City Council - Regular Meeting

Meeting to order. And the first item of business is approval of the agenda. So I'd entertain a motion.

Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the agenda for today's City Council work session for Tuesday, July 21st. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the work session agenda for Tuesday, July 21st. Any discussion? Seeing none, call the roll, please.

Councilor Bonnington?

Yes.

Councilor Bright? Yes. Council President Baumgartner? Yes. Councilor Groner?

Yes.

Mayor Bielastowski?

Yes. Thank you. So the motion passes. We'll move on the agenda and I have to say some beautiful new artwork in the City Council Chamber from the waterfront vision plan so that's great it was kind of there's kind of a dearth of art in here for a few months so thank you for putting that up liven up the room with something very important to us the waterfront vision plan with that we can move to public comments and I think you got another one there so we have the first one which is. Amber Springberg. So welcome. And just state your name and city of residence and have up to three minutes. And I know you might have a little bit more than three minutes to speak about, so you can have a little bit longer if needed.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council Members. My name is Amber Springberg, and I'm speaking on behalf of the residents of Grove Street, a small, beautiful cul-de-sac designated as a historic landmark with homes that are around 100 years old. Our neighborhood also happens to be one of the closest residential areas to the George Abernathy Bridge project. For the past four years, this project has made it incredibly difficult to enjoy our homes, our neighborhood, and living in the wonderful community of West Linn. The constant sounds of heavy machinery, large trucks, pile driving, demolition, and construction have driven many of us indoors. Yards that were once places to gather and relax now sit empty because the noise never stops. The construction vibrations are also causing damage to our historic homes. Cracked walls, damaged woodwork, shifting foundations. At the same time, our property values are suffering because, as it turns out, very few people want to buy a home next to an active construction site of this magnitude. As difficult as all of this has been, I'm here today to speak specifically about the nighttime noise. I admit that we were naive enough to believe that a project of this scale located just a stone's throw away from a neighborhood would be expected to follow the same noise ordinance that residents and businesses are required to follow. So you can imagine the surprise when construction began keeping us awake between midnight and 4 a.m., with Kiewit performing some of the loudest work on a portion of the bridge that's directly facing our neighborhood. When we call the designated noise hotline, which is pretty much worthless, we're told that the city of West Linn has no noise ordinance, and so that we are required to just deal with it. This raises an important question. Did ODOT ever apply for a construction noise permit, or has this project simply operated outside the city's existing noise ordinance for the past four years by relying on a loophole intended for temporary public work projects that are considered an emergency? There's nothing temporary about a project that's likely to go into seven years, and there's definitely no emergency. You may notice that this room isn't filled with frustrated residents. It's not because they aren't suffering. It's not because they don't care. When I told neighbors I planned to ask the city council for help, some scoffed. They don't believe their local government will stand up for them when the interests of residents conflict with the interests of a large state agency or a contractor. What I would like to leave you with is this. On our street are caregivers looking after seriously ill spouses. There are parents raising children with disabilities. There are families caring for terminally ill loved ones. There's a disabled veteran with PTSD and neighbors who have endured unimaginable personal loss. The stress and sleep deprivation that this has caused is real. These are our homes. This is supposed to be our sanctuary. We understand that the city cannot undo the damage to our homes, restore lost property values, or give us back the years that we've lost. We're disappointed that the city did not take steps proactively to protect us through this process. But you now can protect our nights. You have the authority to insist that ODOT and Kiewit respect the city's noise ordinance that we do in fact have. You have the authority to deny permits that allow nighttime demolition in a residential neighborhood. So today, I ask you to prove my neighbors wrong. Show them that the city does work for its residents. Show them that you do value the quality of the life of the people who live here. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you for your comments. We can feel the emotion, what you've all been through in the last few years, so that totally can. Do we have another speaker?

Brian Springberg.

Hi, Brian. Welcome. State your name and city of residence, and you have three minutes. Brian Springberg.

What was the other one, Mayor?

Just your name and city of residence.

Oh, Westland. That's my wife that just went. So... I stayed out. I'm recovering from him. I'm a 21 year firefighter for the city of Portland. I did nine years in code enforcement, um, five as a supervisor. Um, and I, and I didn't do plan review, but, uh, was involved with the voting on variances and things. And I, I'm looking at their project as I was out about two 30 in the morning last night because I couldn't sleep. And, uh, it was, I would just say that, um, They're not following the noise ordinance. And I would say that anybody within 100 yards of that project is probably experiencing noise well above any OSHA threshold. Nothing that you couldn't subject a worker to that. And they have our houses back up to it. There are a few pieces on that. I think they probably should have done a geotext survey. They have damages all throughout. You could probably just draw a circle of a mile around. I think we have $20,000 worth of damage. We had a neighbor that had to drop her home by about $150,000 to sell it because no one wanted to live next to this site. And we have had a neighbor who, when trying to talk to the workers at night, was subjected to some pretty foul language directed at them. Um, I don't know if those key wet key with people or subcontractors, but, um, overall, uh, it's, it's been a pretty bad experience, especially I'm a, I'm a disabled vet. I have sleep issues trying to recover from hip surgery. I basically had to bury myself in the basement with headphones, um, to just to get some sleep. And we're far enough away that there's a little bit of a buffer. I walked down last night and it was unbelievably noisy. And I would like to see on one of these demo days somebody from the city representing either that noise, whoever's tracking the noise. I talked to them today and they said that they couldn't do anything about it, but I think they probably can. So anyways, I appreciate a chance to talk about this and hopefully you guys can do something for the citizens of Wesleyan. Thank you.

Council President.

Well, I just have a quick question. Who did you talk to? Someone from the city said they couldn't do anything?

Could you come back up to the microphone? I'm sorry.

I just assumed for the last few years that ODOT had everything lined up correctly like what we would expect in a project this large. I know that they doubled the... been a lot of a lot of issues cost overruns it's it should have been done a year ago and just still thinking like they're the big guys they're gonna they're gonna do this right um i spoke to an officer today and i could find it and i think she sent a text also that she talked the police chief and they said that they could not enforce the noise ordinance because of this because it wasn't i think they said it wasn't city property which it falls within three the county Oregon City and West Linn, even ODOT's website says that. So I worked for government for over 30 years, and I don't think anybody is doing anything. It's like, is it malice or ignorance? I think it's ignorance and probably operating under an assumption that people can't do something about it. And I didn't even look into it. My wife's been looking into it. And I just kind of thought, well, it's just dealing with a big project like this. But what we have seen so far is that ODOT did not do a lot of their due diligence in this project. And I think there are things that can be enforced by the city. I finally started talking to some co-workers and code enforcement. And they were, frankly, appalled of some of this stuff. appreciate you guys letting us speak and i i hope that you know you can you can help us out there's some people that are really getting beat up at night and it is i it is last night it was horrible it was like it was like a i just think like a live fire bombing exercise or something it was it was terrible and they said it's done twenty thousand dollars of damage to our house it sent a hundred thousand dollars to damage to houses closer

Well, I have been down to visit some of the neighbors and at least one. And so I've seen it firsthand. So not that that helps you and what you're having to. We appreciate that. But I haven't been briefed on what's been going on, actually. So I think we should try to look into it. So thank you for coming and sharing that. And I'm sorry.

