Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. I would like to call to order the uh meeting of the Salem Planning Commission for January 27th, 2026. Uh would you please call the role? Commissioner Faul here. Commissioner Frybeck here. Commissioner Heler here. Commissioner Lean here. Commissioner Rhodess here. Commissioner Slater here. Commissioner Tev here. Commissioner VR Bondell. Absent. Thank you. Uh first order of business I think we're going we'd like to ask. Okay.

Commissioner and Ponte here. Okay. We've had a request to slightly reorder our agenda uh moving item 7.1 ahead of item six, special orders of business.

Any concerns for that? Okay. Okay. Uh next item is uh any public comment for items other than or agenda items other than our public hearings. Okay, seeing none, uh we'll move on to our consent agenda and the approval of the minutes from January 13th. And I can't look to myself for a motion. So,

I'd like to move the minutes for January 13th. You second. Second. You Okay. Can you please call the call the vote? Commissioner F. I. Commissioner Frybeck. Hi. Commissioner Heler. I. Commissioner Lavine. Commissioner Rhodess. I. Commissioner Slater. I. Commissioner Tev. Hi. Commissioner Infonte. I.

Okay. Motion passes. Thank you. And uh next item would be public hearings which we have none. And moving on to our now uh information reports, the natural flood plane functions plan. Thank you. Let me just get set up here. Oh, great. Thank you. Uh my name is Laurel Christian. I'm an infrastructure planner um with the city of Salem and I'm here with Ken Beerley from the Glen Gibson Wershed Council. He's the chair and he was our consultant on this project. Um we also have Robin Dulki, the city's flood plan administrator and we are here to present on the draft natural flood plane functions plan and flood flood plane species assessment. Quick overview. Um we're going to talk a little bit background on Salem area flood planes and flooding in Salem and then I'll turn it over to Ken who will kind of talk about um creation of the natural flood plane functions plan and some of the elements that go into that. The flood plane species assessment, specific recovery plans and specific action um recommendations that are within the plan. Um, and then I'll talk a little bit just about our flood plan management plan um, and program and the community rating system. So, within Salem, there are over 4,000 acres of regulated flood planes. The special flood hazard area or we'll refer to it as SFHA are areas that are mapped by FEMA through a flood insurance study and are

expected to have a 1% chance annually of flooding. The community adopts the flood insurance study and is required to regulate development in those areas in order to be eligible for federally backed flood insurance and flood disaster relief. And then Salem has um adopted locally flood planes which are known as interim flood hazard areas or IFHA. Um those are locally adopted with the initial purpose um of the IFHA was to protect people and property um from flooding in areas where Salem has identified that we know flooding occurs. Um but those areas were not necessarily mapped by FEMA. So the city performed some studies and did some mapping and locally adopted those. um areas as well. So those are reflected on this map. Uh we have a few additional IFHA study areas that are pending adoption. The majority of undeveloped SFHA is under public ownership within Mento Brown Island Park and Wallace Marine Park and that gets to approximately 1,600 acres. Uh we have approximately 800 acres of undeveloped land zone for residential, mixed use, commercial or industrial development. All new development within the flood plane is required to obtain a floodplane development permit through the development services division. These permits not only look at protections for structures but also now require floodplane mitigation assessments that review development impacts to habitat for endangered species and to ensure those impacts are adequately mitigated. Um, when we talk about flood planes, we do like to remind people that Sale has historically flooded over the years. And I've added some historical images here. The largest flood on the Wamut River of record was in 1861. The next significant

flood occurred in 1890. In more recent years, we've seen flooding in 1960s,7s, 80s, 2012, and 2015. Uh in December of last year, we had an approximate 10-year flood event on Mil Creek, which is a flood event that has a 10% chance of occurring in any given year. This event impacted State Street Corridor and the abudding residential neighborhood, though it was a relatively small event when you think about flooding in Salem holistically. Um so now I would like to pass it over to Ken again with the Glen Gibson Wershed Council who will walk us through the natural flood plane functions plan. Thank you very much, Laurel. Um, I noticed that none of you are old enough to have experienced the 1964 flood. I was coming back from Corvalis at Oregon State University. Uh, had to drive to Salem to cross this the Wamtt River to go east to central Oregon where I lived. Uh, and since Sanam was blown out, I had to go cleared up through Mount Overmount Hood to get there. So, uh, flooding does occur. It occurs naturally and occurs regularly. [clears throat] But there's a significant amount of adjustment following there's a recent lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency for not considering endangered species in the implementation of the National Flood Insurance Program in Oregon. That lawsuit was uh started in 2009 by predominantly by the Portland Autobon Society at the time and there's been significant back and forth about in the intervening years. In 2010, the parties had a settlement agreement and they uh agre FEMA agreed to consult with the National Marine Fishery Service

about the effects of implementing the National Flood Insurance Program. uh and upgrade mapping and look at the community rating system as it relates to encouragement or discouragement of development activity within flood planes. Um, [clears throat] in 2000, it took until 2016 for National Marine Fishery Service to develop a biological opinion and they concluded that the National uh flood insurance program would jeopardize endangered salmon and steelhead species in Wamtt River or Wamtt Basin or in Oregon, let's put it that way. Um, since [clears throat] that time, FEMA has been working to implement the reasonable and prudent alternatives that were identified by the National Marine Fishery Service and to ensure that local permits that are issued by local governments do not authorize activities that contribute to the loss of salmon habitat. concurrently, and this is the part that we're we'll be focusing on concurrently, the National Marine Fishery Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, particularly the um flood [clears throat] insurance program develop community rating system criteria to incentivize communities that participate in the community rating system. uh that would reduce flood insurance if they would raise awareness of the likelihood of impact to uh endangered species and further to develop plans that would help recovery of those species. So this is a voluntary program um not a regulatory program and I think it's important to be clearly aware of those distinctions. The legal battle

continues and as recently as August of 2025, FEMA issued a draft environmental impact statement in an Oregon implementation plan for the integration of uh the regulatory integration of the flood plane insurance program and the endangered species act. So there is an ongoing issue. The city has developed ordinances to deal with that in the interim. But what we're talking about now uh that and the two documents that you are reviewing are the voluntary incentive program proposed by FEMA and for CRS credits and it's developed using guidance that was developed by the federal agencies. Uh this guidance is available on that was developed in 2020 and we followed the guidance to our best ability and recognizing the opportunity to enhance Salem's uh community ratings. Uh we rec the Glen Gibson Creek Watershed Council applied for grants to both the city of Salem and to the Oregon wershed enhancement board to develop these two plans. They were in the work plan for the city of Salem's flood plane management program. We identified that as a possibility. We had some unique resources that would be available to put this kind of information available. And so we applied for and were um fortunately granted those uh grant funds to conduct this work. Both the floodplane species assessment and floodplane plan were developed under the the written guidance that was provided by the federal government. And it's important to remember this is not a requirement for the city to conduct. In fact, few communities have taken this opportunity to address listed

