Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. I will now call this meeting to order. Uh, welcome to the July 28th meeting of the Salem planning commission. Will you please call the roll?

Commissioner Vier Brandel absent commissioner fought here. Commissioner Fryback here. Commissioner Heller here. Commissioner and Fonte here. Commissioner Levin here. Commissioner Rhodes here. Commissioner Tev, absent. Commissioner Slater?

Here.

Comment. Items other than agenda items. On to the event calendar.

I make a motion from our last meeting.

I second.

Here.

Commissioner Fryback?

Aye.

Commissioner Slater? Aye. Commissioner Fott? Aye. Commissioner Rhodes? Aye. Commissioner Heller?

I have to abstain. Commissioner Levin. Oh, sorry.

Commissioner Levin.

Hi.

Question passes. Thank you. Any resolutions? We have none. And action items? We also have none. Do we have any public hearings? Yes. The North Waterfront URA and

for allowing me to come, especially as your only agenda. I always feel bad when that happens. I know everyone's super busy. Sarah Long and I'm a project manager with the Urban Development Department as part of the Community Planning Development Department with the City of Salem. I have to do that really slow or else I miss things quite often. And we, Dana is also here, she's our assistant director, are here this evening to discuss the proposed North Waterfront urban renewal area with Planning Commission. So I'm going to give a little bit of background and also just kind of an overview of sort of the role of Planning Commission because it is very sort of unique in terms of how state statute has that kind of aligned and what we're asking for from this group this evening. um and then we'll go into some of the details of the plan itself um the projects that we're we're looking to propose to be able to do how that sort of aligns with the existing zoning and the comprehensive plan um to kind of just walk through it so that's sort of the layout for tonight's activities and hopefully not keeping you all here too long um knowing some folks had some some late nights already this week um so just as an overview for those who are not familiar with urban renewal urban renewal is basically a program so it's an economic development related program that uses tax increment financing to fund the redevelopment activities. So a lot of times you'll hear tax increment financing or you'll hear urban renewal funds or an urban renewal area. They're really interconnected. So you're looking at urban renewal as the area and the program that you're implementing. Tax increment is sort of the funds that are coming in that are funding that. So I always kind of like to just lay the land of that one, because sometimes even as much as I try to be consistent, I find myself where I'll say urban renewal or TIF. And realistically, we're speaking about the same things. It's just the program and the funding, sort of the dollars. um and so that's sort of just at the the highest level so when a new urban renewal area is created um the first thing we look at as determining a geographic boundary so that geographic boundary is determined and then what happens is the the tax base actually gets frozen so all the increment that is collected from property taxes within that geographic area up to the point of the urban renewal area being created continues to go to all the taxing districts So if in the most recent tax bill that came in, say the city of Salem for that geographic area was receiving $150,000, throughout the life of the urban renewal area, the city would still continue to receive that $150,000. then what happens is each year that there's growth, so property taxes go up, whether it's just the standard 3% or if it's due to other redevelopment, that growth is what goes into the urban renewal area known as the tax increment funds. And those are the funds that go to pay for the various projects that are within the plan. So just to kind of lay sort of the framework as to kind of how the financing piece works and really what is an urban renewal area. In essence, that's what it is because this because the tax is sort of redistributed. So we're taking it from eight different taxing districts. We're moving it into that urban renewal area. Urban renewal is not a new tax. It is not a new tax to any taxpayers. It all just goes into a new fund. At the same token, when an urban renewal area is no longer collecting tax increment, taxes don't go down. The funds now go back to the taxing districts and now they're seeing that growth. So it's really just saying, we're gonna take a portion of taxes that are currently going over here, we're gonna move it to this fund, we're gonna use it to invest in a specific area and to leverage those funds, grow the tax base, and then eventually that money will go back. So I always like to point out that it is not a new tax whenever I can. And one of the things to also note, and it's why we go over it today, is in order to use the urban renewal funds, every project has to be in a plan so as part of your attachments this evening you received a copy of the proposed urban renewal plan and within there there's a list of proposed projects so in order for us down the line through the city's budget process to do any sort of a project it has to be in the plan if a project is not in the plan we would have to go through a process with the urban renewal agency to have that plan added and then rerecord that document with the county. So it would go through a public process if we ever wanted to amend it, which we can always do. We all know things change, needs change. And so that's just a nice thing that I like to point out as well is everything has to be in the plan. We can't do anything if it's not. So there we go. So why are we looking at this area now is sort of a question we've received a few different times. And as I kind of mentioned, in order for an urban renewal area to really have the financial tools it needs to support the various different redevelopment projects, which often are quite expensive, it can take years to develop that level of growth. So by establishing an area now, it allows time to sort of build up those funds so that as the opportunities arise for redevelopment, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's partnering on a grant, whether it's you know, working with a particular developer, we would be able to have the funds to really start that versus folks coming in and then us saying, well, we might have something in about five years. So the idea is to try and get kind of ahead of the curve to start to build up those funds. If you look at a lot of our existing urban renewal areas, Riverfront Downtown, North Gateway, Rest Salem, those types of areas, we weren't able to do anything for five, sometimes 10 years because of the growth factor and the types of projects. So it's not something where this goes into effect and overnight we suddenly have $10 million and can do all sorts of projects. We may only collect 200,000 the first year, if even that. So it kind of just depends on the growth factor and letting that build up, which also allows us time to work through sort of what are the priorities, where would folks like to start building up the advisory committees, things of that nature. um what is the role for the planning commission this evening um so state statute requires that any new urban renewal area be presented to the planning commission the role of the planning commission you are not here to approve an urban renewal area to approve the tool to approve the projects that will all go to city council. But what we are asking is that in looking at the projects that are being proposed in alignment with the comprehensive plan, that they're complimentary of each other. So the idea is really that we would not be putting something forward that for instance, is full of projects specific to industrial site readiness. And yet the zoning is all reflective of single family housing. So it's really a checks and balance to make sure that we're following the intent of the comprehensive plan of what's been acquired through the process of outreach, adoption, land use, things of that nature. And so we'll show sort of those alignments this evening. So what you're looking at right now is the proposed north waterfront urban renewal area. So a little bit of context. This particular area, staff was asked to look at what it could look like in spring of 2024 by the city council. And so we started developing what the boundaries could look like, what high level, what kind of projects we might be looking at. We took that information to the city council for an update in September of 2025. And then based on that feedback, we started going through all adopted city plans. So we're looking not only at the comp plan, but we're looking at water infrastructure sewer transportation plans feedback we've received really over the last 10 to 15 years when it comes specific to this area to start developing what would that project kind of list look like and then in may of this year we held a work session to go over the area, what the maximum indebtedness would be. So maximum indebtedness is the amount of that tax increment that this area can collect before it's then considered not so much closed, but no longer collecting. So you always have to have a dollar threshold. So the dollar threshold with this one is 199.4 million. And so once it would reach that, it would no longer collect anymore and that increment would go back. And so that was part of the conversation we had back in May. We had really good feedback. And so based on that, we started developing all of our final documents. We reached out to, we have three existing urban renewal advisory boards. So we reached out to all of them to get feedback that are familiar with the tool and how it's used and received positive feedback from all three of them. And so tonight we're sort of starting that next phase of our state statute kind of outreach process. As you can see, this particular urban renewal area is 421 acres. So in terms of the total city acres, you're looking at about 1.3%. If you're familiar with any of our other existing urban renewal areas, this would be very close to the size of our West Salem urban renewal area or our McGillcrest Urban Renewal Area. If you are familiar with downtown, it's about, not quite, but a little less than twice the size. So it's kind of a moderately sized urban renewal area, much smaller than if you're familiar with North Gateway, which is our largest, which is more than double the size of this urban renewal area. um the southern boundary is um and you see it's a little it's not a straight line obviously um this actually abuts the riverfront urban renewal area and this was done on purpose a lot of the work that's happened in our riverfront downtown or renewal area has looked north a lot has been done in terms of corridors and infrastructure and really developing and knowing we were going to move north So the idea is this would just connect right in. So a lot of that work and a lot of the growth that we're seeing, we can just kind of continue that moving up the corridor to the very north. Those are the boundaries with the city of Kaiser. And then the other boundaries, as we kind of worked through them, it really focuses a lot on our infrastructure corridors. What we didn't want to run into is we create sort of these boundaries, and you're looking at improving the water or the sewer, which are really big ones that often we are using urban renewal for. And you can get halfway through, but you can't get the rest. Or you can get one block, but you can't finish. And so what we wanted to make sure is we could actually do those through corridors to improve the infrastructure for development for the whole area versus sort of having to stop. And so that's kind of how these boundaries came into being. The other piece that I would also put out there is when we were putting this together, of course, you can always have the conversation of what if we add one street more and what if we add one street more? And of course, there could be more potential for those areas. But we're also very aware of the impact that any urban renewal area has to a taxing district. And so we wanted to make sure that we were really being precise in that so that the areas that we're picking, we see where the projects could potentially happen and the growth. And we're not just picking up properties to pick up properties because that does impact our taxing district partners. And we don't want to do that. we can at some point in time add 1% to this urban renewal area. So if a project were to come up or an opportunity were to come up or the city were to identify something in a master plan, especially in an infrastructure that really would need to be done and it would have a broader impact, we could go to the agency and go through a process to add 1% of this total acreage.

Of four acres.

Yes. Correct. Oops. There we go. So this shows the existing zoning and the purpose of this really is we have, and what you're gonna see is a wide variety of project types. And so we really wanted to look at what is the existing zoning along with the comp plan to make sure that we're looking at projects that would make sense. I think one of the things that's probably come up in conversation the most is the northernmost boundary of this particular urban renewal area. Because if you've driven out in that particular part of town, it's a mobile home park. And so part of the conversation, you know, was what was sort of the intent behind that. And, you know, that's looking at sort of using urban renewal in a different way than maybe we have in the past. We look at it as, you know, maybe you want to do housing or multifamily housing or infrastructure. But we also wanted to put a focus on maintaining affordable housing options. And so sometimes those affordable housing options dissipate because the infrastructure is no longer there to support them. And so the idea was by including that, if down the line there was a potential need for enhanced infrastructure in order to maintain that, we might be able to assist using urban renewal. So it's a different way to kind of look at how we can help the community and the properties and also meet a lot of the different goals and objectives of the city. The other thing that I would sort of like to point out is this particular urban renewal area did not sort of just happen in 2024 because um the council decided to ask us to look into it um we have known as staff that we had several urban renewal areas that were going to stop collecting increment we had two stop collecting this year we had one the year before and so when they stopped collecting increment all those funds now go back to the taxing districts and they don't count against sort of any impact to any of our our partners and so we started um talking probably about five to six years ago about what area made the most sense where were we seeing the most interest where was the most need um and really it went back to 2010 that this particular area started being looked at for future development so for those of you who might be familiar with the university of oregon sustainable cities initiative The first time they came to Salem was actually in 2010. And one of the projects that the students did was looking at sort of that north waterfront and what kind of connections might exist. Does it make sense for any sort of future growth, future development? And in their initial study, it was identified as really being sort of this next great opportunity as we sort of move outside of downtown. In 2011, that sort of idea kind of came back up. We developed a downtown strategic action plan. And although a lot of the focus was on the core of downtown, of course, there was a conversation that there's this highlighted need that we have to start looking north. Downtown is only so big. It can only grow so much. And then where does that growth go if we want to continue it and we want to continue that momentum? This particular area was identified in that. In 2016, we revisited the downtown strategic action plan. And again, sort of this north area was identified in terms of we need to make sure that whatever we're doing in the downtown, you know, we're focusing on what does this mean for the north? How does this go into the north? Because again, where are these folks going to go when the next place for development is? In 2025, the housing production strategy identified this particular area as a source for potentially multifamily housing, middle housing, and urban renewal is kind of the tool to maybe financially support that. And then in early May, the city council adopted its most recent city strategic plan. And in it, it recommended moving forward with a new North Waterfront urban renewal area. So it is one that has been talked about for about 15 years. And so I always just like to throw that out there, too, is it's not something that just Two years ago, some people got together and said, we really like it. This has been something that a lot of different groups have really brought to our attention. It's not just because the Truett site got a lot of attention and folks wanted us to help. It's something that we had been looking at long before that. So the fun part, the projects. So what you see here on the screen are really high level of the projects. So again, we drafted a lot of our project based on existing city plans. That's the first place we go because they've already been vetted. They've already been approved. So what do we have in the stormwater master plan and what do we have in our sewer master plan? What do we have on our transportation systems plan? How does our comprehensive plan look? And we start kind of pulling in projects, you know, that way. We also look at existing urban renewal areas, especially ones that are similar in nature, which projects have had, you know, a good investment level have made sense. Have we been able to sort of get that biggest bang for our buck and kind of bringing those in again? This is a moment in time. These can always sort of change. We can add different things to the list. At its highest level are probably improvements that folks have heard about because this area has gotten a lot of attention here, especially in the last year, year and a half. So focusing on those front street infrastructure, the creek improvements. So some of the creek is in this particular urban renewal area to Butts Truett Brothers property. Some of the creek is actually in Riverfront, but there are improvements that need to be made to that creek in order to actually develop the land around it. Environmental remediation, we know the use of some of these sites was heavily industrial. For those of you who have been in Salem much longer than myself, Riverfront Park was all industrial. It was urban renewal that actually cleaned it up and created the park that it is today. So we do expect that as work begins, as whether it's the city, whether it's in a private-public partnership, environmental issues are going to be found, and we want to make sure we can help with that. Our grant program for capital development has been very successful. We have it in several of our urban renewal areas. We do sort of a grant match. So it's a dollar for dollar up to a certain threshold. Each urban renewal area would have its own program created that would have to get adopted by the agency. But again, continuing that sort of partnership and again, multifamily housing. So those are the highest levels. But of course, if you look in the plan and I'll briefly just touch on them. We've broken them out a little bit differently. So you'll see sort of transportation as its own section. And we're talking street and curb improvements, bike and pedestrian improvements, the front street infrastructure.

