Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, it is uh 6:06 on February 24th and I would call planning commission to order and then can please uh have the roll call. Commissioner Rhodess here. Commissioner F here. Commissioner Tev here. Commissioner Vieier Brendell here. Commissioner Lavine here. Commissioner Frybeck here. Believe we have quorum.

Okay. Uh agenda item number three. Do we have any public? Okay. Um, nope. No public comment. Uh, consent calendar. Uh, I do believe the approver of the minutes is, uh, on an excused absence today. So, I don't know if somebody wants to volunteer to make a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting, the one that was in the meeting. So, move. Okay. Do we have a second? Second.

Okay. We have a motion um from Commissioner Levin and a second from Commissioner Frybeck. Uh any uh comment on approval of the minutes for the January 27th meeting? Okay, seeing none, I would move to vote for approval of the minutes. Commissioner Rhodess I. Commissioner F. I. Commissioner Tev I. Commissioner VR Bundell obtain. Commissioner Lean. Commissioner Vbeck.

I motion passes. Minutes are approved. Um I don't believe there are any resolutions or action items. Uh we have no public hearing. Any special orders of business? No. Okay. Uh information reports which is I think kind of the main thing for this evening. Um I don't know who wants to start the presentation but I'll kick it off. Okay.

Good evening. Uh my name is Ununice Kim. I'm the long-range planning manager for the city of Salem and I'm here tonight just to give a a little bit of context and background before passing it over to our fire marshal um to give more discussion on this. Um so I want to give a little background about our housing need and kind of the work we've been doing and um where this discussion on the single stair building kind of came from. Um we've been working on housing at the city of Salem for well over a decade. We've been identifying our housing needs, kind of our deficiencies, trying to meet those deficiencies, whether it's land or other resources. Um, but we know we continue to need more housing, more affordable housing, different types of housing, housing in different locations, um, middle housing, single family housing, multif family housing, you name it, right? We have a lot of needs related to housing, and we're continuing to chip away at that when we look at different financial incentives, regulatory changes, um, how we buy and sell land, things like that. Um the single stair is something that we've been looking at um since last year as another option. Um we did complete our first housing production strategy last year. It was adopted by the city in May and approved by the state in October and that really lays out a lot of the different actions related to housing that we intend to take as a city over the next six years. And so kind of as this housing production strategy was being developed, the state has been working on this single stair building issue. Um it stems back to 2023 when the legislature um passed a bill, House Bill 3395 that required building codes to essentially consider allowing single stair buildings. Um the state did in fact pass um a change to building codes appendix Q as it's known last year became effective in October of 2025. Um that actually allows cities to opt in to allowing single stair um buildings. It does not require cities to that adoption has to be through a local ordinance. So it would go to city council, but also the fire service or the fire department

would have to give approval. So again, we um the three of us and the chief have been talking about this and others, Lisa, um since last year. And so we wanted to provide a little bit of context and perspective from the city. And so I was going to pass it off to Sean. Oh, do you want to for the record? I'm Al Rossi, the building official. I'll pass the mic off to Sean

and Sean Mansfield, Salem Fire Marshall. I apologize. The chief had intentions of being here. I not sure what happened with his schedule. I know we had a last second personal related, not related. He happens to show up halfway through or something like that. We'll let him take over because he does a much better job presenting than I do. Apologize. I am a person of very few words. Obviously, we're here. Go ahead. guys are all smart. Do you want me to read the slides off to you guys? Are you okay if I just kind of pause for a little bit and let you guys appreciate that more than me? lot of references to the Seattle Just as a general com since we're approaching this presentation maybe just

your thoughts about it and then okay follow up later with the full you're here and largely we're interested in just knowing what about it and

um I I'll give a brief summary of the slides as we go through actually if we pause real quick. Oh yeah, fine. I apologize. Well, thank you for your patience.

No, thank for everything. Yeah.

