Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Newberg Planning Commission meeting for 02/12/2026. This meeting is now called to order. Can I get a roll call, please?

Randy Rickert. Randy Rickert.

Here.

Jason Dale.

Here.

Chris Wright. Here. Matthew Mansfield.

Here.

Jose Valipando.

Here.

Abby Sites? Here. And Linda Newton Curtis is absent.

Okay. Thank you. And I believe we're onto introduction of new commissioners, is miss Seitz, who's technically an old commissioner. But we'll we'll gloss that over. Do we have anyone else do we have to account for?

Unfortunately, our newest member could not do it. They, got our first packet, and, they disconnect be part of the commission. So we have the opening back. It's open again.

Okay.

So, hopefully, we'll get the, spot filled.

Takes a stout heart and mind to be a planning commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as evidenced by miss Sites. Anyway, we will move on to the election of new chair and vice chair for the year twenty twenty twenty six. What's our status of seniority? If, you don't mind me asking because I don't remember. Matthew?

Yes. Okay. Commissioner Vellipano, do you or do you wish to serve as vice chair or chair? Staying vice chair. Okay. Oh, okay. Are you, commissioner, are you willing to step into the chairman position? So so so so hold on. So hold on. So, typically, have you been were you vice chair up till now?

No. Right. Okay. So the thing is is, in the course of the year, you're as vice chair, if you haven't done it before, you're supposed to kinda go through that process to, you know, kinda get your feet wet and all that kinda thing. And so since commissioner Aron hasn't done that and you've kinda been you've been here longer, but but you kinda haven't been in the into the vice chair, you know, yeah, procedures and all that kinda stuff. So if people are willing so let's see. When was the last time you served as chair?

I believe you've been, 2022.

'22? I think I was '23. So between the people here, so you you have less seniority than Matt. Is that correct?

No. You're you're you're

this

I've been here one year now as of last month.

And and commissioner Rueckert, long you've been here now?

Probably in Washington.

Okay. A little bit.

Right. Right. Right. Right.

I can't

Okay. So so let's see. So

Commissioner Dale. Please. I did, skip being vice chair, and I went directly to chair. Right. I don't know if anybody else is willing to do that.

Right. Well, that's kinda that's kinda where the the thing goes. So, if you're willing, would you be willing to serve a chair this for this term in, with mister Villa Tano as your second? It's okay to refuse. I know you have some extracurricular issues sometimes. So

Yeah. I can go ahead and accept.

Okay. Well, that's just a proposal. So now now we

can Just saying I I do have a full plate this year. Randy, are you at all in a position to chair?

Right. So you have you've experienced some other commissions and and are more familiar with all the processes involved. Is that right?

Yeah. A little bit, but I'd

I'd prefer not to serve as chair.

Okay. Okay. Well, I nominate, commissioner Wright for the office of chairman for the term of 2026. Do I have a second? Commissioner Rickert will second. Very well. Can I get a roll call vote, please?

Randy Rickert?

Yes.

Jason Dale?

Yes.

Matthew Mansford? Sorry.

Yes.

Chris Wright?

Yes.

Jose Valpanto?

Yes.

Abby Sites? Yes. Very well. Motion passes. Commissioner Wright is the chairman for the terms of 2026, who I will now turn over the meeting to. And there we go. You you wanna come over here or just stay there?

Or I'm pretty I've got Make it real easy. Stuffs.

I'll bring

this to

you. Thank you very

much. Oh,

no. The gavel. Thank you very much. Faye, do we have any public comments online for those not on the agenda this evening?

We do not.

Next is on the consent calendar. Do I have a motion to approve or deny?

Why that turn green? I was gonna say that I I do believe we need to vote on the vice chair as well before before we, move on.

So Yes. Those in favor of Jose VillaPondro as vice chair?

Point of order, I believe we would have to nominate via motion first.

Do we have a motion to nominate vice chair?

I, nominate,

Jose Villapando for vice chair for the planning commission. I second nomination.

Faye, can we have a vote roll call vote, please?

Randy Rickert?

Yes.

Jason Dale?

Yes.

Matthew Mansford?

Yes.

Chris Wright? Yes. Jose Valipando? Yes. Abby Sites? Yes. Thank you, Faye.

Sorry. I didn't have my mic on. Consent calendar is next for planning commission meeting minutes approval or denial?

Commissioner Rickert with with a motion to accept the planning commission meeting minutes from 12:11 twenty twenty five. I'll second the motion.

Thank you. Consent calendar approved.

Point of order, we do have to, vote a We need to get a vote.

Would work. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Can we have a voice vote, please? All in those favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Planning commission meeting minutes pass. Now we'll go on to our quasi judicial public hearing. And at this time, I open the quasi judicial public hearing for land use appeal APL dash two six dash one, appeal three lot partition and middle housing land division, approvals at 1929 East Orchard Drive, PLNG 25 Dash 2042 on 02/12/2026 at the Public Meeting Or Public Safety Building, Newburgh, Oregon. The applicant's the owner. The purpose of this, planning commission is to review the application, hear, discuss, deliberate, listen to public testimony, make a motion on the matter, and vote.

The testifying procedure for this evening will be applicants or proponents will be fifteen minutes. Primary opponent opponent, if any, will also be fifteen minutes. Any first proponents or undecideds or opponents will also be five minutes. After each speaker, the planning commission may ask questions for clarification. At the end of all public testimony, the owner applicant has a chance for rebuttal.

At this time, I would like to call for any abstentions, bias, ex parte contact, objections to jurisdiction. Hearing none, student commissioner Sykes. I oh, really? You graduated? No.

Don't no. They're still at school.

You're still at school? Yes.

Commissioner Sykes, read our LUBA announcement, please.

Of course.

ORS one nine seven dot seven six three requires certain statements to be made at the commencement of a public hearing. The applicable city and state zoning criteria must be listed. This means that we must advise you of the standards that must be satisfied by the applicant prior to our approval of an application. The planning commission will list the applicable criteria during his or her presentation of the staff report. Persons wishing to participate in this hearing must direct their testimony or evidence towards the criteria stated by the planner or other specific city or state criteria which you believe apply.

You must tell us why that your testimony or evidence relates to the criteria. Any issue which might be raised in appeal of this case to the Land Use Board of Appeals must be raised in person or by letter at the local level prior to the city approving or denying the application. The laws state that the issue must be raised in enough detail to afford the decision maker and the parties an opportunity to respond. This part of the law is also known as the raise it or waive it requirement. If you do not bring it up now, you cannot bring it up at the Land Use Board of Appeals.

Failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues relating to the proposed conditions of approval in enough detail to allow the local government or its designee to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in Circuit Court. Prior to the conclusion of the initial evidentiary hearing on an application, any participant may request an opportunity to present additional evidence or testimony regarding the application. Planning Commission will grant such a request through a continuance or extension of the record. Done.

Thank you, Commissioner. Staff, can you, give us a report at this time?

Sure. Facebook and get PowerPoint loaded up here. Just for the record, Jeremiah Acromi, associate planner. And before you deny it is an appeal on a three lot partition and three middle housing land divisions at 1929 East Orchard Drive. And looks like we got it up here.

See if this works. So as mentioned, this is a three lot partition and three subsequent middle housing land divisions, a freeze for a triplex on each partition lot. The zonings are one, and applicable criteria is fifteen two three five as detailed in the staff report, which is exhibit a in your packet, the director's decision. The appellant tonight is Ryan Adnovic? Adnovic.

Oh, I I'm sorry if I did that wrong. So location of the project is off East Orchard Drive, just north of the aquatic center off of Villa Road there to the east on the far end. Zoning is r one, low density residential, and it is abutted by low density on all sides. And this is the partition of the three lots. They're all over 5,000 square feet, which I will get into in a minute.

And then each of the partition lots would have a triplex with a middle housing land division on them as seen here. Something I wanted to comment on tonight is their difference between partitions and middle housing land divisions. The main thing with middle housing land divisions that's different than partitions is there's no minimum lot size requirements or setbacks for the individual child what are called child lots, which is the additional lots that are created from the parent lot, which is the three lots for the partition. And then each dwelling unit has to have separate utilities. But the setbacks are not required in middle housing land divisions, but they do have to meet Oregon residential specialty code for buildings, so that includes firewalls.

And then those lots can't be further divided. So for the commissioners and for the public, just wanna go through the planning and building process quickly. So what happens when somebody submits an application to the city for a subdivision or in this case, a partition? Partitions, three lots or less when we get into subdivisions, it's four or more. So what happens when they submit?

They put submit preliminary plat, which shows that each individual parcel can meet minimum lot size requirements and adequate infrastructure and access exist or will exist as part of the project. And once you go through that, this is this is the initial step that we're talking about tonight. Once we get through that, there's public improvement permits, which is what creates the roads, the new water lines to get put in that gets approved, your permit that gets put in the ground. Once all that's in, you'll have what's called a final plat submission to the city saying all these conditions from the preliminary plat and the public improvement is finished, all the infrastructure is put in. It gets submitted to the city for final plat, and that was what once that's approved, that's what goes to county.

We approve it. Goes to the county and gets recorded. That's what you can actually sell off the lots to a separate party. And then after that is building permits. You submit building permits to the city.

And at that time, the city evaluates all the current standards, including setbacks, height limits, parking requirements. I will say there is a caveat to this with the state legislature now allows for early issuance of building permits and substantial completion of public improvements. So you can submit it with the application if you if it's desired, but it's not required. So that's the process that goes through. And so the city issued a decision on January 7 regarding the partition and middle housing land divisions with a host of conditions associated with it as found in your packet.

And the city received a timely appeal on the following issues were raised, and so we're gonna go through those and address them as they were raised. So the first item that was related was related to fire turnaround and fire flow. So I put the relevant code section in here, and I can go into detail if if it's desired. But city found they're they're all met with conditions, and that TVFR permit was approved twenty twenty five zero one two one. Instead of a required turnaround, the fire department required the buildings to be sprinkled as part of their Twomb Valley fire permit, and I believe fire department's online if you have questions about that.