species in their habitats and flood planes. But it's also important to remember that the required approach from the federal EIS has not been determined at this time. Taking these kinds of voluntary actions will put the city in very goodstead regardless of what comes out of the EIS process. And again to emphasize that this is a voluntary approach the city and it the effect of improving the community rating system reduces the cost of uh flood insurance for residents of the city. So there are two pieces to this puzzle. One is a flood plane species assessment. It is simply an informative document that compiles a list of allies that are occur or likely to occur within the flood plains of the community. Uh we use datab the federal guidance has databases and mapping of critical habitat. We use that information. We went to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. We use the Oregon natural heritage database and to generate a list of species that are were used in the assessment. The draft was reviewed by National Marine Fishery Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for accuracy. And that document the City of Salem flood plane species assessment has been completed was completed in January of 2025. And from that the guidance provides direction to select those species which the city has the opportunity to uh make changes that could lead towards

the recovery based off recovery plans or other documentation of how the city manages their the flood planes within their jurisdiction. that might be affected. So, um from the list of species, it became very clear that the dominant area of flood planes that are affected that occur within the city of Salem urban growth boundary are associated with either the Wamut River or the Mil Creek or other smaller tributaries. um the critical habitat for up upper Wamtt Chinook and and steelhead cover up to the two-year flood plane of the uh of the those streams. Uh it's fairly significant. It includes the lower portion of Glen Creek, portions of Claget Creek, portions of of the tribut little pudding river as well that hap that fairly small area within the city of Salem urban growth boundary. So the broad the one of the many issues that we struggled with in selecting species is a number of species that are critically listed for the Wamtt basin are wet prairie species. um Wamtt daisy, kinc's lupin u butterflies that are associated with those u benders blue butterfly um Nelson's check these are species that occur on wet prairie systems and there are very few areas of that would be available within the within the city limits within the urban growth boundary. So we did not include those. We they

were identified and specifically their habitats were identified in the species assessment but not in the weren't focused on for the flood plane plan. And um so what we're trying to do is um work from the recovery and conservation plans that have been developed for these species. Identify those elements that are relevant to and within the authority of the city to try to address. Um so the flood plane species plan identified critical habitat. That's part of the requirements. And then we identified from the recovery conservation plans what might be done within the city. And it's important to recognize that there's a broad variety of flood plane functions. Flood planes not only store water during high water year water times, but they're um really have a significant suite of functions. um not just hazard reduction but it has significant ecological values. Um riparian forests are uh significantly uh important for a broad variety of re of aquatic and semiacquatic resource uh animals and plants. Um the functions that the that have been focused on dominantly through the regulatory process have been uh flood storage, water quality and vegetation. The focus on flood storage has been loss of fish access because when these flood planes flood, juvenile fish utilize those so they stay in place, don't get flushed

out of the system. They feed in those areas. uh flood storage uh water quality is the dominant effect on water quality is usually from imperous surfaces. That's one of the real struggles you have in urban areas is the dominance of of imperous surfaces. So reducing that is really important. and vegetation. Uh there a significant effort to maintain some sort of native cover on um these floodplane habitats. So what we did was identify from significant literature uh a number of restoration activities and if you look through the documents there's you know a full variety of them. some of which the city is already doing. Uh the management of the U meadow conservation area uh by replanting or reforesting the flood plane is one of the activities that uh is significant particularly if as the um information about the number of acres that are in flood plane are dominated by middle brown island. uh the reforestation that has occurred in that area is really important. the control of Lwigia the an invasive species in the backwater sloohs the oxbow slooh and wamit slooh uh in cooperate that's where the city cooperated with Wamtt Rivereper to re to eliminate that is a an ongoing restoration activity but the plan includes removal of barriers in Mil Creek looking at removal

of the dam on Penitentiary ditch rem uh looking at the an alternative for Waller Dam where the Mil Creek and Shelton Ditch interact. Um looking at gravel pit reclamation for the possibility of creating habitat for northwestern pond turtle. Um, one of the novel ideas in the plan is to develop a flood plane mitigation bank by removing fill that's been historically placed on flood planes um and then allowing if you look at the map of flooding in well in the um city there are a lot of isolated parcels where there's not connection between the river, but they do flood. Um, if you could create a mitigation bank where there could be opportunity for people to pay for the uh mitigation activities, that's a an unexplored opportunity. And in fact, it uh uh the governor's executive order 2526 uh identifies creative mitigation banking as a something that the state wants to look towards. So you this uh opportunity identified in the plan may lead in that direction. It would require a significant effort on the part of the city to figure out what where and how much and you know the minor things like cost. Um so there's a list of a significant number of activities identified by ongoing uh near-term and then uh longer term and u we think that there's that they can have

an effect on the species that uh we're concerned with in the plan. And I'll let Laurel finish as it relates to the flood plane management program that the city

Yes. So um briefly I just wanted to talk on this city's flood plane management plan and program. Um we do have an adopted flood plane management plan that provides highlevel guidance as to what a flood plane is, what its natural functions are, um some of the history of flooding in Salem. It also provides action items for our flood plane management program. Um it's reviewed annually and then goes through a full update every five years. We do have a flood plan management plan committee and um it goes through council annually and um through those five-year updates. Um our most recent plan was adopted in 2023 and contains 43 total action items. Um they vary from very specific items that further protect people and structures um but also includes things like public information and messaging, storm water standards to enhance water quality and then other incentives for flood plane restoration. There are two specific action items relating to the preparation of these plans specifically that we're talking about tonight. Um those actions call for preparation of the flood plane species assessment and the natural flood plane functions plan in accordance with the CRS and federal guidance. Um and then I quickly wanted to talk about the community rating system program which Ken and I have kind of both mentioned. Um the CRS program is a voluntary program which the city um is an active participant in. It recognizes and encourages community flood plan management activities that exceed national minimum standards. Um, the CRS program recognizes a community's effort to reduce flood risk, facilitate accurate insurance ratings, to promote awareness of flood risk and insurance requirements, and also the preservation of natural and beneficial flood plane functions. Um, I've listed a few examples here on the screen of

management activities that the city currently receives credit for under this program. Um, based on all the activities that we do annually, we have a class 3 rating, which equates to a 35% discount on flood insurance premiums for FEMA backed programs. Um, in Oregon, Salem is the only class 3 community and across the country there are fewer than 25 communities that have a class 3 or higher rating. Um, so we always just like to put a little plug in for the CRS program. Um it really reflects that our flood plane management program goes well above the minimum standards and adoption and implementation of this plan um will also be an activity that it's credited towards um further discounts essentially at our next annual verification visit.

All right. Um thank you for allowing us to present this evening. Um Ken and I can take any question that you guys have.

Well, thank you for that. Um it was definitely a lot and interesting reading um as we were preparing for tonight and I know for myself I'm very pleased that we're being proactive in taking these steps and u pushing for the volunteer voluntary program. Any questions from the commissioners? Commissioner Heler or not? Well, I'll speak up anyway. I wanted to thank you and I've expanded my vocabulary from reading this and I it's excellent. It's just fascinating and I just want to thank you for doing all this all this effort.

I will say most of the thanks should go to Keny instrumental in drafting this plan and we really appreciate that. This is actually it is a complex issue and uh we early on as we were developing the flood plane assessment we met with many of the neighborhood associations and tried to raise awareness and develop some brochures and tried to get bring awareness to it. Um but it that's hard to do in the summertime. people don't think about flooding in June and July and August, but uh we did have some receptive folks in the neighborhoods who were um interested in at least finding out what the flood planes and what the importance of flood planes.