Sarah, can you tell us where in the paper that we would find this just so I can follow along?

So let me see here.

I think it's on page 15.

I think it's pretty early on in the plans. Looks like, here we go. Starts on page 15, correct.

And the table for the dollar figures is where?

The dollar figures? So that's going to be in the report, which is a separate document. And what I will say, the dollar figures, if you're looking at the projects themselves, at this point, we've taken just general percentages because we're not sure what that's going to look like. What the report mostly will do is it shows what the overall impact would potentially be to the taxing districts based upon the amount of increment that we think we're going to bring in. The plan is a legally recorded document. The goal of the report is to make sure that what we're putting in the plan actually makes financial sense and can actually be done. But because so many of these projects require a lot more INVESTIGATION AND WORK. WHAT WE TRY TO DO IS TAKE OUR BEST GUESS AT SORT OF WHAT WE THINK THOSE COSTS ARE GOING TO LOOK LIKE WORKING WITH OUR PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. AND AT THIS STAGE, BECAUSE WE'RE JUST NOW CREATING THE URBAN RENEWAL AREA, WE'RE ASSESSING A PERCENTAGE TO SORT OF THOSE DIFFERENT PROJECTS. AND THEN AS WE GET MORE INFORMATION, THEN WE'LL BE ABLE TO TAKE THOSE FORWARD THROUGH THE FORMAL BUDGET PROCESS AND IDENTIFY WHICH PROJECTS AND HOW MUCH EXACTLY THEY'RE GOING TO BE. SO THIS WILL EBB AND FLOW A LITTLE BIT. um in terms of where the money would go towards each particular area but ultimately the idea is we at this point feel the majority will probably go to infrastructure because we need the infrastructure to open everything up for development and that's kind of how we've gauged those percentages for context you mentioned that there are a couple of urban renewal offline yes can you Sure. So McGillcrest Urban Renewal Area stopped collecting two years ago. And so we still have money. We're still finishing the improvement project in McGillcrest Street between 12th and 25th. So what will happen is an urban renewal area We'll collect the total amount that it can. It stops collecting anymore. So now all that growth now goes back to the taxing districts. But we continue to do the projects that are in the plan until the funds are gone, and then we do a formal resolution to close those. So they have no impact, but we can keep doing the projects because sometimes what will happen is some projects just take longer. We can't control when the funds come in or – Sometimes, you know, certain projects aren't quite ready yet or we want to try, and especially like with bond projects, what we try to do is layer them together so that we're getting more project for less. And we've done that on a couple different ones where we're leveraging our projects. urban renewal dollars and the bond dollars and now we're getting twice the project that we might have the first time so mcgill crest is one of those um this fiscal year both mill creek and the north gateway urban renewal areas are no longer collecting um and so i believe that brings between the three i believe that brought about six million in total back in and then it gets divvied out to the different taxing districts um so those have closed um in that respect fairview no longer collects um it stopped collecting um probably about seven or eight years ago and then west salem will probably be our next one um that's ready to stop collecting and that'll probably be in about two years So right now, only about 1.7% of total property values are even going into sort of those urban renewal areas. It's pretty low in terms of the values.

But based on that, since there are a few that have had some time since then, have any sort of metric on how they correlate with the plan that was put in place at the time of their commencement and how much did they need it and where did it fall short?

No, that's a fantastic question. So that is something that we are actually required to do when we close them out. So what will happen when we go to close the urban renewal areas is we have to submit a report. And in that report, it speaks to the accomplishments. So what were the accomplishments of the plan? How did that align with sort of the comp plan at the time? Because of course, it changes, you know, the draft the plan that I did in North Gateway when we went through this process in 2019 and the comp plan that I went through for the process, very different, right? So those are parts of what's required is really sort of those successes. How did this benefit the community? What did we get done? And then that's because it becomes a public document.

I don't think we've done one since Pringle Creek.

And I think that was maybe about 10 years ago. But I do think we'll probably have those coming forward soon. i would assume probably mill creek and mcgill crest will be the next two that will officially close out and that'll probably be here within the next few years because both of those the funds are getting used up at a fairly rapid rate just because it was a small project list and so then we'll be able to close those out and then those reports would come forward

I had a question about the Front Street Redevelopment Analysis Project. I'm assuming it's talking about the kind of top part of Front Street between kind of where the railroad comes in and then where it connects up to River Road. The plan calls it the Front Street Northeast Bypass. I think most people call that commercial or River Road is the actual name of that Front Street Bypass.

Yeah, so again, the way we sort of draft these is a little broad because we don't 100% know exactly what that's going to look like. You know, we have a federal grant that is going to help us identify the specific projects, but know front street as a whole in that area we actually have five different railroad crossings that fall within this proposed urban renewal area so although the front street infrastructure especially as it meets the railroad at mill creek and at the the truett brothers sort of site is a big focus because it would open up for a lot of development in that area we will also be looking at sort of again the corridor of front street and then also looking at the various different railroad crossings and what does that mean for sort of access transportation through the whole area um the other thing that's underway right now which makes this a little bit more challenging and sort of developing some of these projects at a more detailed level is the transportation systems plan is currently in the process of being updated so um once that's done a lot of those elements will then sort of be able to get correlated in as well in a more detailed way

Yeah, I guess I just wanted to make sure that the project limits here are correct. So the front street infrastructure covers the portion with the railroad. And then the front street redevelopment analysis covers a portion of front street within the URA that doesn't have the railroad.

So they'd both be within the proposed urban renewal area. We haven't identified the specific boundaries of what they need to be, but they would both have to be within the areas of the urban renewal area.

So the redevelopment analysis project specifies the 3,700 foot section of front street between South street and the bypass. Yes. I just want to make sure that the bypass is that.

It is correct. Yeah. And that's coming directly from our transportation systems plan as well. So if, if that gets modified as part of this, then, then we would reincorporate sort of that information because we want to make sure that, that we're in alignment. Our goal, especially with a lot of the infrastructure projects is we're We want to make sure we're aligning with those city plans, and those city plans do change over time. And so we're kind of looking... And it may be that we need to expand it or we need to change it. And then what would happen is if it still meets sort of the project list, we also do descriptions of all of our projects when we go through the budget process with the agency. So... Typically with our other larger urban renewal areas, what happens is we have an advisory board. They provide recommendations on the budget. We go through all of the proposed projects for the upcoming year. And then that goes to the budget committee and the agency. And so they all have broad descriptions in them so that we can easily identify here's what's happening. Here's the specific area, things of that nature for transparency.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I just don't want us to end up in a situation where we get a really nice Part of front street. And then we get up to the north part without the train tracks. And then you're just kind of off no man's land. So that's good to hear that.

That's definitely not the goal. Um, as much, as much as we can do where it flows through and we're, you know, connecting things is always the goal. The larger URAs that is more, more challenging. So this is a size where that that's much more manageable.

Cool.

