Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Just make sure your mics are turned on when you're speaking. Yep. Okay.

Okay, well, let's go ahead and let's go and get started. I see the on air, I see a thumbs up. Okay, great. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. We are here for planning commission for the fourth Monday of July, July 27th, 2026. Mr. Walter, why don't you start with a roll call? Great, one second.

Commissioner LaSalle? Here. Commissioner Dumont? Here. Commissioner Gold? Here. Commissioner Mining?

Here.

Commissioner Laws?

Here.

Commissioner Henderson? Present. And so that's, we have six commissioners present. Great, so we have a quorum and we can go. Yep. Pete, any public comments?

For items not on the agenda, we don't have any public comments, no. Okay, great. Well, let's roll right into the hearing. I think we have one tonight. I'm gonna read off the script.

I just want to check with the city attorney as to whether we need you to read the script or not.

Thank you, Pete. Missy Ryan, assistant city attorney, nice to see you all. Because this is likely going to be a continuation of the hearing and no public testimony is being taken tonight, that's my understanding. Is that right, Pete? It's not necessary to read the entire script. Yay. I know. Yeah, thank you. I know. You know, it's the law. It's not really me.

Okay. Well, if we don't need to read anything off, why don't we go ahead and get started? I think we'll start. You have a small staff report or any report? I know this one's so small, so forgive the question.

Okay, thank you. I just had to turn my laptop off because it was creating problems there, so. One moment. So the purpose of our recommendation this evening is to request on behalf of the applicant a continuation of the public hearing for the Park Place 2 subdivision proposal. And so we're recommending that Planning Commission take any testimony and then continue the public hearing until September the 14th, 2026, with the record open. Reason for this is that the applicant has submitted some further revisions to their natural resources portion of their subdivision proposal, and that requires additional review by the consultant. Previously, if you remember, the natural resources application was revised to remove the original sewer line across Tour Creek. and it's required a type three review due to storm water impacts and storm water pond impacts. Additionally, as of the 16th of July, there are further revisions necessary due to changes to the storm water outfall designed to avoid impacting a wetland on the eastern, southeastern side of the proposal. And so those revisions and staff's recommendations about those revisions would be presented at the September 14th public hearing. And tonight we also have the applicant who's represented by Harlan Barrow available to speak to you if you have any questions about that. Come on in.

Thank you, Harlan, for joining us tonight. Sure. You know the routine, if you don't mind on your mic. Yes, sir.

So yes, Harlan Morrow with Icon Construction. Just wanted to give you a quick, brief update. So in working through the plans to try, nothing's changing with crossing. That's not an issue. It's trying to figure out how to do the stormwater pond without having more than halfway into the Enron, because you have that code that that would then require an adjustment, and we're trying to avoid that. As I'm sure you're aware, this site is challenging from a topography standpoint, being the side of a hill, and when you're trying to create ponds on the side of a hill, you have limited places you can put it. thought that we could put it in one area, but it turns out that there's a wetland there that we can't fill because it's a spring and it's the headland of another creek that goes off the other way into an end rod that's adjoining going off to the east. So that kind of put the kibosh on that area. It's still possible we may do a small pond there, but Anyway, just working on trying to get around the various constraints and hopefully we'll find a solution that doesn't require an adjustment request, having to go into the N-Rod more than halfway.

Well, thank you for the update. We do wish you luck with that. I understand the challenge, so. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Happy to answer any questions if you have them, but...

Any questions from the commission looking around, Commissioner LaSalle?

We don't have a map in front of us, of course, but it looks to me like by eliminating some homes, you could move that.

out of the Enrod area? Well, again, given the topography, we are actually now looking at taking out some lots at the bottom of Enrod. to try and find some more area that we can put a pond in safely, or a second pond in safely. There really isn't too much opportunity to put ponds elsewhere because they need to be toward the bottom. But we are looking at all alternatives, so.

to build a second pond somewhere? To do what, sorry? To build a second pond elsewhere?

Yes, that's what we're looking at right now. Oh, okay. We had looked at, in what you may have seen previously, was a tiered, to try and move it out of the N-Rod or more out of the N-Rod and tier it. But that tiered pond geotechnically was not something I think we could accomplish easily. The other challenge here obviously is there's a lot of boulders. So even if you were to, you could do piles and things like that to make it work with boulders, you can't do that. So anyway, we are doing our best to try and find a solution and hopefully I'll have something together in time for it to be reviewed so we can make the September 14th meeting, if not sooner. I just had one more question.

Why, and I guess this goes to staff, why is so much of the ICON construction letter blacked out like that?

Can you tell us, Pete? This is a policy that we have started to enact in the community development department to, it's called redaction of personal information that may not be pertinent to the application. out of privacy concerns?

Okay, I assume that it's... At the advice of the city recorder's office. Well, I assume that part of that would be a business address.

Well, if folks want to find that information out, they are welcome to file a public information request. Okay. Thank you. That's all I had.

Great, any other?

Did you get a chance to go before the Natural Resources Committee, or is that something that's planned between now and September so we get a recommendation from them?

So Pete went before them with our original revised plan, and they came back with some comments that we're incorporating into our current revision. It had a lot to do with plant species, planting diversity, trying to maintain dead or fallen trees as snags where possible, that kind of stuff. So we're incorporating their comments into that. And I don't know, Pete, if you're gonna need to go back in front of them when we have the final version or not.