Good evening. Um, one of the comments that you made was about uh an interest by the state for voluntary mitigation. And the question that I have is uh or individual property owners. And the the question then is if this is something that is a state encouraged program or possibility um I'm also on the board for North Gateway um urban development and and if this is something that would be that would then fall into a approved uh program. Then that's something that could potentially also be available to urban development funds which would potentially participate in um property improvements um and uh contributions toward um upgrades for utilities and uh conditions. So is is there any formalization of the state program

at this point in time? The executive order was issued I believe in October. They've started talking to agency direct directors. There was a presentation to the Oregon watershed enhancement board by the governor's natural resource office just this morning. um they are in the middle of trying to figure out what the executive order means and what it does. The problem that I see right now is that it's I it's idealistic. It doesn't have any additional funding with it. It's basically a challenge for the state agencies to work together. One of the ideas within it is to create is to look at creative ways to do mitigation banking. And I you know what would have to happen would be a specific proposal would have to be posed to uh the appropriate federal or state agencies to see if that could be uh piloted in Salem. But it that's it's going to take a while and right now it's more idealistic than it is realistic. I will uh be very interested to watch and learn how that progresses because uh I'm involved in quite a a bit of property that that potentially qualifies and we are also representing uh several folks that that have major parcels that would that are currently in uh rated flood areas. Thank you for the question. I would also just add that like with most planning documents, these are action items and things that we have to plan and prepare code amendments and different things like that. So if we were to implement a mitigation bank, it would likely go back through a flood plane management plan committee and through the planning

commission at some point since that would impact development. Uh just always whenever this the um CRS program comes up, I always it always makes my brain think about um how unfortunately the consequence of all of our good work in you know u infiltrating water and treating pollutants and all the great things that come with like a great healthy flood plane is that we make it cheaper to build in flood planes. So, it's kind of like a funny sorry

uh feedback loop in my brain where we're doing good work and uh and it's often city funds that are funding this work and then private property owners get cheaper flood plane insurance. Um so I always struggle a little bit just with that problem in my brain. Um but ultimately obviously we want to do the best we can either way for this uh program

and I it's a good observation. I would respond in this way though that it isn't it isn't a standalone program. their regulatory standards and particularly the uh the mitigation standards that were develop that were adopted last Dece or November uh are part of the backs stop and uh as I've learned over a long time that uh incentives are are good but there also has to be a regulatory connection and so you have a carrot you have a stick we're trying to grow carrots to meet the Yeah, thanks. I'm I think I think of the the 2009 lawsuit is kind of like the first backdrop step in the backdrop that we just got and I'm glad that we got it.

Followup question. I'm aware of the process that the city currently has for construction in a uh flood rated area where there are specific finished floor elevation criteria and other standards and requirements that that are substantial. So the question that I have is where are the city standards in in relationship to what the potential states uh goals would be. I don't want to speak for the city, but I will um I think the best way to think about this is that there [clears throat] the settlement agreement and the uh lawsuit on the implementmentation of the federal program, federal flood insurance program that sets standards for um building within flood planes that are adopted by local communities is B is uh what's at play here uh in the legal uh arena and the environmental impact statement lays out three different alternatives. Um but what it will require is previously all of the standards were basically engineering standards. If you could build your structure so that it wouldn't flood and it wouldn't cause flooding to others, that was it. Now there needs to be consideration of water quality impacts, of vegetation impacts, and uh flood access for fish impacts. So

mitigation [clears throat] on those three standards will be required um in one way or another in the future in my opinion. Yeah, I was just going to add that um last year in July, we adopted the flood plane mitigation assessment requirements. So um we have our like you said our typical you build your finished floor one foot above the elevation. That's always how it's been. Um and so last year we adopted a new requirement. So all new development in the flood plane um prepares a mitigation assessment that looks at how they're how many trees they're removing, how much quantity of fill they're adding, how much impervious surface they're adding, and then they have to mitigate that mitigate for that. Um so that was as part of FEMA's kind of pre-implementation of the full-blown environmental impact statement. When the full environmental impact statement comes out, we would likely have to do an additional code amendment and that hopefully will provide some additional guidance also on that mitigation banking. Um, and we could potentially implement that at that point or afterwards once a program is kind of vetted by the state and potentially FEMA. Uh, but those requirements are fairly new. We've had a handful of permits so far that have done the flood plane mitigation assessment. They don't really come up too often. Um but we've been able to work with people and get that mitigation done on site. Um for example, you know, removal of trees and vegetation is replanting with riparian vegetation of trees. Um the impervious surface is mitigated by addition of storm water treatment. So most projects now are triggering storm water treatment anyways, but if you're a smaller project, you're now required to provide that. Um so for the most part we've been able to work with the mitigation assessment requirements um the developments that have been coming in.

All right. I have a few questions if I could. Um could we go back to the slide that shows us the um the maps that show us to what extent we have undeveloped flood plane in the city and the ownership status of that the zoning status. Um the map that I had was just the flood plane in general, but do you want the acreages?

Yeah, please. I thought there was something around 800 acres of undeveloped flood plane. Is that okay? And how does that 800 acres of flood plane Oh, well, let's go back and look at the ownership of that first. Um, you know, we've discussed this a few times um in the planning commission and recently heard testimony related to uh flood planes or other environmentally significant lands related to the 2014 buildable lands inventory. So, I'm very interested uh and I think the buildable lands inventory may be a little out of date at this point. Uh but it would be interesting to take a look at the overlap between those 800 undeveloped acres and the buildable land inventory. Do we have any ability to have that conversation? Um, I would not have that information tonight, but that's something that we could come back with at some point.

So, it looks like we have like 450 480 something like that acres of residential land in the flood plane. And is that mostly do we know about where that is? Do we have any kind of concept of what we're talking about? Um, no. So, I mean, like Ken was explaining, a lot of our flood planes are not even hydraologically connected to a water body. There are a lot of overland flow areas um to do that mapping exercise. It's not something that we have specific that I have tonight.

Okay. I just my thought is it's it's helpful to be able to understand when we're talking about like really buildable lands for residential areas. Um, also, uh, perhaps you can explain a little bit about hydraologically connected. Um, so if we have a a flood plane that's not hydraologically connected to a stream or a river, is that does that flood plane have the same value as one that is hydraologically connected? So perhaps if we can have that conversation that would be helpful. It would be my opinion that isolated areas that flood within the urban context often don't have the value of those areas that are directly connected to some sort of stream or uh other water body. Uh there are a few isolated wetlands that are important but uh they're few relatively few and far between within the urban context. Yeah, I would also add that um the mitigation assessment guidance that um FEMA has prepared that we use to review those mitigation assessments, it does require higher mitigation standards the like if you're closer to a stream. It's 260 ft or 170. Um so I think it does inherently acknowledge that the closer you are to that water body, the more ecological value it provides. I mean, it would it would seem to me that if we can map out and make a distinction between the higher ecological value flood plane versus the flood plane that maybe is disconnect and doesn't have the ability to be reconnected would be useful in the long term. I think some of these conversations about flood plane development and future plan for flood planes is going to kind of run up against various opinions about what you know are we trying to prioritize development? Are we trying to prize ecosystem services? retried habitat. The more that we can kind of come to an

agreement as to where we have the values um the easier some of these conversations might be. Um so that that would be uh one thought. Um the other point I just um I mean I have a number of points that I won't make to make this quick. Uh but I do want to point out that um I appreciated the recommendation in here related to um working with the state uh related to Mil Creek floodways. Um, I think that's very important. I've had that conversation with the state a couple times over the past year. Um, I they tell me that they are very receptive and we continue to have these conversations. I will forward this report to them. Um, and um, yeah, I've been in active conversation. They've recently reviewed some flood plane materials from the city uh, and have assigned a planner to take a look at this conversation. So, I hope that as we go forward, if the city's in a position where it's able to kind of engage with the state, I think they're in a position where they're able to engage with the city as well. Um, so there's some very good opportunities there. You might wish to cite the executive order 2526 where the governor is asking uh to lead by example stateowned and managed lands and waters. Uh so as part of her of her executive order on resilient landscapes,

the more ammunition the better. Uh and my final comment is how does the Oregon conservation strategy relate to this work? Um the Oregon has identified a number of key species um that aren't necessarily federally listed species, but they're species of importance for the state. And I think one of the important things about the key species is that they are um species that are not yet endangered and so they don't have the same regulatory status but they're indicator species and so there's kind of a greater opportunity to intervene at this point. So can you talk a little bit about how Oregon conservation strategy relates to this discussion?

