Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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I call this meeting of the seaside planning commission to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. flag of the United States of America. Debbie, would you take the roll call, please? Yes. Commissioner Don. One last time. I'm here. Here. Present. Chair Monttero here. Vice Chair Kathy Clelesic. Commissioner Roger Mitchell here. Commissioner Chris Rose present. Excuse me. This is the time and place duly advertised for the Seaside Planning Commission to hold its monthly meeting. Agenda items can be initiated by the general public, any legal property owner, Seaside City Council, city staff, and the Seaside Planning Commission. Does anyone present feel the commission lacks the authority to hear any item on the agenda? Hearing none, are there any corrections, deletions, or additions to the draft minutes of May 6th, 2025? Chair Monto, I got to stop you. Uh, Commissioner Klesic is raising her hand. Hold on. Let me see if I can get her back up here. Sure. Can you hear us? Commissioner Cleles, I can hear you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Yes. Um, excellent. Try to speak a little bit louder if you can so the audience can hear you. We do have

quite a few folks in the audience today. Okay, I'm here. Okay, I will repeat the question and welcome Kathy. Thank you. Will we will u adjust the roll call to show Commissioner Klesic here via Zoom. Thank you. Please do. Are there any corrections, deletions, or additions to the draft minutes of May 6, 2025? Yes. All right. Please speak. Um, thank you. I believe that the uh minutes should reflect the what was on the cons consent agenda that you can't just say that there was a consent agenda without actually reflecting what there was in a consent agenda. Did you catch that? I did. We will confirm that with the city recorder. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. uh hearing just that one notation. Uh the minutes are adopted with the the uh concession of hearing from the city recorder. Okay. It is standard procedure for the members of this commission to visit the sites to be dealt with at these meetings. Do any of the commissioners wish to declare an exparte contact or conflict of interest? I have a potential conflict of interest. Please. Uh did you want to explain or I just I just I just live in the flood area. Okay. I will disclose. So do I. Or I have property in the flood area. Anybody else? Okay. The following public hearing requirements apply to the apply to the items on our agenda. The applicable criteria for the hearing items are listed in the staff reports prepared for this hearing. Testimony and evidence shall be directed toward the applicable criteria listed in the staff reports or other criteria in the planned or land use regulation which you believe applies to the decision. Failure to raise an

issue accompanied by statements or evidence sufficient to afford the decision maker and the parties an opportunity to respond to the issue precludes appeal to the land use board of appeals on that issue. The applicant will testify first. This is not really applicable, but we're going to just go down this role here. The applicant will testify first, followed by any others in favor of the request. Then any opposition will testify and then the applicant will be given time for rebuttal. For testimonies, we will for testimony we will hear from in-person attendees followed by electronic attendees. And when the time comes to hear from the members of the public attending electronically, there's a feature in the attendee view that allows you to electronically raise your hand by clicking on the control paddle panel at the bottom of your screen. Phone attendees can raise their hand by pressing star 9. You will then be placed into a queue and when your time comes to speak, you will be unmuted and can address the commission. Our moderator of the uh comments, administrative assistant, Debbie Canyon, will monitor this area and let us know when citizens have virtually raised their hand or ready to make comments via Zoom or by phone. Background noise must be kept to a minimal minimum while testifying or your testimony time will be ended early. Prior to testifying, please state your full name and your address for the record and please limit your comments to three minutes. So, this is a little bit different today. What we've got, we have a a public hearing 76925-000035-png. And Mr. uh director, I'm going to turn that over to you for the introduction. Thank you, Chair Monto. Um tonight we are u looking at our flood damage damage prevention

ordinance and um some potentially newly required um uh pre-implementation compliance measures that FEMA is uh mandating we adopt to maintain our status in the national flood insurance program. This pertains to any property owner in Seaside that has property within the special flood hazard area. So, this includes the 100red-year flood plane, the regulatory floodway, and the velocity flood zones. FEMA has um mandated these one for the city to choose one of these three uh compliance measures uh to maintain our status. Uh the first one is to adopt their model ordinance uh that considers the impact to the species in the endangered species list and their habitat and it requires mitigation to a no net loss standard. um their model code has been determined to be uh somewhat against state laws. It doesn't apply clear and objective standards to uh housing requirements. It's made it difficult for communities to determine language that will provide clear and objective standards for applicants using that. The second is to require a sightspecific permitby permit habitat assessment and mitigation plan. Uh what this would do would require any applicant applying for a flood u plane development permit to enlist the uh services of a uh qualified expert which will be defined later on to provide this assessment um that is specific to the guide provided by FEMA and I believe it was in the documentation that was in your packets and uh and touched on in the staff

report. Um the habitat assessment guide requires this to be done by a specific qualified expert. And the third um option that FEMA gave us is just to prohibit all flood plane development. Uh that third option is is not really an option. That's not something we're able to just do. So we are have been going back and forth. Many attorneys have been going back and forth on how to best um apply one of these uh compliance measures so that it meets the requirements of state law and meets the intent that uh FEMA is trying to uh achieve. This isn't just affecting us, not just affecting Clatsup County, it's affecting a significant portion of the state of Oregon. Uh, as you can see from the map, everywhere outlined in green that's shaded is in this similar situation trying to um figure this this out while maintaining our status in the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA did release uh in late 2024 the mitigation and habitat assessment guide. And uh what this document lays out is is the step-by-step guidance on how to um complete a habitat assessment, how to inventory what is currently at the development site, and then how to mitigate for any loss of that. So the standard that is trying to be achieved here is no net loss. There are three flood plane functions that are uh that are listed as the requirement to achieve that no net loss standard. It's flood plane storage capacity, water quality and riparian vegetation. Um the easiest one uh to

