Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening, and welcome to West Linn Planning Commission. Today's date is Wednesday, 02/04/2026, and it is 06:01PM. First on the agenda this evening, we will call to order and roll call.

Good evening, commissioners. Do we have Jason Commissioner Evans? Commissioner Dodds? I mean, I'm sorry. Commissioner Jones? Present. Commissioner Wabotny?

Here.

Commissioner Kaczorowski? Here. Commissioner commissioner Dietz?

Present.

Chair Schulte Hillman?

Here.

We have six members in attendance.

Okay. Next on the agenda, we have public comment related to land use items not on the agenda. Is anyone here to speak to land items not not on the agenda?

None or no comments off, for items not on the agenda.

Okay. Next on the agenda, we will begin our public hearing. So good evening. Tonight, we are holding a public hearing regarding application number CUPDash25Dash02DRSlashDash25Slash002WAPDash25Dash01 for a conditional use permit, class two design review, and water resource area permit at 23800 and 23834 Salomo Road. The proposal is for construction of an operations complex servicing the city of Westlands public works, environmental services, parks and recreation, and water and streets departments on two vacant lots.

This is a quasi judicial decision. Unlike in legislative hearings where personal opinion may come into play, quasi judicial rulings must be grounded in the relevant code. And if the application meets the code, the commission must approve it. The hearing will proceed as follows. After the preliminary legal matters, staff will make a presentation followed by the applicant, then anyone who wishes to address the issue will be given the opportunity.

Finally, there will be time for rebuttal by the applicant. The applicant will have twenty minutes initially plus ten minutes for rebuttal. All requests to speak during public testimony have been received. Commission members may ask questions of the applicant, staff, or anyone else who testifies. If participating remotely, please remember to use the hand icon if you wish to ask questions. Please keep yourself on mute until you are ready to speak so everyone is heard clearly. I now call to order the public hearing. I will now ask the city attorney to cover the preliminary legal matters.

Thank you, chair.

The applicant has the burden of proving that the application is consistent with the city of Westlands community development code comprehensive plan and any applicable municipal code provision. The criteria that must be addressed in this hearing are Chapter 11, Residential R 10 Chapter 32, Water Resource Area Protection Chapter 41, Building Height, Structures on Steep Lots, Exceptions Chapter 42, clear vision areas. Chapter 46, off street parking, loading, and reservoir areas. Chapter 48, access, egress, and circulation. Chapter 55, design review.

Chapter 60, conditional uses. Chapter 96, street improvement construction. Chapter 99, procedures for decision making, quasi judicial. As the planning commission is sitting quasi judicially, in a testimony, argument, or evidence that speakers give us must be directed at these criteria or at some other criteria in the code or comprehensive plan which you believe should apply to this decision. If your testimony would be repetitious but you would like the opportunity to appeal the decision, you must have signed the sign in slash testimony form.

Only those who have appeared before the Planning Commission in person or in writing will have standing to appeal this decision to the city council. Prior to the conclusion of the first public hearing on an application, the applicant or anyone who takes part in the hearing may request a continuance or ask that the record be left open to present additional information. If there is such a request, the planning commission will either continue the public hearing to a date certain or leave the record open for at least seven days for additional written evidence, arguments, or testimony. Failure to raise an issue accompanied by statements or evidence sufficient to allow the commission and the parties an opportunity to respond to the issue precludes appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals based on that issue. Failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues related to proposed conditions of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the city or its designee to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in circuit court.

So now I'll ask the council, or I apologize, the Planning Commission. Do any members of the Planning Commission wish to declare a potential or actual conflict of interest or bias? Okay, I'm seeing shaking heads. Do any members of the Planning Commission wish to report any site visits or ex parte contact?

Go ahead.

I received a phone message from the public because my phone number is out there to ask a question. I advised that I was going to be sitting on the planning commission tonight, and I could not respond. So I don't even know what the question was. That was as far as it got.

Great. And you feel that you can participate, without any bias in the process?

Yes, I do.

Perfect. Okay. Does any member of the audience wish to challenge the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission to hear this matter or the impartiality or ex parte disclosures of any member of the Planning Commission. Okay. I'm seeing none. Staff oh, that concludes the legal matters.

Okay, so we will now proceed to the staff presentation. Thank you, Aaron.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commission. May I give me a sec to pull up the presentation here and we'll get started. So as

Yeah.

So as as we're aware tonight, we're here to discuss the project for a new city operations facility at 23800 And 23834 Salomo Road. Application file number is CUP25DashO2, WAP2501, and DR2502.