Well, good evening. My name is Dave Derboth and I have the honor of serving as the fire chief for the city of Salem. So, I apologize for my tardiness. Had a mering issue and a calendar issue, so I ran here. Give me one second. Um, okay, we got it. Good. Thanks. Well, um, I do appreciate the discussion and, um, having us here tonight. Uh, I am certainly keenly aware of why we're even having this discussion of affordability and the need for housing stock in our community. And so, I live downtown. I understand that. I understand uh, what we need here. And so, um, I also took an oath for public safety and to make sure they're mitigating risk. And so, um, I'm certainly open to having the conversation and, uh, but would like to show you my perspective, uh, and where I'm coming from on this. So, um, this is just started my 34th year in the fire service and have certainly dealt with um, many different structures and, uh, many different fires. And so this issue is certainly not only happening in Salem. It's happened around the country. And uh before I got here, I worked for another fire department for the majority of my career in which we had this discussion. So um I'm familiar and um have had some of the discussion. So one of the things it starts with is um advocacy for the single stairwell. And so um a couple of the comments that I've gotten generally for advocacy uh starts with the uh the European model that this has been uh very successful in Europe. Uh we should just model that. The fact is it's very different building construction. I think you all understand that non-combustible materials compartmentalization

and most are built with uh fire escapes which is not in these um um you know are is not going to happen within any of the projects that are being promoted. So I think looking at the European model is giving us a false sense of security on exactly how these work. Uh Seattle is the other area that has been uh used as an example throughout the nation and that uh Seattle has had a successful single stair uh uh program for now a couple decades and there has been no measurable differences in outcomes because of having a single stair apartment. And the fact is that within Seattle, uh, they do not keep data. And so, uh, they don't actually track any of the buildings whether single steer or not. And so, um, when I hear that there's data that, uh, goes one way or the other, the fact is it's it's not really, um, an honest statement because the data doesn't exist. And so, um, even Seattle has expressed concerns with other organizations and jurisdictions advocating for single stair. When this issue went to the state of Washington, the city building department in Seattle, the Seattle fire department spoke against it and they spoke against not having it codified. And the reason being that Seattle is very unique. Um, they have an incredibly well-unded municipal fire department. They have outstanding response times. Uh they have a great complement of aerial ladders and they can take care of fires in a much better way than we can. One of the issues is fire protection systems that is that is part of this and that as a mitigating factor. I will tell you there's nothing better I think than fire protection systems. Um it provides a level of safety uh that is superior to most anything out there. Um, right before I came to Salem, I responded to

this fire. Actually, this is a u high-rise building that was less than a year old. And when we showed up, we had a well-involved um apartment fire, free burning, well-involved apartment fire with a I mean, all the latest uh fire protection systems that exist um within the single stairwell. One of the uh one of the proponent the the uh areas of uh why we're proposing it is affordability and absolutely understand that um that would also land to some of our vulnerable communities. This particular uh incident is a transitional housing high-rise and we had somebody with mental illness that disabled the fire protection system and decided to light the apartment on fire. So although I do absolutely support fire protection systems, it's not a foolproof. One of the things with fire protection system is they need to be inspected and they need to be uh make sure that they're maintained. Within our community risk reduction, we have a amazing group of individuals, understaffed, but great. We're doing about a thousand inspections a year. We're trying to ramp up to about 4,000 this year. We should be doing about 7,500. And so, um, we're underst staffed and we're not doing the inspections that we should be doing. One of the things we're not talking about is new dangers and how these are even overcoming fire protection systems. Can you play that? And I might have to go past one uh little commercial here.

Yep. You're you're referring to fire protection systems. And for those of us not in the biz.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought planting commission every day. So, I'm talking about sprinkler systems. U Yeah. I apologize. I I took it for granted. Can you let me see if I can just Oh, there you go. Um, can you run it back or uh Yeah, do it again. Thanks. Sorry. So, this is something we're seeing in our community is the prevalence and proliferation of lithium-ion batteries. Um this is something that's happened all over the country. Being at the bottom of a single stairwell when that happens um is not going to provide um any exit or safety. Can we move to the next please? That's so this comment I want to go back to at the beginning uh from the Seattle Fire Department about a wellunded municipal career fire department with outstanding response times, a great complement of aerial ladders distributed throughout the city where they can quickly put out uh fires. Uh whether you look at Seattle, Portland, New York, not only are they resourcerich, um they meet NFPA standards with staffing. They have four or five on a company, we have three. Um we do not meet NFPA standards. We are not resource rich. We do not have mutual aid to pull from. In our case, uh since 2011, uh we we had about 16,700 calls.