And then the second one was a fire flow was insufficient. The applicant did do a fire flow test as indicated on the permit. And as you probably saw in your packet, it it CDFR submitted a letter saying it met the thousand gallons per minute requirement for a four inch line. And so you can see that in your packet, but also here on the TDFR permit. So they have to have the sprinklers and the building notes, the fire flows tested, fire access.

Roads have to be paved, and there'll be no parking signs, and that will all get inspected. Second appeal issue we raised was the frontage space and operational need for fire safety mailboxes, garage bit garbage bins, and delivery vehicles. City currently does not regulate private streets outside of fire requirements and lot frontage requirements, and the notice was sent to Taunton Valley Fire and Rescue Waste Management and the post office. So lots that have access through easement that's at least 25 feet wide to a public street is applicable here. The Orchard Drive easement is 30 feet, and all lot frontages on the partition are over 70 feet.

And then we had the TPFR permit. Waste management did reach out when we sent the application to them, but did respond and said they did not have any issues with it. The next appeal issue was raised was the flawed traffic analysis and traffic safety issues. So a traffic generation memo was submitted from the Institute of Transportation of Engineers for the three triplexes that had nine PM power PM peak trips. So the code in fifteen two three five says if you have forty PM peak hour trips or more, that is when a full traffic impact study is required.

There's some other language at the bottom of that section that says it can be required if there's a known operational deficiency or safety issue. Our transportation system plan, the TSP, has no plan improvement for the streets, and there's been no safety concerns raised to our traffic safety commission at this time. The next issue raised was the inadequate utilities and that the applicant provided enough evidence for low water, sewer, storm water as part of the code. The applicant did provide a waterline capacity memo as part of their application, which is adjust the capability to serve the future triplexes, and they also produced a preliminary storm water report with rain gardens to handle the additional rent runoff. And then they are required as part of the conditions to do a final stormwater plan as part of the public improvement process.

The next thing that was raised was that the developers submit a plan as illegal based on lot coverage, parking, and building height setback standards. So no building permits are actually submitted with the application. We got the partition and the middle housing land division, which showed conceptual plans. At the time of building permit, we will evaluate all the requirements as including the 40% lot coverage, off street parking location, and 30 foot building height limit. And it's a triplex as well as the fire department required or, yeah, fire department only allows for a 30 foot height limit.

There was some confusion, I think, about townhouses from from public. There was a previous application for that that was withdrawn. So it has a 30 foot height limit, and all those are conditions as seen in that staff report exhibit a. So those will be required to be addressed when the building permit's submitted. And so I wanna back up one second and say to that the conceptual plan showed more than 40%, and that was and a couple other things that was conditioned to meet our current code.

Also, just as far as the density goes, I can go back. For triplex dwellings in R 1, it's a 5,000 square foot minimum, which is met on each partition lot. Triplexes are allowed, and that includes the 5,000 takes out the portion of the private street that is in the easement to make that code section. It has to take out that section. They're still all all over 5,000 square feet.

And just so commissioners and the public know, a part of house bill 2,001 made it so that the city has to allow triplexes, duplexes, quadplexes, and cottage clusters in a single family zone area. Next appeal item that was raised was just foreseeable future impacts of their developments that are not on the slot and future developments. So there there's really only one code section that even applies, and it's the future concept plan for adjacent properties. It's unlikely the street would ever go through, and there is no concept to that. And there's no other building permits on any of the other lots currently submitted or any other partition or middle housing land division application submitted on Orchard Drive at this time.

And then any future development is speculative and not a criteria. The next item was just a financial burden of private street construction on existing residents. A private street is and how it's maintained by the owners living on the street is a private matter. It's beyond the city scope. So there's not anything the city has that says it has to be brought up to city standards as far as the private street goes.

And the last item that was raised was just a public notice that was sent out as part of the application for review. Applicant claimed the or sorry. Applicant. The appellant and others raised concerns about the envelope that the notice was sent in with a seventy six logo on it. Our code does not have requirements of what envelope that gets sent out has to be in.

It is the applicant that is required to send it out, and they they did, and all the correct notice was mailed as part of that. So staff would recommend adopting planning commission order number 202601 that denies the appeal and sustains the 01/07/2026 director decision approving with conditions the file PLNG Dash25Dash42. And I also wanna say we are at a hundred twenty day mark, so planning commission would need to make a decision on the on the appeal tonight.

Thank you. Are there any questions from any commissioners? Yes. Alright. Let's go.

Too many questions. I'll start with the private street. So if I understand the appeal correctly, the the appeal is stating that the construction of these triplexes would put an undue strain on the private street that the, I guess, street owners on said street, the residents, would have to bear, and that is outside of their expectation because the triplexes are more construction or more laborious? I'm trying to understand that impact.

I I think I'll let I'll defer to our Brett Muzick, our senior engineer, our engineering department.

We also may wanna just allow the appellant to articulate that there was Mhmm. The scrutiny issue. That's Mhmm. Appropriate then and staff, and we're happy to respond.

Yes. Thank you, Scott. That is exactly what I was gonna say.

Can we take a quick break? We are having some Zoom issues, and I need to get it fixed. Just take me just a minute. I think I got it figured out what it is.

Excellent. Thank you for taking care of that.

At this time, the planning commissioner will take a recess. We will convene at in ten minutes. I don't know what 707. We will reconvene at

Sorry. 37707 in ten minutes. Would

be 707. Well, we we will reconvene at 07:07. Thank you. It is now 07:07, and we will reconvene the planning commission meeting at this time. At this time, I would like to ask any of the Zoom attendees.

We lost the connection or any attendees would like staff to represent the introduction to their staff report. Faye, is there anybody requesting that? At this time, the chair recognizes commissioner Mansfield to continue his questioning. Never mind. We will, listen to the Zoom attendee.

Jason, did you on Zoom, did you have something you wanted to ask or say? I saw your hand go up.

Oh, hi. Thank you. No. I just wanna make sure, I could join as a panelist. The, the link, dropped off my screen. So it looks like I'm on.

Okay. Just verifying.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Faye. Proceed, mister Manascript.

Alright. Next question for the planning, team here. To make sure I us, the people listening, and everybody has a strong understanding of what exactly we're voting on, is this similar to last year's first meeting with the conditional use permit for the hotel or not so the the apartments across from the drive in that we, as a planning commissioner, reviewing this purely on the merits? Or or could you be a little more specific with how we as a commission are to review, analyze, and approve or deny the appeal?

Sure. Thanks, commissioner Mansfield. So it is different than the conditional use permit. So conditional use permit has a little bit different standards than what your task would on that one was also a design review for a multifamily that has different criteria. So it was not a subdivision or, in this case, a partition that creates new lots.

That was an existing lot with a apartment. So in this case, it's a different set of criteria that apply at 15235. The staff issued a decision director's decision on the application. So what happens on partitions and subdivisions that are not contained, what call is a goal five resource, so think of wetlands or streams. The staff are authorized under city code to make a decision, and then the applicant or anybody providing comments on the application can appeal that decision, which is what you have before you tonight is an appeal of that decision.

And then that criteria that applies, you can make findings saying the staff aired and based on the appeal before you, or you can say, well, the staff found correct criteria or somewhere in between or different conditions to make findings on what the decision is, but staff that issued a decision on it, the application that was appealed. So you're making a decision on that appeal and the criteria. Is that Oh. Helper, I can give you some more.

If if I may, I think I understand mister Mansfield's question a little bit. So correct me if I'm wrong if this is your question or not. So this particular application is the type of application that goes to city staff to into the planning director to be approved or dis or disapproved. And, the planning planning department approved it, and the, a separate person, challenged the ruling. And so that challenge comes up to us to see if the complaint matches the application and staff has done the correct things. Does does that kind of

Yes. So to clarify, our role right now as commissioners is to both review staff's work.

But not necessarily the entire application, but just to see that that that we're we're just cross checking the work. Yes. Correct correct me if I'm saying that wrong.

Yeah. I think all of what you're saying, all of you is correct, and, ultimately, the the applicant bears the burden of proof that they've met the criteria. And this is a new hearing. This is an opportunity for for the appellant or the neighbors to articulate their reasons why they believe the decision was incorrect based on code. And then the applicant will have an opportunity to in fact, they're up next and presenting the reasons why they believe they meet the criteria. And so you do have the staff report and the findings and my decision to reflect on, as well as any new evidence and argument that you received tonight.

So we're sorry, I believe her at the point, but I want to make sure I get this right because it's important. Yeah. So we're reviewing the appeal and the point in which that appeal says the application fails. The it's on the burden of the applicant to ensure that they meet all the criteria. And this is not like the conditional use permit of before where we as a commissioner are reviewing livability. That isn't a criteria for us to review this on. It's purely on the code and the points raised in the appeal.

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Mansfield. I understand your question more clearly now, and I think it goes to what are the criteria? And the criteria for conditional use permit are really by its nature, it's a discretionary decision, and you're evaluating those subjective requirements of livability and those other standards that you saw when that multifamily development came before you. And the criteria are different for partition. Are more or less objective standards and dimensional requirements and engineering standards and so forth.

In the middle housing land divisions, which are also part of this request, are even more narrowly scoped. And in fact, the criteria that we have in our code come right out of state law. We were preempted by the legislature and had to adopt codes that followed those administrative rules from the state. So it's a narrower scope of review, but you are asked or tasked with making findings and determining whether or not the code is met.

Thank you.

Yeah. And another question. Sorry to take up all the time here. If those these lots already existed pre partitioned and maybe they were owned by three separate individuals as just lots. If they were to be going forth asking for a triplex, a middle level housing, That would be in full compliance and would never see the Planning Commission? I'll hand it back to Mr. Cromie. He can talk about the procedure around that.

So I just want to be clear, there's one lot currently. Okay.

You're saying if there

are three?

If there's three, you're saying that there was three. So what happens if there was three lots? Theoretically, the applicant or the owner of the property could come in and submit a building permit for a triplex or duplex. So as as it met the minimum lot standards, you would view the setbacks. They can do the middle housing land division, with that, and you're correct. Planning commission would not see that. So that's a separate ORS that only the applicant can appeal in the current legislation out of the legislature.

