking about where the road continues. Is that correct?

I think that's what

it says up there. Yes? Yes. Is that privately owned? Do you guys have a PSA in place for that? Is there possibility the city is gonna try to claim eminent domain in the future? I mean, what I'm I'm trying to it says future phase, and I'm trying to figure out if that's realistic or not, not knowing the background of what's occurred today.

Right. So, it is privately owned currently and, we are under contract to purchase it at some point in the future perhaps. Before you were involved because you've only been involved for, you said, just a short amount of time. There was an overall approval of the master plan, several years ago that included that property. But for a lot of reasons, it's not included now.

Okay. But but you have the contractual right to purchase it?

Currently, yes.

Yeah. And that would be a long term solution.

Well, it would be a long term solution to get Holly to Lifesay, to get from Lifesay to Redland and then down Redland is a totally different situation.

Yeah. Just just talking about the sewer line. Right? Because that's all we're allowed to focus on. Right.

But what I'm saying is it only gets you to the bottom of our picture. Redland is much farther to the south.

Okay. There currently isn't capacity to get from that point to Redland? Correct.

Got it. Okay. Great. Thank you. That goes through

that goes through several four four properties that we don't own or have contracts with Okay. That are in the county too.

It's just reading through, and I'm I'm looking at page one thirteen, seventeen forty nine two hundred b. It's it's really interesting how it's written because it says the proposal has fewer adverse impacts on significant resources and resource functions found in the local NROD area that then actions that would meet the applicable environmental development standards. So essentially, it's saying, we can't meet the standards, but what we're going to do is going to have fewer adverse impacts. And reading what what staff had stated, the applicant shall provide written justification responding to the adjustment criteria to demonstrate that the standard also met for the water quality facility impacts into the NROD. So I I read that as currently today, it's assessed that your solution for the sewer is less adverse impacts, and that you will be writing a justification for, the storm retention area.

Is that accurate?

And that's correct. Okay.

So I guess that's, that might be a question for staff then, which is, how it was determined that the standard was met for the sewer line. So how how there's fewer adverse impacts than if they had abided by. Sorry. I didn't mean to throw you a curveball.

Just trying to just trying to understand.

I was going through the conditions of approval. I think it's condition of approval 36, but, I couldn't find you can tell me if that's accurate and if that's page six.

Mhmm. One second. I'm gonna refer to the applicant's NROD report. Okay. Actually, it was in their narrative.

You're correct. I mean, we're talking about a discretionary standard that is poorly worded. And that's part of the reason why this needs to be assessed by the Planning Commission.

First,

I would say that part of the discussion should be a holistic discussion about what the condition of the resources are that are close to or in the impact area. And in the NROAD report, they have, you know, stated that the majority of that area is degraded. So I would just take that and kinda put it in the background. Fewer impacts than the clear and objective review, that is a tough one. I I I think what we could do is, we do have our consultant, available via Zoom.

They're online now. That's Josh Smith. I would like him to chime in on this particular criterion so that we have an expert talking about it. And the condition that we have for additional mitigation analysis,

you

will you know, it'll bear out during the construction review, but, I couldn't tell you right now whether or not there are fewer environmental impacts.

This this is going to the NRC. Right? Yeah. And so I imagine they're gonna hone in on this section.

Yeah. Yeah. They're gonna and

they're gonna say, hey. Can you help me understand how it's fewer adverse impacts?

Well, I think, you know, having having raised the point, think it's it's a great discussion point for the NRC, and I'd like to bring it forward to them too. Yeah. Do you wanna see if Josh wants to speak?

I've requested him to unmute, but if he's available.

So

Josh is unmuted. So Josh, could you add any commentary to the conversation, please? We're not able to hear you.

I think

you're. That can't be it. How about now?

Hello. Thank

you, tech guru. We can hear you now, Josh. Okay.

I'm just curious exactly I think I'm a little confused exactly where, what what standard we're looking at right now.

Judge, we're talking about, standard seventeen forty nine two hundred b subsection b. Proposal has fewer adverse impacts on this significant resources and resource functions found in the local EnRoute area than actions that would meet the applicable environmental development standards.

And

in the applicant's end of that report, they stated, as mentioned in the previous standard and demonstrated by this narrative, the proposed development is capable of meeting the environmental standards of this chapter. It is due to the utility classification that these criteria must be addressed. The proposed sanitary sewer line will have very few impacts on the function of the end road it will cross. As a suspended line, it will not impede the natural drainage way in the ravine or limit the movement of animals through the area. Additionally, because the line will be suspended, it will only require the native vegetation near the footing to be removed rather than the entire distance of the line.

The stormwater management pond will be a comparatively low impact improvement. During construction of the pond, invasive species will be removed, and native vegetation will be planted in bulk to assist with water treatment. No fencing is proposed around the storm water management system to ensure that any species that live within this end road still have freedom of movement and then are unimpeded by the project. Additional information can be found in the Schott and Associates Enrode report.

So it sounds like this conversation really needs to be held outside the hearing, and a fine needs to be made for compliance with that criteria. I don't I don't think it it it serves us very well to to, noodle through all this and and, formulate findings in this venue.

And and we we would agree with the idea of continuing and look forward

to Yeah. Being our seeking I think there's a whole bunch of people in here that that would like to testify tonight, and I I think that their time is limited. I only have a couple of questions for you. There's and I I'll I'll be quick. Do you have can you go to the mitigation plan real quick? On the on the slideshow, can I see the mitigation plan for the unavoidable sewer crossing?

It was on two, the sewer crossing. Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

So is there water quality one. In this There you go.

In this submental documentation, is there a an impact area that shows all of the all of the impacts to that area during the construction phase of the project? This is just all the grading, the amount of cubic yards.

It it shows the square footages that we would impact. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So then I it does the mitigation plan, is that in parity with where you guys are gonna be grading? Yes. Okay. So then and then I'm assuming that you guys are gonna be We're we're mitigating Returning the streams during that grading Yes. During those grading operations.

Right? We're mitigating two to one. So in total, we're impacting 50,000 square feet.

The the extent of the mitigation plan will cover where you guys are going to be doing the grading.

Correct? Yeah. We don't get credit for it, but, yes, we'd be mitigating the area that we impact.

And that will also apply to the, to the stormwater facility as well?

The impact is the stormwater facility. So Okay. Yes.

So yeah. And then and then on that, I think that it's really important that we make sure that we hear the comments. In any future items such as this, we really need to see hear the comments from the National Resources Advisory Board prior to the Planning Commission hearing. So those need to be generated before this meeting convenes so that we have all of the information on the record to make it to make a good decision. And I think it's wise to be continuing this because I don't think we're ready. I don't think we're ready. So let's with thought with that, I think let's go ahead and I have one more. Okay. Commissioner Closeout. Quickly. Let's let let let these folks get the The

stormwater facility, you stated that the natural infiltration is not possible, and everything has to go to the storm water facility. However, in the Barclays concept plan, there's a quite a extensive description of natural mitigation projects that can be developed in that area so that there is natural mitigation or infiltration, I mean. Have you considered that?

So the geotechnical investigations that were done previously indicate that infiltration in the soil types there is not a viable option. But the Park Place concept plan describes construction activity that you

can do to help that.

Yeah. And and as I pointed out, some of the things in the concept plan talked about street side swells and things like that that don't work in high Slope streets because the water is flowing too fast.

Well, I think it also describes methods that can be used to slow the water down, but I'm not gonna get into the details of that.

And, again, it's all, somewhat preliminary. I mean, the water quality facility was sized to handle all of Park Place Phase 2 as well as Park Place Phase 1.