2025, we ended with over 36,000 calls, a 118% increase during that time. Our onduty staffing has actually decreased 4.6%. We are not in the same position as these large metropolitan areas that have the firefighting resources that can adapt and deal with these issues. We have not kept up with even the growth that we've had so far. We talked about great response times in Seattle. As our call load has increased, our response times without increased staffing has gone down tremendously. And this was uh this was October 3rd, 2025 in West Salem. Singer Stairwell apartment uh engine 5 in West Salem was first to arrive and we had multiple people jumping out of the second story window. So this is not just potential. This is something that's actually happening in our community. I will close with this. Um I am absolutely willing to uh work together. I'm I'm definitely a collaborator. I want to collaborate. Maybe there are some there's some things that we can work on. Certainly, I know that um um that in the code we can't make modifications within construction, but maybe there's something else. Um but as a public safety professional and as a risk manager, it's hard for me to take on more risk to a city and an organization that is already operationally saturated and uh not keeping up with the demand currently. So, those are my concerns. I'm happy to have a discussion. I think I've caught my breath now from running over here. I apologize for that again. Um but um certainly would would like to entertain any comments or questions you have.

First question, would you like a glass of water? No, I'm good now. Thanks. I got it. Um, so I I I had the staff attach a study uh from the state of Minnesota that got commissioned on single stair and they they ran through a a few different scenarios and they did some fire modeling and stuff. Have you seen this? I did before. Yep. I've read that. I've read the study with the u multif family dwelling uh past 2000. It's kind of an interesting study. They compared single family dwellings with multif family dwellings older than 2000. Mhm.

It's not an apples apples comparison. It's not even single family dwellings past 2000. It's legacy single family dwellings to multif family dwellings past 2000. I'd like to see a comparison of of single family dwellings before 2000 and single family dwellings after 2000. I think that would be an accurate comparison. I think you'd probably see the same benefits um that exists. So they they they do show that on um let's see here page 23 of the packet on table four. I guess that's age of residence. Let's see here if there's a different here's this one's better. Um so this is page 16. Uh this chart um shows the fire risk for various ages of page numbers at the uh bottom right there.

on the page 16 of the the page numbers on the bottom So, if I'm reading this correctly, this is the percentage of fire deaths per um construction type and economic group. Is that correct? Yeah. So the chart on page 16 shows the deaths per million residents um for multif family buildings and blue.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I think I mean there there's both decreases in fire death for newer construction. I think that's consistent with the systems that we've put in place. And I was just curious what your thoughts were on that single stair study that the state of Minnesota put together.

Yeah, I think uh the reason that we put a review of the fire official into the statute is the fact that we're supposed to review um the staffing and capabilities of the local fire department. Yeah, as I've stated, we're already at capacity. um adding this type of construction again at at just uh without modifications or having a discussion would be um incredibly difficult to accept.

Yeah, I I agree with you. I think the fire department should be a part of this. So, um just you know given the I guess on this chart perhaps it's showing a higher death rate for single family as opposed to multif family. You know, to me, the the biggest allure to a single stair structure or these smaller multif family is the attractiveness to like families and other people who wouldn't otherwise be living in multif family buildings. Um, say perhaps if you've got 16 families decide to living in a single stair structure as opposed to living in a, you know, just a single family home. I'm sure there's some sort of safety tradeoff there. you know, if you've got a bunch of single family homes, perhaps the, you know, amount of tax revenue that we collect, is that paying the same amount per capita for fire services and the, you know, the homes are more spread out? Could that, you know, have an impact on response times and other other factors because I see it as, you know, it's not we're not building single stair. I say it's we're building single stair or we're going to see that housing need filled by a different housing type,

another multifamily apartment.

