Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

So I asked Ms. Angie as a follow-up to our work session a couple of weeks ago to come prepared to remind us of where we have industrial land in Washington County and some commercial lands too in the urban unincorporated areas where possibly if they had time, what kind of zoning We have an urban unincorporated Washington County. And what the heck it might even mean to have a moratorium. A moratorium on what? So I want to make sure I understand what our role is and be aware of that lawful stuff before I encourage this board to consider even the topic of a moratorium. So I'll turn it over to you,

And the other is rural and incorporated as well.

I'm sorry, I'm confused. So and maybe I'm not. necessarily following this conversation correctly. These pink locations are currently, there's buildings on those. Correct. Okay.

So all six of these, seven, are in, I'm only seeing one through seven, are in urban unincorporated Washington County and have the zoning of industrial or special industrial overlay districts.

Okay, but there's already existing functional use on those properties. Yes.

ever dealt with it would be unlikely we're just trying to be as transparent as possible yes so we are showing you all the right and I think what we're doing here is trying to educate ourselves and the public and that's that's why we're stepping through this in a in a in a very So I appreciate it. And it is a little confusing, but the questions I think help illustrate to me what's going on.

And the prior slide also goes on to say that few of these properties are suitable for development of large-scale standalone data centers. So not all eight are applicable. Earlier she said only three of them, but she's going through each of the enumerated areas on the next few slides.

As she said, there are only two types of land that she's going over, those that are zoned industrial or special industrial overlay district, period. So any further discussion will hold till later in the presentation. We're only focusing on these eight parcel, these eight areas as designated on slide seven that have those two zoning designations.

And on the corner in the light pink, is that the analog? Thank you. It's analog device, so that's all built out.

When you say not very large, would you remind me how large?

So I have a question about the first statement. provided that the local jurisdiction can make findings of the need to impose a moratorium. Are moratoriums ever not allowed?

But it has nothing to do with what we went over previously about availability. Correct. Okay. I just wanted that cleared up.

And wouldn't they have to use, if I captured this correctly, I thought I heard you say that there is a definition of data centers in the ORSs. And so I assume they would have to use that definition. And they do that it's substantially similar to other allowed uses in those two different overlay, those two different industrial district or special industrial overlay district.

I'm having a little trouble here. We're talking now about future applications, but in going through the property, the eight sites, I was under the impression that those sites were not truly available because they already had existing buildings or they were small or something. So if we're talking about a potential application, I'm having trouble understanding where that would be if we don't have that opportunity.

So if I might, and Ms. Angie will correct me, you have the facts down about the existing state of those eight areas and that they are in active use, as they are today. You have those facts down. There is, however, left to someone's imagination or a potential future, somewhere out in the future, someone could own a property, change their mind about the current use, destroy the current buildings after the existing tenants or businesses no longer occupy it, and in some future but unknown time want to redevelop that. So staff is here today to give us background. They have these ideas to as part of

Does that make sense? Yes. And I want to make myself perfectly clear here. You know, as we go through this process, And as we discuss moratoriums, as we discuss what our realities are here, I want to be, I perceive my job, our collective job, is to produce facts and realities for our public. And I don't, I'm really concerned about making sure that we are, you know, we're clear-eyed about what this issue is. So that's why I'm asking you. these questions, and I appreciate the commentary that gives it even more strength. They have four more slides to take us through. The other thing is we're talk

When you say these days, on the previous slide, side 12, Are those calendar days or business days?

The best I could answer that, we have always approved the LUT work plan by resolution and order, even while you've been on this board. So that's why if we want to have staff put time and energy into a different topic, we have to take an action by resolution and order. It is our job.

And that is $100. That is a commitment to endeavor to do this work within 120 days.

I want to come back to the city of Beaverton because I talked to the mayor of Beaverton about this topic a couple of different times. And so I agree with you 100%. They don't feel that large-scale standalone data centers are allowed uses in the city of Beaverton. And so therefore, they don't need to have a moratorium or do anything further than the resolution that they, that you spoke about.