That's a [clears throat] very good point. the Oregon conservation strategy that was adopted in December of last year few weeks ago um [clears throat] includes the Wamid Valley but it's very broad and it's a scale issue uh and the species and the threats uh that they've identified are much more generic and lot less specific than what was required for the development of a flood plane species plan. So they focused more on and there are you're correct there are a broad range of species that are affected but most of it's affected by u it's wet prairie species that have been affected by development uh typically agricultural development urban development etc. Um, so we did look at that. We did have Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife review the document. They didn't have suggestions other than what we've adopted. Uh, but you're you're correct, but the the difficulty is scale. They're looking at the entire Wamtt Valley as an area. We're looking at a small subset of the Wamtt Valley that is representative of a relatively minor portion but a significant portion of the flood plane of the Wamut in the middle Wamtt reach. I don't know if that helps at all but it covers it with a lot of words.

That was helpful. Thank you. That that's it for me. Thanks. Any other comments or questions? Okay, thank you both. Thank you.

Okay. Uh, moving on to our special orders of business and the State Street Improvement Project. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me? Great. Uh, my name is Ununis Kim. I'm the long-range planning manager in the community planning and development department. And with me tonight are Josh Adelman, the project manager for this project in public works, and Julie Hansen, the transportation planning manager um in public works as well. Um tonight we're going to be talking about the State Street improvement project that stem that is along State Street between 12th and 17th Street. Um we're going to start with a little bit of background um on this project and give some updates on kind of what has happened between all that background and now. And then Josh will dive into the details of what that project uh looks like. you should have a handout in front of you. I know it's really hard to see um but you can see a bigger version over here on the kind of the details of the design. So, the State Street uh improvement project really has quite a history. It stems back more than a decade. Um it really came out of the neighborhood plan that Nen and Cessna did together back in 2013 to 2015. It was the first time two neighborhoods came together to really work on a neighborhood plan. Nen is to the north of State Street between 12th and 7 uh 12th and 25th and Cessna is to the south. So this is really like the border that they share together. Um the neighborhoods while they were doing the neighborhood plan really identified this

state street corridor as an opportunity area. They wanted to see it revitalized into kind of a vibrant mixeduse area that was um easier and safer to white to walk along to bike along and to travel along. And so they really identified um this as a focus as their neighborhood plan. That neighborhood plan was adopted by the city council in 2015. And then right after that, we were fortunate enough to get a state grant to really kind of dive into that state street corridor to see what do we actually need to do to to make that vision come alive. Um the state street corridor plan was between 2015 and 2018. Um that project really had two main focuses. One was on the land use side like how do we encourage um mixeduse development um that's really pedestrian friendly along 12th along street between 12th and 25th and then how do we again re kind of redesign that street and rethink how we can design that street. Um that project uh included a lot of input from the community from business owners, property owners, the neighborhoods, the broader community. Um we did about three years of outreach and so through all of that input we came up came up with two results. One was really the new mixeduse zoning that you see along that street. It's the mixeduse one and the mixeduse 2 zone. Now it's applied along a lot of our corridors across the city. Um but the second one that we're really focusing on tonight is a new design for this street. Um the the street design really focused on both bicycles, pedestrians, and vehicles and how do we accommodate them really within our existing rightway. um if you travel along State Street, it's kind of different widths. We are trying to figure out how can we accommodate everyone to safely travel through and around that area um within that existing constrained ride ofway. Ultimately, the city council did adopt that plan in 2018. Um the new zones are adopted and then the new cross-section was adopted into the transportation system plan. And so that's what we're going to be focusing on tonight.

Okay. Um good evening. So once this [clears throat] was adopted into the plan, uh the first thing we needed to do was to look for ways to implement to fund different elements of it from the transportation side. Uh we were fortunate to be able to apply for and receive funds for a number of sort of spot improvements. Uh one was the 25th Street at State Street intersection. Uh that project was just completed this summer, included a new signal, um an island for pedestrians and sort of reconfiguring that intersection. And then the second uh is a ped enhanced pedestrian crossing which will be constructed in 2026 on State Street by 21st Street. It will be one of the flashing beacon crossings. And then [clears throat] um you know the focus focus of tonight is the 12th to 17th Street section which was included in the 2022 safety and livability bond measure. And so that's sort of the the big pro project that we have funding for. There's still more that will need to be done. Uh once this project is complete, we will have a uh continuous bike uh bike connections all the way from West Salem to this through to and through this corridor connecting to 17th Street. So this map here shows the entire corridor from 12th Street out to 25th Street. as I mentioned the um so the portion on the west so from 12th to 17th that's the portion that Josh will be going into more detail on that we have funding for the portion that's highlighted there in yellow from 17th out to 25th we do not have funding to make improvements to that section with the exception of those two spot improvements that I mentioned

one at 21st and then the one that was constructed last year at 25th This map here shows shows that sort of enhanced um bike network. You know, we're we're taking different projects and trying to put them together to make connections throughout our community. Um [clears throat] not all of these are constructed yet, but these are all funded. uh particularly over in West Salem you see in red uh that is the Marine Drive, future Marine Drive that was also included in the 2022 bond measure that will have a separated bicycle and pedestrian path connecting to existing off- streetet trails in mint in Wallace Marine Park across the Wamtt River to the Union Street bike corridor where we have the uh buffered bike lanes that are being extended uh through the bond measure connecting to the 12th Street pedestrian prominade and then from there to this state street corridor. So since that since the time so when we developed the plan the state street corridor plan when we're doing these plans we're at a uh pretty high level it's a conceptual level we're using uh GIS aerial imagery to try to figure out exactly how much or approximately how much right ofway we have where the buildings are things like that. Um, and once we get money, we spend a little bit more time seeing how we can refine and improve the plan. So, the plan that Josh will be talking about today includes um we added found a way to add bike lanes in the section between 12th and 13th Street that had not been included in that original uh 2018 plan. We also were able to figure out how we could switch parking and the bike lanes to add additional protection to people in using those bike lanes. The 17th Street intersection, we have

