Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you for coming to the August Planning Commission meeting. Before we begin, please stand if you are able and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, everyone. Can we have the roll call, please?

Before we go any further, I'd welcome a motion to excuse our missing commissioners.

Any discussion or objections? If not, motion is approved, thank you. Any late changes to the agenda?

Very good. In that case, we will move forward with the public comment period. This is the first public comment period of the evening. Anyone requesting to speak to the commission regarding any and all items not subject to a specific public hearing, please come forward at this time. Please state your name and limit your comments to three minutes.

Sir, I'm sorry, could you please state your name?

Thank you. I see that we have, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, sir.

To the folks online, I promise we will get to you.

Thank you. All right, well, if there is anyone else in person, let's take a break real quick and turn to our folks online. If I could ask just everyone here in person to please keep the whispers to zero. It is sometimes a little bit hard to hear online, so thank you for being considerate to our fellow citizens.

Thank you. And I see we have another hand raised online. Go ahead, Mr. Byrne.

Thank you, Sarah. Just a reminder to anyone online, if you do want to speak, please use the raise hand feature. And if there is anyone else in person who'd like to speak, I welcome you to come forward at this time. State your name and let me hear your comments in three minutes.

Just want to remind everyone that we will have a public comment period later as well. And you are allowed to speak at the second one if you have already been to the podium. So do with that what you will. If there is anyone else who'd like to speak at this point, now would be the time. And if not, we'll close the public comment period I turn to my fellow commissioners now to ask if they have had a chance to review last month's minutes, if they have any questions or comments or corrections. If not, I'd welcome a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

Thank you. If there's no discussion, all those in favor of approving the minutes as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? There are none. Motion passes unanimously. On to the business portion, Ms. Lust.

Thank you, Ms. Lust. Any questions or comments from the commissioners on this section?

Claire, could you just remind, not really remind, explain to me what infill refers to?

2.1.4 there's a provision in there that talks about facilitating infill development what does facilitating look like and beyond that should there be some sort of word like incentivize used instead. I think that's one of those things that as a commission and even at the council level that we've expressed interest to make sure that we're promoting infill, especially on the climate section when we get to that.

I'll let other commissioners speak first while I gather my thoughts on other sections.

Ms. Lust, correct me if I'm wrong, but the State Fire Marshal sets the designations for what is considered a medium, low, or high fire risk, and therefore the Wildland Urban Interface is based off those low, medium, and highs, and that dictates, based on the WUI section of the building code, what your provisions are, right?

A couple more items. 2.3.2 talks about residential design standards. Will this section, as it relates to the code provisions, necessitate a modernization of some of the design requirements, the prescriptive design requirements?

Perfect. And then 2.3.2 talks about, you know, Dave Kuntz, anticipate our neighborhood identity or enhancing neighborhood identity, and I do think. Dave Kuntz, richfield has a you know each neighborhood as a nice distinct neighborhood identity but. I didn't really see much in the way of what that looks like from a placemaking standpoint. Is there any ideas that you had in mind in terms of what that could look like in terms of a placemaking standpoint?

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll make a suggestion. You know, maybe specified a little bit more about, you know, so support or lending support for, um, you know, entry features, um, you know, supporting wayfinding signage, uh, you know, fencing that, that aligns with all these different things, anything to kind of create a design motif throughout, um, a community I think is, um, is good. Obviously, You know, I'm not a fan of things being too prescriptive, because then it doesn't really allow for lots of creativity, but something that is, you know, good, nice, broad, overarching, guiding principles would

All right, Ms. Lust, please move on to the next section.

Thank you, Ms. Lust. Commissioners, any questions?

I'll just ask one general overarching question. Trails. I think one of our biggest Assets here in this community is trails and our biggest opportunities as well in terms of supporting alternative modes of transportation I know personally I would love to be able to walk and bike Wherever I bike to downtown as much as I possibly can And it is not easy to get down here from Hillhurst so whatever method of supporting, especially as we grow and get developments that are able to fill in the gaps that we currently have. But as part of that, I noticed that road improvements are obviously listed as sup

Okay, that's great. And I think that it is a huge opportunity as developments come in. Most developers that I know would put the trail in because it's a value to their community if they have the opportunity specifically to get TIFF credits that they can use. And so having that listed as a TIFF is great. would be a huge opportunity for us to complete some of those gaps and provide that connectivity that we desperately need.

Ms. Lust, you mentioned the state allows for TIF fees to go to trails and other multimodal. Has the city done that thus far?

Great. Something just came to mind before we move on to the rest of the commissioners. I don't know if this is a transportation topic, but one of the things I heard a lot from public comment today was boats. And the opportunity for supporting some level of boat access. I know it's a method of transportation. It's not like it is the Columbia where you're having shipping lanes. But maybe something that we can consider as part of our transportation topics or maybe even the recreation topics. But either one, it would be great to see something that addresses boats.