As well, sorry. Gosh. Now I'm blanking. Because because a triplex and this middle level middle level housing falls inside of the current zoning for this area as a, LRD, LDR, low density residential.

So, yes, the property is zoned r one, low density residential. A triplex is a permitted use in that district with a minimum of 5,000 square feet.

Perfect. Thank you.

Commissioner Wright, the planning commission's responsibility to safeguard health and safety and welfare of the community. When the planning commission reviews application, it applies to the standards and criteria in the municipal code and state law and are designated to protect community welfare. And these are built into the zoning subdivisions and building standards. The planning commission recommendations and decisions are evaluated against these standards. Land use regulations and building codes are soon protecting public's health and safety and welfare.

The commission's recommendations and decisions are evaluated against these standards. So this is for the city. Newber's Technical Street standards and the public works design and construction standards can apply to privately owned streets when a development or permit ties those standards to approval. These standards apply as a condition of approval, when a subdivision, partition, or other land use approval relies on a private street or access. The city typically requires the street to meet the applicable streets cross section and improvement standards curb to curb with pavement drainage, etcetera, found in the public works design and construction standards and transportation system plan.

Compliance is enforced through conditions, permits, bonds, and recorded agreements. Private ownership and maintenance remain distinct, meaning the city's construction standards does not convert a private street into a public street unless the city were to formally accept it. Newbridge technical street standard and the public works design and construction standards can apply to privately owned streets when a development or permit ties those standards to approval. But I noticed that the city did not tie this into that standard of approval, due to taking the, peak trip permits at 40 or less than 40. Somewhere in the record, I read that it was actually staff that picked that, or was that the applicant's, engineering team?

Commissioner Wright, I'm gonna ask our senior engineer, Brett Busick, to respond. And I think if I'm understanding your question is you asked about the traffic impact analysis, and then you also reflected on the city's public improvement standards and why were those standards not applied to the street. Think

Yes.

Yeah. Senior engineer excuse me. Senior engineer Brett Brett Music. So it looks like you're quoting some something from the city code, or was that from the public works standards? What you were just reading about that technical

Through the

Okay. Because in going through the application for this, I was going through the code and our standards and all of our current codes. There have been some other in the past, there been might have been some things. All of our current codes indicate that the city does not do any new private streets. When new private streets are proposed based on the code, it's with the plan unit development, which is actually goes through a separate process for flexibility and things.

And when private streets are allowed there, the new ones then, they need to meet the requirements of the fire marshal and the city engineer. There's also requirements for an HOA to be created or some other entity that's gonna have a plan for maintenance, parking plans. There's a whole series of things within the code for that. So those technical requirements related to the being applied to new streets would be applicable to a new street if it were allowed, but they're not allowed. And we're not dealing with a new private street.

This is an existing private street within a road easement that's already was created some time ago. The street is paved for most of it. The last bit of the frontage is not along this project is not paved, and so there what we've done in the conditions is is required based upon the requirement for new homes on an existing private street, it's related to does it meet fire access requirements. So there was a turner a small turnaround that was at that time that was in there, so we've conditioned them to have the street payment match what's existing in the existing private street, therefore compliance with the code. And there's that's addressed with the conditions of approval.

And that just you touched on the traffic impact analysis and the traffic study. So as Jeremiah indicated in the staff report, our code requires a traffic study if we have those forty PM peak hour trips. Think of that as that's the commute hour time. And that piece of it, not daily trips. And then and the applicant had provided the memo indicated using the IT institute of transportation engineers trip generation manual to estimate those trips, and staff concurred with their estimates. We looked up the same information and applied the same criteria.

Alright. Thank you very much. Are there any other questions from staff? I mean, commissioners? And at this time at this time, we will have public testimony. Applicants or opponents at this time or first, I will call.

Really quick. Since we had, the issue with the Zoom, it was suggested that we redo the, legal announcement for the public testimony.

Okay.

Abby, please.

Yes. Thank you, Faye. At this time, we're going to review the criteria. Plan commissioners will review the application, hear discuss, deliberate public testimony, make a motion on the matter, and vote. For testifying procedure, applicants or other proponents have fifteen minutes. Primary opponent also has fifteen minutes. First proponents or second undecided opponents have five minutes. After each speaker, the planning commission may ask questions or for clarification. At the end of all public testimony, the owner applicant has a chance for rebuttal. That is all.

I'm sorry. Chair of Abby commissioner, if you would read the legal, announcement, this is so that those who are wishing to participate or testify will understand their rights and responsibilities around them.

Yes, of course.

Rs197.763 requires certain statements to be made at the commencement of a public hearing. The applicable city and state zoning criteria must be listed. This means that we must advise you of the standards that must be satisfied by the applicant prior to our approval of an application. The planning staff will list the applicable criteria during his or her presentation of the staff report. Persons wishing to participate in this hearing must direct their testimony or evidence towards the criteria stated by the planner or other specific city or state criteria which you believe apply.

You must tell us why the testimony or evidence relates to the criteria. Any issue which might be raised in appeal of the case to the Land Use Board of Appeals must be raised in person or by letter at the local level prior to the city approving or denying the application. The law states that the issue must be raised in enough detail to afford the decision maker and the parties an opportunity to respond. This part of the law is also known as the raise it or waive it requirement. If you do not bring it up now, you cannot bring it up at the Land Use Board of Appeals.

Failure of the applicant to raise the constitutional or other issues relating to proposed conditions of approval in enough detail to allow the local government or its designee to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in circuit court. Prior to the conclusion of the initial evidentiary hearing on the application, any participant may request an opportunity to present additional evidence or testimony regarding the application. The Planning Commission will grant such a request through the continuance or extension of the record.

Thank you, commissioner. This time, we'll be hearing from our applicant first. And please state your name. Please state your name for the record. Okay.

My name is Dean Hereford. Address, 17809 Northeast Moraine Drive, Portland 97230.

My name is Devin Jackson, principal engineer of Jackson Civil Engineering, applicant's consultant.

Anyway, good evening council or planning commission. So I wanna just I won't take much time really. Mine's short and sweet. This property has been in my family's name for a little over forty years, so it's not as though I'm not I'm not new to Newburgh. I've spent a lot of time out here. For the last fifteen years, my uncle Bob and I have kind of visualized that back piece of property wanting to do some type of George Fox housing type thing. So I'm just kind of moving forward on what we've been talking about for a long time. I do understand the neighborhood's concerns. You know? I'm not in compassion to that.

At the same point in time, we believe that this application, when we turned it in, complies to everything that staff asked us to do. It's been a little bit of a drawn out period of time, but we have checked all the boxes. And as we went through the the appeal things up there, there's only really one area where I feel a little bit negligent on, and that's number eight. And that's where it talks about the mailing thing. On the mailing address, and I do apologize for that.

I used my offices at that address, and I'm at that address three hundred and sixty days out of the year. So it's not a though it's a bogus address. I would just like to compliment the city staff on all the help that they've done on this. I mean, basically, it's been Devin doing the job, but every time the city staff recommends or tells us something that we have to do, we do it, and we believe that we've complied with anything and everything that's been asked us to do. Wrapping up my statement, a common phrase is affordable housing.

And in order to get affordable housing, you have to have density. I didn't make up these rules. It's just the way that it works. That's our goal to get high quality density close to George Fox College. So for that, I'll kinda wrap it up. Leave it to Devin or if you have any questions.

Are there any quest any questions from commissioners?

One question. Are you going to restrict yourself to George Fox students or

No. Just anyone? No. It just

That's just your intent?

My uncle Bob played on the George Fox teams, but, you know, it just

Right. Okay.

No. It's not restricted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think the idea is something that's within grasp. I'd also like to thank staff. I think it's been, it's been a process. I haven't always seen eye to eye with Jeremiah on some of the some of the conditions, but, you know, we've come to common ground, and I think they've done a great job. And I'd like to thank the commissioners.

I had, my staff generate a several page report, so I was ready to tackle each individual item. But, you know, the deliberation here has been been great. I think for the most part, it's been covered. I think one item I'd like to throw in is that in regards to frontage based operational feasibility, I don't think the off street parking component was really mentioned. I know it's in the staff report, but we are providing off street parking.

So we're not that needs to be kept in mind. As we went through this, we had really felt that there was kind of two kinds of, I guess grounds brought forth. Some I think largely maybe our documents provided weren't reviewed or weren't weren't made available to the applicants, which I doubt, you know, it was all mailed. But or so I'm going with misunderstood. For example, the fire flow, you know, it said that we just did not consider fire flow, but we did have an individual go out, test the hydrant that is right there, you know, have a certified memo, ran a water analysis based off of that.

Several of these items are addressed in that manner. And then I think there's, I guess what I would call more moving, moving the field, the field goal or the goalposts. I'd like to make sure, you know, it's it's readily apparent here that as was brought up the conditional use, we're not asking for conditional uses. We're not asking for variances. This is everything here is a permitted use with the conditions.

So, you know, courts have found time and time again that a agency must operate within the authority granted by their own policies. So I. E. If we're demonstrating along with the conditions of approval that we meet your codes, it's permitted use. And I'd also like to reiterate that, you know, courts have found that regulated parties, us, deserve fair notice of what's required.

So if other other codes are to be considered, that they well, they just really can't be. They you know, that doesn't give us the ability to respond and know what to expect when we invest in the community. I think these things are paramount, and they keep the process both legally sound as well as transparent, equitable, and fair to all parties. You know, these these codes have been deliberated by planning commissions before you, and that's what the community has decided. These are our regulations. We're we feel we've adequately met those regulations.

Yeah. I'd kinda like to just weigh in on that. On my closing statement was can a policy exist for exactly this purpose? If the city created these policies and guidelines and we've complied over them, then, basically, we've handled everything or addressed everything that we were supposed to address. There's nothing that is creative or not above board on this application.