made some modifications to minimize property uh impacts and property acquisition needs. And then of course uh we have Americans with Disability Act compliance and storm water compliance that needs to be incorporated and uh waterline replacement. Now that was not funded that's not funded by the bond, but when you're going to be tearing up a street, you know, you want to make sure that the utilities underground are in decent shape. And I guess the water line is not. [laughter] All right. So, the the goal of this project, as stated, is to create a vibrant walkable corridor with a focus on safety for all users. So, currently, this is a pretty vehicle-heavy section. Um, so we're like we said, we're trying to add some more focus on pedestrians and bikes. Uh, so the budget for this project is about $15 million. Most of that money comes from the 2022 safety and livability bond. Um a smaller portion about $2 million comes from the utility rates and that's to fund the waterline replacement. Uh we began design in late 2024. Um one of the first things we did was hire our design consultant HHPR and we expect construction in 28 and 29. Uh so project scope, there's way more going on here than would fit on this slide, but these are kind of the big ticket items that we have. Um, this is a full street improvement project. So, basically everything within the project limits between 12th and 17th we're going to be touching and replacing. Um, so that's uh resurfacing the existing pavement. We're going to be reconfiguring the travel lanes out there. Um, new sidewalks, curbs, and gutters. We're going to be adding bike lanes, updating the ADA ramps and push buttons out there. Um, putting in some new crossings for pedestrians. Uh we

have signal improvements at 14th and 17th Street. Um and then and then as we said the the new water line we're going to be upsizing. Um so this is the same map that's over there and that was handed out. Um it's kind of hard to read all the the text on it, but wanted to give kind of a sense of the the project size and what we're doing. Um you can see the the new striping layout on there. Um, everything that's kind of black hatched, that's going to be all the new pavement that we're doing. Um, all of the kind of gray and yellow hatches around the the borders, that's where we're putting in the new sidewalks and furnishing areas. Um, I guess one thing to note on this, currently at that 12th Street intersection, there's three travel lanes that come across that intersection. We're going to make one of those lanes a right turn only. Um, so that we only bring two lanes across at that intersection. And that helps us to be able to add add bike lanes in that 12th to 13th street section um and take out a conflict where we're trying to merge lanes down to to one lane to continue down State Street but also have people backing out of those parking spaces there. Um so vehicle elements, what does this look like if you're driving through the area after it's all done? Um so like I said, pavement reconstruction. We'll have a new smooth road there. U the big piece that we're doing is reconfiguring all the travel lanes. Currently, most of this is a four-lane section. So, there's two travel lanes in each direction. Um, a good example of where we've done this before is on Broadway um between Pine Street and the Parkway. Um, as you can see in the before picture there, there's a four-lane section, two travel lanes each way. When we put the striping back, we put three travel lanes in, one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane. Um, this gives us the ability to add bike lanes. Um, it also takes out a lot of conflicts with the vehicles in the fourlane section. You often get people sitting in that left lane, um,

waiting to turn left. So, this that that leads to rear end accidents and sideswipe [clears throat] accidents if someone's tired of waiting and they dive around a car. It also gives uh left turning vehicles on or off of State Street, a refuge space to turn to, so they can do kind of a turn two-stage movement. Um, we're going to be doing signal improvements at the 14th Street intersection and 17th Street. Um, and then at the 14th Street intersection, we're going to be adding dedicated left um turn lanes on both the north and southbound leg of that intersect. Uh, for bikes, uh, currently we don't have any bike bike facilities on the section of State Street, so it's probably pretty scary to ride a bike there. Um, we're going to be putting in buffer bike lanes with a 5 and a half foot bike lane, uh, two-ft buffer. Um, one kind of unique thing that we're going to be doing on this one is the bike lane is going to be going on the curb side rather than on the travel lane side. Uh, so an example of that is on Union Street. Um, as you can see in that picture there, we have the travel lane and then you have the parking lane and then the buffer bike lane and then the the sidewalks. So, one thing with that is this project, like we said, will tie into that Union Street, so it keeps a consistent kind of bike lane through there. Um, that also adds more protection for the bikers because the parked cars can act as an extra buffer. Um, and then it takes out the conflict of vehicles having to cross that bike lane to get in or out of parking stalls. Also, for the bikes, we're going to be putting in a flashing warning sign at the 13th Street intersection. So that's where we have the east and westbound traffic that come together and merge onto the oneway. And that's kind of a unique movement. So we're just bringing extra attention to the the bikes that would be crossing through there. At the 14th Street intersection, we're going to be putting in a bike box. So we have an example here from Liberty Liberty and

Trade from the 2024 pavement RNR project. Um, so at that 14th Street intersection on the south side, uh, it's a shared use lane, but it's really wide, so there's room for the vehicles and bikes to ride next to each other. On the north side of that intersection, it narrows down to about 11 or 12t shared use lane. Um, so this gives bikes an opportunity at a red light to get in front of the vehicles rather than having to merge in the intersection. And then like we pointed out, all of the major intersections along this corridor now will will connect to a different bike route. uh pedestrian elements. So, new curbs, wider sidewalks, um ADA upgrades to all of the curb ramps and push buttons. Uh the big safety feature for pedestrians is we're doing these curb extensions. Uh there's a picture there from downtown. They're all over downtown. Um, a big thing that does is it it gives extra space and room for the pedestrians at the crossings, but it also shortens the distance that a pedestrian is in the roadway with a vehicle um and limits their exposure to to vehicles. Um, and then we're going to be putting in an enhanced uh pedestrian crossing near 15th Street. So, that will look like this rapid flashing beacon. Um, this one is over on Lancaster, but we have other examples all over the city. um to give kind of a visual feel of what we're what we're looking for. Um like they said, the plan identified that we wanted this to be a safe, walkable, friendly corridor. Um so part of that is having these streetscape elements. Uh so both these examples here, one is from downtown, one is from Second Street from a project we did over in West Salem. Um, both of them have a a sidewalk running along the property side. And then we have that what we're calling a furnishing zone that's kind of a mix of landscape and hardscape. Um, we know some of that landscape area is going to be filled with storm water facilities. Um, we're going to try and put street trees in where we can, but then there's

also the hardscape area where the intent would be we could put uh street furniture, whether that's bike racks or benches or decorative street lighting. Um, there may be utilities that have to go in there. Um, we're still pretty early on in design, so we don't know how all these pieces fit together yet, but this is kind of the visual feel that we're going for at the end of the day. Uh, next steps for the project. Uh, so we're going to continue design. Uh, that's going to take us a couple more years. um we have to get to 30% maybe at maybe even 60% on some of this stuff and then we'll we can begin a lot of our right ofway and easement acquisition and coordination. Um there's a ton of utilities out here so we're going to have a lot of uh coordination effort with all the utility companies um determining what needs to be relocated and where things need to go. Um, we're also gonna have to coordinate with other agencies like Chariots Bus Stops and make sure they're interacting um with our project how they want to. Um, and then future outreach efforts. So, we had an open house for this project about a month ago um for all the the neighbors and businesses in the area. Um, we're going to go to future neighborhood association meetings. We have a project website. There's a QR code here for it. It's also on the fact sheet that was passed around. We'll provide updates on there as they come through with the project. Um, we'll send out our normal not normal project notification mailers and then we have construction anticipated for 2028 and 2029 for your time.