I have a question about this slide. You said earlier that our current work plan has directed that you follow through on those changes that are state directed, as well as two discretionary ones. And I wrote down what they were. So if we were to follow this hypothetical timeline, would that only impact the two discretionary, the workload for the two discretionary projects, or would that put even the state required ones at risk?

And you also talked about potentially needing some additional consultant resources as well. So hypothetically, you'd impact those two, need some additional financial resources that are already constrained. So it hypothetically would, in my opinion, as I understand it, likely require that further extension as well. Okay. Yes, very likely. Okay. But thank you for helping ground me in a potential timeline.

Their findings, quote, their own community development code, which is a different development code than ours. So it isn't applicable.

For clarification, I just want to, I want to point out for the public and for all of us, we're only talking about data centers here. We are not talking about battery storage.

Do we have any more questions on this slide?

I can go next. While I understand both Commissioner Willey and Commissioner Snyder's position, and thank you for providing the baseline information about what the risks are, and that's really what we're talking about here, is what the risks are for a data center to be placed in Washington County. What we haven't talked about is the public sentiment. And I think it's very important that that be component of this decision. That's in part why I talked about a task force to work toward what is a good education plan, what is a good awareness building plan, and how we can talk about all the issues,

Ms. Kyle, I appreciate that. And I would also ask if that utilizing that option does not preclude us from a moratorium either. Correct? Correct. Thank you. That would be my option, of course, at this point.

Each of the four of you have had an opportunity to answer these questions, so I'll go through mine and then attempt to summarize. It's been interesting listening to each of you. In addition to what we've been exposed to from public comment in our own forums, as well as hearing about or reading about public comment to other local jurisdictions. What I, as one, continue to have a need to understand is, as, for example, Commissioner Fai was summarizing different categories drinking water, wastewater, energy, land use, and legal authorities. I'm pretty clear on what our legal authority is and our

To me, that that feels like too performative yeah it also feels like what we're seeing a lot of platitudes without a plan yeah uh it's leading people along yeah that's why i don't prefer it but i it's one of those things that i could live with but i wouldn't i wouldn't love it would you clarify what your what what is the it the it would be

It is something we could consider. It goes against what we've seen in terms of documentation, making it more easy to use. implementable and also reducing barriers to housing. I think we've established a record here of our intent.

So we could do something like that. Yeah, but I don't want to put the county at any risk of somebody saying, well, you have a definition, therefore. Yeah, we'll leave that to the future.

So I'll summarize. We don't have, if we could go to the last slide, the one with the questions. Whoever's driving the slides. Sorry. We're going back to questions. The last slide. This thing has delay. Okay. So in summary, staff has heard and noted for themselves the additional information that we want we do not we have a board majority to not move forward with the letter of potential intent for a moratorium or any other action towards that move right now we do wish to move forward with the alternative action that we have talked about here of the resolution and order noting community concern a

Yeah. And it should outline the fact that it does not preclude us from moving forward with the moratorium based on the information that we gain.

Nope. But it is, as noted earlier, in our public record of prior meetings that are perfectly available on our meeting portal. Great. All right. Oh, boy. I did not do a good job of making sure we followed our 45 minutes. We had a great discussion.

I appreciate the robust discussion that we had.

Okay, so we're going to take a less than 10 minute break here at 2.30 so that the room can clear out and then I'll ask for the appropriate motion for an executive session and we'll start that at 2.30. Thank you. 2.30. I told you.

Okay. Okay. We are back from break. Hello. We are back from break. Hello. We are back from break. And at this juncture, I would like to ask for a motion to adjourn to executive session pursuant to ORS 192.660 sub 2 sub D for the purposes of Discussing labor negotiations. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please vote by raising your hand. Thank you. Commissioners, any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. We are hereby in executive session.