Um, so we were just going through some of the more detailed aspects of the projects. Um, we'd gotten through sort of the transportation. So housing, you know, creation of mixed use multifamily middle affordable, and then sort of that affordable housing preservation element that we talked about, which, um, is, you know, a high priority for the city and is a different sort of way of looking at urban renewal that we want to make sure we're focusing on. The business development. So that's going back to that capital grant program. It's also looking at development infrastructure. So, and that could be development infrastructure in terms of the city plans. It could be development infrastructure in terms of potential grant down the line, but just looking at sort of, you know, are there's little hotspots where maybe there's some development infrastructure that's needed, but it's not a corridor wide and kind of taking that analysis into account. We don't know that, but we have run into that in some areas of the city where the plans show that there's proper lines. Someone starts to work and they realize what they thought was connected to sewer isn't connected to sewer and things of that nature. And so we've tried to create some programs to be more flexible and help folks out where we can to keep those developments up and moving. Um, utility and environmental infrastructure. I think that's probably going to be a really big one in this area. Um, so we spoke about the Creek, um, and potential sort of redevelopment kind of improvements that might have to happen. Um, but, and the, the remediation as well. Um, one of the other things is the Willamette river bank. Um, and we don't have identified projects, um, in terms of exactly what we know we need to do, but I think anytime you're doing work along a waterway, you have to be aware of the fact that there might be improvements that are being required. And so we just want to be sort of as forethinking as we can about that and identifying that we might need to do some improvements to that riverbank in order to allow for, whether it's development or also there is in our parks plan, a multi-use path that's in there. And so in order to potentially do that path, there could be some reinforcement work or things of that nature that's needed. So that's why that's in the list. Again, our stormwater and sewer systems. So upgrades are pretty much needed throughout the entire area. And utility and infrastructure relocation work. That's going to need to happen for, you know, whether it's streets, sidewalks, potentially, you know, other types of investment. Utilities will have to get moved around, moved back. We've found that in other sort of areas as well. And so we've incorporated that into our list. So, yeah. again the the goal was to create a list of projects that based on what we know today make sense and could benefit the area but we also know again that conditions can change over the years and so we also have the flexibility to add those projects and we aren't limited so unlike adding land we aren't limited in adding projects. The only place we are limited is that urban renewal can only be used for capital improvement. So as we like to say, it's the brick and the mortar. We can't use urban renewal for operations or for maintenance or things like that. Another piece that always goes into the conversation is, for instance, someone wants to do streetscape and say they want trash cans and benches and things like that, which are all lovely. But then the conversation has to go to who's going to maintain it because we can't use urban renewal for that. And so those are the types of things that we always have to work through when we're kind of doing different projects and stuff is sort of that maintenance aspect of it. But when it comes to the brick and the mortar, we have a lot of flexibility on the types of projects we can put into an urban renewal plan. There we go, and now we have the alignment. So what we went through, and you'll see it in your staff report, and this is at the high level, and I won't go through all the different objectives that are within there, but what we tried to do was go through the existing comprehensive plan and based on the types of projects we have in there and what the intent of those projects would be, and then looking at the various goals and the different objectives sort of showing where those different alignments are. Again, kind of the idea that the projects and the comprehensive plan can work together towards those goals. And so the ones that really stuck out the most is housing affordability, the complete neighborhood, urbanization and growth management, the local connectivity, land supply, economic development, and environmental protection. We don't touch on every single goal. There's not enough projects to do that. But at the same time, we don't have any projects that aren't impacting sort of moving towards the accomplishment of those goals. Um, and so here is the process, um, and this is determined by state statute. Um, so again, uh, agency 2024, um, we were given direction to move ahead 2025. We gave an update 2026. This may, we did a work session, um, finalized all of the documents as you saw them in your packet. So that's the plan. the report, and we outreach with the taxing districts. So we're required to outreach to all the impacted taxing districts 45 days before we would do a public hearing. So on July the 6th, we sent certified mailings to all of our taxing district partners with the plan and the report as you see them, along with a letter offering to meet or provide additional information, planning commission. So that's me here with you all tonight. Thank you again so much for having me. Later this week, what will go out is a super notice. And so this is one of the more unique things with urban renewal. As I said, it's not a new tax, but the way the state statute reads it is we actually have to notify every single mailing address within the city of Salem that we are looking to establish a new urban renewal area. And so that typically what we do is we do a postcard. And on that postcard, it just kind of gives a high level overview of what we're doing and why. Again, that it's not a new tax, where people can find additional information. So we have a website that either went live today or should go live tomorrow. that has additional information along with electronic copies of the plan and the report and FAQ. And then also we have hard copies of those documents at the library and at the customer service center. So it's just letting people know they can go to any of those places. Contact information for our team if anyone has any questions or feedback they want to provide. And then letting them know we're going to have a public hearing on the 24th of August. So again, letting them know kind of what those steps are that they can provide input as to what's happening. Again, then that would lead us to the public hearing process. So that would be on the 24th. And if council decides to move ahead, then we would go through the ordinance process. So that would be that night and then the following council meeting. After that we actually have to do a separate 30 day notice. So we would be publishing that within a couple of days of that second council meeting, letting folks know again that we are looking to adopt a new urban renewal area. And then on the 12th of October, we would go back to the agency. It feels a little repetitive, mostly just because although they are two separate legal bodies, it's the same physical individuals. But we would be going back to the agency with that purpose, basically the agency accepting that the council has adopted this new urban renewal area. And then after that, we record everything with the county. So that would most likely happen at the end of October, which means The tax bills that everyone gets in October of this year is going to be sort of that increment level that would then get frozen. So whatever the city and all the different taxing districts start to receive in kind of November, December, January through the end of this fiscal year as those monies roll in, that's the amount that they would continue to receive. And then next fiscal year is when the URA would start collecting sort of that growth amount in fiscal year ending 2028. And so tonight what we are asking for, again, we're not asking you to adopt that you are in favor of an urban renewal or the maximum indebtedness or really the area. We'll be asking council for that. But what we are asking is that there's a recommendation that the projects in the plan are sort of in accordance with a comprehensive plan. And that's all I have.

So I have some questions, if I could. So I guess my first question is, if this were to be created, what is the public engagement process as decisions are made in the public and the process unfolds? Is there like an advisory committee? Is there a steering committee? What's the sort of at least advisory governing body? I realize the governing body is going to be the city council acting as the urban authority, as the renewal authority, but

So the recommendation that staff has been, and we've mentioned it at our different meetings, is that there would be an advisory board. So it would be similar to how the downtown Riverfront Urban Renewal Area, North Gateway, and West Salem are all conducted. So there would be an advisory board that's made up of, right now, depending on which one, they have different sort of makeups, and obviously boards and commissions is kind of changing things up a little bit right now. but right now it's a combination of property owners residents folks that maybe have a business at large positions so the recommendation would be to continue that structure because those are folks that know the area and so those are the people that would provide policy recommendations they would be providing recommendations as it comes to the budget they would be taking feedback and so especially early on i think that will be very critical in terms of the first few projects is where there's probably going to be a lot of interest in demand and so having that advisory board and those are public meetings um depending on which board they can be monthly or like every two to three months and so anyone can attend them public comment you know just as they they can for for this particular group um and so that's what the recommendation has has been and um again the one the urban renewal areas that don't have an advisory board typically only have maybe one to three projects in them and that's the reason for it but the ones that have more of a robust sort of program of work those are the ones where we do have those advisory boards to help kind of steer the direction for sure

Thank you. When I look at the goals, to me this looks like a kind of restatement of what's in our comprehensive plan, but I don't see projects that are aligned with each particular goal. How would I know what projects are implementing what goals and what goals are actually being funded or pursued?

So the goals are coming directly out of your comprehensive plan. So that's what we're required to do. So we're required to go into the comprehensive plan, pull out the goals and the objectives that match. And then we give a description as to overall. So we don't have to identify. And at this point, we're not identifying this one project is going to meet this goal. But the package of what we're proposing in our projects is. And that's sort of what you're seeing is sort of that description under each one as to how we think it's going to achieve the package.

So we're not saying we're officially doing multifamily housing.

It's in our list of projects, but we don't know how that's going to play out. But what we are saying is we have a package of projects tied specifically to housing, looking at affordable housing, looking at maintaining different things, looking at multi-unit, and it meets sort of those overall goals.

I guess I find this process challenging, candidly, because we call it a plan, but plan is sometimes used differently than I've seen in other contexts. So what this seems to me like is, here's our intent. Our intent is to meet these objectives. in return for, and what we're gonna do is if you say yes to the set of intents, we're going to allow the city to take tax money, set it aside and go into debt $200 million over the next 30 years and pursue these activities. But the details of those activities, we really don't know yet. We don't know the cost. We don't know the outcomes. We don't have specific lists of projects. We just have kind of a general sense of here's what we're promising to do. And then once we do that, it never comes back to us. That just makes, I feel uncomfortable with that process. I guess if we can't align specific projects with specific goals, I don't understand what we're being asked to decide on.

So the idea, again, is the projects in that list are tied to the larger goals is what you're saying. So those different areas, economic development, transportation, freight, I mean, I can go through and try and describe how that would work, but we don't identify the individual projects because we don't know 100% when those projects are going to happen. So yes, at this point, It is a goal. These are the this is the intent of the area. This is the intent of how we plan to align with them. The alignment is also not just a one for one, but it's also to make sure that we aren't proposing projects that don't align to the comprehensive plan so that we're not saying we want to do different land use activities that don't make sense. um that's where part of sort of this comes from is the idea that we don't have a whole bunch of projects that are very specific to um i kind of anecdotally at the beginning stated that there's the industrial site readiness sort of work that could be happening in a specific area and if all of our projects are tied to industrial site readiness but the land use and the comprehensive plan is all tied to housing It doesn't make sense. And so there isn't an alignment there. And so the idea is, it's not always a one for one. But it's that the intent of the projects are matching what the goals of the comprehensive plan are, and they're not working against each other. And that's, that's what we're sort of looking at today is that they're working to support, not against.

But we right now, we don't have a list of projects, we have a list of project categories.

The projects are listed, the types of projects, and they're on page 15. And those are the different projects that right now, if we, those are the only things that we would fund.

So the projects, transportation.

And then there's projects underneath that. That's the category.

So street, curb, sidewalk improvements, bicycle, pedestrian paths, front street infrastructure, railroad crossing, front street redevelopment analysis.

Correct.

So that's the transportation expenditures.

And those would get specified through the budget process through the advisory group and then using the transportation systems plan and other reports and documents that are established along the way.

And as I understand it, this plan to limit, say, a specific project, like say you're doing the Front Street project, it doesn't mean that all the funding for that project has to come from the URA, right?

Not at all. No. And often what will happen, and we've had this in multiple areas, and we know the front street will be incredibly expensive, and the goal would never be to put all the money into one project unless that was the only project that was listed. The purpose of showing all these different things is that there's a lot of different needs in the area and obviously wanting to spread that out. A lot of times what we do is we'll use urban renewal as the match. So we work with our public works partners to figure out what that total project is going to be and then figure out what grant opportunities are out there. And then often the urban renewal will help get us to design. They can be those match dollars. And then we'll use grants to go ahead and then actually do the project so that, again, we can be looking at different areas. We can be looking at economic development and helping business growth and looking at the housing and looking at the infrastructure and whether it's the water and the sewer, but also the pedestrian piece and the bikes and the sidewalks, or is it the riverfront path that would go through? And how do we spread those funds out? But those decisions, again, would go to the urban renewal agency to sort of decide sort of the priorities.

I had a question. Sorry.

Go ahead. I had a question about a other project here for bicycle and pedestrian paths. Is this referring the way I'm reading it? It sounds like it's only talking about the riverfront path.

No, it would be any bike ped path that's in the area identified in the transportation systems plan. And then again, we would take that through the process.

It's exclusive to shared use paths.

Or are we talking sidewalks and bike lanes and stuff? So I guess I would suggest that instead of bicycle and pedestrian paths, it should read bicycle and pedestrian facilities because that's more of a broad term. Bike path or pedestrian path generally refers to something that's off the street right away. So that's just a thought. I don't think we need to make a formal amendment or Unless we do.

Yeah, we probably wouldn't at this point, but I would take that into sort of our list of potential modifications. A lot of times what we also will do down the line is kind of what we refer to as sort of Scribner corrections. And so if we need to do clarifications or things like that, we'll take a batch at one time. But because this is currently the document that we've now sent out to the taxing districts, we wouldn't be making any substantial changes to it.

Okay. I have a question about feasibility broadly. So as you mentioned, Front Street will be incredibly expensive and challenging to redevelop in general. Has there been any sort of a feasibility study that kind of identifies feasibility? Are any of the hopeful projects and goals in this, do they have anything that would just say, yeah, that could never actually happen? And that would then preclude the ability for a lot of these related ideas to be facilitated? And is there a mechanism to mitigate that?

i think that's a great question and i think um we will learn more as we can do the feasibility studies and get sort of those dollar thresholds um what typically has happened in the past when we've sort of run into some of those issues is we do look at other funding sources so whether it's a federal grant whether it's through scats whether it's looking at a public private partnership depending on the impact level And then it's also having those conversations with both our advisory committee and the agency about priorities and what that impact is going to look like. The intent is to be able to do a lot of different types of projects with the funds. And so often we are sort of layering those different things together. McGillcrest is a really great example of that where the McGillcrest Urban Renewal Area really only brought in about $12 million. And the project from 12th to 25th is far more than $12 million. And so that urban renewal area was created knowing it would not have enough to actually do construction. But the idea was it could get us to design and it could get us those match dollars. And so we've used not only urban renewal dollars, but we've used state funds we are using federal funds we're using sewer funds utility funds stormwater funds and bond dollars and so a lot of times that's how some of these projects will come together when we look at the different elements especially when it's a larger area so if we have lights and we have storm water and we have different sort of pieces we can look at both city funds but then we can also tap into those state and federal funds And sometimes it takes us a while to get them. I mean, for McGillcrest, we applied six times before we got it, but then we got $14 million. So a lot of times that's where part of this goes in is we'll keep trying over here, but we want to keep doing work over here. And historically, that's how we have done our work again. you know, the budget at the end of the day is up to the agency, but historically as staff, that is sort of how we've tried to sort of put together those, those work plans and those priorities, because we want to make sure we're, we might be working really hard over here and we know it's going to take a long time, but we don't want to not do improvements that might become available over here. And that can help spur the work that's happening in the other areas. So it's figuring out how that synergy can work together and not just solely focusing in one area.

What's the overall vision for this area?