Yeah, a large apartment building. But um like we've got I think it's like 30% of our lots in the city that are zoned for multif family are less than 6,000 square feet um which are actually smaller than what we allow right now for multif family structures to be built on. And so either that lot's going to see a forplex or smaller, which is what we currently allow on single family lots, or the existing single family house, which is likely not from this millennia. that's probably 1950s or older is going to remain in place or the lot's going to go vacant or, you know, some developer is going to come on and buy up three lots, combine them, and they're going to build a large, you know, single or multif family structure with space on the side. And that last option I don't see happening a whole lot because it's expensive to buy multiple lots and I don't think developers are really going to buy into the idea to demolish three homes just to build one structure in the middle. So

yeah. Yeah. Well, one one of the differences between a single family dwelling and a multif family dwelling is that we have no inspection authority over single family dwellings. So, um, although we're doing a thousand inspections a year, there is requirements, right? And so, um, we do send out, uh, self inspections. There there, uh, people are doing some of those. They know that there are requirements. We're not keeping up with it, but we're getting out there. Um, we're hitting different buildings every year, but there are inspection requirements and their fire code requirements for multif family and commercial dwellings that do not exist with single families. And so if we were doing fire inspections and had those requirements in single families, I'm sure that there would be a difference in that as well. So, I know we're not allowed to change building requirements for appendix Q, but would there be a possibility to I know like the city has a city services fee um that uh I think it's on like the water bill or something and it's different for multif family and single family and I think they're looking at changing that fee structure right now. Could the city assess a special fee for single stair to make up for that difference somehow?

If you're asking me legally if they can do that, I guess I would ask the legal council if they could do that. There are operations fees. There's other things to be raised. I can tell you there's great resistance right now. And if any of you I think we all live in Oregon is uh pretty tax averse. Um I'm not seeing that that's probably going to be um moving forward anytime soon. um you know if it did and as a result of that uh we increased our staffing levels uh to national standards I'd absolutely be willing to have a deeper conversation.

Okay. And then I just questions. So I attached a screenshot of a development that got approved on State Street. I suppose is very fun. I think it's that project on uh it's across the street from my favorite convenience store. Um but yeah, state and 14th. Um so on each side of this structure you have, you know, it's a I can't see how many bar, but there there's a significant amount of units on each floor. I think like 50 or Yeah, I think 50. Um, but there's four units that are each on a dead end corridor. Um, which is the same amount that we would, you know, maximum amount that would be required um or allowed on a single story of a single stair structure. What extra safety benefit would you say that the you know second stairwell would provide to those four units that are on this one side of the building?

I haven't I'm not familiar with that particular structure I'm sure was was it built recently? Just got permits approved. So the per oh just got permits approved. I'm not familiar with it. I think you have to look at other than just fire we're also looking at um we're in a seismically active area. um we have physical threats and if we only have one escape route, I think there's concerns there as well. Okay. But just, you know, from a fire safety perspective, this structure has significantly more units and like if you say I don't know if you could zoom in what's on I'm not sure what's on either side as well.

Uh sorry, it's on A1.11. Is there open access on each end? No. So you can Yeah. So there I don't know what open access means. I mean, can I could we put a fire truck in there? Oh, on the sides. Uh yeah, there's a there's an alley behind the building. Okay. Yeah.

Um but that one each corridor dead ends into four units and then just in front of those four units is a stairwell. I'm looking at this and I imagine that you could just, you know, cut that building right there and then you'd have that single stair structure that would meet standard. But in order say so you get rid of every other unit in the structure aside from those four and then you add a 265 ft hallway to the second staircase.

That would meet an FPA standard. Correct. Like if you got rid of every other unit other than those four at the end. Okay. Of course, maximum capital businesses off the one a second. and fire. It's their responder. They have to keep and I think of Sophie. Um, I sat in on code.