Okay. Are there other

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So one of the proposed approval criteria is that the proposed system sewer system shall take into account final routing to Redland Road as as we discussed and provide a design that can be easily rerouted in the future. And as the audience has mentioned and we've all realized water and sewer need to flow downhill. So how is the sewer flowing to the Northwest, but the water retention pond is in the Southeast? And how would you make that so that you could then reroute it to Holly

since it all needs to go downhill? In the sanitary sewer? Yeah. So the way that it runs out over by there, if you see that street that's kinda curved on the map there Yeah. That line can go back to Holly because that's higher than Holly. So it would loop back. It's just that it would discharge across the bridge for now. But what about, like, House Number 21 Or 22 that would ostensibly be lower on that loop? That would go back toward Holly. Right now?

Or No. It would go that way now, but it could be altered to go back toward Holly. Got it. So you would, like, have to dig up and There's probably some sections of the local street piping that would have to be adjusted for grade. Yes. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

I'm good. Okay. Hearing hearing, no further questions, I'd like to take the first item of, public testimony of Tom Guile. Okay.

Thank you very much, and we'll look forward to Thank you for your coming back for some rebuttal after the public comment.

Yes. Thank you.

Can you put the map back up there for

a minute to see the map of the overall? The overall map? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Can we have the overall map come up? Yep.

Is that my clicker click

The overall development plan. Mine.

Oh, okay. Is there a clicker for mine?

I don't think it's gonna work for a PDF, so I can click through it for you.

Okay. So, mister Gyle, I'm assuming that you're gonna be, testifying as a representative from the Neighborhood Association in this in this round here. Neighborhood. So you'll have so you'll have five minutes for your testimony. Okay. Great.

Thank you. I'll start it in minute after I get

No worries. Okay.

So just so you know what I'm referring to on this map, I'm familiar with a few of you, but you're all brand new. Is this all the Park Place plan that you're talking about? And this is the the pinch point that all these homes that are all around and all throughout here, every one of these homes, the reason I'm addressing tonight, all of this has to come out through that little pinch point right there to get up to Holcomb because there's no way down to get to Redland. That's what I'll be addressing.

Okay. So you're gonna you're gonna give your testimony based on the the design of the subdivision Yes. And subdivision criteria that that that it needs to meet. Okay.

So I'll be very clear. Again, I'm Tom Lyall, vice president of Park Place Neighborhood Association. Think this is on. Yes. It's on. I've got a loud voice. So as you look around this room, have when was the last time our planning commissioner ever saw a crowd this large?

I don't have room. This

tells you that there's a lot of interest about the safety in our neighborhood. So everything that Pete's been addressing tonight is pretty technical. And I know it's clear and objective, but what we're here about is more of the emotional, more of the safety part of it. So I've asked, him here him here. I've asked Eddie here because he's gonna be the second part of the presentation.

And maybe he can click where I can go on to the next one. I'll be honest here that this is more it's not on the technical and necessarily on the sewer, but it has to be stated here as I've stated for twenty three years, eight years on the planning commission and before the city commission. So my presentation is this. And I'll probably read it because I know as a planning commissioner, hated it when people read read it, but I wanted to make sure my words were really clear. It's okay.

So we realized that tonight this planning commit planning department is focusing strictly on the sewer predicament situation and not on the actual improvement of this 02/2019 home development. We also realized that while our city commission has previously denied this application for exactly the reasons I'm addressing tonight, that with ICON's deep pockets of available dollars, that's the emotional part, that the state is listening to money and not to citizens in dictating nearly all new development, and that planning department has little say now that the state is directing this. So sorry, planning commissioners. We know that you're not responsible for the current situation with the state and the deep pockets of influence of ICON. However, we realize that money talks and ICON's money can buy anyone and anything, including the endangerment of residents.

The presentation that follows is not directed at you, but you are currently in this position. We state this presentation this evening to make it a matter of record because there are no other place to say this to make it record that we, the neighbors of the Park Place neighborhood, and more specifically, where I live, the Trailview Trailview Heights, will hold all those who approve all aspects of this development despite all the twenty three years of warning about fire hazards with a pinch point that I pointed out that will make evacuation even worse. We will keep all names of commissioners at all levels and state government who push to approve this potentially disastrous development. I did after the fires in LA sent a letter to the governor, to the fire state fire marshal, and everyone pointing this out. We will hold fully responsible to us or to our heirs should we be burned alive in our cars, which happened in LA and Paradise, our homes in the event of fire or other disasters.

My next slide is 2024 in Lahaina, Hawaii, more than 2,000 homes and buildings burned up. A hundred and two residents died. Let that sink in for a moment. 2025 in Palisades, California, 13,000 homes and residential structures burned to the ground, 80,000 people displaced, 31 residents in the combined areas died. In 2026, Oregon City, Oregon, 219 residential lots planned, unknown number of residents in each home, and only one way in and one way out, and a very small pinch point.

2020 in Oregon City, Oregon, level two evacuation only was announced in the Park Place area and communities further out. One hour to exit Winston Drive near our area out of a 94 home division, another hour to try and get down Holcomb Boulevard, only to find Redland Road and Highway 213 clogged by other evacuees. Why these statistics? It is commonly known that fires can create their own windstorms. Where this development is being planned is above a canyon, and they've mentioned it tonight, steep canyon full of, they didn't say dry fields of grass, but that's what's below all those fields and other natural elements such as trees.

Should a fire break out in this dry area, the residents of this development would be trapped with only one tight egress. This is not a matter of if, but a possibility of when. After numerous meetings and public presentations for twenty three years, our own city commission unanimously denied this application due the due to the dangers involved. It is back now only because ICON begged and pleaded with the state and took to the state senate, Luba, and all those who want who wanted more homes. The fire danger and evacuation problems still exist.

While we understand that the state has taken away much of the power of local governments regarding annexations and developments, your approval of this application only exasperates an existing problem for the residents of Park Place neighborhood, and more specifically, for the residents in this new development right here who will be restrained by a very small pinch point. So who would be held responsible? I'll finish it right here.

You have an additional three minutes as as your

Well, that's something else. That's another presentation. Alright. I just wanna say that this is irreversible and complete responsibilities on our state and local government. I'll finish with that. So this is again, that presentation was just from our neighborhood. Fair warning. Look what we're facing, and we saw it in LA and Lahaina. So now my other presentation is three minutes as a personal. That was on behalf of our neighborhood association. Correct. This is as a individual. I'm I'm here with Eddie Pasadora. He is our, HOA management company, but I'm here as Tom Dial. And so, I'm a long time Park Place resident, a former Oregon City planning commissioner.

For twenty three years, residents have fought to ensure safe, responsible development in this area. I'm here tonight just not just as its resident, but to remind the commission of its core duty. Our primary objection is not simply not in my backyard. It is public safety in the face of imminent danger. The egress ingress egress problem.

The Park Place 2 subdivision adding 219 homes will rely on the existing single road structure. This creates a catastrophic single point of failure for thousands of residents. The twenty twenty disaster president that I mentioned earlier and the twenty twenty fire event, Holcomb Boulevard was completely gridlocked. Residents, including those in Trailview Heights, were unable to evacuate with some being forced to turn back in our cars and go back to our homes, burn there rather than our cars. We didn't know where the fire was.

We were on Level 2. I documented this in my letter to the governor following the tragic LA Fires. We literally had people prepared to burn. The moral obligation here is we understand the state mandate for more housing, and we understand what Pete's been delivering tonight about the sewers. We know that this is emotional, but, again, we have no other place to state this.