explain is the riparian vegetation. you take trees out, you have to plant trees in accordance with FEMA's guide on mitigation. Um, water quality has to do with the pvious and imperous surfaces. So, if you were to say pave over a portion of your property in the flood plane, creating imperous surface, you now have to create pvious surface somewhere else. That's difficult to do. Um, as you can imagine, if you already have a vacant lot full of pvious surface, how do you mitigate for that pavement? Uh, the third is flood storage capacity. Um, a lot of developments in the flood plane involve raising the property's elevation out of that special flood hazard area so that a structure can be built to flood plane standards. If you look around Seaside, some properties are right at base flood elevation. Um, I've seen elevation certificates for other properties that they're 6 to 8 ft below base flood elevation. As you can imagine, if you're 8 ft below base flood elevation, it's really difficult to bring that uh volume of of material up to that base flood elevation to be able to build on. With this no net loss standard that's being required, you have to mitigate for the amount of fill you bring in uh within that same flood plane reach. That can be very difficult when we start talking about small development locations, lots, 50 by 100 foot lots. It's hard to mitigate within that area. The ordinance that's proposed um the language for this mitigation was written by our uh attorneys uh to meet the requirements in state law and to meet the um new requirements by FEMA. So, we've talked about a qualified

professional. This is what is defined in the ordinance as a qualified professional. Um, essentially it's someone who has a bachelor's degree in wildlife or fisheries, habitat biology, or related degree in a biological field from an accredited college or university with a minimum of four years experience in practicing fish or wildlife habitat u biologist or is listed on the department of transportation's official list of consulting of consultants qualified to provide endangered species act documentation. Um if the city goes through with uh completing this ordinance amendment with these provisions in it, uh staff will be putting together that list to be able to provide to applicants so that they have uh folks to start a starting point to call to have this type of assessment done. Um there are let me go back one before we get into this. Um, this ordinance, this proposed ordinance has two parts to it. It has what we just discussed, which is the compliance with the pre-imp implementation compliance measures, and then it's just general ordinance cleanup to get us in line with the, uh, the state's model floodplane development ordinance. Um, if you look at the ordinance that's been presented, uh, the differences between our current ordinance and the state's model code are italicized. The new FEMA requirements are in um uh they are highlighted in yellow. There is two paths for the city to take here. Um, one is to adopt the model ordinance including all the ordinance cleanup, language cleanup and definitions that we are we are supposed to be in line with now and leave out the new FEMA uh requirements or adopt the whole um package. That's important

because as of last week um this was released and there's not a lot of information on this yet. Essentially, the Federal Emergency Management Agency joined the folks suing them, or Oregonians for Flood Plane Protection to ask the judge to suspend the court proceedings. Um, this is all coming to light after the uh about January of this year. So the intent behind suspending the court proceedings is so that all parties involved can discuss options, negotiate options which might resolve this litigation. Right? So at this point we are still in a position of we don't know. So, we've put the ordinance together uh to show what a proposed ordinance would look like if um the lawsuit uh fails and FEMA pushes this through. U however, it's still very fluid. This has been very fluid for more than a year now since this all came down and we've been trying to sort this out. Uh so, at this point, staff's recommending the planning commission go ahead and hold the public hearing. uh since we've needed to do ordinance cleanup on this specific ordinance anyway. This will get us in compliance with uh what's currently required. Um and then the commission can discuss the information presented and then they can make a recommendation to the city council. Ultimately, this is the city council's decision um to pass this ordinance. The city council will be holding additional public hearings. Um, and hopefully by the time we get to that final stage of adoption, we have more information here uh to uh give a better uh idea of what the council should do because at this point, like I said, with

that news dropping late last week, things are still very much fluid and changing and FEMA has not come out and given staff any support on this one way or another. uh staff did send this uh proposed ordinance change to region 10, our FEMA office uh to have it reviewed and did not hear back from them and have not heard from them for several months now. Um so uh at this point um the ordinance is drafted in a way to where the new requirements requiring that no net loss standard can be easily pulled out by the city council if an amendment is appropriate. Uh but the uh we are we are uh recommending the commission go ahead and um uh discuss this matter and make a recommendation to the council uh to approve the the the new flood damage prevention ordinance with the caveat that this could be changed that no net loss component can be changed or eliminated prior to the final adoption. That's a lot. That is a lot. So, as Jeff mentioned, um we're not the decision maker. We're just the body having the discussion as well as you folks having u your public comment. So, do we want to start with public comment first? And I I I can add one more thing for the audience in today. This is very sight specific. It's it's it's not a broad stroke of will you be able to develop your property or will you not be able to develop your property. It's very very sight specific. Um and it really depends on what type of development you're proposing if those final changes were to to be adopted. There you go. Would anybody care to uh put in their three

cents? Come on up to the microphone and introduce yourself to all of us. Um, can I ask a procedural question? Is Is this a hearing? Are we opening the hearing now or are we taking public comment on an item on our agenda? Opening the hearing, I suppose. Okay. So, we're taking testimony. Yes, we are hearing testimony from Okay. the public. So, I just have a question. On the map that shows the area that's considered the flood plane area, it wasn't clear. It said candy striped area. It wasn't clear on the map what that was. So, is that everything from the ocean all the way down to the river or That was one of my questions. Do we have new new maps? No, there these maps were adopted in 2018. the map is not changing uh with this ordinance amendment. Um if you would like to know if your property is in the special flood hazard area to what extent, contact our office. Um we can help walk you through that. You can also search online for the FEMA map service center. You can type in your address and it'll show what uh portion of your properties within the flood plane. There you go. Thank you. Anybody else care to comment? No. Okay. Well, oh, please do introduce yourself and your address, please. Bruce Wrath, U 30 2735 South Roosevelt. You know, it's all fine and dandy, but your FEMA maps are incorrect. So, I don't know. I I would think you would want to go with a correct map. We spent over 60