And

so as part of your packet tonight, yeah, you the commission received a staff report that included obviously, findings for the application, the applicant submittal, a completeness letter, and then noticing requirements that the city went through. We also received some public comments earlier, I think, over the weekend from Ed and Roberta Swartz. We also review received another comment earlier today from them as well. And then, staff, provided supplemental findings and responses to, some, maybe all of those comments, that were received, prior to the hearing. I know that, we may have received a comment just before this hearing started, so I apologize if it's not mentioned in this presentation, but I'm sure that we'll be able to get you that info and those comments later here tonight.

Next one. Technical difficulties. Sorry. And there we go. Whoops.

Go to the previous one. Yeah. This one. Okay. So this is so tonight is the project for the City Operations Complex, a public support facility serving the public works departments, environmental services, parks and rec, and water and streets division. This is a map of the location. It's two fairly large vacant lots along Salama Road there near the 205 Freeway.

Just some development overview.

Lynn? So just to kind of give you an overview of what I'll be talking about briefly, I'll be giving just an overview of the project, some of the findings, the required code sections, some, you know, details on the project. After that, we do have members of the applicant team here who will be presenting. They'll be able to answer questions. I will also be here as well as other staff member to answer questions that you have after this.

And then obviously, public testimony will occur after that. So just right now, we're just gonna give a overview of the project. So it's a 33 acre vacant site from Salama Road. There's there's five total buildings being proposed, two sort of primary buildings. Building A is one story about 11,000 square feet.

It'll have a warehouse space, a general shop, and building maintenance area. Building B is twenty eight thousand one one hundred ninety six square feet. Also has warehousing, fleet repair, storage. The 2nd Floor is a lobby reception and office area with some conference rooms as well. Then on a sort of not a second portion of the site, but another portion of the site, Buildings D, E, And F on the on the applicant submittal talks of it's this is more of an open area with with bulk storage.

There's a dewatering and and sandbag area. There's also a truck wash and then the general sort of trash storage. There's a fuel tank pump there and some chemical storage as well. Thank you, Lynn. Yes.

One more please, Lynn. Can you do the whole? Sorry. So just some more of the overview here. There was a stormwater management report that was included.

It it talks about a collection area basically at the lowest elevation point of the site. I believe this is building it's either Building A or Building B, but it's the lowest elevation on the main collection point for the storm storm water. The building design includes one and two story buildings, window glazing, wood columns, metal roofs, a pedestrian bridge from an upper parking area to one of those primary buildings, Building B to be specific. These these buildings are about 200 feet from Salama Road and then about 300 feet to the the neighboring buildings to the north. The name of the street is escaping me but the neighboring properties to the north, the residences to the north.

Lynn, I'm sorry. Could I get you to so here's a here's a view of where the access to the site. This is on Salama Road. This would be looking down the hill, so looking southeast essentially or maybe more Southwest. So you would make a left there where you see those orange bollards there on the left side.

So just and and this is just to show that there's an existing street there built out. Lynn, one more please. This is I'm sorry Lynn this isn't working so Yeah.

Okay.

So here's this is a general overview, a site plan of what is being proposed. So as you can see on the top left there is Salama Road, which it'll be accessed from. There's general parking as you enter. You can then proceed to Buildings A And B down on the lower level or to those Buildings D, C, And F as you go eastward on the site. As you can see on the site plan, there is a wetland on the property that's shown on here that is proposed to be impacted, and I will touch on that a little bit later.

There's also a stream, an acknowledged stream on the site which is in the what is the lower left hand corner which would be the southeast or the southwest corner of the site that is proposed to be impacted as well for the development. Okay. This is a general landscaping plan. So as as part of the applicant's submittal, there was arborist report submitted that established or recognized the existing landscaping trees, etcetera, on the site. And these are some just a general overview of what would be proposed if the project was approved.

And then just to reiterate the the file numbers, essentially, the land use approvals that are part of this submittal tonight. So it's a conditional use permit, which tends to focus on surrounding use compatibility then mitigation to possibly reduce any of those impacts for the conditional use. There's a water resource permit and this has to do with the impacts that are proposed to the wetland and the stream for the development and then the proposed mitigation for those impacts, and then a design review which is it has to do with the architecture, the access of the of the site, the entire sort of use and function of the site as a whole. So those those are the three the three land uses that are that are being reviewed tonight. So I'll I'll start to touch on the conditional use standards for for this application.