We understate the state mandate for more housing, but this commission's mandate is to protect your mandate is to protect the public's health, safety, and welfare, approving the development with all the other things that they were discussing tonight, approving this development that you know based on real world history will result in mass casualty evacuations. Failure is a dereliction of that core duty. I now hand the microphone over to Hedi Pasadore, the association manager, who will re who represent the present the two critical code based reasons this application must be denied. Eddie. Thank you, mister Gyle. Thank you. I'm sorry.

Eddie Passatore? Hey. Good evening, commissioners. You hear me okay? Yes. Alright. I'm Eddie Passatore, the association manager for Trailview Heights, CEO and founder of Passatore Properties Incorporated and Passatore Neal Construction LLC. I'm an association manager and a real estate developer. To echo the vital question just raised by a member of this commission, why are we even discussing this tonight when the application fails to answer basic requirements? We're asking you to deny this application for critical code based reasons that ultimately come down to one thing, protecting human life as mister Gyle has just laid out for us.

The city's adopted Park Place concept plan was built on the fundamental premise of providing two primary connections between Holcomb Boulevard and Redlin Road, specifically naming Holly Lane. The sole purpose of this was to relieve traffic congestion and ensure multiple evacuation routes. But if you look at the applicant's own map on the screen, they have replaced this vital public escape route. Can we get that up there?

I don't want

With a restrictive, quote, emergency vehicle access, end quote, shown in red. Now let's be careful about that. What is an emergency access road? It's for fire trucks to get in. It does absolutely nothing for the thousands of residents that mister Guile just represented trying to get out. We all know the history of the 2020 gridlock. Approving a plan that abandons the Holly Lane mandate creates a catastrophic single point of failure. This isn't about traffic convenience. This is about choosing life safety over a deadly fire trap. Beyond the egress failure, this is a glaring contradiction in their natural resources overlay district or NROD proposal.

The developer's team just stood here and admitted that the steep topography and geological geology of the site are so challenging that natural water infiltration won't work. Yet in the very next breath breath, they defended their stormwater facility, shown in blue, sitting right on the NROD boundary by claiming it is simply sized to code. Commissioners, they cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim abnormal extreme site conditions to excuse their design, but then rely on bare minimum code standards to guarantee our safety. If water cannot infiltrate the soil, it will sheet off this steep terrain directly into that pond.

An abnormal site requires an abnormal retention size to prevent overflow. This is exactly why OCMC seventeen point four nine point two zero zero requires a discretionary review. Your hands are not tied by a developer checking a minimum code on a maximum risk site. Given the steep terrain, they must demonstrate with the highest standard of proof that their plans will not compromise the NROD. Their own admissions tonight prove that they have not.

We ask you to exercise your court duty. Please deny the Park Place 2 subdivision application. File number is GLUA24034, SUB2403, GEO2407, and N R O D 24032 based on the catastrophic egress risk, the concept plan violation, and these unresolved technical deficiencies. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Thank you, mister Pathagoy. Okay. I'm gonna have to ask everybody to refrain from applauding for from the testimony. If you could, please.

Okay. Though. Dan Ulmer. Yeah. Very

It it it was worthy, but, yeah, it just it just slows the night down. Dan Ulmer. Hey, folks. This is my

first time doing this. If you can make sure that the mic is on, you'll see.

Yeah. Make sure the mic's on, and

there you go. Alright. I think we're good. Very good. And I'm really loud. So first, I just wanna say I am the so I'm the landowner immediately south of the proposed Western Sewer crossing. I have firsthand knowledge of the area. I've been there for, I think it's gonna be three years coming up. I guess it's this November. I wanna say I was heartened by a lot of the questions that you all were asking, and I have some different answers than what the developer is telling you.

I would also note that in terms of the criteria, I'll be talking about a, b, and f. So let's start with there are no feasible alternatives. Well, you heard, of course, that there are feasible alternatives. You just extend the sewer line through normal underground, procedures, and you have less environmental issues than if you extend across a green space. One of the, planning commissioners asked about the construction of the bridge.

I live right there. My phone number and my email are on the, on the slip there, and I believe they're in my written comments. I invite any of you, call me, come down, take a look at the area. You'll see how ludicrous this plan is. This is they're talking about a wooden bridge in an area where there are tons of tall trees. There is no version of doing this safely. If you credit their explanation that all these trees are in bad shape, then they are likely to fall in there. I will tell you I have a large, dug fur in my backyard, which anyone will take down basically over my dead body. I love that thing. But it's about a 140 feet tall and 22 feet around.

It is maybe 30 feet from the proposed easement. There is no version where anything that thing hits is surviving. Ultimately, what we're talking about is not feasibility. It is a way for ICON to save money. That is what's going on here. And we will bear the burden of any cleanup. ICON is not offering, as far as I'm aware, to indemnify the city and the taxpayers against the environmental fallout that will result when something falls on this proposed bridge leads to it leaking, contaminating, and eventually flowing into some of our largest rivers in the area. I recognize I don't have a ton of time left. So, any of you, come on down. Seriously.

You'll see that there are trees everywhere. The mitigation they're talking about is insane. You heard in one breath that it's well, it's not that steep. Oh, it is steep. It's incredibly steep. I've tried to get down there. It doesn't work, and there's about 40 foot of BlackBerry. So, essentially, this plan is insane. The taxpayers will pay the price for ICON saving a bunch of money on what would normally be done here, which is just extend the sewer crossing. So I urge you to deny this request, incomplete as it is, and just have them do this the normal way where you extend a sewer crossing. That will have less mitigation on the environment or fewer issues on the environment. And, I don't really care if it costs them more money because it helps us, the taxpayers. Thanks, mister Ulmer. Thank you. Appreciate

it. Brandon Snead. Brandon Snead. State your name and place of residence for

I'm Brandon Snead. I live at, 16448 Oak Valley Drive, one house down from Dan's. Our neighbor, is is, I think, the property that ICON is planning to take that sewer through. She's been letting everybody know that ICON's buying their house, all that kind of stuff. But as Dan mentioned, all these trees are back there, and they say that they're gonna mitigate all the stuff, take care of all this thing. I've lived there since 2016. They have not once lifted a finger to maintain that property. Trees fall all the time. Trees are diseased and just on the brink of coming down. And anytime there's a windstorm or whatever, all that stuff happens.

And so the idea that they're gonna build a bridge out of wood with, like, a sheath on it or whatever, I just I just have no confidence that that is going to work out long term. Sorry. I'm getting a little worked up because I'm kinda irritated, but, especially listening to their testimony and all the stuff, that they don't really have answers for. You know? Like, the it's steep, but it's not, and it's it's it's comedy. You know? We we see the the quality of construction of all our houses. Everything is to save money for that company. Right? And so if they save money for that company, the taxpayers pick that up all all across the board.

Right? We see it in our own neighborhood. We see it in this plan that they're talking about now. And it's really frustrating to listen to it. And I I you know, I'm I'm I'm from Texas, and I I get kinda wild up, and I'm not used to this environment. This is the first time I've ever been to one of these things. But it's it's my neighborhood, and I love my neighbors. This is the first place I have ever lived where I know every single one of my neighbors' names. And most of them are sitting here in the audience Yeah. Right now. So you have a lot of people that care about what happens here, and, I will yield my time for somebody else that wants to talk.

Thank you. Thanks, mister Sneed. Ingrid Wick. Can I have

the rest of his time? Yeah. Go for it. Okay.

You have one minute. One minute. Okay.