$70,000 had Mr. Flores on a Zoom meeting with U FEMA. They told him it's not a floodway out there by our business and our house. And his answer to me was he's not going to do nothing about it. And so what we've been fighting for 18 years is um city staff, not only him, the guy before him and the guy before him is that it's mapped wrong. We spent our money to prove to him, the county, and everybody that's concerned that it's mapped wrong. And I would think, you know, a planning commission's suggestion to the city council, but I would make them get a correct map so that everybody knows where they're at. And you guys are all privy to the information. I have no idea what they're going to do. Are are they going to condemn my place? I mean, is that their ideal? If if all of us and the flood plane could have the same information that Mr. Flores has, then we could make a good comment. But just to send us out a deal, registered mail that you're going to have a meeting in the planning commission and how are we going to prepare for that? We have no information. At the same time, they could at least put some kind of summary or anything in that envelope that explained the whole operation. Who's in it? Who's not? Is the map correct? It's not. So, I'd like to see you guys forward on that. You need a correct map

before you can make any kind of decisions. I I've spent a ton of money fighting the regulations and Jeff just has to be in the middle of it. he's doing what he can do, but you need to start with a correct map first. And um if you look up the FEMA regulations, it's the director or the flood manager's job to change the map. It's right in their regulations. And the county give me the same guff. So, you know, Jeff's not alone. That's about all I got to say about the whole deal. I think you ought to table it and wait until you can get us in the flood planes some information about what you're going to do. Example, oh, you can't do nothing out here. You can't do nothing here. You know, it's all about elevations. I just spent another $3,000 on elevations. I mean, it's all a joke to me, but it's not funny. Thank you. Thank you. In response to his comment, uh all the information regarding our flood planes, our ordinance, and anything else that is public information and accessible. Correct. Everything that I know is on the city of Seaside's website, city of seaside. us/ flood. All the documentation, all the flood plane requirements, all the new requirements, it's it's all there. There's hundreds and hundreds of pages of information and you can go to FEMA and go directly uh to uh region 10. That's correct. Okay, there you go. All right. Thank you. I'll say something then. Please introduce yourself. I'm Tammy Wrath and the

problem is it's mapped wrong. Our engineer that we hired found discrepancies. It's our property is not a floodway. The maps are wrong. FEMA on Zoom calls with the county and with the city has told them, "Our engineer is correct. No one seems to want to change it. It's not our responsibility. We've already spent a lot of money on our county property and our city property to the point we have one of them up for sale now. This isn't right. They're trying to break us." Like I'm telling you, and I'm not kidding, on the county property, we're at $50,000. We have a cease and assist after we tried to put an approach in that was signed off by the county. We are getting harassed and we're going to break. The maps are wrong. FEMA's told them, "Yes, this is correct. FEMA doesn't want to change them. The city doesn't want to change them. The county doesn't want to change them. So, yeah, we can look on our map on our property. It's going to show a floodway. The problem is it's wrong. It's always going to show a floodway. Now, we have a no-rise. Our engineer had to do a no-rise on a non floodway. He was so confused. How do you do a no-rise? It's not a flood way, but he did it cuz it was like a Well, you got to do it. Guess who paid it? Do you want Captain Kid amusement park here? Cuz it's about ready to be done. Thank you. Excuse me. Anybody else care to comment? Nope. Okay. Um I'm gonna Kathy, do you have anything to say? Any comment? Um Jeff, does FEMA mention the Dogami maps

at all? And are they different than what FEMA is using? FEMA's maps are purely regulatory and they're based on their own mapping that they've done uh for each community. Um we were mapped I believe in 2010 and then again in 2018. Those maps are then presented uh to the planning commission in a process similar to this where public comment is um requested and allowed and encouraged and then they go on for adoption by the city council similar to this process. Um, I don't believe the Dami maps uh play a role in in FEMA's own mapping process. Okay, Kathy, I'm just going to interject for a second. What is the difference between the map that she had mentioned and the FEMA maps? As far as FEMA maps showed the special flood hazard area, which is FEMA's calculation of the chance of a 100red-year flood, a 1% chance of a 100red-year flood happening every year. That's how that's mapped. Um, it's their own science, their own way of doing it. The maps are purely regulatory. For us to stay in compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program, which is subsidized flood insurance, the city has that option. the city could say, "You know what? We're not going to be in the flood insurance national flood insurance program anymore. Then we don't have to abide by FEMA's rules." However, anybody that has property in the flood plane that has a mortgage that has to get flood insurance will no longer be eligible for um subsidized flood insurance. Along with that, we lose our ability to get any disaster recovery or relief if a disaster was to happen, such as a tsunami or a flood or an earthquake. We lose all of that ability if we're not in the National Flood Insurance Program. Um, Dami's maps are mapping based on uh various things. They do a lot of different mapping, but for our area, it's specific to um, I believe landslide and uh, landslide and and geotechnical

issues, susceptibility as well as tsunami inundation. They did our tsunami inundation mapping as well. This does not pertain to tsunami inundation. This is strictly uh, regulatory mapping for flood plane uh, requirements. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. I'm going to hold the rest of my questions right now. All righty, Mr. Johnson. I've been following I'm sorry. I said green. I've been following this for 35 years and it seems like it gets more complicated every time it comes before us. I remember council, gez, 20 years ago, they FEMA came before us and they were going to give us new maps and we were going to do all this and I think we finally rejected them and and uh they came back with some better ones, but I understand it's very complicated and I wish there was anything that we could do to help. I really do, but unfortunately we're at the hands of the bureaucracy right now. That's pretty much it. Not much we can do. Yeah, Miss Dummer, I do have some questions about the um the FEMA words on page 13 of the packet. It's the uh flood plane mitigation and habitat assessment. The FEMA words. So, it says that the applications for a permit must include, right? And then there's one and two. And then under one it's either either is usually between two things right and there are four things listed there A B C and D. So what is actually required and then is is both