We had an as I sit on the national codes as well. I think that or even single exit get codified at that point. That gives us the opportunity to modify the requirements of the code. Chapter one, having to have uh provide access maybe on two access points of the building, fire access from the top of a stair. There's a lot of things that we could do that would improve our capacity to be able to act. Right now I think about a stair or fire. If the fire is in the stair, we're done. If you've got a silent event disable exit, how do we get people out currently with buildings? Wow. The So, so there's a lot of pieces in there. I think I think to the chief's point I think modifications as viable option I think uh

department's point we try really hard to look at all kinds of ways to be able to figure ways to make a lot of different building designs and products work back housing quite there with this. Okay. I think I think it's down the road, but I think that out building fire going up into the building. So, I I think I think we're close, but I just don't think that there's Okay. Yeah. I think one-sided access on firefighter opening is is incredibly difficult as well.

Yeah. Um clarify that the co buildings had land use approval and it's in for building permits, but it's in pre-screen. So, I don't think the fire department has seen the building permits yet. Probably why Sean or his staff wouldn't be able to speak to it yet. So, it's still in pre-screen. probably be coming your way soon.

Uh this is a open question for either Mr. Roth Rothy or uh Chief. I know that uh residential fire sprinklers are considered incredibly beneficial as far as concept and their effect. Um, I've gone through and uh retrofitted um several locations with residential um um level uh installations and and compared to the cost of uh a commercial or an industrial fit up, they were cheap. I mean, really reasonable. Anyway, so the the question that I have is uh what level are residential fire sprinkler installations required in multif family? Is it at three units or four units or six units for for new construction? Correct. So I'll address that. Out of the one and two family code, there are options for sprinkler systems home construction and fire separation walls walls when we two hour rated when they're not sprinkled. If we fire sprinkle them with residential sprinkler system we call it in the the language in the our our industry is 13 system and in that it's affordable to your point because it can doesn't need a dedicated water supply

and it also doesn't cover a lot of concealed space and cement

you don't need necessary so it lowers construction cost in the sense power separation wall between units on average, according to one builder I spoke with, $10,000 per unit. So, it's a substantial savings to be able to construct a 1 hour wall versus a 2h hour and sprinklers do it. When you get into the multif family of structure being apartments are two multif family have one hour separations and so they're just designed as rather than a fire wall or fire barrier they're fire partition and so we'll do floor ceiling assemblies the is one hour and then we do have a dedicated water supply to those buildings with a riser for the fire attachment and and some other pieces. Those are still one hour separation and it and systems and everything system. Now if we increase to a full NFPA13 system like you see in aggregate and concealed spaces other places that fire wherever could happen, right? Other additional components to the system, fire separation stuff down to 30 minutes all effects is really just your drywall and standard step. A lot of money there, but again, sprinklers are expensive. So, it's a little bit different construction design. constructed out of the residential one and two family code which can include homes when you figure

we're um or you know the commercial side where we're getting into back out like like we have in some okay

uh moving moving forward into the concept of uh single stair access and looking at uh potential adjustments ments that are going to be necessary in that conversation. Um access stairs that are going to be uh four, five, 6 ft and and not 36 in. Um and um and what different levels of uh fire sprinkler systems appropriate to the you know if if those kinds of adjustments can be um processed into the conversation. Um, do you see the possibility of a future of a single stair um, small complex being being viable or allowed?

I'll let the chief speak to that. I see u I see I see where this going is being codified to the point of no longer being um optional and uh however it'll give us the ability to make uh local adjustments uh such as you're speaking of that I'm sure we can collaborate and come to um an amutable uh decision on how we can build something in our community and still make it um safe and and the the question has to do with your perspective uh of it a potential of it being viable. You know, if it if it can't be safe, it's not going to work.

The reustain level of safety is too two too. It's it's never going to get there. However, is it viable in the future? I think with the proper uh you know occupations and ongoing units, rooftop access, fire apparatus that can meet that access with the with the support that and and then certainly the more robust u fire sprinkler systems. Uh I think even um electronic devices that we have, you know, whether it's as much of a to those pieces.

Thank you.