So in in the staff report finding 60 through 65, touch on the conditional use approval criteria in the city's development code. So it talks about the site and size dimensions. Go ahead. There's a few more there, Lynn. The site and size dimensions being adequate, the characteristics of the site being suitable for the proposed developments, the development providing an overall benefit to the city, adequate public facilities being available to the site, and then the the underlying zoning requirements like setbacks and height limits, lot coverage sort of criteria.

And then chapters 52 and to 55, which are landscaping and and then the design review sections, is another land use process as well is part of the approval criteria for the conditional use. And then chapter 92 is the street improvements. There there aren't any proposed street improvements as you saw from the picture. Saloma Road is built out and there's there there wouldn't be any need for additional access along Salama Road for the proposed project. And then finally, the the the compliance with the the policies of the comprehensive plan.

So these findings are 60 through 65 on the staff report and we can go into detail for these, but just a general overview. So on number one there, the site and size dimensions being adequate, say 33 acre sites. The buildings are totaling 40,000 square feet. So staff finding has been that that the site the size of the site and the size of the project are are are are adequate. The characteristics being suitable, proposed project and its location, given its size, staff believes are are are suitable for the for the characteristics and the and the compatibility with the neighborhood.

The development does provide an overall benefit to the city, you know, without just understanding this is a public facility that serves that uses city staff to serve, you know, the citizens to repair streets and provide maintenance and services to to the citizens of the city. And then adequate public facilities being available. This has to deal with water, electricity, access to the site. So there are available facilities along Salama Road that are that will be easily accessed and tied into for the site. And then the underlying number five there, the applicable requirements of the zone.

The setbacks are clear are easily met. The setbacks of the r 10 are maximum 20 feet to simplify it. And the closest that any of these buildings come to any property line is well over 200 feet in this case. And then chapters fifty two and fifty five, again, 52 landscaping and 55 is the design review. So the landscaping, there was an arborist report that was done.

And as part of that was a full landscaping plan that discusses all of the plantings that would that would either be removed or planted as part of the project. And then chapter 55, I'll get in later to the presentation. That is again the the design review component. And then chapter 92, the required street improvements. We're seeing no necessity to to construct any additional street improvements along for the site.

And then the applicable policies of the comprehensive plan staff did provide supplemental findings for some of the comprehensive plan policies. In addition, in the original staff report on the initial findings which I believe are on page two or three of the staff report. It's incorrect. Seven, starting on page seven discusses the the policies and staff's belief that it it complies with the comprehensive plan policies. So now I'll touch on the water resource permit that is being proposed.

That's chapter 32. The staff findings can be found in findings number four through 17 in the staff report. And there's been a 65 foot buffer to the stream and the wetlands individually that is just generally applied in the city. So as I mentioned before, there was or I may have not mentioned this, but there was a there were two sort of water related reports that were submitted by the applicant. There was a water there was a water delineation report, which essentially establishes what exists on the site now, if there are any wetlands, if there aren't any wetlands.

And then in addition to that, there was a water resource area report that then addresses the community development code criteria, the proposed impacts that the that the project would have, and then any sort of mitigation to those impacts in there. So in these reports, there was there was acknowledged an existing wetland, which we'll call wetland report does. So as it stands, it's 28,555 square feet. As you may remember from the site plan that was shown earlier, it's on that southern southern portion of the site. I would say it's almost directly in the center at the very southern portion of the site.

There is also a a stream that is on that southwest corner. And so if I may go back to Wetland A. So as part of the the project is proposing to permanently impact the buffer area a portion of the buffer area to Wetland A. And this is where the sort of dewater and deicing area again, this is an open open sort of area, no sort of covered buildings, but it's it's it is proposing to be impacted. And then on the stream portion, there are permanent impacts to be proposed and this has to do with the with the road construction that would lead to the lower building facilities on the site.

So the total permanent impacts that are proposed equal 15,120 square feet and per chapter 32 of the city's development code there is a there's a ratio of point five to one permanent impacts to basically replacement or enhancement of any existing wetland. So the applicant is proposing to restore portions of wetland A or or re re enhance, I apologize, enhance wetland A with 7,560 square feet of plantings. This is all laid out in the applicant submittal and in the water resource report as well. Okay. Next slide please, Lynn.

A few more. So I'll get on to the design review standards for chapter 55 here of the development code. So the staff findings can be found findings 32 through 59 of the staff report. And I did mention the arborist and tree preservation plan that was submitted as part of this. As that that plan shows that there would they would retain 46% of the of the total trees on-site.