number one and number two required because the number one says either the way it's it's not it's the way it's worded it's very confusing. I it's no idea what is required or cons needed. Can you orient me to the page number of the ordinance at the bottom of the page? And page 13 of the packet 21 of uh 68. Oh, sorry. No, it's page 21 right there. Yeah. So, page 13 of the ordinance. Okay. Of the ordinance. Yeah. Yeah. The the highlighted the yellow highlighted area in the packet. Either A or B. Does that yellow highlight either A or B or C or D? Yeah. Or and then or else. Yeah. And then the must include includes both one and two. Yes. This which doesn't make sense because it seems like it should be one or two. So, in order to develop in the flood plane, the applicant is going to have to provide uh one of either A, B, C, um or D. And then I'm not sure where the second part is. So, they can provide the habitat assessment from a qualified professional um a statement that shows that their activity. So some activities in the flood plane based on the size of the project or if it's inwater work they are already under much more stringent requirements to meet um the uh endangered species act uh and federal permitting requirements. So our ordinance essentially doesn't need to be in effect if they're are already under those more

strict requirements. So that would be section B. If they're already under that type of a requirement, they can submit a statement telling us that. Um so it's really they need to they need to provide one of the following, not either. Right. Okay. And then unless number two I believe and then do unless number two but going up ahead above above that above number one it says that the permit to develop must include and then there there's one and then there's two and both of those fall under that statement which makes it the way it's written both one and two are required which I don't believe is the intent it it so two states if the applicant has confirmed it has obtained a flood plane mitigation assessment under 2I1 above a statement confirming that the proposed de proposed development activities as shown on the design plans and drawings submitted with the application include measures to incorporate all mitigation identified in the flood plane mitigation assessment as needed for no net loss of flood plane functions. So they would have to provide the statement that they obtained a mitigation assessment and then a an additional uh statement that confirms that the mitigation requirements uh that they have a plan to incorporate those into the development. So, for example, if the mitigation assessment says you're you're cutting down one tree that's considered riparian vegetation and you have to plant three more, number two would be this is where we're going to plant those and this is when we're going to plant those and this is how we're going to provide for the uh the the mortality of that tree, the offset. Yeah. Okay.

I just don't think it's it's not clear the way that it's worded here. I think there's a lot of that's open to interpretation because of the way the bullets are written. Okay. Um I would think I would hope that we could uh reconsider the way that it's written if we decide to adopt this part. That's all I had. Roger. Mr. Mitchell. Uh Jeeoff, is there uh no procedure for getting flood maps changed when somebody comes forward with There is a letter of map amendment can be um provided to FEMA um if the engineering is done to show that the mapping was incorrect. Okay. Yeah, I can see why that would be really frustrating. Um it's uh I think not surprising that uh FEMA has has um has halted things because everything in here is so ambiguous. There's there's no clear terms for anything. And I think they're probably anticipating that what what is happening here is is probably going to be construed by many private property owners as a as a taking of their private property rights and they're very likely anticipating legal action. So it's it's not it's not anywhere close to over yet. So it's going to be interesting to see what they come back with. And that's that's where when you know staff made the recommendation that that you know this this section this specific section is very fluid right now on whether we're going to receive information or if the city council is going to even decide to take action on it when it comes before them. Mr. Rose, you know, I concur with everybody out here and their concerns about the FEMA map because as a general contractor, I've run across problems with that map on several jobs. Uh, some

were just silly. The map showed it was in a flood plane and and the property was 40t above it. But because the map said the property was in a flood plane, they had to lawyers and took them over a year to prove that they're not, but they wouldn't change the map. So So the map is not showing the depth. It was showing just area, right? They showed a whole area. not considering it the actual the actual property is not relevant to so and I have no answers to how to solve that a lawyer Mr. craft. I don't like this topic to be honest with you. I've sat It's not my favorite being honest. with you. Um, so I wrote a statement that I'm going to read, but I I I have sat through multiple of the Biop uh meetings, including Warrington and Warrington's FEMA maps was is also a thing as well because according to FEMA, their new redraws of the map removes all of the levies that are in place and does not take them into consideration. So, it takes 56ish, don't quote me on the numbers, but 50-ish properties that are considered a flood plane. And taking those those those levies out, it puts basically the entire city of Warrington under flood plane. Um, and that was the one of the first ones that I sat through. So, I'm a little passionate about this, so pardon pardon pardon me, but I'm going to read this my statement. Um, not that type of passion, this type of passion. Uh, so the B FEMA biop is literal opinion. It's complete conjecture that's being forced upon

landowners and developers because of a lawsuit from ridiculous environmental groups in 2009, including, and I made the list of them, but you can look it up. um the restrictions or regulations that this imposes has the potential to absolutely halt development of usable land. We all know that. I've sat through multiple biops. I have read the arguments of the 2009 lawsuit on both sides. The lawsuit should have been completely dismissed. I'm not a lawyer. It's my personal opinion. I don't agree with these with the rules, the regulations, the restrictions. I don't believe that we should be forced into compliance with the optional participation participation in the NFIP which is exactly what's happening. This isn't optional. Um they presented as being optional but if you look at our choices this is forcing the our hands. We are damned if we do, damned if we don't. If we don't approve these changes, people will lose their insurance. They'll lose their protections. They'll lose the ability to get loans on their properties, especially if you want to go through the VA. I I was reading um uh they'll lose assistance from FEMA like like you've mentioned if there is in fact a natural disaster which isn't much much comfort with FEMA's record of of absolute failure in other parts of the country including Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina. Uh it's appalling that we're having this discussion and having to be pigeonholed into decision. Uh for me uh this is it's really not an option. It's not like we can say absolutely no, we're not doing this because then we lose the protections for for land owners. Um my hope is that somebody will somebody at the federal level will be able to come in and and and will see this and try and make some sort of change to it. Um I have tons of questions about about everything that's in here. I echo everybody's sent sentiment in the room. Uh Miss Stalmer, your questions on this. Yeah, it's ambiguous. You know, Director Flores