I don't have a maybe a question specifically, but I did want to thank you for coming here and um talking us through this. Um I I am a practicing architect and I focus mostly on commercial work and I think you know I think this idea of a single stair building is interesting um and certainly works well in very dense urban environments where they have a lot of urban infill opportunities and they're trying to bring housing. Um, at the same time, you know, we're working with fire and life safety and those are critical to the success of a building and of course the welfare of the people living there. So, I would be um dubious that we would see an influx of these buildings being built simply because the level of construction and the cost of that construction. I don't know how that would actually be less expensive than simply adding the second stair. You know, having a an outdoor stair or something as your second egress is is a very reasonable oper, you know, method for achieving that. Um, and I don't know how many and maybe Ununice could speak to this, how many sites we have in Salem where this would be seen as the best, you know, highest and best option for that location. Um, yeah, I'm just curious. You know, it's a it's a bit challenging because it's a there's a lot of design factors that would have to be taken into consideration. Um, I know certainly for me to be comfortable with this and I would hope that we can ensure that it's not, not to be cynical, but used as a tactic to just get more people onto project sites for less money. Um, yeah. So, you know, I I just appreciate you um

illuminating the the the many challenges with with this this type of construction. And, you know, and Salem is not a very dense city. Um so, I'm just curious how how much of an impact it would make for the risk that we would be taking on. You want to talk about the sites first?

Sure. Yeah. It's a little bit of an open I know it wasn't really a well-framed question, but it's just how I was thinking about when you were talking through it. You know, redundancy and safety systems is really important and that's how we can ensure the safety of the people living there. So, um yeah, can we can we reconcile the the need versus the opportunity and is that a valuebased decision and does it meet the risk factors? Whatever we're seeing are trying to promote more infill development along our corridors closer in seeing infill are next. Um, so this could be an opportunity for smaller.

Well, we're getting like middle housing and so I think on the middle housing lots like they would be big enough for this. Um, just when middle housing first became a thing, we started seeing builders that like of course had never done it before because they weren't allowed to and they're exploring and the plants are getting better and the design of the site's getting better. So it would probably be the same thing that some the smaller builders, you know, say, "Oh, this is something I could do and have to work through some designs and then it might, you know, end up being something they specialize in because they can't do it right now." Who who knows who would fill that vacuum. The people that are doing those large apartment complexes, this is not right going to be for them. That's just not their economic model. So

yeah, I mean for a you know on the number of units then I mean I'd be just interested to know I guess what in some of these larger cities they are very um as you said well resourced cities and that means that the projects going up are also a much higher per square foot cost than I think what we typically seem I would agree.

William refer that as a theoretical um there's something we just want to make sure I think that our fire resistive ability would be process but I just it might be worth kind of a working through that with cities who are adopting this to find out from them what what extra requirements are you including to ensure that our safe you know is just increasing the fire resistant quality of the construction type and you know we're not allowing um you know wood construction for example rising with the recent Stimber changes.

Yeah. But I don't um we wouldn't do a local zoning code amendment for this. So if it was to be it would be a state requirement in the building code and the fire code I think. Yeah. So I think they would be at the forefront of deciding that is and not planners luckily. So yeah but as an infill you know as an infill potential then that becomes a planning question around Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or if there's any site design things that we would want to bolster with the

We already allow threetory walkups and Well, when you look at some of these that are put um where they they back up against other units, there's no access from the rear. They have uh they are infill projects that have uh density on each side and the only access is from the front. Um that provides additional challenges for

I know in uh California, I've done housing projects that ended up having essentially every every essentially fire escape from it, you know, and that that does not seem like something that would become a cost savings. So where's that break point where an additional thought? So I guess like kind of brings a question. And so we've got a lot of multif family zoning in the inner part of town like between here and like 14th Street is either some kind of mixed use or multif family or whichever. And so what is the future for our smaller multif family lots? um because we've got like those lots that are less than 6,000 square feet and you can only really build a quadplex on those. And so it's essentially the same as a single family lot right now. And if you built a three-story walk up on that, say former single family lot, you would have to buy three lots and demolish two of the all three single family homes because the current density limit on that piece of property only allows for a quadplex on a 6,000 foot lot. And so do we like you know what's what's like what is the vision for our inner city multif family? Is it just we're going to do all quadplexes and then it's the same as single family or is it all twostere walkups that are you know six to eight stories tall and you know they're you know most of the apartments are going to