So, I mean, I said I invite you to come down and take a look at this thing and to check it out. ICON is it's basically just about saving them money. The taxpayers are gonna bear the burden, and we see what happens with the Potomac spill right now. Now that's $20,000,000. That's a much that's the record to fix it up right now. This is a purportedly temporary bridge, which, the reason it's temporary is because you can ease the, load on the system by doing what you're supposed to do in the first place by extending the thing. That's how I understood it. And that that way, gravity will actually work and all of that, on top of that. Yeah. This is just insane.

So please take me up on my offer. Come and see the property. Come and see where they're talking about doing this. Look at all the trees. You'll see that this is just absolutely not feasible. What they're gonna do is hurt our environment. We're gonna be the ones who pay the cost, and then we're gonna pay it over and over and over again because we're gonna have this ridiculous structure that's gonna fall apart. Thank you. Thanks, mister Holden.

Thank you. Okay. Ingrid Wick. Did I did I get that right? Is that

Yes.

That's right.

Okay. Thank you. So,

I'm Ingrid Wick. I am a resident in the same neighborhood

Thank you.

At oh, is this on? At, 16448, Oak Valley Drive. So on behalf of myself, my neighbors who value environmental safety and the long term protection of our natural resources, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My comments focus on the findings required under OCMC seventeen forty nine two hundred. An adjustment from the national, or natural resource overlay district or an NROD may be approved only when each criterion can be clearly and affirmative affirmatively met.

First, the code requires proof that no feasible alternative exists that would avoid, or further minimize disturbed disturbance with NROD. The applicant has presented a preferred alignment for the sewer line, but preference is not feasibility. I have not seen evidence that alternatives outside the NROD are infeasible rather than simply more expensive or more complicated. The code prioritizes avoidance precisely to protect environment environmental safety. Second, the adjustment must result in less impact to significant natural resources than strict compliance.

A sewer line across protected land is not a reduced impact. It is permanent intrusion that brings construction disturbance, vegetation removal, long term maintenance access, and ongoing risk to soil and water quality. From the perspective of nearby residents, this represents an increased risk, not a reduction. The code also requires disturbance to be limited to minimum a minimum necessary. A linear utility corridor establishes a long lasting footprint that will be revisited repeatedly for inspection, repair, and replacement.

Even careful construction does not eliminate a long term consequences of placing infrastructure in protected land. I have one minute left, so I might have to cut it short. OCMC seventeen forty nine two hundred further requires that fish and wildlife movement and ecological function not be impeded. This is not vacant land. This is an active natural area supporting birds, frogs, and other wildlife that depend on clean water, stable soils, and undisturbed habitat.

I happen to listen to them every evening. Amphibians, in particular, highly sensitive to changes in runoff, sedimentation, and water quality. These impacts accumulate over time and are often irreversible. I also want to speak plainly about feasibility. We are being asked to accept that a roughly 400 foot wooden bridge built to carry a sewer pipe across protected land and described as kind of an arched bridge support as feasible and compatible with NROD standards, this sewer is proposed to remain for decades, meaning decades of inspection, maintenance, disturbance.

This is not a minor accommodation. It's a major infrastructure place in protected land, and I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Wick. Very well, Stanley. Lee McCarty. Lee McCarty. Your name and city of residence for the record, if

you could. Good evening. My name is Lee McCarty. I reside at 16817 South Crave Road in Oregon City. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak to you this evening. I live by three simple rules. One, good people work hard. Good things happen. Two, the rule of holes. When you find yourself in one, quit digging.

And number three, the rule of unintended consequences. And it feels like tonight as we have this conversation, we're flying in the face of all three of these rules. I understand that the overarching objective here is the residential subdivision, encapsulating 59 approximate acres, 219 homes. And tonight, focus is very specifically on sewer drainage, storm water drainage, facility infrastructure to accommodate this drainage, construction techniques that are gonna be used to accommodate these aspects, and the impact this is going to have on the broader community at large. And it it makes me wonder if if the law of unintended consequences is continuing to impact us as we make these decisions in sort of a microcosm of the time of where we're at in this process.

But for the fact that we're talking about 219 residential homes, we probably wouldn't be having this same type of conversation. It'd be a little bit different conversation, I understand the I understand the impact and influence of density. But when you step back for a moment and think about 219 homes spread over 59.54 acres, we're talking about approximately four homes per acre. Four homes per acre multiplied by approximately four sixteen people per acre, which may not sound like a whole lot. You take 16 people per acre and you multiply that times 59.5 acres, now we're talking almost nearly a thousand people crammed into this residential community that we're talking about here.

You take a you take the thousand people per acre and excuse me. The thousand people in this development and you make the assumption that there's gonna be two cars for every home, that puts us at roughly 500 vehicles. That's probably a low side conservative estimate. And I know there are traffic estimates in terms of what the impact of this this is gonna have on the community. But it brings me back to the three rules that I live by.

Good people work hard, good things happen. Rule rule of holes, when you're in one stop digging, and I think we're in one and we really need to think about what we're doing. And I applaud the fact that you have delayed your decision at least for the time being on this, these issues with respect to infrastructure. And the and the final rule, the rule of unintended consequences. It's obvious that we have density issues that are creating risk. And is that risk gonna result in unintended consequences that all of us may pay for in some way, shape, or form? The safety of this community is paramount as was stated by several of the people who've already been here. And again, I I defer to the rule of unintended consequences and what that may do in terms of safety. The impact on natural resources. We think we know what's going to happen with our with our natural resources, but do we really?

Or will we be having a conversation in six months after we move forward from this decision to have yet again another another decision?

K. Okay.

Thank you, mister Mark. You for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Beth Beth Bryan. Name and city of residence for the record if you could, please. And make sure that your mic is up and on.

Is it on? Yes.

I think it is. It's green. It looks like it's on. Very good.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Beth Byrne, and I live at 16177 Oak Valley Drive in Oregon City. I wanna start by thanking each of you for volunteering your time to review and consider this application and for hearing from all of us tonight. As a neighbor, I'm concerned about this development, about the water that cannot soak into the soil at the development site, about the stormwater pond and running a sewer line across a wooded ravine and protected natural area. I'm concerned about the long term stability of the steep slopes and unexpected damage to the above ground infrastructure.

This plan doesn't account for damage from unexpected weather events like the ice storms we had a few years back. It doesn't protect from flooding if the system fails or clogs or harm to the stream and wildlife. And how can we be certain that long term maintenance will truly happen? Equally alarming is the traffic impact study that estimates this project will generate nearly 2,000 daily trips with over 80% of that traffic being pushed onto Holcomb, the same corridor that failed during the 2020 wildfires. With only a level two evacuation notice, Park Place residents experienced total gridlock, and we were trapped while trying to evacuate.

That was without a fire actually entering our neighborhood. Now imagine adding hundreds of new homes and funneling that traffic through the same route that already failed. In a real wildfire, we will not be delayed in evacuation. We will be trapped. We don't have to imagine what that looks like because we see it every year across the country, and every year we talk about what fire season will bring and hope that it is not our community that loses everything the next time.

Each fire we see on the news is a warning that we should not ignore. This is not about trying to stop the city from building new homes. This is about not moving large scale developments forward without investing in the safest infrastructure for communities they're built in and ensuring that the areas they're building in are truly safe for long term permanent neighborhoods. The ask today is simple. Don't move this development forward until investment and infrastructure keeps pace with the level of development, and the applicant prioritizes the safety of Park Place residents and our environment. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Byrne. Thank you. Tara Wanstahl. I hope I hope I didn't get that wrong. I apologize if I did.

It's about 10 degrees hotter

up here. Yeah.

Your name and, city of residence for the record, please.