We appreciate it. We love Westland. This is why we're here raising our kids and family and and it just it's a. It's just it's it's pretty bad. It's something that almost needs to be seen to be understood.

I hear you, I. I believe you do.

We have one more speaker on this top. OK, we'll get through that next speaker and then we'll have an opportunity for all counselors to. Weigh in a little bit next week or please Rachel Esterline.

I'm not very good at public speaking, and I'm emotional.

Could you just state your name and city residence?

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm Rachel Osterline in Westland. For the past, like, four years, my elderly mother here has been beat up by this construction. And I have to watch her struggle every single day. We are the family they talked about that's 100 yards from it, less than. Last night we were up till 3 a.m. outside because you can't sleep and you can't escape it. And we're outside and right when they finish at 3 a.m., one of the construction workers looks at me and says, are you happy? We're done. There's no humanity in this project. And it's literally, not only if it's all the loud sounds, they then flash spotlights right into our back windows all night long. Like we don't even exist there.

They tell us on the hotline to stop bitching. There's nothing we can do about it. There's no noise ordinance. There is a noise ordinance. They're using a loophole. A loophole for emergencies. This is not an emergency. This is an elected project. My mother is 80 years old. Sorry, Mom.

A little bit of vanity.

But she's almost 80 years old, and she doesn't need to deal with this, dealing with the grief of losing my father. It's disgusting. It's despicable. There's no humanity in this project. And... like our my neighbors have said i don't think we were thought about and that really hurts because we love wesleyan and we love our homes my mom has been in that home since 1998. i know the springbergs have been in their home for 16 years these are our homes our backyards are not usable my i got an estimate for the foundation of our pool, which is sliding, buckling in one corner and gonna slide into the construction soon, $147,470 just to hold up my pool and my home. Why was there nothing done? Why was there no impact assessment on our neighborhood? Everyone that we talked to, we went door to door for the past week asking people, what are you experiencing? Are you experiencing what we're experiencing? Everyone's getting sick from all the materials that they're building things and then they do something wrong so they take it down. Well, we're all breathing that in every single day. Those are long term effects that we won't know until later. I just want to leave you with, I don't think that we were thought about, and it's not okay. Thank you.

Thank you for coming. You said you weren't good at public speaking, but you were very great, very persuasive there. So thank you. Well, I just want to thank all of you all for coming tonight and sharing this just horrible thing that you're going through. And I'm happy to open the floor up to council. And then we can, obviously we don't generally take action after public comments. This is kind of the first time we're as a council hearing this. So we would probably ask our city manager and city attorney just to look into the noise ordinance and the situation with the construction project after this. And I know Councillor Bondington has some other. ideas as well so happy to open the floor up and then we will of course hopefully we've got everybody's contact information and we can be in touch and i'd be happy to come out and actually listen to that some night i'm i can be a night owl too uh uh counselor bonington go ahead sure um yeah i mean obviously we've had extensive conversations about this and i'm

Incredibly sorry that you've been subjected to it and this weekend was even worse. I'm sure what I have discovered is It makes me think we need to bring ODOT into a meeting and we need to question them and discuss a lot of the things that I've I Think appear to be wrong with how they've approached this at the very least if they can't be convinced to do this in a way that's not disruptive, I don't see why they can't compensate these people. They've compensated Oregon City. Those property owners on the commercial side have been compensated. So they have a better arrangement with this than we do. And there's just so many things that are wrong with this from my perspective. I hope we can do something actually consequential to start to make up for this.

Thank you. Agreed. Councilor, I appreciate that. Councilor Groner, did you have any? I don't know if you had your hand.

Well, I'm just wondering what the legalities are. If there has been damage to your property, whether you have any claim against ODOT for that damage. That's just a question at this point. But thank you for your testimony.

and uh council president please you had a comment i want to talk to the project manager i want to talk to key wit so i will call them or someone if someone wants to connect me with them then that's fine but i'll be calling them because it's unacceptable to be abusing people verbally who are making a statement or a notice of their condition in your case that you have such problems with the work they're doing. I have zero tolerance for you being mistreated in addition to all of this. So I want to talk to Kiewit and ODOT. And this has been going on for too long.

We, Council President and I visited with some neighbors down near the site who had some dock damage from some related to the, so.

And we need to call Jules Walters, talk to Rob Wagner. I mean, we have people that we should and will talk to, so I'm sorry. And that doesn't make it not have happened, but I will be taking action.

I'm happy to support that as well. Uh, Councilor Bright, did you have anything to add? Okay, sounds good. Well, it sounds like there's a direction for the city manager and attorney to just look into the noise ordinance issue and any other thoughts from yourself? Sure, Mayor and Council would be happy to do that.

The noise ordinance is obviously a huge piece of what's happening right now. We've been talking to Amber about about that. There is an exemption in Westland's noise ordinance for ODOT construction or maintenance activities, a blanket exemption. It's been the code for a number of years. So it wasn't a special exemption created for this project. It's a piece of the code that we could look into for sure, but the cat's kind of out of the bag right now. And noise only being one part of the problem. You heard about structural impacts. You heard about odor. You heard about rude treatment which is shocking very very disappointing and so I think there's a number of fronts that we'll want to work on we can certainly try to get a public meeting with ODOT where they can come to explain but there may also be opportunities for private meetings the state legislators we've also been advising those are great folks to talk to because they are above or ODOT in the org chart more than we are. But that being said, Mayor and Council, you do have a lot of political capital and a lot of recognition. And I think phone calls from you can make a great difference. So we can proceed in a number of fronts on this. And we'll work with the neighbors to figure out what those are. It doesn't change the last few years.

Yeah. Maybe you could work on a letter so this can be kind of a collective. Councils can do their individual advocacy. And then also we could have a letter elevating these issues to ODOT leaderships just so we can take a stand. And I happen to know somebody on the Oregon Transportation Commission, the oversight body of ODOT. So I will call them in addition to Mary speaking with our legislators. And City Attorney, did you have something? You looked like you were going to jump in. I don't know.

Oh, I was just going to say this is also the first time that I've heard of this. And so I was researching our local code while they were speaking. And so Section 5.487 is our local laws on sound levels and noise. And there is a section that we're all familiar with in there about prohibited times for construction, repair of building, excavation of streets and highways. And I think we're familiar with those times, which seem normal. However, so we do have that generally, but what John, the city manager, was alluding to is further down in that same section, there is currently an exemption. It's section 5C, and it says operations required by ODOT to take place outside of the hours allowed in the above subsection. So I think what this means is really to get at this issue, we have to have some conversations with ODOT. If they've called PD, that's probably why they haven't enforced because there is this exception. And so we're going to have to reach out to our project managers and contacts at ODOT to have a conversation about this. That's the route I would go versus the code.

Yes, that sounds good. I mean... We will take a break, and then we can have a little bit of—Council President has requested a break, so then we can have a little bit of conversation. Yeah, are we done with public comment? And, Councillor Bonneton, did you have one more thing to add before we take a quick break?

I think it's worth noting that these issues have been related to Senator President Wagner's office. Representative Walter's office and ODOT. And to my knowledge, there has not been any response or movement on the issue.