be onebedrooms and studios or are we going to you know find some way to you know get two stairs and livable apartments and you know in some format that's feasible for the developers because that's that's I guess that's my goal is that we have inner city mix or multif family zones that are walkable and that people can live in with their families and people can you know have a future in the more urban part of Salem when they're you know living their lives but I don't you know want to cause any undue harm to anybody that's you know living in those units um so I guess It's just tough because I I don't want all those places in Salem that are currently zoned for, you know, multif family to just stay that way forever. And I feel like, you know, eventually something's going to change. Some something's going to get built on all those lots. And I just want to make sure that whatever does happen is in the best interest of of the community. So,

I was going to say, well, a lot of those neighborhoods, so were reszone from single family to multif family in like the 60s and the 70s because the thought was like everybody's moving out to the outer, you know, rings. That's where all the, you know, people with money and single family is going to be in these areas are going to be redeveloped and they're all going to be, you know, high-rise apartments. And of course, we haven't, we didn't see that. Um, during our Salem, we looked at some of those neighborhoods. We looked at downzoning them to single family because they're mostly single family. That's how that's how they're built. Um the owners generally didn't want that. There there are small scale apartments, you know, mixed into those neighborhoods. And middle housing was happening at the same time. So you could basically do the same thing in both zones. So we didn't go do a whole wholesale like reszoning of those neighborhoods from multif family to single family. I think the only harm of keeping them multif family is someone could buy multiple lots, tear down the houses and do some large, you know, apartment complex, which could be good or bad, but like it, you know, would change kind of the fabric of the neighborhood. Um, but otherwise they allow, you know, small scale and fill in in a walkable neighborhood. So, we were trying to, I guess, thread the needle with that. What were you going to say, Unice? Yeah. Yeah, because I mean ultimately like where we are right now I guess you know I look at some of those inner part of towns and you know neighborhood associations will tell me well we don't want threetory walkups right next to my single family home because you know the spacing requirements are huge and they don't my opinion don't they don't look great and I you know I agree with them I don't think they personally fit within you know an existing older neighborhood

and finding a solution where we can add housing to our existing neighborhoods where we have the transit network, where we have the bike lanes and where we've got existing sidewalks and where we've got all these facilities where we don't have to add to our maintenance burden. How do we get meet our really meet our housing targets in those areas that we already have paid for all this infrastructure and doing it all the way out to Cordon Road and we're not going to be able to do that forever and so we're going to have to figure out how to get more housing closer in sometime. So single stair is just one way to do it. So

you know we're looking comprehensively also like what financial are and I think I think we all kind of covered this but just to make sure that I understand because I feel like I'm probably the least knowledgeable person here on this. The appendix Q is kind of a take it or leave it single page document. The additional discussion about the international building code bringing in some sort of general concept of single stair buildings would provide a lot of flexibility so that we can personalize it essentially to have a version for Salem that works for Salem, for our resources, for our um general layout of buildings and sites and everything. So that there would be a flexibility to where you could be comfortable with maybe a single story concept that works for what we have and appendix Q just doesn't really accommodate those changes. Is that an accurate statement mostly?

I think with a broad that covers it. Yeah. Broad broad brush structure. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh I think I think so the difference is adopting appendix Q at product now as part of the national code. Now, so we Also, as it gets developed in those steps, a lot of times the the code will allow exceptions for certain requirements to be able to do that extra piece not do with the pennies.

Okay. Sure. And then I I guess I would also assume and and I don't know this um if this is something that many jurisdictions are talking about um because we all have similar issues with not having enough housing um the feedback from hundreds or thousands of fire departments is going into the sort of general model code that would be developed. So we would be getting input and improvements from other jurisdictions as well via the sort of general version that would come out in 2027 or whatever. And then that would also create a probably a better sort of product of code. Sure.