I would mention that this is this arborist report was done on a 14 acre portion of the site essentially where the facility is being proposed. There's the the excess what would that be? 17 or 18 acres is not being touched. It's just not accessible, and it won't be used. So it wasn't included in this arborist report.

So this 46% is going could be a much larger number if those if those areas if those trees were were calculated in. But as this report was done, it was just for the impacted area of the site. So this is just some more general background. This is a heavily wooded site. It's a it's about 50 to 60 feet lower elevation from Salama Road and to the neighboring homes to the north.

And then parking along this for this, there's 96 total spaces being proposed. 45 of those are for visitors and employees that would be on the uppermost area. And then there'll be fleet parking on the lower area where the building operations would predominantly take place. Thank you, Lynn. Okay.

As part of the applicant submittal, there was a geotech geotechnical engineering report submitted by Columbia West Engineering. I do believe we have a member of the applicant team that will be able to to speak to details of the report if there are any questions on that tonight. So this this report provided site analysis that included borings, test pits, and analyzed drainage and existing soil conditions. So seismic there was there were a lot of things analyzed in this report. So the seismic seismic hazards of this of this particular site are specifically addressed in section five.

They also are sort of generally addressed as you read it. And the the report does conclude that the proposed project is suitable for for development as as is proposed. And then the supplemental findings that staff provided the commission here with tonight were in addition to the staff report. So comprehensive goal seven was addressed in these findings. And if I may give me a second to grab that.

This this this also has to the chapter seven has to do discuss the I don't wanna speak incorrectly. So goal seven may require development and associated alterations. I'm sorry, goal seven has to deal the the site suitability and the the the hazardous the hazard designation on the site. So staff provided findings in relation to the geotech citing that the proposed mitigation risks and mitigation techniques for the for the project would create a suitable and safe project and safe site to operate. And then development code two point or yeah, development code two point zero three zero and eleven, the definitions and conditional uses in the r 10 zone.

So SAF has classified this as a public support facility in our definitions of chapter two. And then with that, the underlying zone is the r 10 zone, which is chapter 11 of the development code, and a public support facility is a conditional permitted conditional use within the r 10 zone. So that essentially explains why the conditional use is being applied for tonight. And then additional findings on chapter 55, the the purpose of the design review. Give me just one second.

So the supplemental findings essentially as you'll read in the memo it sort of reiterates that public facilities are are accessible and to the site and the transportation facilities are are adequate as as they exist. Storm water will be managed. I may have missed this in the presentation, there was also a storm water report that was submitted as part of the applicant submittal and that that make may tie into some of the geotech as well later. Okay. Alright.

And then move on to again 55, development in areas subject to some slumping and sliding. So staff does acknowledge that this site has been recognized on some state maps as being a site that had a landside had occurred in the early nineteen sixties. And hence the geotech report that was that was provided. And the geotech report concluded that there is no slumping and sliding on the site. Again, that would be section five of the of the geotech report that discusses this.

I'm not one to speak to the technical of that. Again, we'll we'll have the the applicant team that may be able to to talk about some of the methodology of that. And then again, moving on to fifty five one hundred I three, the public facilities stormwater. Again, there was a stormwater report that was submitted and it discusses site drainage and capture of of all of the storm water on-site into essentially a single what they're calling an r tank with a filter at the at the base of the site. And then the moving on to chapter 85 which discusses traffic impact analysis.

I also neglected to mention that there was a trip generation report that was submitted as part of this by the app by the applicant discussing discussing potential impacts to the site. It it took existing trips at the existing facility and then compared them to the existing site and how they would what sort of impacts would occur. The the the conclusion of the study was that the the thresholds did not meet did not exceed the standards on two of the three occasions. And so in in a a complete traffic traffic analysis or a traffic report would not be required. And then moving on to the comprehensive plan goal number six, air water and land resources quality, as well as the noise control.

There is just to note some of the sort of design natural design characteristics of the site, it is it is on a sloped hillside. The nearest buildings are 300 plus feet from the nearest building at a 50 to 60 foot lower elevation than the than those buildings to the to the north. That 300 foot buffer has substantial landscaping and existing trees, and it's a steeply sloping area as well. And then all of the buildings are essentially significantly lower than any sort of surrounding buildings and significantly set back from any sort of from the street or any sort of surrounding properties. And that sort of doubles down on chapter 55, the privacy and noise standards of fifty five one hundred d there.