said it earlier. Um it's just it's I'm not okay with it. Um that being said, uh my also there was also an understanding that um uh I have I also have a property I have two properties here in Seaside. One of them is listed not in a flood plane yet. It's between the Mechanicum River and the ocean. So, oddly enough, it they said I don't need flood insurance for it. On the same day that I was standing trying to get flood insurance on my property, I'm literally watching the canam, this was a couple two three years ago, the Canacam River crest its banks and we had king king tides. And so, this is it's all backwards. I'm literally watching the street next to me flood and my house they're trying to not insure my house. So, um I could continue on, but I'm not going to. Um, I think I I've I've said my piece there's way too many questions in this for it to be any sort of cut and dry whatsoever. Well, we know it's not cut and dry. I mean, that's for sure. I I just got a list of questions here, Jeff. Um, well, we all know about the Did you Oh, Kathy, did you want to Thank you. Did you want to follow up with anything? Um, I can wait until you're finished or I can go now. Either way. Knock yourself out. Um, I echo some of the concerns and questions that have already been made raised and I would just say that I I recognize that something has to be done and we need to we need to do something because of FEMA's demands and the implications of doing nothing. Um, I guess I have questions about why exactly this is coming up right now. I still don't quite understand what the trigger for this is because it was my understanding that the city had already adopted the permit by permit basis process and so is it coming backwards to

us and then going back to them? Why are we looking at this now if the city's already decided that they were going to go with the permit by permit um option? this needs this question the the uh the process needs to be codified into our ordinances to be enforceable. Um it's not enforceable right now. Uh there's a lot of debate surrounding that, but you know how we can't enforce um regulations on property owners without uh codifying that into our ordinances and going through the appropriate process. The appropriate process is to start with a public hearing and a recommendation. uh at the planning commission the the recommendation from the planning commission can be to you know not move this forward. It'll still go to the city council. The city council will get the planning commission's recommendation make their own decision on this since they are the the deciding body as to why this is coming forward. Now commissioner Klesic is FEMA put a deadline to have this implemented by July 31st. So the city is under a clock right now. Um, and the intention is to bring this for final reading and adoption uh to the council at their last meeting in July, likely with an emergency clause to implement it just to give us enough time. Uh, if more information comes to light, the council can slow down and back off. Um, the implementation of just what's highlighted in yellow is what's on the clock right now. The rest of the ordinance, like I said, is adopting the the DLCD um model flood plane code, which just brings our ordinance into compliance with what's already regulation and and and general ordinance language cleanup. So this can move forward adopting that model code but omitting this and that could be that can certainly be the recommendation of this commission is to omit the the

pre-implementation compliance measure language and uh and go forward with just the model code and let the council decide um at at their public hearings and their own uh meetings uh on what they want to do with the hope that we'll be in place to adopt this if that July 31st date becomes hard and fast and we have to stick to it. If it if if we don't have to stick to that July 31st date or something new comes to light, then the council has the option to um pass the model code, not pass the model code or just, you know, table the whole um table the whole ordinance uh amendment. Thank you for that clarification. I didn't quite catch that the July 31st deadline was a need to implement, not to declare as they did last time. And I thought we were covered with that. So, um I can I now understand the difference of that. And um yeah, I I think that recognition or acknowledgement in whatever we adopt that the maps on the ground are seem to be incomplete and inaccurate in in in places is an important thing to start that process with FEMA to get them to acknowledge that there are errors in their mapping as Gami was also forced to do when they first issued their maps. um the last time they did. Well, we all think that the mapping is the number one issue. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. We we wouldn't be here. I have a question. I have a question. So, uh earlier it was stated that individuals, individual property owners can um come can petition essentially to have their property taken out of flood plane as long as they have studies and and such. Correct. Okay. Is

that doable on a larger scale by the city of Seaside to take the flood map do the a citywide elevation? So whatever the studies in are that are involved that folks have paid for, you know, on their own individual properties. Is that possible to do on a city scale, citywide scale? I I I couldn't tell you if that's possible or not. Um, and I couldn't tell you what the cost to that would be because there's there's more than one map for seaside. It's set up into it's broken into sections and it also depends on where the flooding source comes from too. So mapping of the ocean flooding is going to be different from mapping of the mechanic and flooding from mapping of the Neowana flooding and every creek in between. So I I I can't tell you what the process would be for that or what potential cost for that would be. I can tell you individual property owners could spend u several thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands to remap their property and in Mr. Wrath's case. And that uh that incorporates two uh flooding sources and makes things very complicated um just based on the location of the property. And it's not just that property, it's all the properties within that uh area of town. uh the multiple flooding sources creates a difficulty on on on engineers walking back that norise certification. Sure. But the maps are there's multiple maps put in place at at some point. Correct. So we So I would I would love to recommend that the city move forward with investigating. I'm not motioning or anything. I'm just suggesting suggesting that this we do is start taking maps one by one and getting studies done for the sake of the property owners um and you know for us here in Seaside because if if we do those if we do those studies and there's