For the developed ideas, building officials voting members for the code hearings having participated in front to back. It's a long process for the code cycle that's being developed the next uh are public hearings now and your voting building option and we're going to see it happen final irons get you know get the wrinkles close. Um, coarings, if anything else, they're educational about the the person behind the concept, right? They trying to accomplish and obvious people who come in and they're trying to sell the product, be able to have that. We pick up on that pretty fast. And then, and then we have the people who don't like to see change because all code that are being produced. So why change building code now it's not going to line with the fire code. So there's those conflicts but then there's when you sip through all that the lion share is about people sitting down trying to figure out a way to make it work in a better safer way or find something that got missed over the years. stuff. It's just like

21 national and then 25 for Oregon. The clean up and a lot of things were getting more robust energy that's taking a big one too. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Any other? Okay. Well, thank you all for your time in the presentation. Um certainly been illuminating for me um on this topic. So, any other comments? Anything?

Thanks for having us. Look forward to future collaboration. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do for our community. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh subcommittee reports anyone? No. Okay. I think the subcommittee report from the wetlands committee is that we will not be meeting tonight. Um planning administrators report.

Um no, we have our next meeting is March 10th. We have Juliana Douglas, our climate action plan manager, coming to present on the climate action plan and the municipal energy master plan update. That's a mouthful. Um, and then I guess we should maybe briefly talk about when we want to reschedule the wetlands. Do we want to have it that night? Do you want to have it? I think that would be my

want to pull the four four co the whole subcommittee since only two of you are here and then let everybody know. I don't know what you want to do. I think I would Yeah, let's just punt it to the 10th and we can always cancel it again. My vote as well. So just continue the same item on to that date. Yeah. Yes. Um, I think that's the only meeting we have scheduled, right, with agenda items.

Yeah. And have some I think we're going to have some cases coming up. It's been a while, but we are going to have some cases coming up. Um, I guess the only other update is we have been working on permit process improvement. I always say it backwards. um for the last few years and we had a forum on Monday with um folks in the development community to to discuss what we've been working on and then get their ideas and then ideas that we have and then ask them to kind of prioritize, you know, we can only do three of these things. What what are those things? So, we're getting um we're going to send out a survey to to those folks that um were there and that weren't able to come. I think we had about 50 people on the invite. um a lot of the same people that um came when Ununice had a few forms on the housing code amendment that we're working on. Um and we're going to report to the council on all the things we're doing for process improvement um on the April first April meeting council. So I'll send a reminder if you want to um see it the presentation, read the staff report and the discussion um if that's of interest to you all.

Okay. Usually, Commissioner Slater has all kinds of questions for me and I feel like they're always questions that really should be for Unice and she's here. Questions for Ununice. Do you have any updates on projects that I should have mentioned?

You say that into the microphone. We just got a complaint about you guys not using the mic. No, about them. Okay. We will be giving a quick update on all of the housing production strategy actions, where they are, what action has been taken last year when that um process improvement staff report goes to council in April. When is the conversation with developers?

We had it yesterday. So, we had a two-hour forum led by development services, building safety and planning were there. Um so we had lots of different we had architects we had engineers um land use consultants and developers themselves and I think there about 50 people on the invite and I think 25 to 30 came it's a very robust two-hour conversation um and then we're going to send out a survey afterwards of all the um identified actions and then ask people to rank those like what's some of it's very technical you know change this thing in the portal make it easier to do Some of it's um you know hire more staff for don't have one person doing this role have two people and that would be way better for us that kind of stuff um for us to consider on the management team like what do we want to prioritize if we can't get to everything which we probably can't. So um and that'll be part of what we present to council. you know, we want to present everything we've been doing over the last two years and then where we think we're going and what what we've heard is a priority to work on and then I I guess identify if we need more funding or something to make that happen. We want to tell the council that as well as well. So,

yeah, that concludes my report. Thank you. Okay. Um I I don't Does anyone have any comments for the good of the order? Yeah. Um, I applied to and was accepted into the 10,00 um, land use leadership institute. That kicks off this weekend. So, congrats. Yay. Cool.

Um, I don't know if this is a comment for the good of the order, but I do believe I glossed over. We have three excused absences this evening. So everyone uh every commissioner that is not here did message in to note their absence. So we'll note that on the record. Um any public comment other than agenda items? No. Okay.