So alright. The next one. As you see it tonight, staff is recommending approval of the subject act of the application with a six or with a few conditions of approval. We have mitigation planning, conditions of approval, final storm water submittal, and then general building permit compliance that would come with staff review of this if if building permits were were to be issued. There's also a condition stating that the operation of the facility would need to meet the municipal code standards in 5.487 of the city's municipal code.

Alright. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have for me, and then and then we'll ask the applicant team to to present the project as well for anything that I may have missed. So happy to take any questions. Are any?

Mister Robbins?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Goodell, for your presentation. I must claim a little bit of ignorance here. I've been desperately looking at maps and plans that are part of this middle and trying to figure out where that creek is at. Do you think you could possibly pull up either a page from the application and just point to it somewhere? So I'm I again, I apologize. I feel stupid asking the question. But everybody probably in the audience knows where it's at, but I I don't know where it's at.

So in the water resource, see here, the wetland delineation report.

You could even point to a page in the application package. I've got the application package open from the applicant.

Unfortunately, I do not have a direct copy

Okay.

Of those page numbers in front of me. As part of what I can say is as part of the water resource area review, which there is a map at the end of that that outlines this. So let me find the page for you here.

You're talking about the application package? Yes. 650 page application package.

Yeah. It's so I'm showing here that

Did you find it?

Approximately page one ninety two, somewhere around there, is going to be that's where the water resource reports are. And then there is a site plan. It's called WRA impact and mitigation plan. There also should be some other site plans that acknowledge the stream and show it on a map

Thank as you, mister Goodell.

Were you were you able to to find it?

As soon as my little screen starts scrolling down closer to that page, it crashed Okay.

Twice now.

Of course.

So

Yeah. I'm trying. Again, six fifty pages.

Mr. Wolobotny?

So sheet one is on page one thirteen of six fifty and the stream is in the lower left.

You said one hundred thirteen? One hundred thirteen. It should be What's the sheet number? C1?

C1, site saving paving plan.

So that creek is there on the bottom left hand side of the site? Yes. Okay. I wanted to make sure it wasn't like flowing east west on there. Okay, thank you.

Chair, I wanna note that any comments from the audience need to be set into a microphone so you can so that everyone can hear them. But the audience member asked if that if that map could be shown on on the screen.

Chair, this application package is on the Citi's website and anybody with a smartphone can pull it open and go to agendas and click on the application package and scroll down to one thirteen in that. That's where you need to look at.

The question was whether I can bring it up? Would I allow it? I defer to counsel.

You can if you want to, but I would I would only say right now we're having questions for you all, right, Planning Commission? So if there's any sort of further if you think that it would be helpful to share. Are you able to hear?

I'm able to hear.

Okay. So if you think it would be helpful for us to share the map then we definitely can.

That would be fine if someone is able to bring it up on my end. I do not have I do not have the ability to bring up Okay.

Yeah. We're gonna have to I'm gonna have to take a moment to do that. I'm gonna have to turn the screen off to do that. In the meantime, I want to mention that commissioner Watton is attending the meet this meeting online. I don't know if commissioner Watton wants to say say anything,

but Yeah.

I just wanna let you know I I I'm here and listening and I had a last minute that kept me from coming up there. So thank you very much. This is great.

Perhaps while we are trying to bring that up. While she's bringing that up, feel free to keep asking questions. So are there any other brief clarifying questions of the staff on behalf of any of the other commissioners before we see this, visual and also before we move on to the applicant's presentation? Commissioner Deets.

Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to touch back on two different items. So it looks like there was no full traffic analysis done. Is that correct? And then no noise study?

There was a there's a trip generation assessment that was done for this. Yeah. There wasn't there wasn't a traffic report. Technicality, I guess you could say, but it's it's a trip generation assessment for for the proposed site.

Can I add a comment to that? I think so there's a standard in the your development code, basically a cutoff above which traffic impact analysis is required. And so it's essentially a threshold of above which the more stringent TIA is required and below which this is sufficient. And please. And also it only may be required.

So essentially, interpreting the language and interpreting the data that staff received, they did the study that is sorry, they did the study that is not the TIA, right? They did the lower lower study essentially because that's per the data they didn't they weren't required to go to that higher level of review. And then for the noise review, that also wasn't triggered because from the staff's review of the of the site and the application that just wasn't it wasn't required per the code. If that makes sense.

Commissioner Evans, did you have another question or?

I apologize. I just left my mic on.

Commissioner Wolbotti.

Thank you, Chair. So I'm going to follow-up on the traffic impact analysis or the traffic generation report.