Yeah, so, I mean, I think that the vision is, one, it's going to be a continuation of what you have in Riverfront. And so, you know, we've focused a lot in Riverfront in the connections, you know, whether it's through the park, whether it's just, you know, in the downtown improving sort of the walkability and, you know, the bikeability. And so I think some of that's going to connect in. Of course, it is a more industrial area in nature. And so you're going to have a mix of uses. But I think it's also how do you grow that? So if you have industrial that needs to change, what does that change look like based on the zoning? And is it that you have more housing? And if housing is the case in some of those areas, how do we create those connectivities? How do we get people to maybe the park? How do we get people into downtown, whether it's biking or walking or even, you know, vehicular activities? in nature, but it's a diverse area and the zoning shows that. And so that's why the projects really are sort of, there is a large variety of them because you have a lot of different types of zoning and you don't wanna have just sort of one focus area. But a lot of what happens is also a partnership. We can put some things out there based on what we know today, but it's also what do people want to see? What are people investing in and how do we help them? You have the larger industrial users, but you also have smaller businesses that may want to grow or might want to move into that area. um that might want to you know renovate a building or do work and live space or things of that nature and how do we sort of just jump in and help um a lot of times that's sort of what we try to do at the end of the day is like how do we help people sort of develop their vision and is it a grant program or is it connecting people with other resources um to get there but it's an area that has a lot of different uses and I think that's what makes it really interesting and it makes it really challenging but that's also why you see a very long list of projects because there are a lot of opportunities it's just a matter of sort of how those kind of play out over time and is there like currently a master plan or a vision for how this is going to unfold Not yet. There isn't a master plan for that area. So we haven't done like a strategic. So for downtown, for instance, we'd have gone through a strategic plan of like, what are the priorities based on that? And that's not something we've done since we don't have a urban renewal area yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if the advisory board wants to go through that process. I think it would be valuable. And we've done that in other urban renewal areas as well. We've done it in West Salem. We've done it in North Gateway. Once kind of we get up and going, just sort of reach out to the community, have open houses, get some feedback, and then take that as we sort of start taking projects forward. Again, we won't have funds for several years. And so it will give time to sort of go through sort of those different processes and the different outreach to really build up kind of what sort of the recommendations would be to the agency.

And does the current list of project categories allow for that sort of consulting? Where would that be?

So that really probably wouldn't even be consulting. That most likely would be staff, but we're allowed. So you can do with urban renewal, if you're doing any sort of a study or consulting work that is tied to the projects, that's something that's automatically allowed. So if we're looking at doing strategic planning, it's tied to obviously this very long list of projects. We wouldn't need to amend the plan in order to do that. That's something that we would be able to do and implement.

a lot of times you know a lot of that is done by staff maybe a little consulting but um it wouldn't be something that would be heavy in the cost of that world since you sent out the notice i think you said july 2nd have you started receiving any feedback or what has um the neighborhood um been thinking about this

Sure. So the super notice that actually won't go out until later this week. So that we try to wait until after we visit with planning commission before we do a super notice. But we have outreach to our taxing districts. And so all of the taxing districts have received the information. And at this point, we have a conversation scheduled with the school district for in a couple of weeks. And again, we've also met with all three of the advisory boards for the different urban renewal areas as well. And their feedback has been positive. Those are all public meetings. And then we had the work session in May. And I think we had two people attend today. So we're doing our best, but yeah, I'm not sure what the feedback will be when we send the information out. Every time we've gone through this, you kind of get different variations of it. Our biggest thing that we always try to put out there is that it is a plan. Projects can change as needs change, but our biggest thing too is it's not a new tax. We're not creating a new tax. People won't see an increase in their property taxes because we're doing it. um at the end of the day it's just a way to sort of maybe leverage some resources uh we do try to balance out the needs with our taxing districts and we've been able to do some projects with them in some of our urban renewal areas knowing that they are foregoing that increment so a lot of times when we have infrastructure um projects street projects especially you know we'll be reaching out to chariots to find out do they need to do a new stop are they interested in one and you know should how can we sort of put that into our plans um The school district, SeaTac, which is out off of Portland Road, we've invested quite a bit of urban renewal funds into that project. So when we can, based on the geographic location, we have tried to also partner with our taxing district partners just for that fact.

Have you had any conversations with the railroad? That feels like a pretty monumental lift.

There have been some initial conversations with the railroad, and I will say I have not been close to them. Our engineering folks have been kind of starting those conversations about what our options might be. the experience that I've typically had with the railroad on other projects is it's usually not a no it's just a matter of how much and and what the give and take is right um the city does have a consultant um who actually was working with the railroad for a very long time and so we have really great relationships and the nice thing that I can definitely say with that is prior to him coming on board when we would reach out to the railroad it could take 24 months for them to respond. We are getting much quicker responses now and being able to engage in much better conversations. And because he has such a strong history with them, a lot of times he's been able to provide really good guidance on sort of how to navigate those waters. So I think we are set up for success, but you are right. I mean, dealing with the road is incredibly difficult. I know Lisa's been through it as well. She might actually know more than I do right now on that one. But our engineering teams have been working already in close conjunction with them to start figuring out what those options could look like.

Well, I mean, I'm certainly not... I mean, having urban renewal areas is really important and certainly is an effective mechanism. But I would be concerned if you have something like that where it's a third party who could effectively halt all of these projects and the potential for development just because it would be so challenging and expensive that it wouldn't... You know, we would just have this block of... area that we can't really do much with or is so limited that it can't achieve the intent of the other plan you've set out.

Yeah.

One, I think that's where the conversations have started. So it's not as though the conversations have started and it's been a shutdown. So it's just working through what those requirements would look like, what those different designs would look like, and then how do we sort of make that happen? Or how do we work around it to then still meet the goals of what we're trying to do? And we're just not there yet. But again, we know that these things are going to take funds, which is where the urban renewal comes in, and knowing it's going to take years for us to have the funds to really even start down that path. This is sort of just the stepping stone to that.

And then I think just to maybe echo some of the concerns I think I'm hearing from my colleagues around the transparency and the process for how this actually gets implemented. And, you know, of course, you don't have those details today. This is the seed of a larger goal. Um, but you know, that's why I was asking about the metric for the previous URAs that have been, you know, meeting those goals or, or not. And what does that look like? Um, you know, how do we, how do we know, or make sure that there's a method for having, uh, a flexible yet ultimately effective plan moving forward. And one that is not so rooted in what I did today that it can't adjust for the inevitable changes that will happen as Salem evolves. That's not really a question, I guess. It's just a concern. I think that we all are feeling when we're looking at something that is a multi-decade plan.

And I will say most, if not all of our urban renewal area plans, we have amended countless times over the years because it's exactly what you said. What we know today might change in five years or we get information that changes sort of what those projects could look like. And so we might go through a strategic planning process and look at what we have. And we've done that, especially as we kind of get to that, like three quarter of the way through a lot of our urban renewal areas is do these projects still make sense or are there projects that make more sense with what we have left so that we're sort of not saying, well, this is what we have in there, so we have to do it. It's this is what we have. but are we missing something? And we have done that in multiple urban renewal areas just for that same reason, because things shift. Some projects don't always make sense. And we do provide regular updates to the agency on the projects that we're working on and what the status of those projects are. It's just a lot of our projects can take years. So they're not always quick the grants are the ones that everyone loves to hear about you know, those are the ones that can come out pretty quickly, and we can share information, but when we're talking about I mean. These larger infrastructure sort of projects, the process can take a long time and there can be successes along the way, but the project itself could be something that's worked on for quite some time or. it's waiting for a singular catalyst to get a piece done or something of that nature. But we do try to do annual at a minimum updates, presentations to the agency on all the different things that we're doing. We do quarterly updates that go to the council as well. And then having our advisory board meetings where we're working with those boards on kind of updates and what does this mean is part of the process as well.

How does this correlate?

Yeah, so we work with a lot of people that aren't sort of on the list. So yes, Eunice is definitely a partner, especially obviously the long range, the comp plan. But her and I have worked really closely together on the housing production strategy and what tools and how can we use things. And so she, you know, the work that she's done, I've been incorporating into this. Our almost, you know, a large majority of our engineering department, for instance, has been a huge part of this, providing us plans, providing us going through and reviewing sort of what are our assumptions? Do these make sense based on what they know to date? And so we are outreaching with our internal partners. The plan itself is sort of, I guess, who are the people that are sort of either making decisions like yourselves, like council that are sort of getting these presentations, our consultants, and then it's really sort of the staff that are either drafting the rapport or sort of making those final reviews. And it's just kind of the standard sort of TEMPLATE THAT THAT YOU USE STATEWIDE ON SOME OF THESE DOCUMENTS, TOO.

I GUESS ON THE TOPIC OF CONCERNS, I'M JUST I know I talked about the RM2 thing a lot. But, I mean, a lot of our, actually probably all of the properties here within this URA that are zoned RM2 are, you know, right around, I was just looking on the county's tax lot map, and they're right around that 5,000, 6,000 square foot range zone. where you can't actually build multi-family housing on a multi-family lot that's small and even if you do have like a 6,500 square foot multi-family lot the most amount of homes that will allow on a lot that size is five or six sometimes and you know to me that Not really a comment on the URA plan, but if just general comment on that specific zone designation and looking at this map, if we're looking at all these RMT lots, Essentially, they're single family lots, by the way that they function today. So I feel like just that designation alone or what that designation allows really limits the ability to see some of that redevelopment happen in the URA. You know, I think the max density for that zone is like, 36 dwelling units per acre. And if you put a fourplex on a 5,500 square foot lot on a single family lot, which you can do, that's the maximum density for residential multifamily. And you can build that on a single family lot. And so it just, you know, I'm excited for this, but I feel like that we're, limited, you know, in our abilities to achieve this read it all in a vision if we don't make further changes to our code. And unfortunately, that's those changes won't be happening for the production strategy updates. So general concern.

So the one thing I will say, and I recognize what you're saying, we do identify all the goals of the housing production strategy. So middle housing, which is something new for us too, versus your standard multifamily. Throughout the life of the urban renewal plan, if there are changes to the zoning, if there are changes to the comprehensive plan, those will automatically get integrated into what we're doing. So therefore, if something is zoned out where a project no longer can be feasibly done, we would not move forward with it. At the same time, if the zoning changes to enhance what we could do, then we would do that as well. So it's all based on what we see today, again. But as those documents change, they would then sort of get layered in still. So if there was a rezoning effort and you could do more, then we could support that as well. we haven't done a lot of multi-family housing like is our own project typically where we've put money in is either through a grant or we've got a couple projects where maybe we built out so maybe there was a very large lot of land and we were able to parcel it into say three different parcels build the infrastructure that actually got to the housing. So the road, the sidewalks, the lighting, and then open up the other sites for development. So we've been able to put money there. We've also done a little work with SHA on some property acquisition up in the North Gateway area. But the rest is sort of where we've kind of put in the housing is really the grants. So downtown, we've had a couple projects where we've done the $749,000 grant. And outside of that, we've done the $300,000 grant. grants. And that's typically where we've put our money historically.

So say if you, you know, say if we get a bunch of, you know, more infill on these RMT lots and maybe more than we projected, that wouldn't increase the total amount of spend that would be available in the URA. That's still what the 190 million, but then the URA would just be able to close out sooner.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we, we have no, you know, we make our, and our financial consultants are very conservative. And so they kind of take the 3% and then if you were to get, you know, X amount of projects kind of every five-ish years or so, you know, and, and looking at other communities and what's happened in Salem and our other URAs to kind of What do we think that flow is going to look like? But at the end of the day, you're a thousand percent correct. If projects are happening and the tax increment is coming in at a higher rate, then it just means that we would hit maximum indebtedness sooner. There's also always the option that, you know, if... Conditions change and we do a certain amount of projects and in the projects that are left don't make sense and there isn't a desire to sort of add different projects. The Council always has the ability to close an urban renewal area early as well, so that's always on the table it doesn't happen very often but it's always something that is available if it just makes sense down the line.