Thank you, Councillor. And thank you to the members.

Hopefully you all feel heard and that their city hears you and we're going to see what we can do to try to help. And we'll take a we'll take a quick recess. Council President wants to give you a card. I think that concluded public comments, correct, all on one topic tonight. Thank you.

And, counsel, I just wanted to add to my earlier comments. I was looking at the exemptions for noise, which doesn't help us much there. But we do have other sections of nuisances in the code. So we have nuisances affecting public health. And those cover things like debris on private property, odor, and then below that we also have light trespass, so light entering into your home. So there are some tools in the code. The exception for ODOT does not apply to those sections, those nuisances. So there are some areas we can talk about.

And could you even change the code in this sort of situation? Or does that bring in a fixed goalpost kind of issue? That's an interesting question.

Yeah, now you're talking land use with fixed goalposts, but happy to look into that for you.

Thank you. What a terrible thing that's happening to those community members. And we've seen some of it when we went to the folks home about the dock, and now we're hearing about the noise that's just terrible. So we'll do what we can. With that, we can continue on. into the meeting and thank you council and staff and for being so empathetic appreciate you all and we now turn to mayor and council reports before we get to the south fork presentation so any reports from city council councillor bright

Thank you, Mayor. I attended the Planning Commission meeting last Wednesday, and they had their first work session regarding the housing production strategies, the components that the Planning Commission is our committee to go over those items. So that will be coming to us later. They've got a few more work sessions on that before they'll make a recommendation to the council.

I guess we'll just go down the line. So, Council President Baumgartner.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes. On, let's see, July 18th, I had a birding outing with some members of the community and another host guest guide, rather, from Backyard Bird. And we were at Mary S. Young Park, and it was wonderful. Got to see lots of birds and eagles. Then on Sunday, I participated in the Fields Bridge Park cleanup, which I highly recommend those weekend parks cleanups. It's a great few hours of rewarding energy spent in community building. I had the Willamette Falls and Landings Heritage Area Coalition meeting. legislative committee and board meeting on Monday morning and then the Willamette Falls Trust board meeting in the afternoon on Monday yesterday and that's about it.

Thank you, Council President. Great report. Last week, I had coffee with Corey Buchanan, the new editor of the Westland Tidings, and enjoyed that conversation, building those relationships. And then yesterday, I participated in a COIN News political podcast about Westland. And so that should be airing next week, and I'll be sure to share it. That was nice of Westland resident Todd Unger to put that together. He's an anchor at COIN. So congratulations. did that, and those are my activities for the week related to the city. Councillor Groener.

Yes, thank you. Well, I intended a land use education session last week. Also, I'm basically scheduling a tour of water environmental services next week. So anybody interested in coming along and seeing what happens to our sewage, you're welcome to come along. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Should be a very interesting tour. We've all gotten to see that so far. I'm glad you're getting to do that as well. Councillor Bonneton, any reports?

That was basically the report I would have given, but I observed that there was a much better opportunity to have those people come tell their stories themselves. So there you go.

Thank you. And we have no appointments tonight. So with that, we can then move on to one of the main questions. Items on the agenda, the South Fork Water Management and Conservation Plan presentation. And we'll welcome up Chief Executive Wyatt Parno. And Mr. Williams, would you like to introduce the topic at all? Thanks for the partnership.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Yeah, Wyatt, good to see you while you're getting the mic set up. Nothing more important to talk about on a 97-degree day than the city's water supply. On days like this, we all count on it even more than normal. Wyatt has been working with some of our staff and with his own staff in Oregon City and many others to plan for water supply in our region and how our cities are provided with water, which we all count on. I'm really pleased that you're here tonight, Wyatt, to share with us the conservation management plan and other thoughts on our water system. So take it away.

Perfect. Well, thank you, Mayor Bialystoski and council members and John Williams, city manager. My name is Wyatt Parno. I'm the chief executive officer of South Fork Water. South Fork Water provides the drinking water that we use in West Linn's distribution system. I'm here this evening to talk about the water management and conservation plan. Before discussing the plan, I'd like to briefly introduce South Fork Water. South Fork Water was formed in 1915 through a partnership between Westland and Oregon City. And about two years prior to that, there was a severe typhoid outbreak. So the leaders of the two cities looked for a pure water source, and they found one in the upper levels of the Clackamas River, and they built about 26 miles of pipe at the South Fork tributary to the river, hence the name South Fork Water. The two cities have worked together to provide safe, reliable drinking water for 111 years. And I know Councilor Bonnington and all of you know that there's a fierce rivalry between Westland and Oregon City when it comes to high school football. But when it comes to drinking water, the partnership is outstanding. I'd also like to take a minute to recognize Mayor Rory Bialystoski, Council President Mary Baumgardner, and Councilor Carol Bright. They serve on the South Fork Water Board of Directors, and they've done an outstanding job for the community. Thank you for being champions of water. We've set some pretty high goals for the last couple years, and we've been achieving them, and that's due to your leadership. Thank you. The Water Management and Conservation Plan, or WMCP, it's required by state law. And more importantly for us, it provides a long-term strategy for conserving water and protecting our natural resources. There's four major elements. We took a look at the entire water supply system. We looked at conservation opportunities. We looked at curtailment requirements. And we project long-term the water supply just to think about the future because water is a scarce resource. South Fork developed a plan in cooperation with Public Works staff from the City of West Linn and from Oregon City, and the draft has been submitted to the Oregon Water Resource Department, and we expect approval by the end of the summer. The plan has four major elements. Rather than reviewing the entire plan tonight, I thought I would just talk about conservation and curtailment, which is probably hot on everyone's mind, as John mentioned, because of the heat and the situation that we're in with weather this summer. It's important to distinguish between conservation and curtailment. Conservation means the water that we use efficiently without waste throughout the year. It's something we do on an ongoing basis to protect our resources. Curtailment is different. Curtailment means temporary measures taken in response to a short-term water supply emergency. It's used when specific system or river conditions require temporary action. As of today, our drinking water source is reliable. There's no special actions required. If river conditions require curtailment this summer, the city will communicate clearly and will ask the community to do its part. So let's talk about conservation. Under the Water Management and Conservation Plan, south fork and westland are required to implement ongoing conservation measures those are listed here on the blue side they include annual water audits leak detection and public education efforts so sometimes the kids will come home from school and say mom turn off the faucet and we did some programs in the schools annual water audits account for all the water entering and leaving the system and that can attest to the fact that Westland's done a really good job of keeping leaks low, and they're really doing a good job with the system, as is South Fork Water. Community members also play a really important role in conservation, and here are some recommendations on the green side of what community members can do really quickly. You can water landscapes efficiently, about one inch of water per week, or during the evening hours to reduce evaporation. That's the simplest way I can say it. repair leaks promptly, install water efficient fixtures, and just don't waste water. So conservation is something that we can practice every day to protect our resources. Curtailment, on the other hand, as we said, is a response if emergency conditions require temporary reduction of use. There are four stages in the curtailment plan. Most of the stages are based on maintaining adequate storage in the system for public health and fire protection. Stage one is voluntary, and stages two through four are mandatory if conditions require them. One important exception is that stage two can also be triggered by fish persistence requirements. And I will explain that next. Because this is something we're watching this year. So as a condition of our water rights permits extensions, stage two mandatory curtailment is required by the state if river flows fall below established fish persistence thresholds. During the summer, the fish persistence target is 650 cubic feet per second. And then during the remainder of the year, the target is 800 cubic feet per second. And I just want to focus on summer conditions because that's where we're towing the line a little bit. So the requirement is based on river levels, not our drinking water supply system. If we reach those levels, South Fork will coordinate with the city manager and West Linn staff, and West Linn will give notice and ask the community to basically limit watering to the hours of 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. to prevent that evaporation. Just don't waste water. One thing that's unique about West Linn and also a really cool thing that you've done is that the city's municipal code already contains water emergency provisions. The water management and conservation plan recognizes the city's current provisions and recommends updating the code over time so that Westland's response more closely aligns with the coordinated curtailment plan for South Fork and Oregon City. The objective is consistency so everyone receives the same message and responds together. And Westland staff identified this early on as an issue. And the council can make this adjustment over time. There's not a rush. And the plan is to be adopted later in the summer. So it's something that John and I have talked about a little bit. And the other thing I want to talk about is just a quick touch base on our current conditions. So you may have heard that things are a little bit unique this year. This past winter, we had very low rainfall. And the snowpack in the mountains is very low. The snowpack acts as a natural reservoir. It accumulates during the winter and then sort of trickles into our river over the summer. So with that low snowpack, we don't have that natural reservoir. We're also anticipating a warm, dry forecast this summer. And we already have reduced river flow. So it's something that we're watching as a team very carefully. And it's possible that we may end up in a stage two curtailment where the city would notify folks to please water at night only. It's important to note that city is very prepared. It's not really a time for alarm. It's just we're aware and we're following the state law. And finally, I want to wrap up with my top three easy recommendations. I really like hiking, so I had to sneak in this picture. And I also like simple recommendations. You can find a lot of resources on things that you should do and how you should water. And I welcome you to look into those things and protect your natural resources. But I think people are inundated so much with so many messages these days. So here are the three easy asks that I ask for the community. The first is to water landscapes efficiently. We talked about that one inch per week of water. watering between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. The second is to use water wisely. So repair leaks promptly if you find them. Don't let hoses run unnecessarily, for example. Turn off the faucet. So if you're washing your car, unless it's curtailed at some point, and you take a break for lemonade or popcorn, just turn off the hose while you're doing that. And then third is watch for these city curtailment notices. If stage two becomes necessary this year, please just follow the city's guidelines. These easy actions will protect the river and the fish. So while you're contemplating easy recommendations, I just wanted to take a second and again thank the council as a whole. I appreciate all the work you do. I'm a Westland resident, and I see the passion that you bring and brought tonight. And also thank city manager John Williams. I think you've got a really great city manager. Public Works director Eric Lais and deputy director Matt Potts. They've done an excellent job with the water system and Yeah on that whole resident thing I appreciate the library the streets Safety all the things the city manager and the staff do so thank you for allowing me to benefit from that And with that I appreciate the opportunity to provide the update and I'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you for that great presentation on that. And good to know that we're prepared, prepared but not alarmed. That's very good. Any questions from city council? Councillor Bonnington, go ahead.