a significant portion of land that's currently marked as flood plane and we do it right or the city does it right then that could you know whether we put the you know once these are these restrictions are all implemented it could really negate a lot of the restrictions for a lot of potentially a lot of land owners. And one thing that should be mentioned with any mapping or any letter of map change or letter of map amendment provided by a property owner that has to be confirmed by FEMA. So they could you could spend the money to do the work and essentially be denied um based on what their own mapping engineers have stated or said. And that's problematic in a costbenefit analysis when you start looking at what the potential cost of this could be. And at the end of the day, the FEMA could back come back and say, "No, our maps are correct." Um, my goodness, you think that a satellite would be able to do that? And and I would love to reach out to ask them, but wardens is constantly open. I'll have more. No, that's fine. Um so so um Jeff if uh the the July 31st drop dead date has come and gone and we haven't done anything what are the penalties uh we could potentially lose our status in the national flood insurance program the city in general in general yes okay um that is worst case extreme uh far end of the spectrum I don't I don't know what the in between would be and I don't know what FEMA staffing levels are to enforce that. Now, um, communities across the state of Oregon are taking different approaches to this. Uh, some are doing nothing. Some have already passed ordinances. Uh, it's kind of run the spec I've s I've sat on more meetings than I can count regarding this topic. And it's it's kind of it's across the the the the spectrum on what what communities are doing here. Um, it's still clear as mud. It's very clear as

mud. Yes. And it's still fluid as we found out last week. You know, FEMA's now joined in on filing with the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against FEMA uh to stop the litigation. Uh so I well in May 5th, I think it was, they have a new another new director. There's a lot of uh a lot of moving parts to this and um nothing's definitive. So, a question. How does this ordinance affect our buildable land inventory? It's Well, I asked the same question to FEMA. Does this going to make lands unbuildable? And their answer was, "Well, you can always build up on stilts." You know, it's funny you say that because I've wrote that word down. While while yes, this will affect being able to build on properties, will it prohibit building on properties? No. Will it make it cost prohibitive? It could. Um there there's everything is sight specific. It's really sight specific on what uh you'll be able to do if you need to mitigate for that loss of flood plane. Um the the three items in the flood plane they're trying to maintain. Um so like I said, it's it's it's hard to paint this with a brush and say this is what's going to happen to everybody's property in the flood plane. It's very sight specific and it's very development specific. Um, putting in a garden shed in the flood plane uh is something that will likely get permitted. Building a large structure that takes up the whole lot on that same lot is something that might be more difficult. So, it it's it's really development specific to what the property owner wants to do and what size and type of property they have by adopting the uh Oregon model code. uh would that be affected by the uh would the insurance be affected by just adopting the model code of Oregon? It

puts us in compliance with what's already required. Um we have fallen behind a little bit on that on keeping our ordinances updated. So that's that's adopting the model code. It doesn't essentially doesn't change the regulations that are in place. It adds definitions um and adds uh it cleans up the language of what's already required per the the National Flood Insurance Program. Um it it just it brings us into compliance where we could be considered out of compliance already. This does not uh affect any of our existing apartment our our approved apartment projects Pacifica and and No, none of those are within the special flood hazard area. What was the question? I'm sorry, Roger. I asked if uh it affected any of the affordable housing projects that we have uh in the works right now. Well, that that's a good point. That's a good point. Boy, oh boy. I don't like it any better than anybody else does, but we have to do something. Anybody got suggestions of what we're going to do or should do? So, go ahead. Well, it sounds like we have an option of adopting or not adopting. And which do you want to do? Which would we suggest? We're not adopting. We're making the suggestion too. Yes. I'd like to separate the questions and um I'd like to move that we adopt the model code language. The model code language. The state model code. The state model code language. Yes. Sorry. which excludes the FEMA. Correct. Which is why where where I'm separating it. Yes. So, we're not discussing FEMA at the moment. We're just talking about the state model code language. And I'd like to move that we recommend adoption of the state model code language. Okay.

We have a Do I have a second? I'll second with discussion. Okay. Jeeoff, can you outline some of the some of the the specific state without taking FEMA out of it, the clarifications? Can you give us a little bit of a rundown? Not uh there's a lot of them, just a few. And and how it how is this beneficial other than being able to, you know, keep up our NFIP um you know, get get up to co current code? um one specific so if you look at the ordinance as it's written the new language is italicized and that's that's what's different from our current ordinance. Uh so with the language that's italicized it it talks about uh relocating or altering water courses and and part of that is to ensure that the flood carrying capacity is not diminished of that water course. Altering a water course is something that is not done very often. And typically when it's done, it's done by um firms that are creating fish fish passage coververts like what happened on Wana. It's it's they're designed to um meet the requirements in the National Flood Insurance Program, not necessarily what's in our ordinance. And this is uh a little more strict in this sense. Um, this also speaks to underground storage tanks and uh their installation and process. Um, when when you were going through all of these, was it pardon was there anything that glaring that you said, hey, this is actually going to really affect our situation in Seaside negatively or positively? Was there anything that stood out to you? Um, nothing that uh that really stood out.

There were some clarifications on um standards for new structures uh as well as new uh uses or change of use. um before the the uh the interpretation was that a change of use was a new use for the property whereas now it actually lines out a change of use of a structure. So for example, this would this would come into play if you were converting your garage which is not habitable space to habitable space. So turning it into a living room, bedroom, whatever. Um that would be a change of use. Garages are treated differently in a special flood hazard area than habitable space. There's different requirements for them. So that new use which is what we would have have considered it previously is now considered a change of use which then has to bring it up to flood plane standards. It's clarifications like that to keep uh keep us uh in compliance with what's currently required. Um there's requirements for recreational V vehicles in uh coastal high hazard zone. So that's the VE zone uh which is uh located along our oceanfront in parts of downtown kind of right next to Broadway out towards the cove. We have some VE zone there and then out off of like 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th in that area on the north end of town some of that's ve zones. I I just have to interject because I read something really kind of strange in here regarding exactly that the recreational vehicles um for RVs in the um prior uh 152.5.3.1.2 too. Um, for the coastal high hazard zones, there's there previously there was um anchorage required for an RV. However, in the high

