Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yes. Yes. Okay.

Okay, but the city council did a snack break during their full like meeting where they're not so like marathon meeting. I hope they did. I would have needed some ice cream or something. Okay. I'm going to start this. I'll call the August 11th, 2026 planning commission meeting to order at 530.

Great. Okay, so apparently I did this without my microphone. I'm going to call the August 11th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting to order still at 533. Okay, roll call.

Commissioner Levin. Commissioner Freibach.

Here.

Commissioner Slater.

Here.

Commissioner Heller. Here. Commissioner V.R. Brendel.

Here.

Commissioner Rhodes. Here. Commissioner Fott. Here. Commissioner Infante?

Here.

Commissioner Tev? Here.

We have quorum. Item number four, consent calendar. Can I get a motion?

I make a motion to approve the minutes from July 28th.

Can I get a second?

Second.

I have a motion and second. Any discussion on the motion? Commissioner Freibach?

Yeah, I was curious to get the thoughts of other folks on the item 9 there. It captures the reasoning behind the motion that we ended up passing, but we did have a discussion about whether or not that we should initiate a code amendment on ourselves, and we decided not to do that because City Council had created their task force, and I was curious if folks wanted that captured somewhere in the minutes on here, so.

I was not there, so I will not participate in the discussion.

Do you have a specific statement that you envision including?

I was kind of thinking maybe, you know, we had a, or the commission had a discussion about whether they should initiate a code amendment. And it was decided that since the city council has decided to undertake, I guess, the data center question and create a task force that we don't want to overstep the city council and initiate a code amendment without their, you know, ahead of whatever they might be planning.

I guess for me, the meetings are all recorded. So since it wasn't a specific agenda item that had any actions taken, personally, I don't think that's necessary.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's fine then. Other folks agree?

I would suggest that the proposal to do an amendment is covered in your draft letter and it makes a recommendation to the Mayor of City Council and acknowledges that the task force is going to be reviewing the situation. I think we're covered.

Okay.

Okay. Any more discussion on motion? Can we get a vote?

Commissioner Infante?

Aye.

Commissioner Tev? I did review the video, so I will be voting aye.

Commissioner Rhodes. Aye. Commissioner Fott. Aye. Commissioner Vieira-Brendel.

I made it through almost two hours, so I will abstain because I did not make it through the entire meeting.

Commissioner Heller. Aye. Commissioner Slater.

Aye.

Commissioner Freibach.

Aye.

Commissioner Levin.

Aye. Motion passes. Which I guess that kind of puts us into... Agenda Item 6, seeing as that there's no other 4.2, 4.3, or 5 review and final letter on data centers. I don't know. Is there a specific person who's going to present that?

I guess I'm the only one here is staff. So yes, at the last meeting, there was a motion to do a draft letter. And so there's the draft letter here attached for your review. If it's approved tonight, we'll change it to be from the president and change the vote as needed as well. Since our meeting where we had this discussion, the council had a special meeting on August 3rd and did direct staff to initiate, or actually they did initiate, they didn't direct us, they initiated a code amendment to deal with data centers, but this letter could still be sent to the city council indicating your preference for how they do it.

They initiated a code change for this already? Yes. This is moot.

Yeah, but they didn't say exactly what the code amendment necessarily would be, which I think the letter, based on our discussion, was giving some kind of direct advice on how to go about it.

Yeah, I think there's still some value in that. Do we need a motion to adopt this? I think so. Yes. I move that we adopt this letter. Second.

Okay, a motion and second. Now that I guess we've reviewed it, is there discussion on the motion?

I'm in support of the letter with the modifications that Lisa mentioned about just changing it to be from our commission president.

I've reviewed the letter.

Yeah, same here. And we were in the paper as well. There's some expectation that it might be sent.

Not everything you read there is true, though, right?

I'd like to say some. I reviewed the letter. that we were proposing to send to the council and I believe it was in line with what we discussed at our last meeting and most importantly, trying to give advice to the city council to look at other cities and look at what their codes are and look at what they're doing with data centers. So that way we don't make a rash decision, but make a, um a smart decision on what codes we change and so forth without looking at what those other cities are doing what would be texas for ideas i'm sure everyone read that at the texas amazon facility

Texas is approving a data center for Amazon that will generate the emission equivalent of 300,000 cars. Fast-tracking it. It's just interesting how the debate is playing out in Oregon versus Texas. Different places, yeah.

Okay, any other discussion? Okay, can we get a vote on the motion?