Okay. I think the last question that I had, some projects in the city, like I think some of the apartment buildings downtown, the city has given property tax abatement for that. So say, you know, to incentivize a development, they give a mootip to a multifamily project.

that would probably cut off the ura funds correct yeah we wouldn't see them either so um they would just go um they wouldn't pay them and then down the line when the mootip would expire then that would either come into the urban renewal area or if the renewal area has then stopped collecting then it would be distributed to the taxing districts The one thing that I didn't mention, but I think is kind of important when it's coming to the taxing districts, the amount that we're collecting after that frozen base happens, that's the permanent rate. So that's the set rate that everybody pays. But if any taxing district has a special levy, we don't collect on that. The taxing district still receives that full amount.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

Let me cut you off. So if a Mootip exemption does happen, is that taken into account under that Category B there for housing development? Are you expecting any Mootip dollars?

I, so my understanding is I don't think the mood tip actually currently extends into that area. So, um, if I'm correct. Okay. Yeah. I'm, I'm 90% sure that that's what Michael had told me a while ago. Um, now if they were to decide to go ahead and, you know, do a mood tip there, then that would impact sort of, um, the revenue, obviously the tax increment that's coming in, but you know, it doesn't mean that we couldn't still partner on a project or something of that nature. Um, So we would still consider them a partner and they would still be contributing to the development of the area and hopefully sort of spurring that momentum.

Thanks. A procedural question for you. You mentioned that the advisory board that will eventually be put together has the option of creating a strategic plan that then projects would be evaluated against. My question is, is that something that is public in nature and shared as a, you know, does it get added to the website so that people can be aware of the plan that's being set forth or how does that, how does that work?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it's, it's kind of, you know, up to sort of the dynamic of what we're trying to achieve. Um, you know, I think early on the more input, obviously, you know, the better, um, I think with, um, with downtown and I think with North gateway as well. And I, again, I say, I think because I was not on point for those, um, But, you know, with downtown, it was a lot of outreach to the area, the folks that are right there in the area, asking them to come in and give their feedback. North Gateway, it was very similar, reaching out to sort of and that's over 900 acres. So it's reaching out to the property owners and the businesses and folks in that area to kind of give that feedback on what they would like to see and what would benefit that particular area. It doesn't preclude anybody else from participating. And it doesn't mean that that's how, you know, this one would make sense. Maybe with this one, it makes sense to go broader. But it also, you know, wasn't citywide sort of put out there in terms of sort of the outreach at that point in time. But again, those are things that would be determined as sort of part of that process and what the goals are.

So I'm wondering what was the process that you went through to determine which city goals were adopted into this project?

So it wasn't so much as which ones were adopted. It was, we figured out what projects made sense. And then we looked at the alignment to make sure that once again, where was the alignment and then making sure that we had alignment and we were not working in opposition of what the comprehensive plan was doing. We didn't have projects that were completely in juxtaposition of what was trying to be achieved in the comprehensive plan.

Okay. When I look at this, we have one environmental goal that says environmental impacts, but we're on the waterfront here, so we're on the Willamette, but repairing areas is not part of any approved project.

So we have Willamette, the Willamette Riverbank is in a listing as one of our projects. What that will be, we don't know, but we have that. And then we also have environmental remediation. So again, it's sort of taking the intent without knowing the exact projects and saying, we're looking at how do we keep the riverbank safe? How do we potentially, you know, improve the area? How do we deal with the environmental? And then looking at what those overall goals are. Because again, it's not going to be a one-for-one because... what's a little bit different about creating a new urban renewal area versus for instance when we went through a substantial amendment with north gateway is with that they were very specific projects we knew exactly how much they were caught in the cost exactly what we were going to do with the new one it's still very broad because we have not been able to fully investigate everything because there's a cost associated with that right but there's a lot of goals that have been left out Yeah, we're not going to be able to accomplish all of them.

What was the process of determining which goals? So is this a staff process?

It was a staff process of looking at the projects that we had on the list that were the priorities of the area and then looking at the comprehensive plan and how was there an alignment.

And where were the priorities of the area decided?

The projects. There isn't a priority of which projects go first.

Okay.

So we looked at existing city plans, what projects were adopted in all of those existing city plans. We looked at which projects we had done, types of projects in other urban renewal areas, and we developed sort of that list. We presented that list to the council in September. We then represented that list to the council in may for feedback based upon the feedback that then we received of should we add additional projects are these the types of things you would like to see then we developed the plan and then made sure and looked at exactly what are the alignments to the comprehensive plan thank you that was helpful yeah i don't have anything else any further questions

Okay, so you need, do we need to make a motion for recommendation? Okay. Would someone like to make a motion? I'm sitting up here, so.

I move that we recommend as a city council that it adopt the north waterfront urban renewal plan as it is in accordance with the comprehensive plan.

I will second that.

Okay. Any discussion on this?

I mean, I'm not gonna vote for this and I'm not gonna vote for it because I don't see that we really have an opportunity to really have any input in this. So, I mean, I think there are a lot of great opportunities in the North Waterfront District. And I think there are, it's important that we have an urban renewal plan for the North District Waterfront area. If the council is happy with this plan, then they should go ahead and vote for it. I think a number of things are left out, and there isn't sufficient detail for me to have confidence that it's going to get executed in a way that's going to bring long-term value to the public, and I'm not going to vote for it.

I do have a question, I guess, on the procedure for that. So if, is there a way that this could be revisited and brought back in front of Planning Commission as different projects are put, you know, become possible?

I mean, I don't think currently there's a, we don't have a system we don't normally bring because we have an urban renewal agency that And then generally the urban renewal districts, as Sarah explained, have their own advisory commission. So it's not really under the purview of the planning commission. I don't know. I mean, potentially... You know, planning commissioner could be liaison to a different committee or something like that. I'm not sure. Or we could ask for reports like annual reports or something. Maybe if they're provided to the council copies are provided to the commission. Something like that.

Do we need to add that to our. Does that need to be an amendment or is that a.

I don't want to commit maybe Sarah to come back up and talk about maybe if there's reports that are already created that could be shared or something. I don't.

I think it would be, I think it would lend some confidence into us endorsing something that is just so broad, you know, that if there was a way for us to have, yeah, report outs, something that kind of shows progress being made or challenges that are being showcased and what that actually means for how and why when this actually changes?

No, I completely respect the question. So right now we do sort of quarterly reports that go to the council, and those are kind of on the different things that are happening. We do an annual report as well that goes to our taxing districts that kind of gives an overview of the increment that's coming in and things of that nature. We um we could try and work out some type of and if if the commission's comfortable um working with the planning administrator on maybe you know what kind of a tool might be useful as sort of this urban renewal gets up and going and working with the then advisory board on kind of something that could come sort of on a on an annual basis I don't I don't want to commit because, again, if we're going to have an advisory board and I'd love for us to be able to work through the advisory board. But I do understand sort of where you're coming from. And I think there could be some type of a, you know, once again, an annual check in, which we sort of already do as part of our budget process when we're working with our different boards. So maybe that would be kind of the timing. But if the planning administrator would be open to sort of as staff being able to work on something, because it will be a couple of years before we. have anything um but we'll be able to get that that group in place and then um try and work out something so that as we're sort of updating the agency and the council maybe we're just including sort of planning commission on that or something of that nature

Okay, I mean, I think since the Salem Planning Commission is the has the broader Salem area, I think it would make sense that we're at least kept apprised of what is happening with these. And, you know, I appreciate that those are different areas that are tied to their own advisory board, but they are still within the city of Salem. Okay. The other discussion, go ahead.

I guess my perspective is that I guess we're telling city council, we're judging this plan based on whether or not that it meets the intent of the city, you know, adopted plans and goals and stuff. And I do think that that is the case and I will be voting for this. And You know, I don't think that we should necessarily be like a stakeholder in that URA process, but I think that having a report out like, you know, the URA decides, you know, hey, this is not going great. I think that that could be something that would be helpful for us because while we might not have direct control over the ura nor that i think that we should we do have those levers in our wheelhouse with the transportation system plan the utilities master plan stormwater master plan all these different master plans they come to us and and we would get presentations from city staff. I mean, the transportation system plans called out here a few times and that the projects that they're proposing for like street improvements or the front street or whatever is coming out of those plans. And those plans do come before us. So I feel like that the helpful part for that would just be, you know, John Potter, Get an information report on it or something, but I don't necessarily think that we need to have any say and. John Potter, Project scoping beyond it's you know it's in the adopted plan that came before us already. John Potter, So I guess I guess that's my thought.

John Potter, I guess, one of the challenges in evaluating this document is that. You know, if the exercise is to identify goals that are in alignment with the, our Salem plan, you could simply take any of them, put them in the document. It would just by definition meet the approval criteria. So you could say it's these four things and I've taken it from the plan and therefore it's an alignment. And our job is just to say, yes, that is in fact in this plan. It's the same language. Therefore, it's an alignment and we're done. We're not really asked to exercise any sort of discretion or judgment on what is included in the document. Simply, whether does the document have the same language as another document? That doesn't seem like a particularly good use of our time and doesn't seem like a particularly good use of our advisory ability. To me, what's interesting is what's left out or what is included. I'm surprised that some things are left out of here related to the natural resources and environment area, particularly because this is on the river and it's on Mill Creek. There's a significant number of existing buildings in there. We have policies related to like reuse and refurbishment of existing buildings. That language isn't in there. I think we just are missing some significant opportunities to advance some of our policies by what has been excluded from this document. And to include them, I think is the kind of thing that the planning commission could be recommending to the city council. So again, I'll be voting no, because I think it's missing some things, but then I think maybe I'll introduce a motion about writing to the council, asking them to include some additional goals if they go ahead and adopt this. Because I understand that we're not being asked to provide advice. We're just being asked to advise, to give approval. But I assume that the city council then can make amendments. Is that the case, Lisa?

if the goal is to have the time clock start then no it won't have changes in this first run now they could say we are not ready to adopt and we would adopt it next year if they thought it was close I think one of the things that's really important to understand is I mean I I hear you that the language in your comp plan may not be word for word in our plan, but it doesn't have to be. If the work that's in the project list is still like reuses, you can do economic development and you can do housing and you can do industrial, right?

I think the challenge here is that we're having a conversation at the end of a process when the cake is baked. And what you're telling me is the cake is baked. And what I'm also hearing is, no, the city council can't make any changes in this plan because it's too late.

They can make changes. They can. Okay.

Okay.

They can make changes. They just tend to not make them at this stage. But yes, they can make changes.

Okay. Thank you.

I think you're good. Okay. Well, I do also echo some just general concerns around making a recommendation for approval on something that is it's a little bit vague. So I think that we should just call the vote.

Commissioner Infante.

Aye.

Commissioner Freibach.

Aye.

Commissioner Slater.

No.

Commissioner Fott. No. Commissioner Rhodes. Aye. Commissioner Heller.

Aye.

Commissioner Levin. Commissioner Levin. Aye.

Sorry, I.

Okay. Passes. Do I have to bring the gavel? I don't think so. That's the best part. Okay. All right. As to information reports.

So just I have a procedural question that if I'd like to make a motion, how would I go about doing this now the appropriate time to make a motion?

Yeah, related to this item. Yeah, I think you should do it now.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, so we'll take a shot at wordsmithing this, although it will be far from accurate. So I guess what I would make a motion is that we send a letter to the city council, and that letter include statements to the effect that, A, the commission supports the idea of an urban renewal district. We've already approved that, so that's an obvious statement. And I support that, even though I didn't vote for it. but that we would encourage the city council to look carefully at the city's natural resources and environmental policies and consider adding several of them into the urban renewal plan. For example, the riparian area, And I want to say it's the building design standards. And again, I'm kind of racing here. So we have a building design standard N.39, N.33, excuse me, as an example. And I'll just read that. The city should encourage resource efficiency in the design and retrofitting of buildings, such as employing passive solar, living building design, sustainable building materials, energy efficient systems, appliances, and home and business energy scores. That seems to be like a really important piece to add into any sort of potential funding projects for the urban renewal area. And I'll leave it at that. Do we need a second? Or was that a second? Would you reread the motion?