Less of a question and more of an offer. It looks like that those three simple things you just mentioned are more of an action that people need to take than just a simple, I don't know, public awareness campaign can really provide. So I'd just like to offer myself up if you think there's a good opportunity for me to kind of manually operate a discussion on the community page about this and help people understand it better. We can connect on that, and I'd be happy to help with that.

That sounds great. Councillor Bonnington, I appreciate the offer because I'm aware of the good work you do on social media and talking with folks, and you've even said great things about water, so thank you for that. And remember, we're in this state where the water is okay now, but if we end up in that curtailment, that would definitely be something we require, and I'd love to chat with you more, and both you and Councillor Groner are invited to come over to the South Fork Water Plan and take a tour. Great. Thank you.

We also have a picnic coming up, which we could get on the calendar for the...

The councilors as well. I texted Krista this just now and said, did we invite all of the council? Because I hope we did.

I checked the invite, and only the board members were invited. So we will give the invitation to the other councilors, and that's coming up in a couple weeks. It's kind of an annual picnic that we do to thank the water providers over the city. So we'll get that on everybody's calendar.

Great. Thank you, Mayor.

Any other questions or comments from South Fork Board members?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, and thank you so much, Director Parno. You've done a wonderful job, and it's really confidence-building to have this team you've assembled, all the staff, and they work well together and like what they do. So thank you for all of your work.

Any other comments? And I will note that on the agenda bill here, there is a draft water management and conservation plan that I know that South Fork prepared in consultation with the cities, and it's 90 pages long. So if anybody wants some good reading for over the summer, we appreciate that. And so that's on the agenda bill if needed. So any other questions or comments? Okay, Councillor Brykuss.

Well, I just want to say from my experience in water, it seems to me that South Fork is being very well managed. And I know as I worked for Clackamas River Water for 12 years, we studied the watershed a lot and One of the benefits that we have of the Clackamas watershed is that water that melts too fast could soak into the ground, and then it will seep into the river later in the summer when we're not getting any precipitation. So we just don't know how much water that sponge holds, and we don't know how many years of drought or low snowpack we would have before it failed. So we do need to conserve. And people might not be aware that you can use hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water if you just have a slightly leaky toilet. So, you know, people should check that and make sure that their systems in their homes are working well.

Thank you, Councillor. I echo those comments and I just really appreciate the team that we have at South Fork and also at our city water department just for how honestly prepared we are. Like we're not waiting for something to happen with the water system or curtailment to come into effect and all of a sudden we have to scramble. we're prepared and ready for whatever comes our way. And I really, for me as mayor, and I'm sure all of us as city council, it just makes us feel good to know that this, it's like the most essential thing that we do, providing water to the community, and we're just doing it so well and always ready for situations that arise. So thank you for the update, and I'm sure community members are glad to hear about the situation with the summer flows not being too bad. Thank you. Appreciate you, Mr. Parno, fellow Westland resident. Grateful for your service. And with that, anything else on the water management conservation plan? Okay, well then we can continue on and... It's on the agenda to the public use zoning discussion. And then we'll have the redevelopment agency meeting after that. So welcome.

Mayor and council, this item is at request of the council of previous discussions about public use zoning, how it works, what it might look like in West Lynn. And I want to thank Aaron and Steve from our community development department who have been looking into this and have a presentation for you. and just really a work session type discussion. And thank you for the research and being here tonight. Aaron, I think you're starting.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you, John. And thank you, Council. Yes, so tonight we have in front of you some discussion on possible public use exploratory options here in the city. Okay.

Okay.