Good evening,

commissioners. My name is Tara Wanstal. I live in Oregon City. My comments stress whether the application and requested adjustment contains the substantial evidence required for you to adopt affirmative findings under type three NROD review. After reviewing the application narrative, stormwater report, geotechnical report, NROD report, and the city zone DEA NROD review, several mandatory approval criteria remain unmet.

Under OCMC thirteen twelve and the public works design standards, a public sanitary sewer must be located in a public right of way or a recorded public utility easement that already exists at the time of the land use approval. This is a clear and objective standard. Across all publicly available materials related to this application, there is no evidence of a publicly recorded pub a public utility easement. No deed, no legal description, no title report, no plat. The en route report and staff report references only a temporary utility easement, which cannot legally serve as a public utility easement.

A temporary easement is not recorded, not permanent, not, does not grant the city perpetual access for inspection, maintenance, or emergency repair. Public infrastructure cannot be approved on land where city lacks permanent legally recorded rights. Without evidence of a currently recorded public utility easement, the commission cannot adopt the findings of compliance with OCMC thirteen twelve or the public works design standards. I understand that tonight the purpose of this review is limited strictly to the discretionary review criteria of OCMC seventeen forty nine two hundred, but staff have stated in their memo that all other aspects of this application have been reviewed and found to comply with the application applicable approval criteria. I find this to be incongruent with the available data.

Second, the application does not include alternatives analyzed under the requirement of OCMC seventeen forty nine two hundred. A type three adjustment requires the applicant to demonstrate impacts are unavoidable and chosen alignment is the least environmentally damaging practicable option. The NROD report offers only a single unsupported sentence claiming that avoiding the NROD would require one mile of new sewer line. There is no new engineering analysis, no environmental comparison, no mapping, and no feasibility evaluation. The DEA NROD review does not supply this missing analysis.

Without complete compete excuse me. Without a complete alternative analysis, the commission cannot adopt the findings. Third, the NROD mitigation findings are incomplete. The report explicitly labeled preliminary if the report is explicitly labeled preliminary and may require revision, it lacks functional value performance standards monitoring and long term protection mechanisms required under 14, excuse me, seventeen forty nine one eighty and one ninety. A preliminary document cannot serve as substantial evidence for a type three approval. Finally, neither the applicant nor the DEA NRAD review evaluated compliance with the public works design standards for sewer alignment. There's no evidence of an easement with maintenance access pipe to slope or manhole placing or constructability. Thank

you, miss Montal. You're more than welcome to submit your written testimony as well to the record if you'd like.

I probably should. So you

should Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. And I have one up here with no name on it, and they live at, Onjada Way. So anybody that lives up on Onjotta Way without a name

Sorry about that.

Probably needs to provide their name and their testimony. Yes. K. Your name, your full name and, city of residence for the record if you could.

My name is Mary Anne Lee, and I live in Oregon City. I'm extremely concerned about proceeding with the application for a 219 lot subdivision without establishing adequate infrastructure to ensure that the Park Place neighborhood can be safely evacuated in event of a fire. During the firestorm of September 2020, there was extreme gridlock on Holcomb Boulevard. It took us an over an hour to get out of the Park Place neighborhood. Since then, three additional developments fueled by ICON are either in process or planned.

The forty four's home, Sarah's Farm development on Holcomb, the expedited land used application for 53 units near Trailview neighborhood, and now the 219 unit subdivision in this current application. That adds more than 300 additional homes to an area that is served by a single evacuation street, Holcomb. In early two thousand twenty five, I joined my neighbors to express our concern about proceeding with a 53 unit development unless emergency evacuation routes are established. Many of us had written to elected officials to express our concern, and I received responses from senator John Meek and representative Anisa Hartman. They had reached out to our city officials to gain further insight into the emergency preparedness plans.

Senator Meek noted that the Park Place concept plan included two primary North connections between Holcomb Boulevard and Redland Lane, Swan Avenue and Holly Lane. I believe he got this information from the city planning. Representative Hartman received a response she received from the city manager, which also mentioned two new primary North South connections between Holcomb Boulevard and Redland that were in the concept plan. The city manager's office also attributed the 09/20/2020 gridlock to the fact that many of us had chosen to leave at level two and mentioned gridlock along Highway 213 And 99 E. Those of us who left during level two were following recommendations detailed in the wildlife.oregon.gov site, which said, if you don't feel safe, leave earlier.

The worst gridlock that we experienced were within the Park Place Avenue neighborhood. Once we got on 99 E, congestion was significantly reduced. We are asking that conditions for approval be made only when the Holcomb Redland direct connections are made per the original concept plan. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Lee. Jackie Hammond, Williams. Name and place of residence for, for the record, if you could.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jackie Hammer Williams, and I've lived in the Park Place neighborhood for thirty six years. Some of you are new, and you're not really up to date perhaps with what's been going on. This development within the Park Place concept plan area has been the most contested development ever in Oregon City, possibly in the state. We're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Twenty years ago, I sat on the concept plan committee, and we were told by city staff that our neighborhood needed this development as it would provide another direct access route into Park Place. The city had identified this as a critical need so if Holcombe was blocked, first responders could still access our area quickly. Back then, it was a concern that a road accident, a landslide, a house fire, ice storm damaging trees, flood, earthquake damaging the 213 Bridge on Holcomb, etcetera, could prevent emergency response into our area. Twenty years on, we now know that evacuation out of the neighborhood is as critical too. Yet, we have had eight major developments.

The ninth will be the development of the upper low income housing in 2027, and this huge one we are addressing today. Our neighborhood has had many concerns about this proposed giant development over the years, and they have multiplied over time. For a land use application, the municipal code seventeen fifty zero five five section e states that development applicants need to attend neighborhood meetings and submit, amongst other things, quote, a summary of issues discussed at the meeting in in their application. And indeed, ICON reps did intend did attend and present at the PP and A meeting on August 18. But on the staff report, you can see on the front page, the application was noted as complete on July 3 over a month before the PP and A meeting.

Strange to think that his application was complete before it was even presented to the neighborhood. I have a question about that. This phase one and phase two, because it's 50 something in phase one and two hundred in phase two, will create over a 300 home cul de sac, all exiting through narrow roads onto Holcomb. As a condition of approval, it would appear that the developer needs to resubmit a plan together with comments and concerns from the neighborhood meeting as stated in the municipal code before it is approved. And this development should only be approved if it can guarantee the Holly Lane extension, which was in the original concept plan.

In fact, it was the number one key element that was pushed by the city. And it need it was deemed critical twenty years ago, and it's even more critical today. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Hammond Williams. I really appreciate it. Okay. And I think I've got a Corey Schreiber. I'm sorry. I couldn't did I get that right?

Yeah. Corey Schreiber. Okay. Great. Yeah. Hello.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you all. Thank you all for showing up tonight. I'm going to echo a lot of what Brandon and Dan said. My home borders the northern property of the, quote, unquote, open space. I would like to say something about that. There's nothing open about that space other than the fact that there's animals in there. And, again, if you want it to be usable, I I I heard him say earlier, oh, you were gonna have to cut some trails in there. Cutting trails in, removing trees, removing more of our just natural space that for what? Right?

You guys, I'm a member of the Clackamas County search and rescue team right now, been deployed about 35 missions in the past two years. Getting in and out of Holcomb to echo what all these people are saying, not only did the traffic impact report that they put in, that was done in 2025. What needs to be done to update that for all of the new housing that's being built at Holcomb? I doubt that's taken into consideration. We cannot even our our neighborhood that we live in is a single entry and exit neighborhood.