Okay.

So my understanding from reading about the traffic analysis was that there

were

three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, traffic traffic generation at the existing public works facility over in Sunset, in the Sunset Barrington Heights order. The data collected from those three days, the purpose of that was to average over the three days. It came out to two fifty six, which exceeded the two fifty. But because two of the days were under two fifty, the decision was made to just ignore the semi limit at two fifty and not perform the full traffic impact analysis. I guess my question follows from that.

Two things. One, it seems that the operations that will be at the new location are more extensive than what is going on right now at the current public works, which would also mean that there's probably gonna be more traffic. So I don't think the Or I guess I question the application of the data from the existing the existing facility and applying it to the proposed facility, whether that's appropriate. The second point is that the access to the proposed facility is off of Salamo, which is probably the busiest, aside from Highway 43, it's probably the busiest road coming up on the hill within the city. And by that alone, it seems that there should have been further consideration.

Eric can jump in here and help you out there. So on the trip generation relative between the existing facility and the new facility, we'll defer to the applicant on that. But our understanding is that they're not adding new employees and new equipment and thus the trip generation should be roughly equal. And then as far as the operational capacity, so according to TSP, Salomo operates at a level of service A, which is the best. It was anticipated to operate at a level of service A in the future forecast in the year 2040.

And so I think the thought was that this relatively small amount of even if it was two fifty versus two fifty six would not cause any need for operational changes, which is really what the standard for a TA is getting at, is the question of is the traffic impact causing the need to update the facility in some way to accommodate the additional trips. And I think that we have a finding in the staff report that demonstrates that no, that would not be necessary.

Thank you.

Chair, I do have that map up on screen.

Thank you. Commissioner, do you have any questions related to the map? Or would you

I I think there was a a request from the part of gallery to for them to see it. And I think that we've shown and it's again in the bottom left hand corner. So everybody has seen what I have seen. It's the bottom left hand corner. It flows essentially north to south on the page. And I just want to make sure for myself that's clarified because I had confusion about where it's at. My confusion is remedied.

Okay.

Thank you. Great.

Yes, Commissioner Wolbotti.

I guess, do we still have access to that? Because I have sorry.

Sorry.

I had a question on the next sheet, two point zero. And so maybe staff can answer this before we get to the applicant. But I was looking at the how to describe? So over the upper area and it's by the, dewatering, decanting building, you're close to the left, right there. So right below that, there's a diagonal kind of rough area.

Is that intended to be I don't know if it's a function of whatever happened with the drawing or if it's supposed to be a drainage from that area down into the wetland with riprap or something like that?

Where is that? I'm sorry.

There. Right there. I think that's I think Lynn's moving the cursor right over it. Is that a drainage or is that a

I think that's the topography. The contour numbers, like the bottom one is I think three zero two, then three zero four.

I like looked little at it bit before,

I thought it was looking at riprap for a drainage. Okay, thank you.

Can I stop sharing? Yeah.

I I believe so. Commissioner Jones?

Howdy. First off, this is a stupid amount of work for all parties involved, public and staff. All I'm doing is reading it, and it's a stupid amount of work just from our from this point of view. So hats off. Well done for everyone, and thank you. Couple quick questions just to help me understand. When I'm looking at the staff report, and I'm specifically looking at pages 15 through 17, help me understand the implications of a couple sentences in the report. Where it says, under the required disclaimer,

and I'll

just quietly stall as people are kinda finding that place. Both the it states that the Oregon Department of State Lands is likely to assert jurisdiction over wetland a per, etcetera. And then US ACE is likely to assert jurisdiction over wetland a per the definition contained in, and then it goes on. Later on page 17, it then says, and this is why I'm kind of wanting greater clarification, the report documents the investigation best professional judgment and conclusions of the investigator. It is correct and complete to the best of my knowledge.

It should be considered a preliminary jurisdictional determination of wetlands and other waters, and used at our at your own risk, unless it has been reviewed and approved in writing by the DSL in accordance with. Explain that a little bit. Both those two concepts. One, that it's that it is most likely to be on that two agencies are more are likely to assert jurisdiction, and anytime I see in any report, use at your own risk, written by a professional, that's their subtext, but I would like to know context of that subtext.

Sure. If I could just if I could just clarify, this is this is the staff report that you were

Mhmm.

Page 15?

I believe so. Sorry. And, oh, also, just I wanna be clear. A person walked in, handed a piece of paper, and then I went and got that paper so that there's no, like, whatever. That was my partner bringing my notes from me that I am now reading off of. So they were just my notes to myself that were sitting on my desk.