And so just to give a sort of early. Existing standards here so I public uses you know provide a critical support for the community in our code. These can be a variety of different buildings and functions so. Public safety facilities, utilities, churches, schools, and parks would be a part of public uses. And because of their role inside the community, these are typically in residential neighborhoods, although sometimes they can fall outside of those boundaries as well, as we'll find out. So currently, our approach here at West Linn is to not have a public use designated zone or district. Within commercial and industrial zones, these public uses are typically allowed outright as opposed to in residential zones where they would require a conditional use permit. Parks, as you may expect, are typically allowed outright in most zones within the city. There are a few exceptions like in commercial areas. And then also just to touch on modifications of existing conditional use permits. These modifications typically require those applications to come to a public hearing in front of either the Planning Commission or the City Council for those modifications. And some of the pros and cons of the current system that we have here. So the pros of the current process is this can provide discretionary review for these higher impact uses. It allows the siting and the public uses in the residential areas with that discretionary review and it doesn't it avoids the need for the city to initiate any applicant initiated zone changes for those uses some cons of the process So this discretionary review that's typically required can result in sort of inconsistent outcomes for the applicant in a lot of cases. This reduces a lot of the predictability when you're designing a facility. And this can impact the long-term capital planning, either for the city or a neighboring school district of some kind. And then this also can create this high sort of burden of proof and processing for these types of applications. Just a quick synopsis of some of the surrounding areas here and how they handle public uses. So some of them have institutional or public use zones. Some don't, as you can see. And then some will require modifications to go to a public hearing. As you can see by this table, other jurisdictions have different approaches as well, as we'll discuss here tonight. So tonight we laid out a couple options here for the council just as suggestions for future direction here. So the first option would be to create a public use zone that would... allow these institutional uses outright. This would implement sort of standard development guidelines and standards. And these uses THEY WOULD STILL REQUIRE A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT, THE ONES WITH GREATER INTENSITY. AND THEN THE MINOR MODIFICATION PROPOSALS, IF THERE WAS A MODIFICATION PROPOSED, COULD BE DECREASED. IT WOULD OBVIOUSLY BE UP TO THE DIRECTION OF THE COUNCIL HERE TONIGHT. And then option B is to increase the CUP modification threshold. These modifications could be reviewed just through a design review process. And one of the thresholds that could be used is the building area and trip generation. that if they were no more than 20% increase in the threshold, then the original conditions could be changed. And then option C is to basically leave it as it is now, if we believe that our current operating standards are up to par. And so just some questions tonight as you all are discussing and Steve here and I will be able to answer any questions. So does the council wish to revise the planning docket to include a project to discuss these public use zones as we're doing tonight? Do you wish to explore an increase to the minor modification threshold for conditional use permits? And then... Does the council wish to keep the status quo at this time? Do we wish to keep it as it is? So those are some of the questions and the options that we've sort of laid out and happy to open the floor to the council here and take any questions about this and further direction if there is any.

Well, thank you, Aaron, for your work and taking on this project at the request of the council. We appreciate all your work and happy to open the floor up to counsel to discuss any of the information provided. So, Councillor Bright.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. In option one, we're talking about a public use zoning district, and I have seen that in some cities, kind of more cities that are maybe newer and growing from the ground up, where they have a district where the city hall and the library and the police station are all kind of together. When I was thinking about this process, I was thinking more of public use zoning that would be applied to specific facilities in the city that are for public use, rather than creating a district. And I understand the district kind of says, we're going to have this stuff maybe surrounded by residential. It might change the nature of your neighborhood, but it's all kind of glommed together. And I don't think we really have that opportunity now. It's going to be more of individual sites. And one of the reasons I was curious about this is I just think it's interesting that, say, parks are zoned R10, which is, you know, they're never going to be that kind of housing development. So it just seemed to me that that is a public use and it would be nice to identify it as such in our zoning.

Thank you, Councillor. So do you have a, I think when thinking through this, would you rather create a public use zoning district or would you rather retain the current, or what questions would you have for what to do?

I think I'm looking at bullet .2 of adding it to the planning docket, but not necessarily a public zoning district because it is going to be the various fire stations around town, the parks around town, the library down in Bolton, the city hall up here.

So maybe it's added to the docket for some further fletching out at the Planning Commission level and for a little bit further research.

Would you mind just clarifying that comment as far as it not being a zoning district if it's applied to specific properties?

When I see district, in my brain, it's like a whole area. So in a three-block section, you have City Hall, you have the library, you have the police department.

Thank you. Yeah, I think to clarify, zoning district is a term of art that means a zone. And so a single property would have a zone, a zoning district applied to it. And so I think just to make sure we're speaking the same language and apologize for the technical terminology in this presentation.

I appreciate that because I was thinking they had to be kind of all together.

Yeah, and I think just to expand on this conversation because it's a good one for the benefit of the rest of the Council, particularly depending on the outcome of Council's direction, we would probably want to come back and re-scope what the next steps would look like because there's certainly a two-step option, which one would be to create a zone itself. And then two would be to decide where to apply the zoning district to. And those processes don't necessarily have to be part of the same process. And in fact, there's certainly a much greater amount of community involvement and staff time involved with doing both steps as one process. And so certainly in the examples we provided, Tualatin, for example, did the The latter where it did step one of the two-step and then slowly implemented application of the zones and then Happy Valley, as you mentioned, Councilor Brake, is a newer community and so they established the zone before the uses came along and then established it on an ongoing basis.

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense to me because there could be particular properties owned by a different jurisdiction that might not want to be involved in that. So if we create the zone, we can apply it to city buildings initially, still with some public input, and then consider other properties within the city.

Councillor Groner, go ahead.

Yes, I'm trying to understand how this would work. It seems existing city and firehouses and perhaps water pumping stations could sort of be grandfathered into this sort of public zoning. But I'm not sure what real difference this makes. I'm thinking about our operations center, for example. We've recently gone to, and I guess we're still going through some hearings on its application. Again, operationally, what difference does it make?

I believe that's kind of the question here tonight as far as if we believe there's an operational standard that needs fixing. You could essentially eliminate the conditional use process for a lot of public uses if you choose to. We've proposed modifying some of the thresholds for the modifications to existing conditional use permits. Those are just a couple different options that you could go for. So as far as processing the applications, they could be done at essentially an administrative level and not require a public hearing, or we could stick with the existing method of requiring a conditional use for those higher intensity public uses uh... there's a there's a lot of options on the table that could that could sort of be proposed that the processing of it uh... could be reduced it could be maintained as it is uh... it could be slightly modified uh... to decrease certain thresholds with certain uses within certain zones. So there's really, there's multiple options. I guess tonight we're not presenting specific ones, but we're really just sort of opening the discussion and we'll see how the work sort of comes out from the direction here at council.

I mean, it seems that special use permits permit a lot of flexibility for different kinds of facilities. And if you have essentially one criteria for all public facilities, that seems like quite a straight jacket. And I'm wondering what the advantage of that is.

I think just to add on to Aaron's comments and to help answer your question, Councillor Groner, the idea would be to recognize that public uses provide a public benefit unique from other conditional uses and so is to treat them differently right now. As in your example, the operations facility is treated similar to a private commercial conditional use, and that's the philosophical, if you will, reasoning for having a public use zoning, is it's recognizing that there's basically public benefit from the establishment of public uses, and as noted and laid out in the presentation, By the nature of the uses, they are required to co-locate within and next to neighborhoods. You wouldn't want a school in an industrial district. You want your school to be in your neighborhood. And so the original idea of having that school be a conditional use when it was originally established was that it has different impacts from other residences. And so what a public use zone does is it seeks to find a middle ground between those two and essentially streamline the process for public uses specifically. And so what that would do, to Councillor Bright's point that most of the public uses are already established in the city, it would make it so that in the future, modification of those uses doesn't require as much of a burdensome process as it did when they were originally established. So for example, if a school has a modification to it, it would no longer require it to go through a conditional use. It would just be reviewed under the criteria for design standards and other public facility standards as would any other permitted use.