I had a couple things. In the section, page 25, under travel demand and trip reduction, I'm not sure if it, It belongs here or not, but there were kind of specific areas identified as, you know, future development in the Cardi Road, South Hillhurst Road should incorporate safe and direct bike lanes and stuff. And there wasn't a mention that I saw in this document about bike lanes on Pioneer. And I just wondered if that was something that would be appropriate to include in some place, because that seems like one major artery that a lot of us like to use for either walking running or biking, and

Folks, we've reached the halfway point in the meeting, so just 90 more minutes and we'll unlock the doors and you can go home. Ms. Lust, just one question for me in that it has to do with something that we spoke about during the city tour last month. There's a lot of talk in here as far as safety and walkability and interconnected trails, but I don't see a whole lot about signage on those trails, and I think anyone who's tried to walk a trail, if you don't have your phone out, you get lost pretty quick, and so it'd be great if that was a point of emphasis as far as safety and connectivity. Tha

Any thoughts or questions from the commissioners?

Any other questions or comments? Nope, all right, Ms. Lust, take it away.

No questions, but just an oddly specific comment on item 9.6. So one of the opportunities I think that kind of goes overlooked on greenhouse gas is the impact our engineering standards have. And beyond even just greenhouse gas, reducing urban heat island effect, things like that. I mean, we have street sections that sometimes might be too wide that we can allow for exceptions or narrower street sections, especially if we get into more hilly, steep terrain projects. But one of the things that a lot of people don't think about is what goes on underneath the street. Ridgefield has a pipe zone bac

That's a good lesson there, everyone. Sorry. No, that was, yeah.

I had to take my land development head off.

That was terrific. Any questions or comments?

Well, as someone who has had so many trucks of rocks going past my house and taking out the dirt, yes, love that. It actually made me think, and I don't know that it fits in here, but one of my pet peeves has to do with when the city has new areas of plantings like in a center strip and they're using rock, because rock holds heat, It does not reduce the heat in the area. And if we were planting shrubs or more native plants, which is outlined in this, in those areas instead, and having them grow over and cover instead of using rocks so often, I think it could be helpful. Not sure if it's in the

And just a little below that, policy 9.5.5, prioritize distribution of educational materials. I just felt like that sounds a little antiquated in these days of like I pictured flyers and booklets, and I think the most effective is social media campaigns for really getting this sort of message to people. So if that's appropriate, it seems like that could be added in there, not to take out the educational materials we should educate, but maybe the social media aspect of that. I feel like that's more the way people learn about things.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Just a quick one. Go for it.

Anything else for Ms. Lust? Not at this time.

One quick question, Ms. Lewis. I know there's... There's, since the beginning, challenges with the county's proposed comp plan with their lane use alternatives. And since we're nested under all of that stuff, what happens when there's inevitably gets challenged? I mean, there's two different groups that are battling out what they're proposing. And now there's even more kind of coming in. Sure.

Okay, so if we're still substantially consistent with whatever they're proposing, then maybe we're probably fine, even though their portions are being peeled. From everything I understand, it's their land use components in their specific jurisdiction. It has nothing to do with the other jurisdictions, right? But it has to do with high density and places like Hazeldale. So...

Okay, so I guess my bigger question is if that appeal happens, are we delayed in our implementation at the city level if it has nothing to do with our jurisdictional boundaries because we're nested underneath the county?

Yeah, I just know it's coming, and I would love to move forward with all of our stuff that we know is good and fine, but I know their stuff is gonna get appealed, so.

Any other questions or comments for Ms. Lust? Not at this time, Ms. Lust, anything else? All right, it's time to party, everyone. We have now reached the second public comment period of the evening. Anyone wishing to address the Commission, please step forward at this time, limit your three-minute comments to three minutes, please, or face the gavel. Please state your name before.

Thank you, I should mention anyone online, please use the raise hand feature so the clerk will unmute you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the Commission may step forward at this time.

Anyone else? Please step forward at this time.

You did a great job. If there's anyone else who'd like to step forward at this time, please limit your comments to three minutes or less. If there's anyone online who'd like to address the Planning Commission, please use the raise hand feature. Going once, going twice. Public comment period is closed. Staff reports.

Excellent. Thank you miss lust from the commissioners.

I just want to say to the many people that showed up tonight that we're listening. We appreciate the turnout. We appreciate your thoughtful comments. You're clearly digging deep and finding facts and information that need to be considered. It's unclear to me as a planning commission person how much direct involvement we will have I've not really I don't know for sure but I certainly live in this community the same way most of you do I walk at the refuge with my dog I love it down there I moved here I see the beauty I'm a native plant enthusiast I work hard in my personal time to protect the en

It's after 8, and I turned into a pumpkin, so my words are not going to be very good right now. But I will say, everybody, thank you very much for showing up. I said this at the last meeting, where there was about half the amount of people, if not actually less. The world is ran by the people that show up, and so by you guys being involved and And speaking your mind, my hope is that those concerns are being taken into consideration by the developer, by the port, so that they can start implementing some of those items. I know for sure I, in whatever capacity that we can make change on this, hav

Thank you, I'll make it quick too. Thanks to the city staff for preparing tonight and for staying late with all of us. Thanks to everyone for showing up. Hippies are people and they're citizens and they deserve to be heard and the only way to do that, just to echo something we've heard earlier, is to show up, is to be a part of this process and I think overall, You know, the transparency involved has been lacking, and so it would behoove all of us, I think, to continue going to podiums and taking our three minutes and making ourselves heard. And lastly, I guess, just backing up to the city tou