Quick question. I know as Jeremiah laid out earlier, when it comes to the building permits is when the actual design becomes under review. But a a key part of this appeal and the discussion was that the conceptual design doesn't meet some of the standards in terms of the lot coverage and or, you know, like you said, off street parking and whatnot. Do you guys have a more up to date conceptual design, or how are you sure that you'll be able to meet those requirements given a noncompliant conceptual design currently So I think may

I don't wanna jump in. Sorry about that. So our company operates on both sides. We represent about nine cities in Washington where we basically are on Jeremiah's side of the fence. So the way I like to explain it or view it is that this is the feasibility phase. So to answer your to respond, we feel we've proven feasibility. You know? Do we have Jeremiah did mention the, the lot coverage. It was deliberated amongst our staff and, you know, to, you know, I guess a little mea culpa is we probably could have done a better job of communicating it, but we did demonstrate that yes, with, impervious surfaces, are able to meet that requirement. And that requirement is addressed by the condition of approval that staff has put upon us.

So I. E, if we don't meet that condition of approval, this doesn't move forward. So yes, we feel that we've adequately met the feasibility. The engineering phase, is where, you know, for example, one of the items brought up here was stormwater, and it was stated that we didn't do any sort of, stormwater analysis. Well, we did.

We did stormwater modeling of rain garden facilities. We had a geotechnical engineer go out and do perk tests essentially or infiltration testing to and use that to model facilities to demonstrate the feasibility. Now I didn't give Brent the slopes of our pipes, for example. You know, that's that's the technical side. But we have proven that these facilities can in fact be constructed. They can in fact hold the water or and infiltrate it into the ground, not impact the neighbors. So the feasibility is is that. And, yes, we do feel that the concept has satisfied that with conditions.

Thank you. Because specifically about the parking spaces, I want to better understand that because our Newburgh municipal code fifteen point four four zero point zero three zero a, the table identifies that any three or four bedroom unit need a minimum of two spaces. Mhmm. And using frontage street with no abutting street parking raises that to three spaces. So when you have nine units planned Mhmm. And from my understanding, each unit planned is gonna have three bedrooms, so that's a total of 27 bedrooms.

I don't believe we've stated bedrooms.

Okay. So if it if if it's three triple or three triplexes where each of those triplex units are three bedrooms, that would raise that total lot or between the three lots, a total number of parking spaces to 27 Yeah. If I understand that correct.

Commissioner Mavinsville, I think you referenced 1544O03O with the off street parking spaces required. So each triplex is required to have one off street parking space per dwelling unit in that code section. I think you may be looking at the multifamily standards.

No. But a duplex is multi family?

No. Multi family would be anything five units or more.

And to answer your question, yes, we intend to have garages. I believe that was stated in our narrative. So

Thank you, mister Hereford and mister Jackson Thank you. For your testimony.

Appreciate it. So in closing, my last pitch is I believe the staff has done a good job addressing all of our things. So that's why we're not up here really begging for what we're doing because we've already been doing this for for months. So I just hope that you'll allow this project to move forward. Did you wanna

talk about your notice twice?

Oh, yeah. On item number eight, even though I feel bad that I used my professional address, I've also sent out two notices. So I did do it two times because of a previous application so people knew something was coming down the pike.

Plus the property's posted.

Plus the property's posted. Mhmm.

And the posting. Yeah.

So commissioner, so you sent it from a envelope from your, with the address from your business?

Yeah, from my business.

And then you sent a second one with your residential business?

No. We had two applications, so this property has been posted twice is what he's getting at. So we don't feel that we've been, like we tried to hide it, you know, or or be subversive. It was, posted two times and, noticed mailed two times. And, you know, to Jeremiah's earlier point, you know, it doesn't have a listed criteria as to what, you know, the mailer needs to look like. So he did what I would do in my business. You know? I sent a check to my uncle the other day. It went out as Jackson Civil. It didn't go out. You know? I had handed it to the admin. She ran with it. So

thank you. Mhmm. Staff, is there anything in our codes about that that specifically says that it has to be from the person's address and not a business address?

Thanks, commissioner. Right? There is not anything in our code. Staff does look at the notice that gets us out and approves that. But as far as the envelope, it goes out in and return address on that. It is not a criteria we look at. In the actual notice itself, it has contact information for the city as well as the applicant.

Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to bring up, the proponent.

Britta's on?

Oh, off the gear. Yeah.

Alright.

Please state your name for the record.

My name is Ryan Adobnik. I live at 1910 Orchard Drive. I've lived on the street for fifteen years. Sold the house next door. Neighbors back there. Good evening. I'd like to echo what mister Herbert said. The the city staff, specifically Jeremiah, have been very helpful. My education has gone up quite a bit at his expense, I do believe. But we're here tonight because we we care deeply about our community.

It's it's a dead end Street. It's I tell people, I tell my friends from out of town, you turn down my street, it's like you're in Yamhill or Carlton. You're not in Newburgh because it has in very inconsistent housing, my house is ten years old. Peggy's house down the street was back in the eighties when this private street was first developed because that's the timeline of kind of that's how this got in, and I think the rules came in, like, a few years after that. It's kind of just a funky, inconsistent, kind of a very unique pastiche.

So we just wanna show up and participate respectfully and make our case and understanding now more that to commissioner Mansfield's point, like, what what are we voting on and what are we trying to raise or what are we what are our complaints? And we're just trying to advocate for our community and our lifestyle, and to be honest, our property values to the best of our abilities. I myself am a George Fox graduate. Sure. I would like to profit off George Fox students as much as the next person. But if it's that if that's what it's about, then, you know, by all means, free to donate the property. But the the George Fox, like, it's just it's whatever. But, anyway, why are we here? Collaborative review. Let's see.

Like I said, we we do believe as I've learned more, you know, I'm kinda going back and forth and researching and getting that staff report last week kinda realizing, dang. Like, every point I tried to make, there was a good and thorough understanding. I was kinda boxed in. There's still some small things that, you know, I still have frustrations with as do my neighbors, but at the same time realizing throughout this process that everybody here is trying to do their job. Everybody's trying to apply the rules that they are given the leverage for.

And so with that, we are gonna be skipping some slides because I think it's not in the interest of anybody's time to bring them up yet again. So so Newburgh, a great place to grow. Right? Well, we we think it should be a safe place to grow and a sustainable place to grow. And we're gonna get into this a little bit when we talk about 1906, but, you know, this this plan, we think, is disproportionate to what would make sense if you'd ever been on that street.

It just doesn't fit the the culture and the tenure of the neighborhood, and I admit that that's not part of the jurisdiction to mister Herbert's point. Right? Like, there's laws, there's rules, bylaws, try laws, all kinds of laws. Right? But we have to follow what we have, and and we understand that.

But our our goal here is to make sure that, at the very least, whatever 's gonna happen is gonna happen. But if if we can find any way to optimize what's gonna happen to our to our benefit, how how we see to be our benefit, then we're gonna do that, but we're gonna we're gonna be on on guard. So so like I said, a lot of people probably haven't even been on the street. So Orchard Orchard Drive, Private Street. You're going down Villa.

If you're gonna take a right to go towards the aquatic center, that very next little turn is Orchard. So this right here, if you might recognize down here to the left is that dip under the trussles. So I I run every morning, and when I do, when I cross the street to go across the way, I have to book it because cars are hitting the gas to come up around that that sweeping that that winding uphill turn. Right? And so, like, they're not trying to hit you, but, like, you have to make sure that you you fly or you're not gonna so you don't get hit.

Similarly, when you're trying to leave our street, you have to, like, check left, and then you have to look right, make sure you're still clear on the left, and then hit it because a car might come out of nowhere because, you know, I I I'll be the first to admit I don't always go exactly 20 miles an hour, especially when I'm coming up and down hills, and it's just a it's just a very sketchy part of town, but we we deal with it. So what does that look like? So this is this is coming to the stop sign as you get ready to turn left. You can see the hedges, very obstructed view. Right?

So my little son, he's five. He's at the age where he loves going to the aquatic center park. Right? But we have to make sure that we really, really tightly hug that right line because a car could come around that turn around this hedge zone to turn right from my left, and they're not gonna see you till it could be too late. So it's just a everything about our little intersection is just just tenuous. And here's a better side. If you look on the right, you can see that red box, I was trying to simulate, like, this is what like, where a car might come. So if I'm coming here, I've got, like, one chance to flag a car. You could see, like, the the background, it's very sorted, so it's very hard to kinda pick up on cars sometimes. We're just trying to show, like, yes, we'll get into it later.

Like, the traffic study isn't required because of the amount of trips, but we're just saying, like, this is this is dicey. There are nine streets. Are there nine homes, families on this street, and this would be doubling it. And so to us, it's like this is already kind of white knuckling it together every day to get in and out. And so we're just trying to give some context about why. You know, we're not we're not nimbies. We're just trying to be diligent. So so this is the street. Once you make that turn, right, you can see it's it's wonky. You got the shop on the right with a little a small house next to it.

That's my big tree. I have, like, a kinda two story shop and then a house, and then you got just a just a weird collection of houses and streets and shops. You know? It's it's it's it's got its own kind of density, but it's it works. So to zoom out a little bit, so what are what are we really here to talk about?

You know, with the way we see it, it comes down to to safety, operational feasibility, lack of code and neighborhood compliance. I think the city addressed that pretty well. I think that's gonna be the main ones that we we we focus or we we don't focus on. And then unfair burden and flawed public process. And we know we do we do appreciate the acknowledgement from mister Herbert that, you know, I understand that he might not have been trying to be deceitful. At the same time, I would say to the engineer, I don't the story about writing your check your uncle a check, that that's just hogwash. It just doesn't make sense because I can call my uncle. Right? Mister Herbert hasn't contacted any of us. One of us has reached out to him.

So to use that analogy is really sloppy and misleading and continues the the line of I don't wanna say bad faith, but a lack of good faith. Neutral faith at best is what I would call that. So fire access, I think that's been beat to death a little bit. Traffic, we're gonna get into that. Nine nine peak hour trips versus 86 trips overall.