hazard zone, meaning you have to tether it. Um, but in the high hazard zone, no anchorage is required. I didn't know if that was just a typo. It's I It's so they don't float away. I mean, it even says that on um the manufactured homes, too, that they have to be tethered. Yep. It was just I don't know. RVs aren't required to be stored above base flood elevation where manufactured homes are required to be installed above base flood elevation, but there the previous ordinance says that the the RV has to be tethered. Yeah. Which so I guess in the high high wind zone or a high waters, they don't. So they just Okay. Anyway, I just thought it was odd, but it's in there. The whole thing's odd. So, any further discussion? We do have a Go ahead, Kevin. I would just say that um you know Jeff you just said the key thing there that these are things that are already required by the state and us not having it in our code just makes our code unclear and makes us out of compliance. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't be already following that those rules and it doesn't mean that we aren't liable for following those rules anyway. And I'll I'll add to that Commissioner Cleles. This model code from the state of Oregon is from 2021 and um so and it's fairly current um and and they keeps us in in uh in compliance as much as they possibly can and it is the minimum standard. This isn't the maximum standard. Communities can create higher standards for this. Um this is the minimum standard that's required by the National Flood Insurance Program. And that's mainly what this is about is keeping us available in that that

program. Right. Anything else, Kathy? That's all on this. Thank you. Okay. I call the question. Okay. Any further discussion? We have a motion on the floor to adopt the Oregon um state of Oregon model ordinance. So, this this will be a recommendation for the council to adopt it. Thank you. Right. Um those are in favor of uh that recommendation say I. I. I. Anybody opposed. There you go. You got part two. Part two. [Music] So for the FEMA recommendations, yeah, Commissioner Klesic. Uh yes. um asked to separate the two sides of this ordinance amendment. So side one was adopting the state's model code which the commission just made that recommend recommendation. Side two is the pre-implementation compliance measure to adopt or recommend adoption of uh the uh site by sight specific habitat assessment uh language uh as provided in in the uh yellow highlighted part of the ordinance. Kathy, did you have anything to say about that? Well, I think that we should um I mean, my first idea was to that we should delay the discussion on this further until we can get get um better resources. But I don't think that that will work considering the time con considerations that we need. Um, and so I am trying to find the wording and I'm I just lost it and my I'm scrolling. Um, but I believe it's the the Puget Sound method is the the more sight by

sight more flexibility with model code language already adopted. Is that correct? Puget Sound was under a different order. This is specific to Oregon and this was brought up uh in trainings that I've been in. Uh, their order is less restrictive than ours is. Okay. And that's that's been part of the discussion. Um and that's that's partially why to the the city and staff has held off on bringing this forward till the last minute so that if further information comes to light, we can avoid um adopting this if it's not necessary at this time. Uh but again, we're in that I don't know period that we've still been in, and it's even more fluid now that um it looks like there's uh additional filings in the lawsuit as of late last week. Okay, go ahead. I can hear your intake. um as as it is currently in court um on what will or will not happen. I don't think it's I don't think it's fair to adopt something that's probably going to change poss potentially going to change anyways. Um what is the drop deadline? I know you said July 31st we need to have something in in place. Correct. So, if we move this decision in hopes that they make some progress, doubtful, but in hopes, um, to the July meeting, would that give the city council still enough time to No. Nope. Mhm. No. The city council will need to hold their first public hearing either at their next meeting or the last meeting in June um with time for first reading,

second reading, third reading and adoption. Um they can do two readings at one meeting. However, that's not always ideal. Um and and oftent times councils want to give uh as much opportunity for public comment. Um but again this body doesn't necessarily have to make uh the recommendation to adopt this. Uh they could make a recommendation to adopt it providing no further information comes forward that changes that. Um at which point the council can slow down it on this process if there's no reason or need to adopt that pickum language. um then we're under no timeline whatsoever to um to adopt the model ordinance. It's not one or the other or both of them or nothing. Um it can be it can be tabled or uh delayed or slowown provided that there's information that leads the the council to believe that there's no reason to go for with the pickum language at this time. So this body can make the recommendation to adopt it to adopt it with uh you know the condition that nothing changes uh or recommend not adopting the pickum language uh because of whatever reason the council comes up with or the commission comes up with. Did that answer your question? Clear as mud. Yeah. Go ahead. getting off. Do we need to um the words that are here, these came straight from FEMA and these are the words that we would have to recommend to city council? Or is is it possible for the city of Seaside to take these words and write them in a more clear statement before we recommend that we um recommend that they get adopted? These words were written by the city's attorneys

to our city our city's attorneys to uh meet FEMA's requirements and also be in compliance with state housing laws that require clear and objective standards. Um the caveat here is is there is no guarantee that FEMA will accept this language and I sent it off to FEMA um over a month ago and nobody's responded to me yet. Um, so as far as the city writing this language, this was written by our attorneys. Okay. So for the sake of discussion on some on specifics, I move that we recommend to the council the pickum language proposed by our attorneys. Okay, we have a motion second and done. Okay, so that's done. Any further discussion? Does the state of Oregon have to adopt this as a state? No. Each community has the ability to adopt their own language, the model code or other language citing sites uh the site by sight or sight specific uh investigation. Can we add the caveat that um it is subject to the final outcome of the discussions between FEMA and the the litigation the determination of the lawuit determination of the lawsuit. You can add that to your your uh motion to commissioner's motion if you want. Kathy, I would accept that. I would accept that friendly amendment. Okay. In a second. Okay. Okay. also for discussion. I just want to you know if I think that there also needs to be added if any part of this is determined to be against state law that we also would not be needing to comply