Thank you. Um, I'll turn it over to the my fellow commissioners if they have questions or comments. Well, while Ben gets his questions ready,

I'll just say that uh uh I don't know how old my children were when this project started, but they were younger than they are today. And uh I do remember a time going to one of these State Street open houses and I think I chatted with both of you and how this is going. So, it's very excited to see it coming along. Um you know, a number of these features are kind of in the the urban designer fantasy list. Um, so seeing kind of all these checked off in Salem is kind of exciting. Uh, what is what do you think is the process for evaluating how successful this will be? I mean, this is an expensive project. I know it went through kind of a lot of debate. These are designs that we haven't always embraced in Salem and we're starting to embrace them now. I'm seeing them in other parts, but uh, so in some way this corridor, although it's very small and very expensive, has the potential to be a model for some of our other large corridors. I mean, if you look at our street system, we have a lot of potentially long corridors. So, what's you know, how how is this part of how are we going to use this as like the first step in moving forward as opposed to just one project that we wrap up with a bow? I know I ask a good question when they debate who has to answer.

Yes. Well, we will look at the, you know, we have information on the traffic counts and traffic volumes in advance. We will look at those again after this um, you know, comes forth is implemented. Uh, I did want to point out that the section to the uh, east, so from 17th to 25th. Uh right now the adopted transportation plan cross-section calls for it to remain in its current four-lane configuration, but the plan specifically says that the goal is to try to you know be able to reconfigure that down. And so we will use the results of the you know what happens here to inform that. In the meantime, of course, we are also updating our transportation system plan and we are going to be looking at what are sort of the triggers for when we can consider uh doing a lane reduction um you know throughout the city at on different corridors. So that timing of that you know in terms of a before after may not exactly fit but we will we are definitely looking towards that moving forward.

That totally answered your question.

I'll take it. Yeah. So, actually, um, you know, I I attended the open house because I live a few blocks away from the, you know, where the open house was. Um, so I don't really have too many comments in addition to the ones that, you know, I I gave you. Um, I guess the I guess I can kind of summarize. Um, so I guess at the intersections, um, right now the bike lane goes up and mixes with the sidewalk. I know the goal for the area is to be this lots of pedestrians, lots of people riding bikes, lots of transit users, and when you get to the intersection, it can get a little confusing if the bikes aren't separate from the pedestrians, if that kind of makes sense. Um, I've seen other cities, uh, Boise, Spokane, Edwards got some of this stuff, um, where they, you know, bring the bike lane all the way up through the intersection and just clearly define which spaces. Sometimes that's with like a tactile warning strip. Sometimes that's with a curb or whatever works for the the areas fine. But, you know, I've heard from um like blind pedestrians or whatever. Maybe they're getting off the bus and they don't know that they're getting off a bus into an area that they're sharing the space with a bike. So, I think um you know, Prime's done a lot of really good interesting stuff with their uh floating bus stops, floating in water. Uh they're separated from the bike lanes, like replacing the parking area with the bus stop. um and just kind of making it clear for people with limited um uh visual ability uh to get around. Um and then uh I guess one other thing um that should be kept in mind is if somebody is uh riding their

bike and they want to turn left at one of the two signalized intersections on the project. Um normally the if you're riding a bike on State Street, you just behave like a vehicle. Um, now we're introducing protected bike facilities, which is great. Um, but that changes how uh people on bikes behave. Um, so now instead of leaving this protected bike facility, they are going to want to stay on the right side of the street. And so they'll want to use a left turn box um instead of a, you know, going across the vehicle lanes. Um, so I guess I would just say left turn boxes at 14th and 17th. Um, for people riding on state, um, not be space. I noticed you got a green box here on the south side of 14th. Um, you don't have space for a bike line on the north end, but you know, box in front of the vehicle lane or something so people can turn left. Um, I know the Ashtto bike guide has a lot of really cool resources in there and pictures and stuff, but I mean overall it's a it's a really cool project and um I kind of wish it wouldn't take so long to do a do a project. Um, but that's just how it is. Yeah. Thank you. that stuff for section

left turn. Take a left turn.

Okay. Yeah, perfect. Um, I I would just direct you guys to look at I think Corvalis just recently completed a I guess ODOT completed a section of protected facility on Harrison that looks very similar to have here and they do have intersections where things are veryly constrained and I believe they did install a left turn box and um they actually have mountable curbs instead of parking um to surface protection other elements might be worth checking out. So too, can I add two more quick things? One in terms of the evaluation graphic analysis that predicts what we have. And then I also wanted to take the opportunity who is um in the audience today uh Cara Hall. Um she's been with us about two and a half weeks and so have working with her to help inform the development of the transportation. So, I I just have to jump in and take partial credit for this because I was on the committee that rated our new uh the candidates and they were all very good. They were like within a point of each other. Um but I will just say that I'm very pleased with the outcome. Thanks.

Thank you. Yes. Go ahead.

Hey. Um yeah, I'm very excited for this project. Thank you for all your work on it. um part of my commute should I choose to go that way. So um is there so you mentioned 28 to 29 construction is are you expecting a full two years or pro or don't know yet would it be in phases? Yeah, I go uh I work out at a gym that's right on the uh Miguel project right now and it's like okay, how long? [laughter] It feels like a long time when you go there daily.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, everybody wants that.

Um, and then my other question was just I I heard you mention street lights and um is that within the scope of this project or are you going to try to maintain whatever street lights are there already? Um, so I'm a big dark skies advocate and um there's a burgeoning group in town trying to work on that um environmental and livability issue and so I would just um look forward to more details about the lighting in the future and how we can maybe ensure that the lighting is directed downward as much as possible. Thank you. Commissioner,

uh, thank you so much. This is, um, going to be amazing to drive down State Street one day and see all this. Um, a question. You mentioned the acquisition to the neighborhood area and business. What's the impact on the local businesses um, with that?

Yeah. It Thank Okay.

Okay. Um I have just a question for you um related to future development of the adjacent properties. Um and if you well with the full street improvement like this, which is very exciting, and I'm delighted to see that it's happening and that we're supporting our multimodal transit community. um some of the properties if they were to develop in the future, will any of the SDC charges that would normally be assessed for street upgrades be going into a bank for other areas in the city that maybe are not targeted currently or has do you have any consideration on what that future looks like might be better at this? But um I will just quickly say that Yeah, I could add when the city does corridor projects like this, we don't credit SDC's. However, we do have an exception to say if you redevelop your property and the city has a planned CIP project, you don't have to construct those improvements. So, they are benefiting some in terms of they don't have to do a boundary street improvement when they redevelop. Um, but everyone pays the same SDC's um regardless of whether or not there's a city project.

Thank you, Mr. Frybeck.

I had one more question brewing. Um, so I know the McPro has had a lot of impacts on the adjacent businesses. um like you know people are visiting them less often and and stuff just because of lane closures and stuff. Has the city uh you know come out of that project with any lessons learned or might change how they phase future projects or you know do lane closures or sidewalk closures or stuff like that that could impact something like this? Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Thank you all. It's exciting. Okay. Moving on. Uh, our next special order of business is a continuation of a discussion at our last meeting for planning commission membership requirements.

Sorry, I'm using my phone. Megan has my laptop. Um, okay. So, at the last meeting, we talked about if we wanted to recommend to council that we update any of the membership requirements and we continued the item for commissioners to send in any thoughts they had. Um, so there's a little staff report here. So, Commissioner Tev and Commissioner Fryback sent their comments and that's all we heard from. So, um, I guess they can speak to to what they sent, but Commissioner Tev um said at least one environmental professional with a background environmental science or engineering, natural resources, land management, ecology or related fields. And then Commissioner Fryback suggested at least one transportation planning or engineering professional.