Okay, that you're moving that we send a letter to the city council and let them know that you support the idea of the district. But you encourage the council to look carefully at the city's existing natural resources, plans and policies and considering adding them into the urban renewal plan. For example, policies around riparian area and building design standards in 33.

Perfect.

Thank you. Which I won't read all of what you wrote for that one, because I didn't write that part down. That's okay.

I was just reading it for information purposes. All right. I tried.

Question fails. And I know you know this, Commissioner Slater, but nothing precludes you from submitting your individual testimony to the city council when it comes. I know you know that.

information reports. Okay. Any subcommittee reports? Believe the wetlands committee meeting is moved to next month, August. Planning administrators report.

Yeah, I just briefly wanted to follow up on our conversation we had last week about a potential data center. And we didn't have anything better to do last night and watch the council that went to 1245 a.m. where I was at in attendance. There was a discussion with the council about ex parte communications and bias. And so Tom and I just wanted to have that conversation here quickly, because as I mentioned last time, Until an application is filed, we can't say exactly who the review authority would be or the appeal authority. So there's a potential that an appeal of some sort of application related to data center could come to the planning commission. There's no application that's been filed. And so ex parte communication doesn't apply currently to the commission. So you can read all the things, read all the newspaper articles, you know, or watch the council meeting or whatever. And when an application comes in, I will notify you all that when it comes in to let you know that exportate communication, generally you should not be talking about it after that point. And then when it's deemed complete is the time, like once we review, do an initial review, then I would be able to tell you for sure what, some people don't submit all their applications that they think they need. So we review and say, actually you need, x y and z so once we get through that i would be able to tell you for sure if it's a package that is appealable to the commission or not and so as a reminder um with combined applications if any of them has a review with the highest review authority then that's where it goes so eight of the applications are hearings officer and one is planning commission and it's combined they all come to the planning commission so that's how that works um and uh at Council last night um uh the city attorney advised the um Council um that even if they may you know not have an expertise um issue be you know because applications not submitted yet if they were to make public statements that made it really seem like they had already prejudged, you know, the project or the application, and then they were eventually a review authority or reviewing the appeal, there could be, you know, a situation where the applicant could claim that you had bias in their application. That is something they could appeal the application on. So if you were to make a strong, you know, facebook statement or whatever you know right now i will never approve a data center there just never can be you know done to meet city codes or what you know you know some exaggerated statement like that um then that would be a problem that if you were to then have to hear the appeal on it and tom i see has turned on his camera i don't know if he has anything to add or if maybe he's just wanting to be prepared if there's specific questions on that Oh, maybe you're frozen a little bit, Tom.

It's part of does occur, then it has to be disclosed. It has to be a determination about whether or not notwithstanding the ex parte community merits. Well, as to the more critical issue, parties who are before the commission on a quasi-judicial basis have a right to an impartial adherer of the facts. And so The question comes down to where because of prior statements, it would be impossible for you to objectively determine the criteria based on the evidence presented. Then you would be precluded from participating in that decision. The courts have given people in the situation, why discretion? Because there is that tension between being a public official and then being a quasi-judicial decider. And so it's often incumbent upon the person to say at the time that the hearing occurs, well, I've made these statements. but I'm going to judge these things on their own merit. I think Tom, Tom started cutting out Tom's part there. I remember the bat and the beating. We had a chance to...

In Tom's defense, he's already retired and he lives far away and he just helps us on contract. So thank you for your help, Tom. We muted you just because your sound was cutting out, but I will summarize a little bit of that as just a reminder that everybody that participates in a quasi-judicial hearing has the right to know what evidence the commission is using to make their decision. and what facts they're basing it on. And that goes for the applicant, for neighbors, neighborhood associations, anybody. And that's why the ex parte restrictions apply, so that everything that you're reviewing is on the record. Everyone has the same material, the same video, the same article, whatever it is. And then I think I heard Tom say if that communication does happen, maybe accidentally, or it just happens you... How about now? Yes, we can hear... Yes, so far for that sentence. Yes. I'll just finish my sentence then, that you would have to declare it at the hearing and introduce that evidence that you had the ex parte communication. And we only got some of what you heard, Tom, but we did hear you say that there is a tension between being, you know, an appointed official and then kind of switching into that role of conducting quasi judicial work. public hearings because as an appointed or for the council elected officials we do a lot of broad public outreach we want to hear what people have to think but when there's an application then the rules kind of switch on us there for that but um do you have any questions now can you hear me yes we can hear you okay how much of a long diatribe did you get like a quarter of it okay um

So let me, I'll, sorry about this, I'll recap. So, you know, ex parte materials are, Not a problem until there's an application before the commission. If there is an ex parte contact after that, it has to be disclosed. It has to be a determination about whether or not the person who received the ex parte communication can evaluate the materials on their own merits. As to bias, there's a tension between being a public official and being a quasi-judicial adjudicant. And so given some leeway to public officials to discuss in general terms what they think about an issue. But they have to think they can be fair to the applicant and impartial and judge the matter on their own, on the evidence presented. and the testimony. But you can imagine that there would be a situation where somebody makes statements that are so adamant and so strong that later disclaimers that they could be fair would stretch credulity. And so that opens up an opportunity for Luba then to overturn the decision and have to send it back because there was a violation of the applicant's due process. So what we have been advising is people be judicious in their public statements about their attitudes and their opinions. I'm not telling you not to say what you think, but You know, a lot of it depends on how you deliver the message and in what circumstances. And you should consider, you know, the statements are such that it's going to make it difficult for you to say later that I can be fair and impartial.

Great. Thank you, Tom.

Thank you.

Questions?

So when it comes to data centers, I look at it like any other thing, right? What are the benefits? What are the risks? And how are the risk mitigated related to our criteria? So one of the things that I'm interested in is the energy consumption issue. So I'm just very curious, how does the city, what is our code? How does the city, how are you, Lisa, looking at a potential application for a large energy user and saying, Does this work in Salem? Like, what do you get to look at when you say like, I mean, at the potential size of this, is it going to affect rates? Is there a grid stability issue? I don't know if any of those things are baked into the code or even possible for us to consider.

Yeah, that's not, um, a city approval criterion, you know, water, sewer streets, standards in the code, noise ordinance, landscaping, parking, you know, that kind of stuff for permitted use. So, um, They have to get power from a power provider. And that's not a city criterion.

So hypothetically, um we have a proposal for a large user and that could say we have a heat spike demand goes up because of this facility all of a sudden we have rolling brown outs um in the rest of the city but that isn't something that we could consider in reviewing an application like someone's someone's impact on a power grid is not a land use criteria decision for us there's nothing in the zoning code about that correct

And I can't speak to what a power provider's criterion for determining how and who they're going to serve and that kind of thing. Yeah. And I'll just say, just for the record, because they have not applied, I haven't seen their application or any of their materials that don't know anything about... My question is not project specific.

For any project going through, they have to identify how they're meeting the various statewide goals and... i can't remember how what the extents of our climate friendly and equitable communities like what the extents of those are and how that impacts new projects coming in and does it add additional criterion for you to review against

Yeah. So when something's a permitted use, the assumption is the goals have already been met if they're meeting what's in the development code. So like it was the city's burden to put the goals and the comp plan into the code and you apply the code directly, the zoning code, right, directly to an application. So unless they're asking to change the comprehensive plan designation, for example, you don't have to address the statewide planning goals. If they're asking to change the zone, then you address the comp plan, but they don't have to, for example, do an analysis of how their project complies with the comp plan. They have to do an analysis of how their project complies with the very specific standards that are in the code. So it's our burden to have put things in the code.

So by putting... data centers into as a permitted use. The city made an assumption that a data center is an appropriate use given all of our city policies.

Yes, that's how the system works. You know, I will say when I had Bryce do some research of like when data centers were added into this zone and it was part of the rewrite of the entire development code, unified development code in 20, which was adopted in 2014. It was like a four year project. And we were taking very specific uses in the standard industrial classification system. We used to use the 1987 version, which was quite out of date and coming up with a broad use, you know, category to apply to the zones. And we, data centers then were more like servers and web hosting and stuff. And I'm not sure that the potential impacts, you know, that maybe it could come from a data center today was what data centers were then. So I'll just say, like, I don't know that it was like a policy decision in 2014, that this is at this scale necessarily, but the code doesn't, there's no limit on scale or anything like that in the code. It's just, it is a permitted use in five or six different zones at this point.

So would we have an opportunity then to talk about some language that would identify maybe additional expectations once you hit a certain threshold for a scale of a data center so then that wouldn't affect anything small and reasonable that can come into the city but it sure but it would affect very large scale centers that might come in and impact you know negatively the city yeah um how do we start that process

Through the zoning code, you can put limitations and qualifications on specific uses. So for example, thinking back to the appeal we had recently, we were talking about the MUR zone. We allow manufacturing in that zone, but only 10,000 square feet when you sell something on the site, right? That's an example of a limitation or qualification on that specific use in that zone. So there's a way to do that. Uses can also be special uses where we say you can do it, but only if you meet these very specific standards. An example is accessory dwelling unit. You can do it in the zone and here's the standards for that specific use, different setbacks, different height than maybe the main zone has. Something can be a conditional use and then It's more broad and open and discretionary. So all those things can be done through a code amendment, and obviously through a code amendment is the way to determine the process if you want to change what uses are allowed or how they're allowed. Code amendments can be initiated by staff, the city council, or the planning commission. Although, you know, just advise like we've talked about many times. The limitation is just staff capability and time to like do an amendment. So, you know, if we already have a work plan or something. And I did forget to say my update. It's not on the flight sheet, but our housing code amendment public hearing we're expecting will be September 8th. So hopefully you'll all be there for that night. It'll be a pretty big package that we're going to go over.

So I guess based on what I've heard is that when the data centers were included as unallowable to use all the way back in 2014, what a data center was 12 years ago is substantially different than I guess what a data center is today. I remember hearing about all the data centers that are built out in Prineville or whatever way back when and they were essentially server farms where they just have a bunch of hard drives out in the middle of the desert and they're putting your facebook posts up on there and then you know when you want to you know send something to your aunt or something that she can go pull that from there but it's kind of changed a little bit where instead of just data stores they're kind of doing computational processing and it's like now instead of just a bunch of hard drives it's a bunch of computers or i guess graphics cards that are out there and they're you know the definition of the uses seems like it's changed since since we put it in the code um i'm not sure if that's ever been the case of any other uses that we have in our land use code but is the burden on the city to change the allowable use when the actual definition of what that use is changes over time

Yeah, I think the way the zoning code and the uses are is that we have a use classification system. And so we list, you know, an example of a, we list the characteristics of a use. Like this use, generally these things, you know, maybe wholesaling and trucks are coming and going and there's not onsite sales generally, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then we list examples. So here's an example of some businesses that you, you know, if you're this type of business, you're wholesaling. And then we list some exceptions. If you're doing this, you're not wholesaling, you're here. Maybe it's similar. So people are looking there. And then our intent was to not list every use possible because that's what they tried to do in the 80s. And it just backfires every year, especially as technology started changing in the 90s. So the code says, you don't have to be listed in an example. But if you have a use coming in, you have to make the case under the characteristics for what your use is. And then I as planning administrator agree or disagree. And if you don't. I might say, no, actually you're this for these reasons. And if you disagree with me, you can file a use classification kind of appeal. And I do a written decision about why I think I'm right. And you can appeal that to the hearings officer. So you have a opportunity to disagree about your use. But we have we've done some of those but we haven't there's not been a case where it's like you're so far out of all the characteristics of any use that we don't think you're a use permitted in the city, like we don't have to allow every use in the city. Right. when somebody comes in and I guess just looking at how the data center one is written, it's pretty broad. It's not, it's not, it doesn't say, you know, if you have computers and whatever, but you're only using this much energy or what it's just, you know, it's not, the uses aren't like that. They're more broad and they're intended to be more broad. So again, I think if there was an intention to put limitations or change how the use is allowed or whatever, it would, you know, be a code amendment and, you know, would take outreach and, you know, research and that kind of stuff. I'll say that I'm not a not anywhere near data center expert, despite, you know, I listened to all the testimony last night and read many of the emails and, you know, learning lots of stuff about them. But, you know, we, you know, it would be a project to figure that, that kind of thing out.