Commissioner Tefft? Aye. Commissioner Fott? Aye. Commissioner Rhodes?

Aye.

Commissioner Vieira-Brendel?

Aye.

Commissioner Heller?

Aye.

Commissioner Slater?

Aye.

Commissioner Freybeck?

Aye.

Commissioner Levin?

Aye.

Commissioner Infante?

Aye. Motion passes. Any information reports? Looks like nothing on the agenda. Subcommittee reports the Wetlands Subcommittee will meet after this meeting planning administrators report?

Yeah, at our last meeting the other motion was to direct, in your absence, to have the vice president email the mayor and ask for a planning commissioner to be on the task force that's being created for data centers. Since then, they have submitted an application their current application is appealable to the planning commission so our recommendation from the city attorney is to not have a planning commissioner on the task force because it might overlap at a time when the application is being reviewed or appealed to the planning commission or something like that but that was a motion that you made so i was hoping maybe you could i guess have a motion to rescind um that request and i don't think vice president fought sent the email so we have we haven't officially is that we're going to say send the request so i would move that we uh withdraw that motion or withdraw that action yeah i think that's fine second we have a motion in second is there any discussion

I think that makes sense to me. I don't think we want to make a conflict here. This is already, I think, going to be probably one of the more complicated issues in front of us for a while, so I don't need to make it more complicated.

And just to be clear, Lisa, the only route that it would, the only path that it would come through to us is if someone withstanding appeals the sub, not a subdivision, it's a... Yeah, part of their application or one of the applications they've submitted is a replat. Replat.

So to move some lines and create some parcels within the existing subdivision.

In order to accommodate the substation.

Yeah. But it's a consolidated application. So if anybody submits an appeal on the application, assuming their replat is still part of that application, then the appeal authority for replats is the planning commission. So the whole application would come to planning commission on appeal.

So regardless of what the appeal is on, because of replat, it would come to us. So it's almost guaranteed to come to us then.

Based on the current applications they've submitted, we're still doing our initial completeness. And through that, sometimes applications drop to get added or whatever or something. But our initial take on looking at it is that the appeal would come to planning commission.

And the ability to appeal is fairly broad. Or the people who have standing is fairly broad at this point.

Yeah. Anybody that receives a notice or anybody that comments during the 14-day comment period or the applicant.

And everyone in the city received a notice.

haven't sent notice yet so it's not uh deemed complete okay when we do send notice it will go to property owners tenants etc within 250 feet it'll go to the neighborhood association um but nobody's prohibited from you know submitting during the open comment period on any land use application we do have a public portal um you can submit comments online through our public portal we have a map that shows the open applications so there's many ways, and I'm sure it will be in the paper, you know, during the comment period, but anybody can comment during the 14 days, and then they would have standing to appeal. Thanks.

Okay, any other? Oh, go ahead.

I was curious, so above us, from us, if, say, our decision gets appealed, that goes to city council?

No, so there's only ever one local appeal. Okay. And so this is an administrative decision, so the appeal would be, for example, in this case, potentially the Planning Commission, and that would be the only local appeal. So appeals beyond that would go to the Land Use Board of Appeals.

Okay.

Yeah. and then on up through the courts if it gets to that, yeah.

Any other discussion? Okay, can we get a vote on the motion?

Commissioner Tev? Aye. Commissioner Fott? Aye. Commissioner Rhodes? Aye. Commissioner Villar-Brendel?

Aye.

Commissioner Heller? Aye. Commissioner Slater?

Aye.

Commissioner Freybeck?

Aye.

Commissioner Levin?

Aye.

Commissioner Infante?

Aye. Okay, motion passes. We will not send that email. Anything else in the planning administrator's report or is that?

No, I think that we're now just a reminder. Is it on the fly sheet? Yes. Our code amendment, our housing code amendment that we've been talking about for a while will be coming on September 8th for a public hearing.

Commissioner comments for the good of the order? Mr. Breivik?

Got one. So I was talking with Michael Anderson. He's a guy that does a lot of housing policy work and stuff with the Sightline Institute. And he's agreed to come give a presentation on September 22nd about all the stuff I... talk about so multifamily um how we can get uh kind of better use of our existing multifamily properties especially the smaller ones and uh you know what kind of impact that kind of development can have on the city's finances and uh tax revenues so um look forward to it sounds great thank you uh any public comment other than agenda items

No? Okay. And in keeping with my promise, we're keeping it under 20 minutes. Adjourned at 547.