And can we add to that as well tonight? Absolutely. Yes. So just um if you wanted to send it ahead of time, you could have, but you didn't have to. I apologize. I forgot. [laughter]

Um yeah, so it's open for discussion tonight. Again, um the council's asking if we want to make any recommendations on membership requirements. Um and I think we explained the background last time was to potentially reduce requirements. We don't really have a lot on the planning commission except for some prohibitions on um you know employment but as far as any regulations that we have at least one commissioner that's x y or z we don't have that. So that's open for the commission if you want to make a formal recommendation to the council. I would maybe add to our current list um for having an architect or an architectural design professional um to that list. And maybe just to clarify from our discussion last time um that these are not necessarily requirements in the sense that they would hold up any any um appointments of people so that we have a good cross-section of Salem um throughout the wards and and our demographics, but that they are for consideration and that we make sure that we're trying to ensure that diversification of professional um qualification as well as diversity across the city. So that would be my recommendation and if anyone else wants to either speak to their submissions or add additional ones.

Um yeah, I guess Go ahead. Sorry.

No, go ahead. Um, so yeah, I guess I would second Commissioner Fox's uh comments on, you know, strictly just a a item for consideration, not so much of a requirement. Um, but the most common neighborhood complaint I believe on land use cases other than that of the building itself is the traffic and transportation impacts of that development. And so I just think it's important for somebody to have some sort of professional background in that field um to be able to um understand those complaints and and possibly uh propose any sort of possible mitigation um that could address them. Mr. Lid,

I saw the recommendations and suggestions and um absolutely agree that uh a greater diversity in business and professional people uh will just be of benefit to the organization overall. Thank you. Any other comments?

I like like to say I also agree with um Nate uh Commissioner Levin. um diversity. It's it's very important and shows shows the city that we are trying to include everybody that you know different professional backgrounds and different areas and um being fair and import.

Okay. Uh I don't think we need any Do we need a motion on this? Yeah, we would need a motion if you want an official recommendation to the council. Okay. So, with our one amendment to the recommendation and

yeah, I don't think there was a recommendation. So, I think it would just be like a motion to recommend the council add these considerations, the two in the staff report plus maybe an architect. Um, and I don't know based on Commissioner Leven's comments if uh the commission wants to add that somebody with a building background. So, right now we have a prohibition of no more than two people that are primarily engaged in development or building, but this is a minimum list. We're trying, you know, like a more I don't know if if that was a concern. Just throwing that out there. Or if we just think we're always going to have folks that have a development background and that's not our concern, then that's fine. I I would expect that we will typically have at least one with a development background. That seems to be the norm. Um, did you have a comment?

Okay, please go ahead. I'd like to make a motion that um we adopt the recommendations uh for uh the selection of uh professional knowledge expertise and that we also uh make a point to focus on uh having a um act as a member of the commission.

Second that. I'll open it up for additional discussion if anyone has they'd like to add or speak to on that. I did, sorry. I did um send in the email and I don't know if the commission saw it, but you had talked about geographic diversity. So, I did send the numbers about where the commissioners live and which wards. I'm not saying you needed to do anything. The code already says the council should consider geographic diversity, but I just if want to make sure everybody saw that or did anybody need me to share it or

is that being included as a friendly amendment? No, I it's already in the code that's something the council should consider, but at the last meeting I was asked and we said we would provide it. So, I just wanted to make sure everyone had saw that. See, you didn't get that email. Oh, you got that email. Okay, great. Okay. So, I I think that with the motion u provided and the um information just added that I think we're happy with that. Will you please call the vote? Commissioner Brebeck. Hi. Commissioner Heler. Hi. Commissioner Rhodess. Hi. Commissioner Slater. I. Commissioner Tev. I. Commissioner Infonte. I. Commissioner Bot.

I. Commissioner Leven. Motion passes. Thank you. Back to our agenda here. Okay. Uh, next item under special orders of business is to review the draft letter to city council uh, regarding interviews for potential commissioners. Can I speak to that?

Um, sure. There was a motion at the last meeting to prepare a letter for consideration. So, we have done that. And if there's the letter hits the mark or not based on what the commission um, wants to do or I guess you haven't technically voted to send it. So this would be your opportunity to say yes, we do want this recommendation to go to council and that this letter is conveys what we intend to send to them. Uh well, I've read the letter and um agree with its general content. U I think I did have one um just revision on a uh tax. I think it was really minor.

No, that's fine. Um happy to hear it. Let me just find it. I normally send these kinds of things to Ununice Kim before I send them out with her um reporter background and I didn't have time. I did at the very last minute. Uh it just is last sentence of the second paragraph read this process would enhance transparency and remove not only because we don't have a second part to that sentence. Sounds good. Other than that, I think that that was good.

I had another minor edit. I mean, I had lots of I should have been a journalist, I think. But, um, uh, there's another typo, same paragraph, mid, let's see, one, two, three, five, six, seventh line. Diversity in perspectives. I would say that's diversity of perspectives. Okay. Go nitpicky if you want. I don't know. I think it's it's also fine. Do you want to share your copy here uh with your edits with Lisa? Yeah, but then we'd have to everyone would have to see it and vote. Do we have to vote on the exact language or can it be a vote on the

um general intent of the letter? The last time we did this, you guys voted on the actual letter. Okay. Okay. Let me just do one more. Yep. Uh so first paragraph, last sentence. Um uh not reappointments, B just inserting the word consistently interviewed by city council. Okay. To emphasize that it hasn't been consistent, although that comes up later. That's fine. We'll leave it there.

Okay. Any other modifications? Commissioner Frybeck. Oh, okay. You can just say as with edits as proposed and I'll go back and listen to them and make those. Uh, yeah. So, I move to um send this letter to the uh city council with the proposed amendments by Commissioner F and we have a second. Second. Call the RO or any other discussion on that? Oh, okay. Seeing none. Commissioner Frybeck. Hi. Commissioner Heler. Commissioner Rhodess. Hi. Commissioner Slater. I. Commissioner Tev. I. Commissioner Infante. I.

Commissioner Bont. I. Commissioner Lean. Hi. Motion passes. Thank you all. Okay. Back to our agenda. All right, our last special order of business is the transportation subcommittee report. Commissioners Frybeck and Tev.