So, so so within the capacity of the city to issue a clarification, I mean, Like, to me, when the code was adopted, it wasn't adopted under the, you know, hey, this is what we had today, and we're okay with it. It was adopted based on what we had in 2014, and we were okay with that. Could... you know, like maybe data center or data storage and then data processing be like two different things?

I mean, I think so, but it would be through code amendment. Yeah. Even if we wanted to change the use categories that we have, that would be a code amendment process as well.

What is an expedited, legally permissible timeline for a code amendment change?

Oh, there's certain parts of the process that come from state law. You have to do 35 day notice to DLCD before you can have the hearing. Somebody has to initiate it, you know, council or planning commission. So that usually happens a little bit before that. And then you have to have a public hearing. at least one, either planning commission or council. And then if somebody, you know, has to have it continue, you might have more than one hearing. And then you have to have a first reading and a second reading of the ordinance at city council. So that's, you know, two meetings. And then you have to have a, there's a 30 day like appeal period before the ordinance is effective or, I think maybe some ordinances can be an emergency clause, but maybe not for land use. I'm not sure. I don't think we've done that. There's usually not a land use emergency for us. And that doesn't assume any... time for staff to like do the research, put together, you know, proposals and that would assume that whatever is brought forth is what's, you know, adopted that night of the hearing or whatever. But like, I would say like a really, really fast code amendment is like a, you know, four month, but generally, you know, code amendments, six to nine month kind of process, depending on staff time and stuff.

have an i have another i have a question with what we're talking about code amendments something like this um it's new in salem and we've looked at there's other cities around the state that have data centers um has there ever been a situation where the planning department has reached out to see this is just a thought like portland has a data center hillsborough has a data center looking at checking with their policies seeing what they've done And what kind of parameters they've had to go through in their cities when a data center was built and see what worked for them and see what can work for us as far as doing a code amendment or seeing what should be done and adjusted on our code. Has anything ever been done like that?

We haven't done that research yet, but that is definitely the type of thing we would do if we were going to work on a code amendment.

That way we can make a good, you know, informed decision based on what other cities have done that have data centers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know for myself, I think it would be in the interest of the city of Salem, our community, to at least provide a mechanism for reevaluating what a data center means because it is significantly different from what it was in 2014. So do we need a motion to initiate that process? And it's an exploratory process. It wouldn't be, of course, wordsmithing the language of a code amendment tonight, but...

Um, I think, um, we would have to write a resolution. Um, so perhaps, uh, a motion to, uh, bring back more information at the next meeting could be something. Tom, did you have anything that I thought I saw your hand?

The, um, City Council's got a work session planned or a special session planned coming up in the next week or two where I think a lot of these ideas are going to be explored. So I think it would be helpful to everyone if we don't duplicate efforts. And so it might be useful to wait and see what comes out of that special session and then see where our best applied. Because I think, you know, after after, you know, seven hours of testimony, I think they folks have gotten the city council's attention. And they tend to tend to try to act regarding this issue.

Yeah, maybe slightly inappropriate to get out in front of the council if they're gonna take it up at the next meeting. Yeah.

I agree with that. It's like putting the cart before the horse.

It does raise the interesting question of what is the planning commission's responsibility or role in a situation like this. I do think that we have probably some things that we can weigh in on that might be helpful. I think the conversation that we just had right now, the fact that The city doesn't have any sort of mechanism that allows us to evaluate a proposal based on energy use or some other natural other impacts seems to be like an important omission that whether or not it affects the current conversation might be useful for a future conversation. I mean, that seems to be like one of these things that we can weigh in on. I also think that what's unique about the Planning Commission is that we really do focus, you know, we have an obligation to figure out how to mitigate issues. So we aren't here just like, oh, we don't like a data center, but we have to identify what are the issues and can we condition them to make this an approval. That's a very different kind of mindset that I think that other people that aren't in planning don't have to have. Yeah. so for me that that the question is you know what are the possible impacts and what tools do we have to mitigate those impacts and where don't we have tools and it sounds like in the case of energy consumption we may not have any tools and that's a problem so we want to at least down the road equip ourselves with some tools similarly uh water use i assume if someone says they want to use x amount of water does the city say we don't have that much you can't use it or do we just approve it i mean What if we have a big water user? Do we say we don't have that much water?

Yeah, I don't know the answers to that.

Right. So it seems like there are some issues that we can have a conversation of, and maybe some issues related to scale. Like data center typically isn't a problem, but the scale of this operation. Maybe there are other operations that are increasing in size where we might say, oh, maybe if it's at this scale, we ought to have a closer, maybe it ought to be a conditional use permit if it exceeds a certain scale. So I think there are some useful conversations that we can have that doesn't get ahead of the council or or prejudice the issue if it should ever come before us.

And I did forget to mention, again, if you didn't watch the meeting, I'll know why, last night, that they did pass a motion from Councilor Varney to create a task force. It doesn't call out planning commissioners as members, but the motion was to create a task force of nine members with a mix of council members, citizens at large, union representatives, and one representative from an organization that leads workforce development. empower them to facilitate three town hall discussions about the subject of data centers, empower them to evaluate available models at national, state, and community level, and draft recommendations for a principle-driven approach to managing data center growth, and direct back to the City Council no later than the end of this year with a draft proposal. So it could be that through the task force, like a lot of those conversations could take place. And I don't know, maybe perhaps would one task or planning commissioner to be on the task force. I don't know. There was a little bit of discussion about how are people being picked last night. And I think the city attorney said their mayoral appointments because it's a technically committee, which fall under the mayor's scope. So that could be a way to,

and or participate as community members you know at the task force meetings well I do feel like there is some sort of you know I don't want to say urgency but like City Council went to like 12 45 in the morning last I guess today um which is pretty unheard of as far as I'm concerned Um and it's you know I I know our like our housing production strategy like you know we started that and it started with all these like conversations and we go through the draft and we could do the committee and we do the thing and the whatever. And then by the time, you know, we actually get to changing the code, it's like two, two and a half years after, you know, the first time that we looked at this and, you know, I think like, Don't get like people showing up to city council a bunch. If they're looking to change something in two and a half years from now, you get a bunch of people showing up to city council because there's something right now that needs to change and that it's really not working for them. And, you know, it's not to say that, you know, i'm not expecting anything to change for for this potential application um but you know to me the community has demonstrated a concern significant enough for this specific use type in generally i guess the whole city that you know something quicker than a a draft report by December 31st, which may or may not be actioned upon. know i feel like that they're expecting something sooner um so you know i i remember my first planning commission meeting was a land use hearing on i think it was like a adult daycare center in south salem um where the condition point use was like in a uh I think it was like a single family neighborhood. And we had like a hour long discussion about how many, like was it chariots buses could come by and drop off people. And then we changed the amount of participants by like six people to make it conducive to the, to the use. And to me, the, what a data center is has changed so much and You know, 12 years that simply just making the use conditional. Citywide would to me make sense. I don't want to overstep city council and say that, you know. I don't want to toss their whole thing out, but obviously, you know, if we. Start the conversation somewhere. we don't have to wait till December to then finalize the draft and then start that clock. And then people get answers 12 months from now or maybe a year or sorry, two years or longer. So we can at least start having that conversation um before you know we get i don't know 10 data centers that we were basically required to look at from a judicial perspective rather than you know is this right for our community because we had that is this right for our community discussion 12 years ago when we frankly didn't know what a data center would look like 12 years from now so i guess that's my perspective um so I personally think a motion for a code amendment is appropriate. But like I said, I've been partial to, I guess, any existing or future application, and I'm able to judge that with Judicial intent based on the code. But I think that the code that we have today isn't matching what the community wants. And I think we heard that pretty clearly.

yeah i'm just um it's a tough position for staff if the council is convening a task force look at the issue to also be directed by a different commission to do something that maybe the council hasn't directed us to do so right but i you know i don't i don't i can't speak for what the council is going to do or the task force or what you know It was a different I have no idea right so it's hard to know that the you know what they've done so far with that they've decided to do is to form a task force to look at the issue. So generally, if the Council has a this issue in front of them, we don't want to be. doing the same doing something on the same thing at the same time right and the different. venue.

can we write a letter to them to the task force with our thoughts absolutely i think um like i was mentioning earlier is with other other cities close to us medford eugene hillsborough that have data centers being proactive and looking at what kind of systems they have in place. As we talked about data centers 12 years ago are different nowadays. Currently technologies change, systems change, water systems, electric systems, cooling systems, all change. And there are new requirements for these types of systems. So educating ourselves in our city and with what other cities are doing in If they've made upgrades from the time that they built their data centers and updated to code in their cities, I think that would be valuable information for us to know. And before we make decisions to our code, say, okay, this is what they have done. How many years have they had their data centers in place? Have they been running efficiently? Has there been any environmental impacts in those areas? And looking at...

their codes and their their uh code divisions down there in those cities i think that'd be valuable yeah and i assume that's the kind of information the task force would want to be looking at you know gathering that kind of information what other communities are doing with impacts are technical you know aspects of this type of use hearing your advices for the city council we should just I'm just cautious about having dual, the commission and the council and the planning commission getting ahead of the council or taking up something that maybe the city council feels is their purview and they're working on based on the importance to the community.

So what would your advice be? I mean, obviously this is an important issue. It affects land use. It is a land use application. In this case, it got to the council before it got to the planning commission. What is your recommendation on what role we can play?

Well, I think asking if a planning commissioner could be on the task force would be good. If the commission wants to write a letter to either the council or just the task force. I mean, the task force hasn't been assigned or anything yet, but the ask would be, I think, of the mayor to see if a commissioner could be on the task force. And then I believe Tom mentioned the council taking the issue up again at the next meeting. So I think waiting to see what that means, what the council is doing, and then reacting to that and seeing how we can be integrated into that.

I like the idea of writing a letter. I certainly don't want to step on anybody's toes. But so I think a possible letter could be an ask to the council to maybe the mayor or whomever would be making the decision to include a commissioner on this task force and then to consider the allowable uses, or sorry, consider the zones within the city that allow data centers outright and possibly making those uses conditional in the interim because I really don't think message that I you know I maybe I watched like five minutes of council last night and then I had to go to bed but in those yeah in those five minutes you know I got the message that people really want to see change sooner than later and you know I know how a lot of these planning and studies and things work because they take a while so I think just that that interim thing would be would be good

So potentially a motion to have us draft a letter from the Planning Commission to the City Council recommending that they look at doing a code amendment to limit the use in some way.

Yeah, I think that would be good.

Okay.

And the request for a Planning Commissioner to be separate from the letter.

Um, yeah, um, we could put them together, you know, and then send the whole thing to the full city council.

Um, and I think that request doesn't need to be in the letter. The letter is more of a specific to the land use component.

Yes.

Okay.