We have a quote unquote emergency road. Nobody can drive out there. If a tree falls on the front of our property getting into our neighborhood, nobody's coming in or out unless we're getting in there with chainsaws, taking care of it ourselves. I don't understand what the plan is for any of this. To quote everything that these great people have said here tonight, this to me is more about money and pushing a project than it is about increasing the quality of life of current residents and future residents.

And as members of the planning commission, I highly, highly encourage you to think about that, the quality of life of not only current residents, but future residents. We want the city to grow too. But what expense? At what expense? Somebody else can take my last minute.

Thank you, mister Shriver. John Lewis.

Good evening, commissioners. I wasn't really prepared for this meeting, but I saw Tom's post. Thank you, Tom. And it I thought maybe I'd show up. And I'm not as passionate. I Oh, by the way, I live in Oregon City. I live on the South End of town, so I don't live in this neighborhood. But I know this development well. I guess my my main point is about transportation. I know a little bit about the sewer too, but it's mostly about transportation.

And the fact that transportation funding in Oregon is busted. It's busted pretty big. And so when you have developments like this in growth areas, it's, it is a challenge. In my time with the city, we we built one roadway, one major roadway, and that was, Myers Road up near the community college. The idea of building this roadway from top to bottom under one development is not really practical.

I get I get the justification for why it would be wanted, but it's not really practical. I wanted to make sure one of my main points for tonight was I wanted to make sure everybody in this room understood that the Clackamas County is going through its transportation system plan right now. And Holly Lane and Redland Road is is a county intersection as is all of the existing segment of Holly Lane. So when when I was online and I made my comments, I made sure I made comments about every pretty much every intersection that's in the city's TSP that I think the county should also be helping with as well. And it's been I think it's been maybe three years ago since I talked to the developer about this project, but that Holly Lane and Redland Road intersection needs to be made a four way intersection.

And the county is not always supportive of projects that help further development in the cities, or at least in Oregon City, in my opinion. So I think, you know, that comment period is still open. Everybody in this in this room should be, advocating for better transportation enhancements, including the intersection of Holly Lane and Redland Road. That would help facilitate a roadway, the roadway extension that everybody's concerned about. I do think the developer has plans, long range plans to get this connection all done from top to bottom.

And the city, by the way, has a methodology for collecting transportation system charges, and they're significant. And this project is one that's listed in that transportation system plan. So while you have to get the development to happen to collect some of those funds, This this idea of building infrastructure ahead is pretty broken, I would I would say, in the in in the state of Oregon even though we've got system development charges. So I think the the mind I know I don't have a bunch of time, but my main message is is You got another

minute. Okay.

Time. That true? Is that true, Paula?

Yeah. You can reclaim a time. Go ahead. Okay.

So, I mean, my main point is that, yeah, that connection's that connection's broken today. There's an there's a what I heard loud and clear from this community is that if

there

was a fire today, there would be devastation and, probably loss of life. So, I guess if it's it's You can't put this upon this developer. I think, you know, the the community needs to help fund this roadway. And, you know, many people don't support gas taxes or increasing gas taxes. I get it.

But at the same time, there's really no other way to build this infrastructure. And I'm an advocate for infrastructure. I love projects for a lot of reasons, but, for one, they help the community, and this is one of those. So transportation SDCs happen. Once development happens, the developer has, has put forth a strong effort to build a a solid transportation facility.

The county needs to be at the table and maybe the state. If you're not talking to your legislature, about, earmarked projects in Oregon City, you mentioned the legislators, Mark Meek and, Vanessa Hartman, there's others. They are they are looking for projects just like this one, and I think the community needs to rally. It can't just be the city staff. It's gotta be the community that rallies around projects like this, that help help with sewer. They're helping with water right now in Oregon City and helping with transportation. So Alright. Just thank you for your time and for reviewing all 700 and some pages of this stuff.

Thanks. Thanks, mister Lewis. Appreciate it. Aaron Fernald. If you could provide your name and your place of residence here, city of residence for the record.

Sure. I'm Erin Fernald and I live, in the Park Place neighborhood and I have for about twenty years. When we bought our house, which was a new development house in that neighborhood, we bought with the green space behind us. It is beautiful to look at. It is incredibly dangerous down there. However, we've had to put retaining walls up on our property to hold it. We also had to anchor our foundation. Our house isn't even 20 years old. So to say the sloping in this area is severe, it is. And even with our retaining walls, to go past them, it is still way downhill slope.

Like, it's barely walkable, even holding on to something. We also found a natural spring at the base in that green space right near a tree. And I believe there are probably more natural springs in this property area they're trying to develop, which I don't I haven't seen any data on on all these plants. So we're talking about this natural areas that they're looking to encroach upon. And I look at this sewer line going across this green space, and a, on a steep slope property, there's gonna be issues with maintaining that pipe.

To access it, you're gonna have to make pathways in. It's going to be dangerous work for the workers. I'm not sure how they're gonna get equipment down that without completely removing huge amounts of trees and vegetation. It's I think that they have not done their due diligence on looking at alternative options that may be more costly, but would be safer, long term less risk to our environment, to our streams, to our water. I also look at their water retention pond at the bottom that's encroaching upon this natural area, and I'm wondering why do they have so many houses in there?

Why can't the pond be moved so that it's not covering into the natural area? Why does it need to be encroaching upon the natural area to put a whole another row of houses there? We could do less dense housing more safely on this property. And I do wanna echo the issues of being able to exit this new development. Because even in this map, do you see an option to leave this neighborhood?

It's not pictured in this map. The actual exit onto Holcomb is not even on this map. You've gotta drive all those little roads, and you still can't get out. Would you wanna be in that space when that green area right there is on fire? Because in the last fire times, I had to stop a construction crew next door from sparking during a fire ban

Right.

And a work ban. Right. So I think safety and prioritizing our environment need to be taken in count.

Thank you, miss Fernald. Sarah Head.

Hello.

My name is Sarah Head, and I live at 15332 South Highland Road. I live off Holcomb Roll Road, Forsyth Road, really near Sears Nursery, so adjacent to Holcomb. I run my small business from that location, a small wholesale flower farm, and I've lived there for eleven years with my family. Nothing I'm gonna say tonight, I think, is something that you haven't already heard, but I think it's important that you see it's not isolated to small neighborhoods, the Park Place neighborhood, but goes to the rural areas beyond. During the fires of twenty twenty, we evacuated our family and farm, which consisted of six goats, two dogs, one cat, and two children.

It took over an hour and a half to come off the hill and reach the freeway. This trip typically takes me four minutes. It is alarming to consider what that drive would have been like with a level three evacuation with hundreds of more cars from all of ICON's developments that are have currently gone in and are forecasted to go in. It would have bottle Bottleneck Redland, Holcomb, Forsyth, and the freeway entrance and Clackamas River Drive. Preventing this development will not fix that problem, but allowing it will compound it.

There are only two routes off of that hill. It's Forsyth and Holcomb. In the event of the emergent of an emergency, if either of those blocks are blocked, everyone is trapped on that hill and everyone behind. During the fires, we couldn't head towards Carver because there was fire there. So we were really stuck with only two evacuation routes. In addition, the location of this development on the ravine subjects it to increased fire danger. Sitting on the crest of a deep vegetative ravine, one that has not been managed and is full

of

dead trees, and we also know how dry things are have been. It's at the crest of a deep vegetative ravine, one in which a fire would race up the sides towards hundreds of families with no adequate adequate escape routes. And I think the last thing I would say is I know the representative from ICON Development would like to speak at the end as a rebuttal, and it I am curious what kind of rebuttal he can give to the families and community that lives on that hill, that lived through that time and knows there will be another one. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, miss Head. James Nacita.