Yeah, I can speak mostly to this one. Um, so a little bit of background. So I think it was in January uh transportation subcommittee was established um to basically just look at transportation issues and other um transportation related items uh that um you know are encountered or um like future TSP being one of them. And uh we met seven times and uh with the intent of just um kind of having just an ongoing discussion of various transportation issues such as traffic calming um I believe we talked about the uh regional scenario plan and just comments for staff um among other things. Uh the notes and um agendas in here are all attached. the grid markings are um my notes and recollections of the uh meeting I believe um as under our what the subcommittee meetings are. Um they're considered public um meetings and so we just need to have an agenda and some minutes on the record um to support that. Uh the intent of the meetings were never to advise the planning commission on any sort of um rule making or uh changes to the SRC. Um the intent was meagerly to you know advise uh members of staff or um I believe I had put together a draft presentation that I prepared um prior to the creation of the subcommittee to present to the subcommittee and you know I'm happy to finish that up and uh share it with the rest of you all. Um I dropped off my radar since then uh but we haven't met since last September. Um,

if anybody has any questions, um, there's a really good picture of me in this presentation. Uh, it's probably the first photo of me driving a car at Legoland. Um, I put that in there because not many pictures of me driving, but uh, yeah. Um, that's just kind of the gist of it. Uh if Commissioner Teds has any uh comments or suggestions um to change to these minutes that I drafted up um she's free to do that. Uh originally it was myself I guess Commissioner Slater you were on there too but um I don't recall many meetings

really. Yeah. So uh yeah um sure t if you have any recommended changes or I think we just have to adopt this correct I don't think you need to adopt it just need to present it okay and then I think we we'll just pick a date for when you want to give your presentation and then to clarify after that is it the intention that the transportation subcommittee will be disbanded

yes yeah so um due to the coming transport transportation system plan updates. And uh we don't want to task staff with the, you know, need to show up to a meeting where we just talk about, you know, traffic calming just off the cuff for an hour. Um we'll disband um because that's just seems like a lot of staff load to for something like that. Um and uh yeah, they didn't really have a product to present. Um, but yeah, I can certainly present that presentation that I put together and put some finishing touches on that and yeah, okay. Thank you. Uh, okay. Anything else on that before we move on?

Just wanted to say good job putting that all together. Um, Commissioner Fick, thank you. A lot of work. Okay. planning administrators report. Lisa,

um yeah, we don't have any items coming up for the next meeting, which is uh February 10th. So, unless commissioners have an item they want to add, we would maybe that was a no. It was an X. We would look to maybe cancel that meeting. We do have, if you saw on the fly sheet, February 24th, we are going to have the fire chief here and Miss Kim again, um, and maybe someone from building and safety division to talk about the single stair buildings, um, as requested. And then, um, Juliana Juliana Douglas, our climate action plan manager, is going to come on March 10th to talk about the climate action plan and municipal energy master plan update as Commissioner Slater requested. all the items I have.

I have a question for the planning administrator. So, in our last meeting, I heard uh something like the planning department is fully staffed. Can you explain what that means? Um yeah, we had a new planner start yesterday and then in current planning and we had um one start two weeks before. Yes. So, we'd had two vacant planner positions in current planning. Um, and then we had our admin positions vacant. And you've met Megan. And this is Michelle Ambrosak behind us who is our other admin um person who will be staffing the historical works commission and hearing officer. Congratulations. Thank you.

Can you walk us through like what's the We have a planning administrator. That's you. We have a deputy administrator, right? No. Yeah. So, we have Olivia as the current planning manager. Planning manager. Okay.

Okay. the planner ones, planner twos, and our um zoning inspector and sign inspector. We have Ununice Kim who's the long-range planning manager, and she manages the one long-range planner besides herself. Um and then we have Kimberly Fitzgerald who's the historic preservation officer and archaeologist, and she manages the one historic planner, and then I manage the rest of the staff. We have nine planners or something. Yeah. 10 planners. Bryce is part-time historic or long range and part-time current. Um, all the rest of the planners besides, you know, Ununice and her staff person all do current planning.

So, we have two and a half long range planners. We have Ununice and we have another long-range planner that works for her. Yeah. And then we have a halftime. Bryce does some limited code amendments. Yes. Okay. So, that's And then we have two on the historical program. Yep. Kimberly's a historic preservation officer. She's a city archaeologist. And then we have Jake Morris who is a senior planner uh historic planner. So he processes the land use applications. And then we have 10 that are on active current cases. Nine.

Eight or nine that do current planning. So the majority I know people think of planning as you know me or Ununice um because that's who they see. But the majority of what we do in the planning division is process land use applications, building permits, that kind of stuff. It's all development related. So that's the majority of our staff. We have two admin. We have a zoning inspector, a sign inspector, and the zoning inspector. Oh, a zoning inspector and a sign inspector. And a sign inspector who also did some tree work. Is that right? Zoning inspector does tree work. Y okay. So we have two inspectors.

They're code compliance officers, inspector. So if there's a code violation related to development that's in the zoning code, they handle that as well. So, they go out to the site and someone has cut the tree that was supposed to be preserved on the plan, then they do the code enforcement for that as well. We have about 18 full-time on the planning department. Is that about right? We do. We have a GIS um analyst who's assigned to us, but is technically an IT. That's great. One of ours, but he's retiring next month after 30 years. So, Oh, very good. Always something, isn't it? Always something. Yes. So, that's very helpful. Thank you. I'm glad that we're at good capacity. It's great.

Yeah, we're always training though. Olivia's full-time job is um training folks. Um unfortunately, and uh although we're fully staffed, we have a lot of junior staff. So, we don't have we're not like all senior planners, tons of experience, know what we're doing. We're like, it's your first job out of college planners. Let me teach you all the things kind of, you know. So, I'm very familiar with that situation. I'm sure you are because there's Yeah. Yeah. Uh thank God for trainers. Yeah. So sometimes you for example Jamie Donaldson was one of our planners that just left. She was a senior planner. She been here for like five years. She had a really high case load and we replace it with a planner one first job out of college. Yeah. So one person does not equal one person right when you do that. So

right I wish that person luck. Can you uh can you just say some word about our current um dark sky standards, which I think we do have some. I know that Commissioner T was interested in that. We don't have dark sky standards. We have a lighting standard. Okay. Is it lighting one? I think I see Olivia going to pull it up. Maybe I have come across something so I know something exists. We do have some standards about not shining onto neighbors properties. Downward shield lights. Downward shielding lighting. Okay. So that's that's the extent of it. Yeah. You know, public works has their own design standards for street lights and what materials they use, but for private property, we don't have

Okay. Okay. Thank you. That was it for me. Any other questions for Lisa? Did just want to clarify. You said that uh on the February 10th, we're not going to be meeting. We can cancel the meeting unless the commission objects. Normally, we'd ask the chair. And since that's been you tonight, commissioner thought, I have no objection.

So, we will cancel that that meeting and we'll not have a meeting. Um, before I move on, I did uh remember since many of you said that you do want a printed packet, can we just get a show of hands, who would want a printed packet and then we'll make sure next time we have a meeting to do that. So, we have Commissioner Slater, Commissioner Heler, Commissioner Fryback, anybody else expecting to get a printed packet with the exception I actually don't need it mailed. Uh, I would much rather be able to pick it up here. Okay. So, I read the materials online. I just don't want to print them all out so I can manipulate them here.

Okay. So, you don't want it mailed. You want it here. Commissioner Fryback's saying the same thing. Okay. Commissioner Heler, you want it mailed to your house to look at it in advance. Okay. Um, and do any of the commissioners or do all the commissioners want to always have a paper copy of the agenda in front of you? Because we used to do that and then everyone was like, "Stop giving me this piece of paper." Um, but now everyone wants a printed copy of the agenda. Okay, we can do that. Just the agenda for everyone else. Okay, great. And we'll have to touch base with uh President Vendel since he's not here. Yes. Yeah. Okay, great. I think that's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Uh, commissioner comments for the good of the order. Right. Seeing none,

the wetland subcommittee is meeting right after this. It'll be a different um YouTube stream. If anybody out there is watching, uh maybe 10-minute break and then we'll get that started if that sounds okay. Thank you. Uh do we have any public comment? Nope. Okay. All right. With that, meeting adjourned.