If we have the time and we can accommodate it, we will try to have another Natural Resources Committee meeting to do that. Previously, we just held a special meeting so that it could be publicly noticed. and that seemed to work very well for the committees, so we'll just do it as we can, yeah.

If we're not gonna get anything in the September package that specifically documents what the recommendations were and how they were incorporated. We will, yeah. Okay, or otherwise, if there's a final meeting, let us know and we can just watch that.

Okay, yeah, I'll have links to both meetings as we can accommodate it. Good question, Commissioner Henderson.

Okay, any other questions from the commission?

No, no.

Okay, no further questions for the applicant.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Harlan. Just wanted to point out that we do have a couple of people in the audience. Yep.

I was going to ask, do you guys have comment for things not on the agenda today? Nope. Specifically for today. Okay, if you have a slip, if you don't mind, go ahead and get it to Pete. You can fill this out afterwards if you want to come up and talk. Yeah. Go ahead and I don't know if both of you or you want to do individuals, but now's the time to come up and...

So is someone testifying on this matter, this agenda item? No. Okay. If they were, I was going to suggest that you do go back and read the part of the script that talks about rates that are waived out, but no need.

Thank you. Just wanted to make sure we asked the question before we got too far ahead of ourselves. Okay. Thank you. Okay, well, no hearings. We don't need to close anything. Thank you, Harlan, again, for coming and updating us. Look forward to the next round of information. Let's go into any discussion items or communications. Oh, excuse me, I'm going ahead of myself. Yes, I can't do that, so I'd love to entertain a motion.

I'd like to make a motion to continuation of the Park Place 2 subdivision proposal to a date certain, and I don't know, I have a date. I'll have a calendar with me. September the 14th. Oh, September 14th, 2026. Thank you, Commissioner. I'll second.

Can I just add at 7 p.m. 7 p.m.

In that room, in this room. At 7 p.m. In the Hanlon Commission Chambers at 1234 Lynn Avenue, Oregon City. Great, thank you.

Okay, it looks like we've got a second. Let's do the roll. Let's do the roll.

Commissioner LaSalle? Aye. Commissioner Guimond? Aye. Commissioner Dole? Aye. Commissioner Meining?

Aye.

Commissioner Laws?

Aye.

Commissioner Henderson? Aye. The hearing is continued to September 14th, 7 p.m. on 2026. Thank you. All right. There's an item on the agenda called discussion items, but that is not a agenda, a typical agenda item. It's a mistake that it's on there. But if you want, we can move to communications. Let's do a peek. Okay, I don't have a lot to report because I've been gone for two weeks. However, I understand that some of you were able to attend the first city celebration, so that's great. I know planning, Jude today is from planning, was staffing the booth down there and he got some great questions and was able to hand out some good information. And that's a tradition that we hope to continue is to have more staff at those gatherings in the future. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there because it sounded like a good time.

It was good to see him. I asked him how he was doing and he seemed to be, you know, feeling everything and he had a smile. So, yeah, it was a good booth. He loves that stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. And also refer you to the latest edition of the Trail News Planning Division. Had a few articles in there on page six that came out yesterday, the paper edition. So we have one article that is advising folks about the Park Place One development site, where we anticipate that ICON is going to start moving forward with clearing the site for their 53 acre residential development, which was approved in 2025, early 2025. They do need state permits in order to start that work, including DEQ permits and the article talks about what their proposal is for the number of trees to be removed and how many trees would be replaced and how the code is set up to try to balance the necessary tree replacement with the need for housing and that sort of thing. So that's one of the articles. There's a second article about the latest bills from the state and how those will impact Oregon City. That's House Bill 4037, which is now requiring a more restricted public notice for residential applications. and the Senate Bill 974, which has several items in it. One is that engineering plans for residential subdivisions have a shot clock or a time, associated with them just like the land use approval portion of review does now. So our engineering staff are well within those guidelines and always were, but now it has been formalized by the state, so. And also type, Senate Bill 974 now requires that certain types of residential applications, including upzoning or rezoning to a higher density Planned unit developments, which are a more flexible type of zoning that some cities have. We don't see a lot of those in Oregon City, but we do see some occasionally. And residential variances are now required to be a type two decision by the state. So there's more information about those bills. And if folks have questions about them, they're welcome to give us a call at the planning division and we'll go through that with them. And also a short section on how to keep in compliance with the sign code, especially during political season. If you've got lawn signs and things of that, there's advice on how to keep your lawn signs and they should be under six square feet per side and you can have two per property they don't require permits if they're under those size limits so as long as they're not in the right of way which means sidewalks planning strips and streets and roads they they can be up without a permit There are several other types of exempt signs that don't need permits as well. And if folks have questions about those, they're welcome to give us a call. Thanks. So those are the types of articles we have this month. And if planning commissioners have suggestions on other articles that you think we could put in the trail news, we'd love to hear your ideas.

Thank you. Okay. That's wonderful, Pete.

Yeah. Better be careful though.

Yeah. But yeah, we appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Well, if no more communications, I love hanging out with us as a group, but we probably should adjourn the meeting if there's nothing else to discuss. Yep. Okay, well, let's get out of here. Meeting adjourned.