This

is just more stuff where I got beat up. It's all fair. So this is this is our street. Right? It is a this is a, for all intents and purposes, a one lane road. It's a lane it's a it's a private street where you go down, and you and your neighbor cannot cross, like, two in a night. Right? You you know, it's very neighborly. It's like living in a small town. Like, oh, cat's trying to leave to go do whatever. I'm I'm coming home from doing whatever. Like, oh, oh, gotta stop. Like, you know, it's it's awkward. It's clunky, and we make it work. So this is this is the property.

Right? This is 1929 East Orchard Drive. This is a view. I think this is from my house. Yes. On the corner of my house. So, you know, my neighbors and I, to mister Herford's point, this has been it was it was first if you can believe it, it was first submitted as 10. And so, yes, we we submitted comments, and it did go away. We're like, oh, it was withdrawn. Like, you know, we're not so naive to think that it was gonna be gone forever, but then to come back and say, oh, you dropped a whole unit.

Oh, that's very very kind of you. If we can just lose one per year, maybe we'll get to a number that's actually reasonable and livable. But, yeah, this is this is the street. This is the the property. You know, I think one thing I didn't really appreciate during during our comments was, you know, if we followed all the rules, then why are we here? Like, you just need to approve what's all good. And I keep looking at these plans over and over again, and it's like, well, you you didn't. You guys need to go back to the drawing board, which is you know, it's just very clean-cut. So it'd be one thing if everything was completely followed and the the rough draft was the first draft, you know, the first time go as we say, first time trigger pull in the army. Right?

But I think, you know, the points that the city raised were you know, the more the more the more I learn, the more, like I said, I get boxed in. Like, okay. Yeah. There's some great points. I don't know how long it's gonna take them to get their homework in. Not really not really my problem at the moment. I'd say, you know, the off street parking. This this is a fire lane. Right? We we live on a fire lane.

There is no there is no street parking. My neighbors across from me, they have this little enclave, but they have to park they they park sideways parallel to the street, but it's off the street. Right? It's there's no room for parking. So Alright.

So up in the top right, you can see I marked off 1929 Orchard Drive. And this is you know, no matter how you slice it, there's not any parking to be to be spared anywhere on that street. So are these guests are are are going to be expected to park at the by the George Fox Maintenance Building at the aquatic center, neither of which, obviously, those things were built for. So, you know, similar how we make the complaint that, you know, our streets we're worried about our streets getting beat up for the sake of the profit or another person. I think it's unfair to to expect other parking that city city dwellers and, you know, George Fox staff rely on to be sacrificed for this.

And this is another key thing that we wanna bring up. This is this is nineteen o six. This has been let's see. My son turned five in 2017. That's been abandoned for about ten years. You see a small little like dilapidated lean to next to a manufactured home. Right? So the whole neighborhood's been kind of waiting to see when this is gonna be developed. Matt or Mike, the poor guy across the street, he's waiting for this to get developed. He bought the house a few years ago thinking, like, well, obviously, this is gonna stay here forever. Like, this this will be developed, not if, not when. And so last week, Kat and I measured it. If 1929 is 224 feet wide and we're we're led to believe that nine units is a reasonable amount for that. Right? You take two twenty four.

I rounded to two twenty five. Divide by nine, you get 25. Right? 25 feet, if you just use that linear math, 25 feet, one fifty divided by 25, you're at six. Right? So what we're saying is, look. Not only is this this plan kind of request to go from nine homes on the street to 18, but it implicitly gives the green light. Not not not necessarily, but it sets the precedent. It makes it much easier for that person to say, hey. You know how you guys went from nine to 18? Well, now we wanna go to 24. And, of course, if we were him, we'd all probably think the same thing. So, you know, it's it's one of those things where it's not we admit that the city was technically correct. There is nothing up for this. But pragmatically, realistically, we want this to be developed.

Right? Like, I hate looking next to this. Like, it this does not help my property value. Right? This guy had a stroke in 2017. It's been abandoned. There's a guy who comes and mows the lawn. Like, we we are in support of growth as long as it's reasonable and sustainable. Alright. I apologize. I'm an analyst. I I I get I just spend all day in spreadsheets. It's what I do. I just really try to think about you know, every day when our our neighborhood, we run into each other. We just we all try to envision how nine units would look.

Right? We tried 10. We couldn't get there. We still can't imagine with nine. But we got 224 linear feet. And I know that it was mentioned that frontage is kind of it was somehow kind of offhandedly dismissed, but I think, practically, I think it just doesn't make sense to completely remove it from the conversation. So you got 224 feet. The fire apparatus turnaround, took my lumps on that one. That's fine. Alright. But USPS, you got 30 feet mailbox clearance zone. Newberg code says 10 feet minimum per driveway. Right? So you go nine nine by 10. Right?

So if you take so that's why each one cascades down negative ninety, eighty, seventy, sixty. Right? So you work it down. And then the other thing you gotta think about too, and Judy brought this up, which was a great point. The first time it was mentioned, I was like, I don't I don't know. I try not to think about trash except for Tuesday nights or Wednesday mornings at 05:30. But if you think about on recycling days specifically, you have two feet for your trash. Waste management wants a three foot buffer. Then you have your two feet for recycling. Three foot buffer, a foot and a half of width for glass.

Altogether, you need 11 and a half feet per household. Right? And so when you do that and acknowledge the fact that Matt and Andrea across the street and Peggy, who I think is on the phone, they already are on the opposite side. They put theirs there, and that's why you do the that's why the math cascades down too. There really isn't very much room. And then you think about typical things like delivery vehicles. You know, we live in the day of, you know, we say Amazon trucks five, ten times a day, and then, like, a small buffer for utilities. Right? It's very clear that, like, just just on you know, take you can put the the 40 the the 40% coverage, the 61% coverage, that that math is that math. That's one that's one part of it.

But if you just look at the linear, the frontage, it's just it's not possible. And the way I think about this is, you know, it's the classic case of approval in silos. Oh, well, waste management approved it. Well, USPS approved it. Well, the fire marshal approved it. If I'm having a picnic or a potluck and you say if Jeremiah says, hey. Do you got room for a turkey? I'm like, yeah, man. Bring a turkey. Go sick. Bring two if you want. Right? But then Scott brings a turkey, and commissioner Wright brings a turkey. Commissioner Villa Pondo brings a turkey. Right? Everybody brings a turkey. There's no room. Right? There's not enough room for everybody. But if we're all thinking about our own little slice, then, yeah, it makes sense.

But if you zoom out a little bit and that's what we're really asking you guys to do is, like, zoom out and see the comprehensive effect and realize, like, yes, there's certain things within the code that, like I said, you know, I didn't understand, and I I appreciate the the education. But certain things just we still can't make sense of them. So this is this is from the other end. And, you know, I know the off street parking has been a big point. And, you know, I guess, to that point, there is precedent.

I I was able to find one example of off street parking within it wasn't within the plan, but it was in the picture right here. You can see the little car. Unfortunately, I don't think the other cars are gonna be that big. They're be a lot bigger. And then here, this is you know, Kat and I were looking at this.

This

is this is a power pole. Right? And but look how small that house is behind it. Right? Like, this is this we're trying to show, like, this is why those height requirements are in there because this thing would be an eyesore on our on our little street, an eyesore that was very expensive to our street as well.

That's what really we we're really concerned about is maintaining the integrity and fabric of our community and not having to not having to pay out any more money for somebody else to profit. So I understand the city's point that, like, hey. It's kind of between you guys and, you know, that that's that's that is what it is, but we we still feel like the point needs to be raised. Really, just to kind of drive the point home, we don't see this as a safe or sustainable plan. It exceeds the site's physical capacity.

It doesn't meet essential life safety requirements. It conflicts with state and local codes. Now I'd be glad to see what kind of plan they come up with after all this feedback, and we can kind of revisit that. But the the imposes uncommentated financial burdens, and it was issued through a flawed bad faith process. You know, we've we've tried to, as a community, try to figure out what what we can and can't do, and it's been frustrating to see that, you know, we wouldn't we didn't realize, and it's not the city's fault. It's not Jeremiah's fault. It's not mister Herbert's fault. That we have a private street that we're responsible for maintenance for, but yet we get no benefit. You know? It's not not anybody's fault.

It's just the way it is. It's like just, you know, don't wanna say it's unfair, but it's unfair. And it's like that just it's how things go. We we're learning that. You know, on a call back in November, mister Hereford mentioned to Stephanie Saint Pierre that he would let the cards fall where they fall where they may.

And so we're here to ask that you ensure the cards fall on the side of safety, data, and responsible growth. So what's our request? Is to deny the partition as proposed and instruct mister Herbert to come back with a realistic two lot plan with one single family home on each lot that complies with all fire code and lock coverage equipment requirements. Because my if you look back at my my little Technicolor spreadsheet, if you look, technically, it doesn't even look like three is doable, but, you know, I think that's a little bit overly aggressive. I think with some fairly reasonable accommodations, it it could be done.

But so we don't wanna say it's, like, off the table. But, you know, if it must be approved, we still wish that there were some kind of mechanism, something that could be done to ensure that we don't suffer financial hardship in any way, whether that be street repair and as well as the construction of a six foot tall site obscuring privacy fence along the back line. Because this this all started from Stephanie St. Cyr who lives behind the property. So I'd be happy to answer any and all questions. I know I talk fast, and I know we've kind of talked in circles, but that's all I prepared.

Thank you very much. Mister Advanic, have you submitted your concerns to the Transportation Safety Commission to get on the list for traffic, yet at this time? We have not. Okay. I would suggest that you immediately do that.

And I saw in some written testimony that there was no parking on this road.

Mhmm.

Is that a regulated thing? Are there any signs up, or is it just an understanding between the neighbors? Like, nobody really parks on that road.

Right. I think it's more of an understanding, and there's no I I can't visualize any anything. There's a there's a weird lot, like, a a lot from behind where you could kind of, like, eke over, like, on special events like the neighbors do, but not not sustainable. Nothing it's it's tight.

Staff, would it be on the burden of the city, the applicant, the property owner to, have a contract on equitable remedies against, with the developer or the contractor for easements and a recorded, agreements and proof of causation and damages, if any.