Thank you. That clarifies matters.

Certainly it's a policy decision, right? We're not necessarily offering a recommendation, but leaving it to the council to have this conversation. So I think your comments are appreciated.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Bonnington? Yeah, I think this would be a great tool that we should put in our toolbox. At the same time, obviously we're not talking specifics just yet, but we should definitely keep a careful eye on not causing it to enable things like the public comments we heard earlier, not being exploited to be able to have public uses create an enormous nuisance to the quality of life people have. So I guess that would be the boundary.

That would be too far. I think the question is, should we put this on the planning docket for further discussion? I'm still forming an opinion in my head about whether I think it's a good idea or not. Personally, after reviewing the issues and thinking about the city, so I would like to learn a little bit more about it through the that planning docket process is where my head is at.

And if I may propose, uh, taking a temperature check from the council and propose the next step, which would be that if the council feels most interested in option one, we could come back with effectively a little mini work session to scope out what a potential project or series of projects might look like to do so. And perhaps that would give council, um, better sense of whether or not this is something that, um, Is a value to pursue further.

I think that sounds sounds appropriate.

Yeah, that was what I was. That was my 2 cents was to. Bring it back for further discussion.

Alright, well, it sounds like there's a consensus on. Option one. Well, question one. We'll have a mini work session and continue to. discuss the topic and you've taken a temperature check.

Yes, thank you very much, Mayor and Council. Thank you.

Anything else on public use zoning? Council Breik, anything to add from your perspective?

Nope, I think that covers it because if it's on the planning document, that will also be the opportunity to look at minor modifications for things that are already conditional uses, correct? Correct.

That's correct.

Well, thank you for bringing that forward. Interesting. We touch a lot of different policy areas in the city, so we appreciate that conversation. So thank you both. And with that, we can move to the city manager report. Mr. Williamson.

Mayor and Council, since you have another meeting coming up after this, I will just point out that your next City Council meeting is August 18th, and I wanted to confirm that that is actually the case. August 18th. We actually have quite a bit of business at that meeting. Code of conduct, my own evaluation, process approval, guaranteed maximum price for the operations center will be on that agenda, discussion of water STCs, and more. So a full meeting. But you have almost a month to that meeting. So you have sort of two halves of an August recess this August due to your rescheduling of that meeting. Following that, the next meeting is on September 1, I believe. be the next work session after that. So I want to make sure that we can move right into the redevelopment agency, and I'll cut it short for tonight.

Okay. Well, with that, I will adjourn this work session of the City Council. And would anybody need a quick break in between the two meetings, or shall we transition into the redevelopment agency meeting? Okay. Then I will call to order the Westland Redevelopment Agency meeting. And the meeting is hereby called to order. And are we good administratively on the live stream and the, because we're just continuing on in the same feed. Okay, thank you. So the item of business here is the Westland Riverfront, the Willamette Riverfront Tax Increment Finance Area Plan update.

Yes, Mayor and Council, but you're actually acting as agency members. Chair. Agency chair and agency members this evening. We don't frequently meet as an agency board, but it's always fun when we do, because it is learning about working on the relatively new West Lynn Riverfront Tax Increment Finance Area, adopted in 2023, You, as the city councilors meeting as this agency, oversee that district, so there's a great connection, a very strong connection between the city council's actions and the agency actions. I'd like to ask our community development director, Steve Coper, to come up, and he will be leading a discussion tonight on a process proposal and a briefing on POTENTIAL UPDATES TO THE AREA PLAN TO ACHIEVE GOALS FOR THE DISTRICT. STEVE, I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR WORK ON THIS. AND FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW, MAYBE WATCHING THIS, STEVE COPER IS A TREMENDOUS RESOURCE FOR US HAVING WORKED IN THE AGENCY ENVIRONMENT AT TWO OTHER CITIES IN OREGON, OUR NEIGHBOR CITIES. of Happy Valley and Tualatin, so we are well equipped to have this discussion. And City Attorney Klein and I are happy to chime in as needed as you go ahead. Thank you, Steve.

Great. Thank you, John. Thanks for the lovely introduction. And Steve Cooper, Community Development Director, glad to be here in front of the Urban Renewal, or excuse me, Redevelopment Agency. I'm going to to get that one right um i have a brief presentation i'm queued up to have a discussion about the tiff area plan um we're just getting that queued up momentarily thank you teresa Thank you. So just a quick overview of tonight's discussion. So we're going to recap the TIF area plan, talk a little bit about the adjustments and amendments process, briefly touch on the financial status of the TIF district. At a very high level, we'll talk about property acquisition and specifically one potential acquisition, walk through the mechanics of the minor amendment process specifically, And then talk a little bit about what could happen post-minor amendment if the agency board went in that direction. And then lastly, we'll conclude with options and an opportunity for discussion, which I will be facilitating.

Thank you.

So the purpose of the TIF area plan just by way of reintroduction or recap to the plan. This was recently adopted just in 2023. The overall goal or purpose of the district is to stimulate investment in the area and I will show the geographic area on the next slide. Variety of different project types contemplated in the plan, fairly high level types of projects. Those generally thought to or intended to assist with the plan goal of stimulating investment or also known as stimulating growth of assessed value. And so the plan area is approximately 333 acres. And then on the right hand side of the slide, I'm just showing a brief recap of how the mechanics of tax increment financing works, which is that the base property tax collection is frozen at a point in time. and instead of it going up the little 3% every year, that little 3% every year is captured into the TIF district, and then it would normally grow at that 3% rate, but the idea is that essentially you're providing investment to it and growing that amount above and beyond the growth that would normally occur had the district not had investment or reinvestment.

Thank you.