Yeah. I'd love to clarify that for you. I I was I was struggling to follow where that was in the

Commissioner Jones, I I believe that's not in the staff report. I believe that's part of the application package, isn't it?

Believe

it's Oh, it's not in the staff report?

It's part of the water resource

Okay. The what? After page 700, it got a little

And if I can just ask or request, Commissioner, there will also be an applicant presentation following the staff report. So you know, those sorts of questions about the actual application are very important as well, but the applicant will be able to answer those. I know it's complicated

But because no, no. But is it not inappropriate to also ask the staff kind of, how do you interpret

this?

Of course. Of course. If you want to do that, you can.

I would like to do that. Aaron, what do you think of that?

So let me yeah. Can we start from the beginning where and so just so I'm talking about the same area so I can read it?

I think if we may, we'd like to defer the question to the applicant. And then if you have further questions, we would have to fill in. If we may, we'd like to defer the question to the applicant and their expertise and then if you still have questions, we'll we'd be happy

to Okay.

Fill in.

We will be coming back to that. Also then I have a second question. Let me make sure we'll tell you what, I'll hold that one then.

If there are no other clarifying questions on behalf of the commissioners, let's continue on to the applicant's presentation. Thank you very much.

Mister Simpson, you are online. Can you let me know who will be sharing their screen for the presentation?

Okay.

Yes. Hello. My name is Alex Simpson. I'm part of the applicant team, but I will not be sharing. That will be by the applicant team in person.

All right.

And as a reminder to the applicants, you have twenty minutes to present and welcome.

Thanks for having me. I have a cold this this evening, hence the mask. So hopefully everybody can hear me okay. Okay. I can take it off if needed, I wanna protect everybody from my germs. Thank you for having us here. I'm Jeff Dunn. I'm architect with Scott Edwards Architecture. We have Sid Scott here from Scott Edwards Architecture as well. And we're just really excited to be part of this team that's been working on this project for over the last year and to talk with you all about it tonight.

And so while Lynn's bringing that up, I think I'm going to guide you through some of the architectural thinking behind the building itself and also some of the environmental design concepts and how we've dealt with some of the site design and architectural design for the project. Thank you. That's it. So this is a photo on the cover of our presentation tonight from the existing site. You can see some of the cattails and other species from the wetland poking out.

And actually, you can see some of the pink flags from when they're out there surveying for the delineation report kind of in the side of the image there. Next slide, please. And next. So here we are. Aaron already highlighted the location of the project, but we're just off of the 205, I think as everyone knows, and off of Salama Road just to orient everyone. The Willamette River there giving us some context. Oh, thank you. Okay. So here's the site plan. North is up.

Salama Road, you saw the same plan as Aaron was presenting earlier. So, in the future, once it's all constructed, you would come off of Salama Road there and wind your way down that kind of switch backing road. There's a 31 space parking pad that you that you engage with first. And if you're a staff or a visitor, you would park there. There's some accessible parking and compact parking and bicycle parking there.

And then you would come across that small pedestrian bridge and into what we call Building B, which is a two level structure, all mass timber structural system, which I'll talk about a little bit in more detail. But essentially a fleet maintenance use on the Ground Floor, which is another 30 ish feet down below as you keep going down that road to that lower pad. And on the Upper Floor that's accessed by the smaller pedestrian bridge is the office space, the conferencing lockers and other office spaces and conferencing spaces for the water division, parks and rec and others. So as I was saying, as you come down the road all the way to the bottom there, there's Building A, which is essentially large warehouse. And then you're seeing those those kind of dark they're probably not super legible from from back there in the audience, but those are photovoltaic cells all along the south aspect of the the gabled roof.

And then Building C is essentially an open to air, just covered parking with more PV cells on top of it first for collecting solar energy for the project. There's a large parking pad that is essentially all open. They need ultimate flexibility down there to move trucks around, to hook up trailers, to back into things, and then go into the warehouse and fleet maintenance buildings. So we've marked it with a certain amount of parking, but essentially that's all free space for them to do what they need to do with their with their equipment and their vehicles. We've gotten a generator down there, a transformer, and a bit more bicycle parking as well.

On the upper lot, the upper upper lot on the right there. Yeah. Thank you, Lynn. We've got a few kind of utility buildings that serve the function for public works. So we've got some bulk storage, some covered and uncovered bulk storage, a fueling tank, de icer tank, some dumpsters.