So commissioner Wright, as mentioned before, it's a private street. So it's a private matter between the property owners on that street as far as any maintenance agreements go. I'll let our senior engineer, Brett, comment more on that. And one other thing I wanted to mention is and I believe Jason Arnn from our fire department on online is part of the fire permit for the parking requirements requires some no parking fire lane signs.

Senior senior engineer Brett Musek. So if I understood the question correctly, it was related to the requirement for a maintenance agreement being imposed on this applicant for this project. If this was a new private street, our code for new private street does have that requirement there or for shared driveways. This being an existing one, it's already an existing condition. We don't have any code language to fall back onto or sue anything like that.

So, commissioners, we might wanna, dive into that in the future. And then I have just a little inkling of an issue. How does a private road get developed without any sidewalk or ADA compliant infrastructure?

Jeremiah, do you have when the date of this road was created? It was some time ago. I think it it was prior to ADA requirements existing.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that.

There we go. So

the easement was created in, I believe, March 1971. There's a code provision in current statute that says any new private well, basically, we can't have any new private streets. New private streets couldn't be constructed after 03/01/1999. Any ones after that couldn't have any new dwellings on them. So I believe 88 was seven how what? 89. 89.

Four. For 88. 89. Yeah. Yeah.

It was,

yeah, it was eighties for that piece of it for certain.

Just as a clarification, it's my understanding that if the the street would be necessary to be brought up the codes of all existing codes, the property owners would have to pay for it. So that's on all of you.

And that's what we kinda ran into. Right? We looked we've we tried to, like, we're like, well, the city's rules are pretty clear, like, if they were to take it over. We didn't think so much about the cost. We thought about the the space. Right? It's like, well, do we have, like, this weird, awkward eminent domain issue where it's like, you tell me that you have to build a sidewalk, which I kinda want you to build, but I also want you to pay for my frontage, my six feet for you know, like so it it's it's already tied enough as it is. It's really hard to imagine, and no nobody has any space. So that's why we really it wouldn't it would look really awful too. So that's why we kind of had to pick our battles. These are the ones we picked, better or worse.

Thank you, mister Advanic. At this time, I'd like to call Judy Dirk.

Okay. Sorry. I'm Judy Durkey. I live at 1911 Carroll Avenue. One of the things that is not been looked at is the site characteristics. And I by code, I believe you are to look at site characteristics when you are looking at developments. What you're talking about is a very small confined contained space that they are proposing to do this development in. This road is literally slightly wider than my driveway. That's what you're talking about. If you haven't been down there you really shouldn't be making decisions without being down there and actually looking at it.

I could not find a fire application or a fire service plan online with all the other applications. There was one for the previous proposed development, but not for this one. So that is of concerning whether or not there's actually a current one. The previous one called for sprinklers because they would not be able to adequately fight a fire. Basically what they're looking at is a very narrow long dead end road.

And at the very end is where they're putting this. They they would not be able to adequately fight a fire with that particular proposal that they're doing, so they wanted sprinklers and a staging area. If you look at the plan, the staging area if my previous opposition is in your the director's thing. There's a picture that shows you there's a fence on this side and there is a fire hydrant on the side and Ryan showed one of the fire hydrant. Literally what they're talking about is expanding the asphalt there from the base of the fence to the base of the fire hydrant.

People are gonna be driving within inches of a fire hydrant. I asked about how far a fire hydrant is supposed to be from traffic, and I didn't get an answer on that one. But it's not a matter of if somebody's gonna hit it as when is somebody gonna hit that fire department fire hydrant if they actually do that staging area. And they were causing the staging area instead of a turnaround because there is no room for them to do an adequate turnaround unless they do it on the development property. Now the approval does say that there does need to be a turnaround.

There's not a turnaround there now. You cannot even do a three point turn on that asphalt. You can there are people who wouldn't be able to do a five point turn on it. That's how narrow it is. You need they need a turnaround, but you cannot do an adequate three plat division and a turnaround. One of the requirements is that they will need to do a turnaround. You you would have to do the turnaround on the property development. And the one thing that Ryan also did not talk about is at the end of Orchard, there's a fence. If you have the trash trucks coming up to the fence, their pickup things are here. This ant, you cannot put any of your trash cans here, so you're gonna lose at least six feet.

So, really, there's not enough room to line up all the trash cans for the voice management to come and pick up. It's not you can't create space that's not there. The space is literally not there. To require, as Jeremy said, one parking space on an asphalt drive with no on street parking in our area, there are three four is average cars. Some people have more. Some people have less. But that's the average. So it only require one parking spot on a lane where there is no on street parking is ridiculous. You really need to require more parking spaces, at least two. And they will tear up the asphalt.

There is no question that the construction vehicles will tear up the asphalt. It is not a street. It is dirt and asphalt. And the city would be advocating their responsibility to all the everyone who lives on that street in order to say that they do not have to fix it. Public improvement standards definitely should apply.

It doesn't matter that it's a private drive. If somebody is building something and they're tearing it up, they need to fix it. And there's no way that you can do the three plat division and a turnaround. You really need to look at denying this at this time for them to come back with a more reasonable plan and for them for the city to have put off the decision making on this till so that you have no time to even drive out there and see what it is that you're saying should be approved, that's not okay. You shouldn't approve something that has where there are some significant issues and then turn around and have the issues be a significant problem.

You should deny it, Make them come back with a more reasonable plan. Go out there. Look at what you're talking about because the psych characteristics are something that does do need to be considered even when you're looking at the codes. And it isn't just not you really need to require more parking. Three plats is too many for that small space. They're gonna be building out to the actual if you look at their plans, they're gonna be allowed to the roadway itself. There is no easement between the driveway and the asphalt where people are gonna be driving.

Thank you, mister.

This is the envelope that he sent it out in.

May I see that, please? Now

this is what they should be sent out in. I don't know who makes the decisions on the procedures, but I'm a student who's psyched and to do something about your. Thank

you

very much. I appreciate that.

Yeah. Because

I too believe this is a concern.

And It is it's very much a concern. They need to change the the whatever it is. The city needs to give the envelopes for them to send it out because an official city notice should look like an official city notice.

Yes. I do believe this commission has brought this up before. We can't address this today, but I think we will probably, pick it up as commissioners at a later time. Thank you. I call Andrea Waybright.

Hey there. I'm Andrea Wapright. I live at 1930 Orchard Drive directly across from the proposed development. I just wanted to just I don't have anything formal or anything like that. So just to put it into context here, what we're to, you know, echo what everyone is saying, this is extremely narrow drive.

It I think it's 18 feet wide, 18 to 20 feet wide. I believe the standard, correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremiah, is at least 24 feet wide for a standard road. And so we have those issues not only being a narrow drive, but also the size of land that we're looking at here. We're talking about less than a half acre that they're trying to put. The current development now, our current straight has nine homes.

I believe two of which are two story. Everything else is single story other than, like, a large garage that service shops. So there's nine single family homes. They are the proposal to put nine units in essentially what acted as a backyard before now is not in line with the street, and it's not in line with the character of the drive. And it does impact the safety of the children around our street and also our property values.

The people that live on Orchard Drive, we chose this drive because it's a single family, community neighborhood home. So it's a little bit in contrast to have this massive urban density crammed into a backyard. There are places that this kind of density makes sense. This yard is not one of them. There are other huge developments going on on Villa and Mountain View.

That's a perfect place for mill housing. There is not a housing shortage. There's plenty of places to do it, and this yard is not it. I agree that development is possible there in the form of maybe he mentioned he really wants to help George Fox. I think that they are very apt to a single family home with several rooms in it.

So maybe one large home in that property or two single family homes would be sorry. I'm a little nervous. I don't usually talk in front of folks. So I think that would be an acceptable compromise, but this kind of urban sprawl in such a small area is not clear. And crimpedrone Jeremiah, did you look at the did you drive down Orchard Drive when you approved this? Have you ever seen the property?

I'm sorry. You need to direct your questions at me.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was just wondering if anyone actually surveyed the area when approving it. If they accessed the street, if they looked at it and drove down the street and tried to turn around in what would be essentially my yard. If anyone parks on that street, they're parking in my yard, which I do not appreciate. But and so that's the only kind of off street, off parking off street parking would be, you know, encroaching into my yard.

So Madam chair, may I may I address that point there? Sorry. What was your name again?

Andrea, way bright.

Andrea. So, you may not be aware of this, but as a commission, we are not allowed to go and view something like that. We're only allowed to consider what is prevented presented to us in a meeting such as this. So for us to go on a field trip or something like that to view each thing that comes before us is, one, it's unfeasible for city staff to provide such thing, and two, it's prejudicial against us for whatever's going across there for, say, he sees one thing, I see another thing there, and it's it's very different. Just one second.

Let me finish. And so, not only is it unreasonable from a from a logistical perspective, but it's unreasonable from from the rules where we're, expected to abide by his commission. And so we just have to be aware of that when we're when we're talking about these things. And so you can talk about what's what's reasonable, but we also have a lot of rules we have to follow to be able to make these decisions. So I I I just hope you're aware of that now.

And I think maybe my question wasn't clear. I I understand, obviously, the commission, didn't go out and look at it. I wouldn't expect you guys to have done that. I was specifically thinking about the planning, the planning committee. When they make those approvals, do they survey the, the property and the area that they're approving? I don't I did not know if that was allowed or if that's presidential. I I wasn't aware, so thank you for the education on that. But I wasn't, implying that the commission be, on the

hook for I wouldn't expect you to be aware of a rule like that. It's fairly arcane. The things that we do as far as, the general public not being aware of the things until they're actually involved with because why would you? So

It's definitely an educational process. So I really do appreciate you guys taking the time to, listen to the, the community about this. It's really been kinda a good experience in that way where the whole community has come together against this development. It's very clear that this is not the right place. It's not the right time. It's not the right plan for for this yard. And so with that, I I guess I yield back. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you very much. And just to let you know, I I always, if I can check by aerial imagery and other avenues like that to look at a property because we are not supposed to show up really because it does have the ability to promote, by, bias.