Mister chair, I'm gonna wait to talk until everybody has a copy of the of the paper. Thank you. Okay. Chair Espey, commissioners, I'm James Nacita. I live in Morgan City.

I have two points to make tonight. The first, is not in what, was passed to you. I'm gonna read a statute to you. I think it's very relevant, and it's O r s two two seven one hundred. I'm gonna email this to you since I'm reading it to you, but, you can take care and and I'm gonna read it so you can read it slowly.

So, I'll make my point about it afterwards. So, this reads again, it's ORS two two seven one hundred. Submission of plats for subdivisions and plans for street alterations and public buildings to commission report. O r s two two seven is actually the authority under which you are created. So I just wanna, this this is applicable to you.

And this says, all subdivision plats located within the city limits and all plans or plats for vacating or laying out widening, extending parking and locating streets or plans for public buildings shall first be submitted to the commission, that's you, by the city engineer or other proper municipal offer officer, and a report thereon from the commission, again, you, secured in writing before approval is given by the proper municipal official. Now why am I raising this statute? I wanna point out that this statute does not make any distinction between, reviewing discretionary standards or reviewing clear and objective standards, you, the commission, have to review it all, and you have to issue a report on it all. So, this idea that you're only reviewing 1749 because it's discretionary, but you're not reviewing the del the subdivision aspect of this plan, I disagree with that. And, even if the decision on the type two are made by staff, I think you have a legal obligation to write a report and give your opinion on whether the standards are met, even if they are supposedly clear and objective.

Because as I've gone through that, I really disagree with some of the conclusions staff has made on the so supposed clear and objective standards. One of them, it does relate to what I've passed out because the code specifically calls for, the master plan for parks to be adhered to in the development code, the subdivision code. And the plan the Park Place plan is incorporated into that through attachment c of the ordinance, which created the the Park Place plan. It calls for a minimum eight acres of parkland. There's no evidence that they reserve eight acres of parkland in what they've submitted to you.

And I think that's a violation of the development ordinance, and it's a basis for denial or a revision of the plan to make sure you have the minimum eight acres of the Park Place, North Village Community Park.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister thank you, mister Nacita. Okay. And I've got one more, for Sebastian Derringer.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here tonight and listening to all of us. I'm Sebastian. I'm on Cattle Drive, 2 houses away from the planned development. I am here to you tonight to also to just to bring up a a an event on December 18 that I was part of on behalf of the Clackamas County engineering department where I on along with other engineers, geotechnical engineers, evaluated numerous slope stability issues all across Clackamas County.

One just downhill from this on Redland Road that dumped probably around, like, third twenty, thirty cubic yards of material across Redland, where Abernathy Creek was also overlapping onto Redland Road. Saw a house that got red later red tagged, in a community not that far away in Barclay, up with similar geotechnical conditions. And my my thought here tonight is mostly around the understanding of the metrics, the geotechnical metrics, the groundwater conditions, the stormwater retention pond, the amount of water coming into the system and efficiently moving it through our planned utilities. It's my understanding that those metrics were based on now outdated values based on this December 2025 storm event. And I hope that in the months to come that a further grasp is is summarized and understood about those flows.

But that's all I really had. I really appreciate everyone coming out and talking to us and bringing up their concerns. I second them. Excellent. And with anyone else who wants to speak for a minute, they are welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, mister Derringer. Okay. I am all out of speaker slips. Is there anybody else that would like to speak that has not had the opportunity to do so? Please fill out a I take his minute. I'm sorry?

I take his minutes. He has a minute left.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. That's fine. Thank you. Yeah.

It won't be a minute either.

No. That's fine.

Yeah. In reference to this sewer line going over the creek, I live on Toow Creek, and I've lived there thirty six years. In the ninety six flood, we lost a big swath of the side of our creek. It just, whoosh, went down. So as the the last gentleman said, this is a geo geotechnical I don't know the right term, but it's an area that is is prone to landslides.

So you've already got the development on a really steep slope, which has been illustrated by the fact that you can't have mitigation of runoff because it's too steep. And now you're trying to build a sewer line across a creek, you know, that could collapse. So, anyway, it is a very dodgy area. In fact, Scott Burns came to the concept plan committee meetings to he's the geologist, the renowned geologist, and he actually said that in the concept meeting. He plan meeting. He said that this these soils are dodgy. So Thank you.

I know I'm not aligned to ask, but we have to come back to the hearing on the continuances till we all meet her then.

That's up to you.

He said they're gonna continue all this.

But you you I mean, you submitted testimony to the record, so you have standing, and it would be probably in your best interest to attend the hearing the next hearing after this. Okay. That's fine. It benefits everybody. Is there anybody else who is interested in speaking who has not filled out a speaker slip? They will need to fill one out for me and give it to staff. And then, yeah, they can come up, I can call your name, and you can come on up here and and, provide testimony. Trying to meet you halfway. Okay. Okay.

Caroline Roberts Roberts. I'm the other one. You're the other one? Okay. Let me get to okay.

Linda Smith. Sorry. Linda Smith. Thank you. Yeah. Hello, everybody. Everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. I moved into the Park Place neighborhood in 1976. If you do the math, that means I've been there for fifty years. I've seen a lot of development happen over my fifty years living there. I built a new house there myself. Love the neighborhood. Feel that development is absolutely vital for our community. I've back when we could still vote on annexation, I voted for every single one of them in the entire Oregon City area because I felt being part of the urban growth boundary was necessary to allow new developments to come in.

I'm supportive of development, but it needs to be done wisely. It needs to be done with care. It needs to be done with safety. It needs to follow guidelines. The Park Place neighborhood came up with a concept plan working very closely with the city to really think about what it would be like to develop that area safely and continue it onto the other side of Redland Road on a Holcomb Holly Lane, excuse me.

There were two parts of that. And and it was a dream. And it's disappointing to find out now that rules can change, that developers can come in and bypass that work that was done to so diligently come up with a safe livable plan for that area. And and it's just not okay. And there's so many issues, the the fire safety with the traffic and how many other developments have been added to there.

We're not talking about just this one sloth of 219 homes. There's been hundreds of homes that have been added up Holcomb in in my fifty years that I've lived there. Many people live in those some of those neighborhoods that are here tonight. And we and this whole sewer line thing, I mean, is just egregious that it's even a possibility to consider. Why not follow the the set about rules that are are set up for us to to do this wisely? And so I just really implore you guys to consider

all of

the testimony that you've heard from people here tonight and others that you've gotten online to really think about what you're doing for approving this or not or asking for change to the plan that the the developer is putting in to follow more strictly the the dream that we had originally twenty three years ago when we came up with the Park Place concept plan. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Smith. Carolyn Roberts.

Good evening. My name is Caroline Roberts. I'm a resident of Oregon City in the Abernethy Landing neighborhood in the Park Place area, and I'm part of the new development that's happened. We've only been in our house since 2022. Moving in as a new resident, I knew nothing about the fires in 2020.

We have two small children, and hearing the stories from other parents is terrifying. I wasn't planning to speak myself tonight, but another parent with children at Holcomb Elementary School asked me to read on her behalf because she couldn't be here. Her name's Leanne Brewster, and I'm speaking really on behalf of all the children at Holcomb Elementary School who would be on Holcomb Boulevard in case of a fire. Leanne says, good evening, council members. Forgive me.

I have not written a statement like this or spoken at these meetings before. I have quite a few concerns when it comes to this proposed development that I feel should be seriously addressed before the project moves any further. As a longtime OC resident and parent of kids who've attended many schools here, I'm very concerned and worried about this situation as well as others looking to densely populate the area. The biggest issue I see with this development happening is the large number of homes that are set to densely populate this land. Watching the progress week by week, I've been trying to gauge just how many homes are planned to go in the space.