So with that, in addition to the plan being established in 2023, the plan also had provision within it and the accompanying plan report for review of the plan, which is effectively what we're doing here, but also adjustment to the plan. And so, as I mentioned, the goal for the district is to increase taxable values, and that's not just to the city, but it is to all taxing districts. And so we do have, for example, a representative from TVF and are here with us tonight. Notice of this work session was also provided to all of the taxing districts, as well as the Not sure what the official name was, but effectively the community committee that provided advice to the agency board, the tax increment financing committee. So with that said, as I mentioned, the plan provides the board, the agency board, the authority to make amendments to the plan. It provides for substantial amendments and minor amendments. Substantial amendments are really large things, and so that involves changing significantly the amount of either maximum indebtedness under the plan or the actual acreage of the plan by more than a set threshold. And so we're not necessarily here to talk about that tonight, although happy to answer any questions if you do. Next slide, please. We're going to talk a little bit more about the minor amendment process. And so anything that is not a substantial amendment, that is to say anything that is not a change to the maximum indebtedness or the acreage of the TIF district is considered a minor amendment. And so there's additional guidance in the Oregon revised statutes to also talk about what a minor amendment is and isn't, but that's effectively what it is. And so what's allowed by the agency board is you can basically update any other part of the plan as a minor amendment. And so that could include things like adding projects, guiding principles. It can also include adding properties to the TIP district. Currently, none are identified because of the formation of the district. No properties were known as potential candidates, which is fairly normal for establishment of a district. So in accordance with the Oregon revised statutes and in accordance with the language of the plan, there is the opportunity to add Specific properties as targets for acquisition. There's some additional requirements such that they need to be identified specifically and then there needs to be sort of a disposition and ultimately Actual plan for what's going to happen in the long term to those properties that are identified And so This is the status of the urban rural area or the TIF district financing. And so because it's a relatively new plan, the increment collected to date is relatively small. However, it is envisioned to climb fairly steadily. And so based on the projected future revenues and then taking, for example, a projected bond against future revenue in the district. It shows that there is opportunity to do a relatively modest bond and still keep the TIF increment coming in at a fairly steady clip. And so the idea there would be to front load some of the increment coming in with the opportunity to invest and to go back to that original plan goal of increasing the taxable value of properties in the district. And so we'll talk a little bit more about what that might look like in a couple of slides. So yeah, all that to say that this is sort of intentional and this is the way that the plan was devised, was creating these opportunities for investment. All right, so potential property acquisition. So staff was approached by the property owner of this specific property at 17938th Street, which goes between Willamette Falls Drive and 8th Avenue, not 8th Street. Sorry about that. So consistent with our obligation to the agency board as staff, we're bringing this property opportunity to your attention. I'll just emphasize the middle bullet point here. This is not a recommendation, prioritization or any sort of endorsement of this specific property as part of the district. It's just simply serving as a focal point for discussion tonight. And the agency board is most decidedly encouraged to consider whether this or any other property acquisition in the future would indeed further the strategic objectives of the plan. So... I did, however, want to take the opportunity, since we are talking about it, to dream with you a little bit and think about what a property acquisition in a TIF district would look like. And so I pulled together a couple of different examples from other jurisdictions. And I will say I'm a little biased towards Owl Plaza because of the Westland Owl, but I'll go through all of them and try to be fair in my description of each. So starting clockwise from the upper left, we have Plaza Park in Silverton. And so that is kind of, I mean, we're looking at, I'll say a spectrum of different projects from the size of them and then as far as how much intensity of development is on each of them. approved for construction in the city of Silverton the total construction cost and not including land acquisition is estimated at 15 million dollars so quite high but that's because it includes a future visitor center for Silverton and so it has in addition to urban renewal financing being used to fund the construction it also has like hotel taxes as well being applied to that project, and a couple of other streams as well. The next one is, which some of you may know and have been to, which is a great, fantastic place, Robinwood Plaza in Sherwood. And so that was... Finished in 2023, it's about a quarter of an acre, so a little bit smaller. That construction cost in 2023 was $1.9 million. That's kind of a neat plaza because really when it's not being used for events in the off time, it just serves in their little downtown commercial district as excess parking, which is a neat idea. Moving down to Federal Street Plaza in the Dalles. And so this is kind of similar status to Silverton. It's approved for construction. It's about a third of an acre, so a little bit closer to a half acre in size here. $5 million is the estimated construction cost for that one. And then moving lastly to Owl Plaza. So a quarter acre, very modest size building. here, the estimated construction cost is $1.6 million. I really liked that the architect for it described the rendering as the intent was to serve as the living room for the community. I really liked that. I thought that was nice. So one of the things in consideration of all of these different projects, so kind of running the gamut from size, fairly large and fairly sophisticated and complex, what you see through all of these is some common amenities, right? Pavers, as far as the surface, is very common. Some shade element is also very common. Their seating, utility hookups, I think almost all of them in their project description talked about the opportunity to have vendors or food carts or other kinds of temporary uses come in and be able to sponsor festivals, farmers markets, things like that. And then of course, each of them to some degree, whether it's kind of enhanced street parking or actual parking being incorporated in the project, that was also something that they all shared in common. So back to our actual process here, I'll just talk a little bit more about that minor amendment process that I mentioned. So it is a pretty straightforward process. It simply requires a resolution of the agency board to consider approval of the minor amendment. And so, as I mentioned, specific to agency board's direction to include a property for acquisition that would also include a disposition plan and then the minor amendment process also provides an opportunity to update amend or add potential projects either related to the property considered for acquisition or just in general I'll note that the property that was offered for acquisition is in the Willamette area, and the plan is not necessarily very robust in regards to future projects or potential opportunities in the Willamette area, and so that's certainly something for Council's consideration should they direct staff to move forward. Last couple of pieces is just the advance written notice of the agency board meeting to consider a minor amendment to the taxing districts as the minimum. As noted, staff chose to also notify the Urban Renewal Advisory Board as well, just being that they effectively operated as stakeholders for the previous project. And then council may wish to have staff provide additional notice or do other stakeholder outreach, you know, In some jurisdictions, depending on where you are in the process, that could even include something like an open house or other type of opportunity, particularly if you're getting into the point where you're identifying a property for acquisition and you're thinking about what might be done with it. That would certainly, in my humble opinion, be an opportunity for an open house or a series of open houses. And then just quickly, because the topic has come up organically due to this property being identified for acquisition, just a brief overview of the steps for property acquisition. And so the first step would be to have staff conduct an appraisal of the property or have one conducted, excuse me. And then that would lead into determining the appropriate financial mechanism necessary. So if the district had enough monies in the TIF fund, then that could be an option. And if not, then we'd have to look to bonding or some other similar type of mechanism. And then, as with any property acquisition, if you're buying a house or buying a commercial property for yourself, there's all sorts of due diligence activities that would go along with the future acquisition. And then, of course, a final appraisal of the property, and then those legal technical steps, which City Attorney Klein is probably better at describing than I would be, Accomplish the actual final acquisition of the property and have the urban real agency owning that property So just a quick recap because that was a lot in a very short number of slides So the TIF area plan the goal of it was to create or stimulate investment in the area and another way to put that would be to grow the taxable value of the district above and beyond what it would grow without investment owing to the plan. The plan did identify future opportunity for adjustment and amendment. There is a minor and major adjustment. excuse me minor and major amendment and so each of those has a separate process the tiff district does have potential revenue available for bonding particularly at a modest amount and then property acquisition can in general support the area plan it's definitely a logical next step in a future update to the plan As noted, the minor amendment, which would include adding properties, projects, updating the guiding principles, and so forth, can be done by resolution of the agency board. And then once a property is identified, then acquisition could occur. So with that, and I've devised a couple of basic options, which are also laid out in the agenda bill, the first of which is to direct staff to develop and provide notice of a proposed minor amendment for agency board consideration that would identify property for acquisition and thus include a disposition plan, and then to draft corresponding updates to guiding principles and TIF projects, essentially what would be needed to support addition of a property or more than one property. If the board is not ready at this stage to jump to that step, we are certainly happy to listen and return with additional information, or the board can certainly elect to take no action at this time and table this discussion for a later date. And so I'm happy to answer questions, facilitate a discussion. I think we do have a couple of guests from the public with us. And so I'm also happy to give them the opportunity to weigh in to the agency board and then circle back to these questions and the discussion.