We're also required if we do show up and look at things to notify in this process that we have done that and when other people haven't because now I have information that they don't have. See, if I've gone there and they haven't, you see so it's different. And so it's it's by like like I say, we do the the the, the reading bias, expert take contact, objections to jurisdiction, that's what that is.

And, yes, and if we become biased, we then have to recuse ourselves. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. Will that be all the, speakers for this evening?

She sent Stephanie St. Cyr.

Is that a Zoom?

No. It was in person.

Great. Next, I, call Stephanie St. Cyr. With that, are there any questions from commissioners?

Madam chair, I believe the, applicants are entitled to rebuttal.

Yes. Is there any I'm sorry. Sure. If there was anyone else wanting to testify.

I didn't get any other, requests, and I don't see anyone raising their hands on Zoom.

That's great. At this time, we see nobody on Zoom raising their hands to testify, so we will advance to the rebuttal.

Okay. So it's Dean Hereford again. So I'll make a few. On the fire, because we spent a lot of time on this, and I agree the road's tight. So that's the exact reason why we went with the fire marshal and went through all the fire flow studies to make sure that this would work.

These houses will be safer than any house on the street because the fire will be out before the fire truck gets there with the fire suppression system. So the fire is handled as far as these dwellings go. As far as all the opposition that I'm hearing tonight, I've received only one phone call in this whole time. And I probably said something as crude as let the cards fall where they may. That's kinda where we're at tonight.

Let the card fall where they may. You know? So I don't didn't intend to make that statement being rude. The the fact of the matter is is we made an application and, god willing, it'll it'll go forward. I want to I went to the city of Fairview in about 1994, and I've gotten several awards in the city of Fairview by being a business owner and a contractor.

And I do very little contracting for free enterprise. I do it all for my own stuff. I build my own car wash, build my own buildings, and I and I run those. I built some homes in Fairview, and I've gotten several awards from the city of Fairview on what I've done for the community. So I don't intend to do anything disrespectful to this community or anything else, and I urge anybody to call the city, whether it's citizens or the city staff.

In my closing, I feel these people's pain. I feel the emotional plea. At the same point in time, we've spent a lot of time, due diligence, money satisfying the criteria. I hope that we don't keep changing the criteria. Yeah. We can go have me redesign it again. But I already redesigned one. I've already designed it to what fits the criteria that the city of Newburgh set for us. Thank you.

I

think you took most of the words out of my mouth. I did like a couple of statements that happened. Inconsistent housing. You know? It's kind of a quirky neighborhood with several styles. You know? And, really, that's where this fits in. You know? If there's not a set standard and it's inconsistent housing and we're meeting the codes, it it's applicable. You know? Some of the nicest neighborhoods in the country are, you know, townhomes, single family, apartment, a mix. That's the nature of this middle housing, you know, and why the state has gone and pushed this through. You know, for profit. Yes. You know, we're for profit.

But, you know, the appellant that admitted that he's sold houses on the neighborhood to others. So we're not asking for anything that they're not already benefiting. You know? So it's okay, but, you know, not for us. I believe the original Jeremiah, correct me if I'm wrong, but the original, appeal requested a four lot. You know? We were reduced should be reduced to four arbitrarily, though, you know, under his standards. In here, he's now reduced it to two. So, you know, we're consistently moving and being reduced. Once again, you know, going back to hope that, you know, we follow the standards. That's what's to be considered here, and we feel that we have proven them.

I'd like to add into with new construction on that street, that street is a myriad of of homes. With new construction on that street, that could create a redevelopment of that street. Property values will go up. This will not decrease property values on that street in my belief. Any questions?

I guess in regards to the, I guess, the street maintenance, you know, we had this sideline conversation. We'd be willing to go into and that really since you guys can't weigh in on this, but we'd be willing to discuss an HOA if the neighbors wanted to develop that. You know, you have the same length of street, but you're gonna have nine households that can contribute towards the cost. Prices could go down.

Just as a reminder to everybody, the plan commission is not allowed to consider property values in any of their deliberations whatsoever as nobody has a crystal ball and can determine what's gonna go up or down. So

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Herford, Jackson.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Couple questions out of so I'm just paying curiosity. You you'd mentioned the interest in supporting George Fox. Did that also mean an interest in maintaining ownership of the properties and renting them out, or is the in was the intent to just to sell the properties after they're developed? After you talked about the things you built for yourself, I just curious.

The George Fox conversation comes in basically because of my uncle. Okay. So I'm just kinda following through to what we've talked about over the years. I believe in buying and holding them, but some things have happened in my life recently that that could possibly change. So Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But back to the point, anything and everything done in the city of Fairview has been of the utmost quality on behalf of Dean Hereford.

And and then the curiosity of the interest in in doing the middle housing versus separate, you know, like, proponents. Is that the right word? We're looking at pushing for of two single family homes on that lot. Is is there a a benefit construction wise for the middle housing in terms of it meets additional state regulations? I guess this question might not be directed towards you, but more towards the our planning team about the the benefit both to our community in terms of hitting certain numbers or whatnot for doing specifically middle level housing.

Sure. Mansfield. So we we do have a comprehensive plan that establishes metrics and and targets for housing production or housing development, and it sort of breaks it down by different segments of the market or affordability levels. Generally, it's by housing type. We do not have metrics or similar sort of standards that translate into code, so there's no prescriptive standard that we are trying to hit this number of middle housing units in each zone.

We may be moving in that direction, I think, at the state level that when we update our comprehensive plan, the next time we go through that process and looking at the housing capacity and what our housing production strategies look like, we may be asked to have a more prescriptive approach, but we don't today. So really, it's the use is permitted in the zone. The middle housing land divisions are also permitted outright and are subject to objective standards that the city must comply with the state requirements to provide for that. It's really market driven at this point. So we don't have we're not intervening in the market in that way requiring a certain type of housing in each location.

Then I guess the question, again, out of a curiosity with your experience in construction as well, what drew you guys to the middle level housing for this lot?

I don't really understand what the question is.

Well, when trying to develop the lot, you there's a variety of options of what could be developed there. I'm I'm curious for yourself what was the interest. It it seems like you've developed many different styles of things. Why you guys felt the middle level housing and the the three plot division was was the best use of of of the property.

I think for me, it was just talking around with people, and I've talked to people that have done similar projects like this. And so as opposed to having two big houses on that street, to me, it seemed appropriate to have, you know, whether or not George Fox people are there or professors, whoever it is there, but some type of affordable housing in the neighborhood as opposed to putting a $700,000 house on the end of Orchard Drive. I'd prefer to put a an affordable house on the end of a a quality affordable house on that street that is legal, and it's fit all the parameters of what were set before us.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Great. At this time Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to close this portion of the quasi judicial public hearing. Final comments from staff and recommendation.

So staff would still recommend that the commission adopt planning commission order 2026 zero one that denies the appeal and upholds the planner direct decision PLNG twenty five forty two or, excuse me, sustains the decision with the conditions.

Thank you. At this time, the planning commission will deliberate discussion of criteria with findings effect.

Madam chair, if I may just make a couple comments. So, first of all, I'd like to say that I agree with all the, complaints, I guess, is the right right term. I'm not certain, about the density issue. I think it's misguided from the state, and but the problem is that's the source of it. So state law dictates the the zoning requirements that the city of Newburgh has to abide by, and therefore, the planning commission has to abide by and what city staff has to abide by specifically lot sizes and things like that.

As an example, perhaps, director Siegel can correct me if I'm misremembering. But I believe it's 2010 when they changed the lot sizes from 7,500 square foot minimum for r one to 5,000, which caused a big stir for the Shelley Park development, which is the North Side of college where he'd go off to the left because those two sizes of developments came into conflict at that time. However, we're our hands are tied for having to be able to follow that law. We're we, so when you hear quasi judicial hearing, that means we're acting as judges. We can't make law.

We have to follow law. And so the the other thing with that is that when an applicant, meets all the criteria set before us, we can't come up with some sort of novel reason to deny the application that's outside of that criteria. I mean, it's basically like going up to somebody and says, okay. You can do this, but you've gotta meet x y z c b q and a. Okay?

And you meet x y z c b q and e. And they say, well, I don't think if you I don't think I'm gonna approve it after all because even though you did all that, it's like, what what? And that's position of the applicant. And so seeing that, we don't have any violations of criteria of either from staff, the applicant, or even from the from the, complainants. And so I just see no reason to, disagree with staff's findings.

There any other comments from commissioners at this time?

I guess my only comment right now is some of the the real concerns that have been brought up but are not relevant for this point of discussion, how do we how do those concerns, like, the design of gosh. I'm sorry. I'm struggling with this. But as in the build plan that we saw covers 61% of the the lot coverage versus our guidelines on on 50%. So any of those concerns, concerns potentially with sight line of the street, those get addressed later on at at the building permit phase.

Is that correct, Steph?

Yes. And you referenced 60%. So the lot coverage in R 1 for building coverage is 40%. It can go up to 50 if it's a one story structure. That gets evaluated to building permit.

I do feel the testimonies have brought up safety issues concerning width of the road, fire hydrant. I, unfortunately, have had an incident with this at my father's house with the same kind of road where the fire department came down and addressed a heart attack victim, and they backed into my father's house as infrastructure. And it still is not repaired to this day, unfortunately. So I do feel there are also safety issues of walking. It was brought up that, you know, children, people that are walking on the sidewalk have safety issues here.

And I do believe we have legal right to address some of those things from what I have looked into. Does anybody else feel that there are safety issues there that were raised?

Commissioner, I I don't believe we're allowed to make any rulings on that as it is a private street, and therefore, not on subject to the jurisdiction of the city when it comes to that sort of regulation. However, once again, I will be happy to be corrected.

And that is why I read that stuff earlier that said that we do have the ability to apply that criteria to a private street regardless if the city owns or not. So at this time, I'm gonna make a motion if nobody else is. And if we don't want it, we can make another one.

Yeah. Commissioner Rickert, real quick. I I my understanding was when that was read, that has to do with a new private street, not an existing one. That was my understanding.