Any email from our president who's not here tonight? So we should ask him to the mayor asking for an appointment. Could be a way to go or vice president in lieu of the president being here, if you would want to. um write an email to the mayor and you know copy me or something like that saying that you understand that there's a task force and what the importance of like having a planning commissioner on there could be one way to handle that separately from an official letter in that letter would it be appropriate to be able to ask or request

In addition, having the city council look at other cities who have data centers and so they can make a good informed decision based on what other cities are doing and not just us make our city who doesn't have a data center making a decision without good information from other cities who do.

I agree with Commissioner Infante. You know, I think there's lots of cities out there that do have data centers, and certainly we don't want to be super reactionary in this sense. And we just actually been put up out there in the past. So I think that information could be useful.

If you're wanting to direct me to write that letter, prepare a draft, then we would need a motion for that.

May I say something? I've been trying to get in the discussion. Can you hear me? Yep, go for it, Commissioner. Thank you. I definitely support having a member of the Planning Commission on the new task force. I think that's an excellent idea. What I am concerned about is we know that they're going to apply for the data center to be built. And The discussion here tonight sounds like people have already made up their minds. I mean, that's just what I'm hearing. Now, I worry about pushing a code amendment when we know the application is going to come. So that's all I have to say.

Yeah, and I'll just, I think all of the commissioners know, but if there's people listening at home, if, you know, a code amendment was to be initiated and worked on, any application that came in wouldn't apply to it. So if it came in before the ordinance was effective, it wouldn't impact that. It's that standard and standard. land use it comes from the ORS and basically the city can't move the goalposts so you can't you know right nations and then change the regulations so whatever is in place the day they submit are the regulations we have to evaluate their application against okay I just it just I don't I didn't realize that um we couldn't that there would be no ex um

What do I want to say? Exposed facto provision. So that's good. That's fine. I just, it's fine to do that. I agree with it now, now that I understand the limitations.

Procedural question then. The rules that apply or the rules are in effect when they apply or when it's deemed complete?

When they apply.

When they first apply. Yes. So even if it's an incomplete application.

Yes. And if you don't know, under state law, they have up to 180 days to get to that point where the application is complete. Or they can say, we're not giving you any more information and process the application, and then therefore it's complete. If after 180 days, we're still waiting for information and we don't hear anything, from an applicant, then it does expire and they have to reapply. And if the rules have changed, the fees have changed, whatever, then they're under their new rule. But there can be many iterations of submissions, review of that submission, more submissions before we get to that complete.

Okay. So, but it is the application, just the submittal of the application. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Yeah. So I know I don't have a motion yet, but just in discussing the letter, thinking based on the comments I heard, just to make sure I'm hearing this correctly, it would be more of, you know, we're requesting the council consider initiating a code amendment to limit or restrict in some way the uses you're not proposing, for example, to propose the solution, right, Commissioner Freibach? Just more like we think the use could be be handled differently in the zoning code, and we would expect part of that code amendment to include research on how other cities with data centers regulate this use to Commissioner Infante's point, and then some information about how when it was added in 2014, the impacts were different than AI data centers, maybe the impacts that they have today. Is that generally what commissioners were expecting?

Did we want to talk about the energy code and kind of the impact of

No, I would encourage us to have another conversation and further develop that a little bit. Yeah, because I feel like, and I guess I haven't fully wrapped my mind around what that is and what we could do about it.

And yeah, I think that would be a larger conversation to with our providers, you know, like white conversation more. Yeah, I mean, potentially statewide.

And it's just

If you don't turn on your mic, you can't be heard.

Thank you, Commissioner Levin. We were just saying that the energy code, they will have to, you know, any project has to meet the current energy code that we have in effect for the state of Oregon as one component, but that's not a zoning regulation. That's simply a building code.

Yeah, absolutely. So there are other state federal regulations that apply to all developments in the city, you know, depending on the situation that aren't necessarily regulated or governed by the land use code.

I guess the question is, like, do some do we see a world in which there are some things that operate at such a scale that they that they have a profound impact on the availability of utilities and resources for the rest of the community? And it seems like we have one instance now where that might be the case.

And are there others?

Yeah. How do we deal with that?

Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'd have to think about that or do more research to see if it's an appropriate thing to bring in energy standards when we're not the provider. Great.

We're the water provider.

Exactly. Yes.

So I want a million gallons of water. You can't have it.

Yeah, and I am not the person to speak to how many gallons of water we, you know, have or provide or our facility size. We have utility planners who were here recently, right, to talk about the wastewater master plan and all kinds of engineers and public works. So that will be part of any sort of application. We, you know, always review that kind of information. And because they haven't submitted an application yet,

i you know i can't speak to that at all but um obviously yes a lot of the testimony last night was about water and water usage so that is a serious concern the community has somebody came in put an application in for i don't know like a cloud factory like a big you know they take a bunch of water and they just evaporate it that's their whole thing maybe they make a bunch of money on it Could the city, you know, deny that application? Or maybe if I opened up a big factory and it just was like city water connection, a straight pipe into the river. Like, could the city say, no, you can't build that. You're just dumping all your water into the river. Like, do we have grounds to deny an application?

That's an interesting hypothetical. I know we do have regulations on discharge, so I'm not sure. But I get what you're saying, and I honestly, I don't know the answer. That's never come up in any land use application that I've ever reviewed. And... you know if somebody's listening thinking you know how can the planning administrator review it if she doesn't know that it's not um you know i'm not the one doing every technical aspect of this review right so it will go out to all the appropriate city staff um for their portions you know our traffic engineer our street folks our natural resources our engineers and they will look at their specific portions and determine how it meets their regulations, which, you know, public works design standards are are adopted master plans, that kind of thing. And then whatever applies to them out of the zoning code as well. So that that will be that is. that was one of the main questions last night and it is frustrating that we don't have an application we just know they said they're going to apply at some point and so we don't have normally when we talk about land use issues we can say well in our application on this page or you know we'll send those questions you know or we'll have a public hearing and we can ask the applicant to come up and speak to that and we're not at that point yet so it's um hard to the general concern I think

for Planning Commission is that if it's an outright permitted use with no strings attached, really, then it wouldn't ever go through a public process. It would simply be a staff level approval and it would move forward.

It would have a public hearing if it was appeal.

Right. But that still requires an outside effort. It's not part of a, it's not an assumed public process in the normal. Yeah. And the way it is currently is a permitted use.

And if it's appealed, it could be appealed to a hearing officer. Is that correct?

Yes, depending on which applications they end up needing and submitting.

Right. So even if there's an application and it requires all sorts of conditions of approval, that's still a type two administrative procedure that goes to a hearings officer. Yes. Right. So what route would bring it to the planning commission or the city council?

I don't, we haven't identified any route that it would go to city council, mostly because they are prohibited under state law from calling up administrative applications. They used to, and actually if you look in our zoning code, it does say they could call certain ones up. for a review, like a subdivisions partition site plan review. But last year, Senate Bill 1537 prohibited it by saying you can only apply the procedures in state law to administrative applications. And of course, a council call-up is a fairly unique Salem process. So we can't do that anymore. We're going to fix the zoning code to reflect that. So we haven't really identified any application that they would have that would go to city council in any way. Most of the applications we've identified would be hearings officer review. Site plan review is our administrative zoning review of a permitted use. So does it meet its setbacks? Does it meet its height? If there's some sort of discretion, they have a traffic study, they're asking for a zoning adjustment, we need to place conditions, then it rises to the level of site plan review where we send notice. If they meet every single standard, and they don't have any traffic studies or anything, we don't even send notice, right? We just review it, write up our decision about how it meets the zoning code, and then they can get their building permit. And that's intended that like if you are permitted use and you're meeting the things you shouldn't have to go through a public hearing, right. But because there's some discretion like if they asked for zoning adjustment or previously they had applied for tree variants that expired like if they were to ask for tree variants again, those things, raise it to a level of discretion but it's limited discretion so hence it doesn't require full public hearing. You know, there are A land division appeal comes to Planning Commission. They were to say, hey, actually, we want to do a partition as part of this. Partition appeals come to Planning Commission. So that's why it's hard to say it's like, well, they didn't say they want to do a partition. But you don't necessarily know until you get somebody's full application and see what they're doing. And they will never do a partition. You know, that kind of thing. But the site plan review itself, zoning adjustments, driveway approach permits, those all are appealable to the hearings officer. And really on appeal, no matter who this review authority is, but the reason it's the hearings officer, the idea is It's a permitted use and it's limited. And do they meet these standards in the code? And the appeal then is therefore limited and it's not more of a discretionary process that would be necessarily in front of the planning commissioner or the city council.

We're just dealing with something that's operating at a scale that we never considered.

Yes, yeah.

So I think the, I guess my intent with the letter is to capture things that we might want to say get a handle on before the final version of that task force thing is released and then they're able to implement those findings. um so like asking the council they are telling them hey we think you should consider this and ahead of time um and my thought is specifically changing John Potter, Know allowable uses for data centers from a I think it's like an a for allowed to see it's like a one letter change and that conditional allowable use would allow that discretionary level review to happen at planning Commission and city council correct.

Yeah, currently under the code, um, conditional uses are go to the hearings officer for the initial hearing and then are, um, appealable to the planning commission, but the council could call it up instead of having an appeal. Um, but as a reminder, that's one of the, um, procedural changes we are proposing to change in the housing code amendment is to have, um, conditional uses and zone changes come to the planning commission for the initial hearing instead.

I think that code change specifically is reasonable. But yeah, I guess I think that changing that one letter You know, obviously it's not going to be perfect. And I'm assuming that whatever task force that council comes out of is going to, you know, maybe they decide outright we don't want any data centers. Or maybe they want to specify data centers that are this square footage and this height and this whatever allowed. And then they can get into the nitty gritty of as far as that goes. but the level of public interest that we've seen come in about these uh about the specific use um you know it's way more than like that daycare center that we saw in that single family zone and you know i mean we were out of here before 1 a.m and so i i think just the level of public interest supports the that that that change um so are you saying you would want the letter to recommend that they do a quicker amendment

consider doing a quick amendment to change it from permitted to conditional and then work on through the task force on broader zoning code changes is that what you're saying yes interim solution yeah and sharing with the task force our thoughts as far as key points their findings are going to be and be able to make decisions towards the deaths and like again looking at other cities, seeing what they've done, what kind of codes they have, what kind of systems they have, how does it impact? So that way that task force has task A, B, C, D, okay, these are important things that the planning commission's kind of discussing and key points of interest, B issues, and that's addressing some of what city of Salem's yesterday.

Okay, so I think Lisa probably has a good sense of what we want the letter to say. So all we need really is a motion for her to draft a draft that we will then review draft to draft.

Yeah, draft the letter and you could do a motion to authorize the vice president to send an email to the mayor requesting planning commission represented on the task force. You could do that in the same motion if so moved.

Okay. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Please call vote.

Commissioner Levin?

No.

Commissioner Infante?

Aye.

Commissioner Freibach? Aye. Commissioner Slater?

Aye.

Commissioner Fott? Aye. Commissioner Rhodes? Aye. Commissioner Heller? Aye. Commissioner Heller?

Commissioner Heller, you're trying to speak.

Hello?

We hear you.

Okay, yes, I vote yes.

Thank you. Motion passes.

Thank you.

Okay, any other? Okay, no. Commissioner comments for the good of the order?

One very unrelated comment after all that. So I think a few months ago, I put an application to be on the Chariots Community Advisory Committee as their bicycle and pedestrian representative. I have been appointed by the Chariots Board. So I think my first meeting is later August. Awesome. Their meetings... Their calendar says they're not supposed to overlap a planning commission meeting. That's the case for every single one, except for December. Just to note, I will not be cheating on you guys with JC. So I will be here and they're going to have to miss me for that meeting. So I just let everybody know. And then, you know, obviously I'm on the planning commission too. So I can bring in perspectives from this group. with regard to bicycle and pedestrian related items. So that's all I got.

Great. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations.

Thank you. Okay. And we have no public comment, I believe. No one online. No. Okay. All right. We are adjourned.