Well, thank you so much for your work in the detailed presentation. Would anybody from the audience? We've got several community partners here like to make a comment to the agency board on this issue. I see Rebecca Hollenbeck. Coming up, so well, thanks for being here, Rebecca. Glad you're here, and sorry that the market's canceled tomorrow, but hopefully it'll be cooler next week.

Yeah, I'd rather everybody be inside where it's cool. I just have a brief statement that we prepared, and my board president is here as well, Brad Holquist. Historic Willamette Main Street supports acquiring and preserving this property for long-term community benefit. Should the Urban Renewal Agency choose to move forward with acquiring the property, Historic Willamette Main Street has developed a collection of ideas that we would welcome the opportunity to explore in partnership with the city and the community. These concepts are intended to serve as a starting point for future discussions and have been shaped by years of downtown revitalization work conversations with residents and businesses, and feedback gathered through our 2022 and 2023 strategic planning sessions. Our vision is to create a flexible, welcoming public space that can evolve over time as funding becomes available. Potential features could include community gathering areas, a living holiday tree, a small community stage for events and performances, and enhanced public open space. Recognizing current financial realities, we envision this as a phased project that relies heavily on grants, partnerships, and sponsorships, and other outdoor funding opportunities. This is something that we would be more than happy to work with the city and the community on if you so choose to move in this direction. That's all we wanted to say at this point.

thank you thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight and thank you brad as well and to chief smith also appreciate you all uh well with that any uh the question before us is just whether to direct staff to develop and provide notice of a proposed minor amendment for consideration at an agency board meeting There's a we're in an agency meeting so there's opportunity to make a motion and there's a motion provided and happy to maybe you can make a motion and we can have a discussion on the motion and the idea.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I would like to move to direct staff to develop and provide notice of a proposed minor amendment for agency board consideration that identifies property for acquisition, includes a disposition plan, and corresponding updates to building principles and TIF projects.

It has been moved and seconded to direct staff to develop and provide notice of proposed minor amendment for agency board consideration that identifies property acquisition, property for acquisition includes a disposition plan and corresponding updates to building principles and TIF projects. Any discussion from the city council? Councilor Groner.

Yeah, I hate to be skeptical, but it seems the purpose of a TIF is to encourage economic development that will increase tax revenues. It seems to me we're taking a residential property, turning it into city-owned property, which will not pay taxes. And although I agree a community amenity in that area does make the whole neighborhood more attractive to both business and residences and may have an effect on raising the value of properties around it. How do we justify this, especially since it's our first major investment move under the TIF?

It's a great question, agency board member Groner. Thank you for that. I think at its core it's a policy question that's appropriate for the agency board to consider. I will say that part of the reason why I provided some examples of other public clauses is to show that this is not Westland being a test case for the idea and in fact it has been employed as a specific expenditure for urban renewal districts in other areas and particularly I did focus a little bit in doing my research on smaller communities particularly where I think much like Westland the commercial district is smaller and requires a little bit of extra help, I'd say. And so ultimately, I'll say that it's a policy decision to determine whether or not you believe it merits it. But I think that there are examples out there of jurisdictions using this tool in this manner and that it's not a new idea.

Good question, Councillor Gardner. I will go to Councillor Bonnington and then Councillor President Baumgardner.

I guess I would just say that this is not just an enhancement or a nice-to-have on this street. It is such a fundamental need on the street that it is, in my mind, the only way the street can continue to improve or get better. So it's not just a little value added. It's a huge improvement that makes the whole thing go. So that would be my assessment of it.

Thank you, Councillor Buntington. Councillor President.

Thank you, Mayor. And yes, I appreciate the comments that you've both made and the concern that Councillor Groner brings up because it's in the back of my mind as well. But I think on balance, when I look at the whole entire TIF district and how large it is and how much growth will be happening over time, And the strategic aspect of being able to purchase this property at this time indicates to me that we owe it to the city to give this community a hub of gathering space in that main street that is missing right now. missing component that maybe people when they go down there they don't necessarily think oh why don't we have a little open space plaza down here because there are some really nice amenities but I will point out there is no public restroom and when I say that and think the more I think about it the more I think why is there no public restroom on Willamette Main Street so you That is not the only, but it is a very important accessibility quotient that we need to be aware of, and I'm really excited about the opportunity. Like I said, a piece of property like this doesn't come along all the time. So the fact that it's happening now at this time where we're doing some early planning stages on our waterfront vision plan, which this will be an important constellation in the waterfront vision network, is key. So I appreciate everyone's input and help in doing this, moving forward with this.

Thank you, Council President. Appreciate your comments. And Councillor Bright.

Thank you, Chair. I think that we have some really great opportunities here. And even before any development is done to the parcel, I think that it can still be used. as extra space during the uh wednesday market i think of all of the people crowded on the corner for the tree lighting where everybody is like standing on the sidewalk and trying to stay out of traffic um so i i do think that there are some great opportunities there for the public to gather even before we do any development of it thank you counselor and i agree with everything that folks have

such night and Councilor Groner asked a great question earlier too. And you know, I think it'd be one thing if we were talking about taking tons of properties out of the taxing district to become public. But we're talking about, you know, one parcel at this point. think it's a tremendous opportunity for partnership with main street and really the broader community and willamette neighborhood association and i love the idea of an open house at some point maybe after we get it under city ownership to dream about what the future would be and i think it's a good tool to help educate the community on urban renewal and urban districts as a concept with kind of a successful and hopefully really cost effective project that doesn't take you know, it's not millions and millions of dollars, it's hopefully less than that so that we can kind of have, this is what urban renewal can do for the community and it's in a successful way because we've seen in other communities where things have gone sideways when A big first project is, the first project is too big. So, and just an objective, I think, a cool idea to have that public space on Main Street. And the other thing is, I'm thinking about, you know, if we were to acquire this, opportunities for grant funding, whether that's through Main Street organizations or state organizations, the state because this is such a kind of the this area is that one of the pinnacles of Westland. So the idea of talking to our state legislators or Metro and other other groups about, hey, this we're dreaming up this really cool public plaza space, you know, for potential partnership and the dollar amount that could make a big difference in funding the construction element, you know, I think could be cool. So I'm supportive of the continuing the process. And obviously a lot of work would will have to be done on the know appraisal and what it's worth this is just a preliminary discussion but i think it's an interesting idea so uh any other comments or questions at this time from city council or i guess a motion has been made and seconded in those discussions so we can uh call the roll on the motion council break yes council president baumgartner yes council groener yes

Councilor Bonnington? Yes. Mayor Bielaczewski?

Yes. So the motion passes. And with that, the staff have been directed. So any thoughts on next steps? And I guess the next step is having a proposed minor amendment.

Yeah, we can develop a little bit more of a fleshed out timeline to share with council now that we have direction.

Sounds great. And I know that we're doing a lot of work in the planning department on lots of different projects. So I appreciate you fitting this one in into your schedule, everybody. And with that, anything else for the good of the order? I see nothing. So the agency meeting is adjourned. And we'll see you all in August.