Actually, it our our, regarding safety, okay. Our regarding regarding safety issues that are brought before the commission, we do have the ability to add things. I'm not saying I'm into denying this, but I feel that we might wanna add something, amend it a little bit.

Based on what?

Provided. Hold on.

Or just what are you thinking?

I The applicant has submitted does doesn't demonstrate that the existing private road will safely accommodate the proposed construction traffic and long term use requiring a traffic study. And enforceable litigation is necessary to ensure compliance and approval criteria protecting public health, safety, and welfare based on photos and public testimony. I looked it up. I did. But alright.

Fighting commissioner Wright, I moved to sustain the application subject to the conditions recommended by staff and the additional condition requiring a traffic and safety study. A recorded road use oh, well, we can't do that. Anyway, that's it. Could you repeat the motion, please? The motion sorry.

I moved to sustain the application, with amendment to a traffic and safety study. Planning commission order twenty twenty six dash zero one and order sustaining the 01/07/2026 community development director decision P l n G25Dash42. Or we can do another one. I

need a can I get a point of clarification on this? The the appeal ends today. Is that correct?

Yes. So

We gotta decide right now.

That's right. Okay. So we can't alright. Thank you.

Do I have any other motions?

I believe the proper procedure when a motion is proposed and not seconded is it needs to be tabled.

Yeah. Yeah. This motion, I will table. Are there any other motions?

Madam chair, I move that to adopt planning commission order twenty two thousand twenty six zero one, denying the appeal and sustaining 01/07/2026, community development director on PLNG 25 dash 42.

Commissioner Rickert will second that motion.

May we have a rope a chair vote, please, Faye?

Randy Rickert?

Yes.

Jason Dale?

Yes.

Matthew Mansfield?

Yes.

Chris Wright? Can you come back to me, please? Ivy Seitz? Yes. Vaseve Apando?

Yes.

Chris Wright?

I do this with hesitation, yes, because I do fill the criteria has been met. Thank you. Passes. Motion passes unanimously. Onto

our next A random comment to staff. If you have some time after to discuss the that number I brought up, 15440Dash030 in that table, Is there state guidelines that are preventing us from raising the minimum on duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes to two parking spaces instead of one?

Yes. I believe that was part of the house built 2001 as far as middle housing goes. So in current that current section, single family houses require a two off street parking spaces, but the state, and I will double check this, does not allow for more than one parking space for those middle housing units, and that includes cottage clusters as well.

And it's not that it's not that the state limits how many parking spaces can be provided. They limit how many spaces we can require. So if a builder wanted to provide more, then, of course, they can do that. But it is the state that's hamstring.

So The ability.

Your mic wasn't working.

Yeah. Only got Just so he knows.

So Yeah.

Yeah. So so it is the state that is preventing us from raising the minimum to two parking spaces for triplexes, duplexes, and quadplexes.

So so the state is, you know, full speed ahead on density at almost any cost. So and that that's one of the, one of the ops they thought of for people to try to get around it, and you can't.

And just by way of background, you know, the there's a short session legislative session happening right now this month. And even within a one month limited session, there there's a whole slew of land use bills, so there will be more. And I think it's timely if the commission would like, the chair would like, we can schedule a a work session to review not only what was passed in 2025, but what's currently being considered. There's a lot.

I think that would probably be a good idea. Alright. It is, going on 09:00. Is everybody willing to continue? Planning commission is taking a quick resets for five minutes. We will readjourn at forty nine after.

That's correct. Unless there's an appeal. If there's an appeal of a vacation rental decision, then it would come to the Planning Commission.

Planning commission is now convened at forty eight after. We will be getting a presentation from staff on the continuation of the new city council board committee and commission guidelines.

Well, it was actually not gonna be a presentation. It was just a continuation of business to piggyback off of the presentation that was given to in the last meeting and, to continue review of the and discussion of the materials provided in the last meeting.

Great. Thank you, Fei.

Think if I may if I might say, I think the key question for the commission was whether whether you wanted to carry forward any of the planning commission rules that were unique to the planning commission while we're also implementing the new council rules. And, Faye, I think there were a couple of areas where the planning commission had different procedures that if you could maybe point those out and refresh our memory. You don't have to. You could just go with the

Well, we actually don't have to adopt this.

Yeah.

So the council has adopted uniform rules and procedures for itself and for all the commissions. And there are some differences between those procedures and the planning commissions. And one example that I can think of is during public comment, I think is it twenty minutes? I'm sorry, during an applicant's presentation to you, they have twenty minutes. And I think the council rules provide for less than that. You can provide more time.

I think it's always been fifteen.

Is it always fifteen?

Yeah, it has been fifteen. Oh. I was actually they put the

What did they do?

The council that one, the council rules were more time than what we actually provided our

Mhmm. Okay. Thank you for correcting me. So the question then in that case would be if the planning commission wanted to provide more time and alignment with the council procedures or stick with what you're doing, I think. That's I don't know. Were there others, Faye, that?

Yeah. Some of the other ones I was just is the minutes per the it was brought up that per state regulations, we don't have to do the approval of minutes on the consent calendar. It's just to you know, you don't have to verbally do that. Does the planning commission wanna continue to do that? The other item was about the quasi judicial, the conflicts of interest.

The planning commission rules state that you have that you have to excuse yourself if you have a conflict, ex parte, and everything. Well, the city council rules don't state that. They don't have that. We can always make more rigid requirements, but we can't be less rigid than the city council. So it's really up for the planning commission to decide if some of those we want to keep and, which would mean that we would have to revise our current rules to complement and, the rules that were just passed by the city council and, to but are specific for the planning commission.

So just a little background. It I believe it's useful to to approve minutes like that. We haven't really done it much lately. But in the past, we had a commissioner, Kathy, who would thoroughly check the meet the minutes for any errors or mistakes or anything like that and and would, semi frequently, add a few corrections. So just leaving that out there as as something for commissioners or anybody really to, check for errors and and approve whether the errors are there or not is a good thing, I think.

In in general, I I think we should only change our policy where we have to right now. I'm still trying to learn it. That's Another

item is the script that I created. It's it was part of the attachment. We created a new one that was more in line with what the city council did, but more specific to planning commission for the quasi judicial and legislative scripts.

That's good.

Yeah. No edits.

Planning commissioner. Right? I would love to see us keep ours, but only elevate those ones that are above or complement our our current commission guidelines.

So are we proposing Are we voting on this this evening?

I think we We would just want direction, and that could be in a well, that should be a motion. And then staff would come back with a revised set of rules and procedures for you to adopt.

So if I understand correctly, we're putting forth the motion to not change the planning commission's rules and guidelines and to adopt phase description. And and

Except for just so you guys know, some there are conflicts with our current rules that we have to go with the

Of course, we have to align

with city

rules. So if we

keep it

exactly like this, there will be conflict, and it could be confusing in that aspect because some of the 2025 board and commissions

Just a few things.

Okay. So you wanna just adopt with those few things. And then, so should we should I just go ahead and do a you know?

So, like, all the policy stuff is the same, but those things are

Okay. So should we just write up something separate and bring it to the commission? Sure.

Yes.

That?

That'd be great.

I'm sorry. Could you please restate your motion?

Well,

we need to we wanna make sure we're Yeah. Following her.

So the the policy questions raised such as the time limits and, what do we just say, the meeting minutes and where's another one? The scripts. Right? So those are basically the same and any of the conflicts. What are the conflicts?

My head, but there's several there's several sections that are conflicting, that we could remove.

Right. Yeah. We'll bring back a revised draft.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. See the differences.

Yes. So, you know, remove the conflicting stuff and policy essentially status quo.

I move to have the city do that. What he said Yes. At this time. Thank you.

You're you're gonna vote on that motion?

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion motion passes. Thank you, Stan.

Thank you.

And is there any, at this time, we'll go through, any additional future meetings items. And I'm not stating that right. Come on. Oh my gosh. Okay. Alright. At this time, staff, can we hear the anticipated schedule of the planning commission activities?

Sure. Thank you, chair. So the next several perhaps not at the next meeting, but this spring, we'll be coming to you with the the housing capacity analysis. And so that'll be the first long range planning project that this commission takes up this year. We don't we do not have any quasi judicial hearings scheduled. None coming up that I'm aware of. So you we may not have anything for your for your next meeting unless Nope.

Are there any items from commissioners at this time?

I would like to mention that it is that time again that you would need to do your SEI filing. You would have received, an email from our the sea recorder, Rachel, about getting that done for through the portal and everything like that. So everybody should see that. It should be coming in on your city of Newburgh email.

I got it February 2. That's when she sent it out.

Commissioner Wright, after, this issue here this evening with the envelopes, I think we should address this as a commission, draft an amendment to the Newburgh Municipal Code that requires mail notices from the city to be placed in plain envelopes showing only the applicant's or sender's address on the front with no advertising, promotional copy, or other markings that could make the mailing appear to be junk mail. This and I have some draft language actually for the city. But, would commissioners be willing to address that on future agendas?

Are we able to make a change on that since noticing affects more than planning? It's gonna affect other departments, I'm guessing.

Oh, well, if the if the commission wanted to make a recommendation on, you know, land use notices, certainly, that's, within your purview. And I think there's the code maintenance docket that we maintain, and that could be added to the docket this year so we could bring that forward. Were there any other takeaways or or requests from

That seems pretty common sense to me for a a description there.

Yeah. So we would you know, current currently, this city places that responsibility on the applicants to do the mailings. And so we don't really check. You know, we can't check the envelopes that they send out, but that would be sort of self enforcing, like, this evening if someone brought it up and they said, well, here's the envelope they use.

Yeah. If I can add onto that, the mailing that came from the city of Newburgh was for the hearing tonight. So that was from the appeal hearing. That's the one that the city mailed out on our letterhead. Yes. Correct. Commissioner Wright. Another one was from the applicant, and there's nothing in code that says that. And I know some jurisdictions do have the city mail it out, but city of Newburgh currently does not, and that'd be a cost incurred by the city.

Excellent. Thank you. At this time, adjourn the 02/12/2026 planning commission meeting. Thank you.