with that. I I I made the motion for discussion purposes so that we could discuss this specifically. Yeah. Rather than having general conversation. Well, if we're if it weren't compliant with state law, it's, you know, it's out of compliance. Well, but if if it doesn't comply with state law, but but it I mean, if federal law doesn't comply with state law, the state can can the state supersede FEMA? supersede it. There's this is this is getting into the legal merits of the lawsuit and is is there actual federal laws created that create these regulations or is there not or is this just left up to interpretation or is it left up to rulem? These are all parts of the lawsuit that is going on right now. So this is not something we can really give an answer on. Um because uh the July 31st date and any date that's been thrown out by FEMA has been strictly arbitrary. Nobody really knows where those came from other than and the history behind this is a Ottabbon lawsuit against FEMA for the National Flood Insurance Program's non-compliance with the Endangered Species Act from this started in 2010 I believe and it's been litigated at different levels throughout that with the final straw being the uh a lawsuit um stating that FEMA has not acted on implementing this uh these right and that's where we get into these pre-implementation compliance measures. Um the full roll out of this is still yet to come. Uh there may be more requirements that uh come out of the um the National Environmental Protection Agency process, the NEPA process that FEMA is still working through for this biological opinion. So this isn't the end all be all of this. There could be more in some subsequent years that we have to work through. Um, this is just their statement that you

have to do this to stay in compliance with the NFIP. Uh, which that I believe it was Commissioner Johnson said it's it's uh voluntary but mandatory. Right. So, we want to be within the NFIP and and I I believe I lined out in our in my staff report the items that uh we are now we would be ineligible for if we're deemed out of compliance and removed um or kicked out of the NFIP. And uh just so you know that's it's understood by the audience here um no resident would be able to purchase uh a flood insurance policy through the NFIP. Um if we were kicked out existing policies would not be renewed. Um we wouldn't get we wouldn't be eligible for any federal grants or loans for development um in flood hazard areas. uh federal disaster assistance. Uh we would we would lose that uh which would be a big one if we had a even a minor tsunami event or an earthquake um or a flooding from other reasons. Flooding from our king tides in a storm wildfire every year. Um we'd lose the insurance in uh or loan guarantees. So, if you uh bought a property in the flood plane or wanted to buy a property in the flood plane and you need a fedally backed mortgage, you'd be ineligible for that because we would lose that uh insurance guarantee. Um, and banks and lending institutions would be required to notify to uh potential uh applicants for loans of these items. So, if you're going to sell your property in the flood plane, your potential buyer would get notified that they would likely not qualify for a mortgage because we're not an NFIP uh

participating community. Well, with that doom and gloom, uh we do have a a motion to um suggest to the city council that we adopt the language uh subject to the uh determination of the the lawsuit that's currently pending. And uh so it was um motioned by Miss Klesac and seconded by Commissioner Brandon. Commissioner Brandon. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Johnson. I wrote Commissioner Brandon Craft. Commissioner Johnson. So, all those in favor say I. I. I. Anybody opposed? It passes. It's adopted. It's No, recommended. Was that uh Was that a unanimous vote? Yes. Yeah. Commissioner Cleles? Mhm. It was unanimous. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Is that it for this issue? That's it for this issue. Oh my goodness. That only took an hour. That's not too bad. Okay. So, let me go back to Pardon. That's That was entertainment. Yeah. I hope everybody's still awake out there. Okay. And now we are going to go on to something else. We are going There we go. Uh blah blah blah blah blah ordinance administration. I have nothing. Chair. What about Oh, it's the next there's a sneaky page. I have to swipe to the other side. Okay. Uh comments from city staff. I have nothing. Welcome back. Thank you.

Comments from the commission. Anybody want to say anything? Don Johnson, we're gonna miss you. Say goodbye. Thank you forion years. Yeah. Surprise. Thank you for all of your contributions. My pleasure. Are you resigning? Is that what just what happened? Are you not reupping? What? What happened? It's a little drier. Yeah, he uh sold his house and he's going to be moving to Pendleton. All right. Okay. Sorry to miss losing you. Can you bring that map back up? Didn't it show Pendleton in the flood plan? I could have sworn I could have sworn. Yeah, it was it was I don't know why. Gretchen, anything? No, I have nothing. Brandon? No. Okay. Kristen, no. Kathy, do you have anything? Um just wondering how things are going on the the comp plan. Comprehensive plan has been the draft has been released to the steering committee and they are currently working through making their own comments and um getting it ready for final um a final draft language that will then go uh to our regulatory uh agencies for a look just to make sure we're in compliance with state laws with that. and then from there out to the public for public meetings and uh another uh summit to discuss it and take further feedback and input before it goes into the adoption process. Is the sum summit is that in August? We haven't scheduled it yet. Want to okay narrow this part down and then get the regulatory agency's feedback. uh um first uh we want to make sure we don't get too far ahead of ourselves without the regulators getting the target I should say ensure compliance uh we don't want to have to go back and redo that so

yeah no there's a lot of pages there yes no that's fine okay I just have one last thing to share I just wanted to mention just to put a bug in everybody's ear and and get us all thinking I was able to um because of my work uh commitments experience a street potentially being opened up to pedestrian traffic um and changed into a community space on a temporary basis this last weekend down in southern Oregon. And it was a really amazing experience to see a community come together and experience for a day um having the street opened up as a park, basically a pedestrian area, um a community gathering space and having the cars not there and having plants put in and benches and tables and um just the reaction from the community. And I just would love to see us consider that in some area for our downtown. Out of curiosity, was that just for one day only and it goes back to standard the next? Um, it was just for one day, but it was so that the city could consider doing it on a per permanent basis. And they did it to physically get people to be in that space to experience it so that when they're making their decision, they could have actual feedback from people that were able to experience it rather than just it being an idea on paper and conjecture. Yes. Wonderful. Well, I don't have anything, believe it or not. So, this is the end of our agenda and our meeting. We are going to adjourn, but we are staying here because we have a work session. So, it is uh 7:15. This meeting is adjourned. And thank you for all coming. And if you want to hang, that's fine. I hope we were entertained. We're always entertaining.

Now we get to we get to hear the whole thing. Oh, thank you. Short recess. Yes. Take a five minute recess. Five minute recess. com. So, I saw your King Charles