The more I've seen, the more concerned I become. Then I saw the plans posted on Oregon City chitchat. Residents who lived here and experienced the insane gridlock when under evacuation order during the fires of twenty twenty will tell you. The situation was quite dangerous. There are very few routes in and out of this town. Every single one of those routes was completely stopped. Loaded vehicles lined up everywhere you turned. Luckily, the threat was still moving towards the area and not already upon us. Had it been a different emergency or faster moving fire, who knows how many people we would have lost? Besides the gridlock lasting hours, I can imagine the number of people probably ran out of gas and left immobile vehicles in the way.

Children were stuck in the insanity with various needs, their poor parents trying trying to navigate the situation. I'd like to ask the council members if you yourselves were here for the chaos. Some of you may not have been and might not fully understand. State representatives should be addressed in this matter as well. They need to be shown just how dangerous this could potentially be. They should be urged to seriously consider the repercussions. If needed, we should all ask this of our state leadership. I understand there's a housing crisis. It is serious and needs attention. There are a few things that should happen before further developing in smaller towns like ours.

Part of the problem is the ridiculous cost of housing locally that really needs more attention and regulation. There are also many empty buildings of closed businesses closer in the metro area that need to be looked at for redevelopment as residential space. There are many of these that would help alleviate the housing issue that are in safer locations for dense populations. This should be where the attention is focused. This crisis should be handled strategically with safety in mind. My other important issue to consider is the local schools which are already overcrowded. Holcomb is already overpopulated. I know there's expansion plans in place, but those will only give adequate space for the current number of students. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, miss Roberts. Is there anybody else that wishes to testify that has not? Can they fill out a speaker slip? Hearing none, we will invite the applicant up for any rebuttal to the testimony that's been heard this evening. And I believe they have ten minutes, five minutes. Thank you. Yeah.

Thanks very much. Obviously, a lot of heartfelt presentations from people in the community, and quite a lot of information that I can't digest and properly address right now. So we'll look forward to doing that over the course of the next few weeks. The one thing I would say about transportation, I think it's in our presentation somewhere and it's in the conditions of approval, but there are proportional share contributions that we have to make as part of the annexation of the property originally, and there are additional proportional share requirements in the conditions of approval currently. Those proportional share obligations will exceed over a million dollars that go toward improvements of some of the intersections that were mentioned that had issues previously.

Our development will be building a good portion of the Holly connection between Holcomb and Redland through our subdivision. And while its primary purpose is to allow emergency vehicle access into the subdivision from Lifesay, in the event of a wildfire evacuation, it would make sense that the fire department would open that gate at Holly, which would provide a way for cars to get down through LifeSay to Redland, not having to be on Holcomb. Now I know when I talked about that at the neighborhood meeting, several people talked about how it was hard to get off Life Say as well. And I can only say that I imagine the county has learned from that prior event to better control and gate traffic at the various intersections. Like, for example, where Lifesay comes down to Redland rather than having cars go toward 213, they could direct them over to go south on Holly, which is what the Holly extension is supposed to end up doing anyway.

So in those ways, I think we are helping to make, the situation better. And from a geotechnical perspective, by collecting the storm water that would be running down the hill, and impounding it in the water quality facility, we're helping with that. A lot of the, and to be clear, we were talking earlier about, why we can't do, street side planters in streets that have slope. Most of the lots are steps. So they're you know, because houses aren't built like this.

Houses are built like this. So a lot of the work that would go into the grading and the padding will mitigate in large measure a lot of the, geologic hazard slope issues that exist in the natural topography. And let's see. I don't really have an answer for a lot of the other questions or comments that were made, so I'll say that we very much appreciate everybody's comments. We appreciate you taking the time, to hear this tonight.

And again, we do, agree with and recommend that you continue the hearing until I think it was the April 11, is that

what you said, Pete?

April 13.

April 13, planning commission hearing so that we have time to get in front of the NRC and get their comments to you, ahead of that meeting. So thank you very much.

Thank you. So is there any comments that the commission would like to make? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion to continue.

I make a motion continue the hearing until 04/13/2026. I'll second.

Motion made and seconded. Can we have the vote?

Commissioners Law? Aye. Commissioner LaSalle?

Aye.

Commissioner Meinig? Aye. Commissioner Geimann? Aye. Commissioner Henderson?

Aye. Vice chair Dole? Aye. Chair Espe? Aye.

Okay. So the next item would be communications. Do you guys have anything for us?

Excuse me, chairs. Sorry. Could you just specify for the audience the the date and the time of the continued hearing? Right.

So that is the the the hearing is being continued to April

April 13 at 7PM PM.

In this room. In this room. Alright. I apologize for that.

It's getting late. Thank you

for that. I appreciate it.

And for even more communication, the record will be left open for any additional testimony the public would like

to provide. Yeah.

For communications, I have two items for you all. It is our understanding that for the week of, the March 23 meeting, that is the glorious time of spring break. And we do have, a couple of agenda items for that meeting, so we do want to ensure that we have a quorum for that meeting. It should be a lot easier now that we have the full docket of of wonderful commissioners. But if we can get a, yes, we're gonna have it tonight, great.

If not, then we'll send out an email with a a voting poll, to make sure that we have that quorum. So if anybody has any definitive answer, let us know, and and we'll get forward on that. Next is on March 9. We will be having a glorious presentation from our wonderful city attorney, Missy, about, all of the legal mumbo jumbo requirements that you all have to follow to be wonderful commissioners. So we'll be talking about the the public hearing laws, ex parte communication, conflicts of interest bias, all of the the annual training associated with that, and new trainings for new commissioners.

That will be on March 9. We anticipate that'll take forty five minutes to an hour, so we will be planning a work session for that time, which will start at 6PM. So

I was gonna mention that I'm gonna be out of the country. Is that information would you be able to forward that in advance or provide it after?

Commissioner, how about right after or maybe the day before?

I wonder. I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Also, just wanted to add and put a plug in for Friends of Trees planting event, March. You can still sign up for a treat. And this year, we're gonna be observing Arbor Day on the same day, which is a little unorthodox, but it's a great opportunity to really come out and force. And it'll be at Hillandale Park in the morning, and, it's on the Friends of Trees events website. So encourage you to participate if you can.

Pete, I was also gonna mention, is there, are you tracking the Friends of Buena Vista's fundraiser that is coming up?

No. I'm not. But make an announcement on that.

I know that that group is doing a fundraiser event for the Buena Vista Clubhouse. Okay. I'm sure our beloved mayor would love the plug. Okay. I do not have that date and time, but I I know that it's sometime in March.

Yeah. Yeah. Up.

Yeah. For sure. Let me get let me get that up here. Have it right now. Let me get it up real quick. Yeah. Let

me come Let me

get it right

now. One of its The proper Spanish is bad. It

is Saint Louis Buena Vista Clubhouse, Pi Day fundraiser, March 14 from two to 5PM at, Saint Paul Episcopal Church in Oregon City.

Thank you, commissioner Walms.

Thanks very much. Plant a tree

and then go eat a pie. Pie.

The other thing that I was gonna mention, I wanted to say, welcome to commissioner Henderson, to our esteemed commission. I think you were, appointed and approved at a city commission meeting? Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. Well, welcome.

Is correct. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Yeah. Anything else? K. Move to Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I would

just like to encourage, especially the new members of the commission, to print out the Oregon Planning Commission handbook dated April 2015. It's a little dated, but it's got all the information you need to be a good planning commission. Thank you.

Okay. So I move to adjourn.