There's also a vehicle wash, and some dewater and decant area with sandbags also. While we're on the site plan, I also wanted to cover some of the background and how we thought about the development of this project. So, the elephant in the room is the wetland there, kind of in the center of the image. It's not super large, but it's large enough. And we went through a lot of design thinking about how to site the buildings around that because it's a, you know, 40,000 square feet of of office and and warehouse space.

We tried ideas of putting the buildings on either side of it and bridging across. We tried stacking everything on the upper lot. We tried a kind of scenario where there was a building on the upper and then there's two on the lower. So it was really kind of a Jenga puzzle of getting that that road to, you know, drop close to 80 feet from Salomo Road all the way down, deliver folks to that first parking space that felt like a welcoming kind of arrival moment, and then down to the lower lot, which really is more of a back of house kind of utilitarian kind of space. The buffer zone is shown there on the wetlands.

We're staying out of that for the most part. There is a small amount of mitigation that we're doing as Aaron spoke about. But I think one of the big successes on this project is that, you know, because there is the possibility that you can bridge or you can sit on part of the wetland and maybe use more of the site. But we really started to brace the idea of seeing the wetland as something not as a challenge, but something as a kind of thing to celebrate. And so we've oriented the office building and actually the Fleet Maintenance Building to look onto the wetland as a kind of natural feature.

So we feel really good about that in terms of its kind of environmental design, but also just the end users will have something beautiful to enjoy when they're out there on-site. Next. Please, yes. Thank you. I won't talk too much about floor plans tonight because that's not really what I think tonight is about.

This is a floor plan though of the of Building A. So, is the warehouse building. So, you see the there's roll up doors all along the south edge so that they can pull their fleet vehicles in. They can park them, they can service them, they can load them up, they can pull them back out. There's a shop, a small shop, wood shop, metal shop up there on the upper left.

There's a building maintenance office, and then there's a few bathrooms. This is a very utilitarian structure, and we feel like will serve the city's purposes really, really well and really efficiently. Next, please. This is the 1st Floor of Building B, so the second larger building. This also has large garage doors, let's call them on that on that really, it's more of the West Side, but plan north that pull in and do fleet maintenance on those.

So there's man doors as well that basically you can imagine large trucks pulling into each of those bays and getting service in those bays. There's storage in here. There's a few offices. There's tire repair and fabrication. On the right side, you see an elevator, and there's a sign shop. There's also a place for folks that are working in the building to wash off their boots as they enter on that upper right corner, and there's some laundry down there too. So if they they come back from a work site and they're dirty, they can wash off and get inside the building and do what they need to do. Next slide. And this is the upper floor. So this is essentially an office space.

So we've got environmental, water, streets, parks and rec spaces up here. So they have crew spaces and supervisor office spaces kind of built into each kind of nucleus of space, and then lots and lots of single user restrooms and shower rooms, a nice locker space for them to get into their work clothes or change out at the end of the day, a small fitness space, and then a break room conference room that can kind of flex based on the size of what they need to accommodate. And then the lobby, a very small lobby off to the right with a vestibule and small outdoor deck that brings you across from the pedestrian bridge from the parking lot. Next, please. So this is a view kind of looking southeast.

You know, it's an architectural rendering, so it's, you know, slightly embellished in terms of landscape. But you can see really off to the kind of left of the building is where the wetland would be. So if you're working in the office space or one of the even in the fleet maintenance, you would be looking out to the east to to a wetland, which we really like that idea. And then, of course, the the river views beyond it. Small parking lot and then the small pedestrian bridge taking you across to the building.

This building's been designed with all mass plywood structural system, which is a really interesting, I won't get into the weeds on it, but interesting emerging technology. So the carbon footprint is far lower than if we would have built the building out of steel or out of concrete. So we feel really, really good about that in terms of the city's ability to tell that story about their values in terms of stewards of the environment. So the columns, the beams, the roof panels, the wall panels are all structural mass plywood and, of course, meets all fire codes and building safety codes at the same time. There's also what we call a clerestory window kind of where the two roofs come together, You can see the light, there's some windows up there.

So that brings daylight down into the center of the building, so you don't need to as much in terms of electricity for lighting the building during the day because you're bringing you're essentially a light scoop bringing light down naturally. Other than that, the cladding material is just standing seam metal roof and metal wall panels, which we feel like kind of works in terms of the relationship to the residential language nearby, as well as the kind of utilitarian nature of the structure itself. And then you can see the lot to the right there with we showed some trucks just for scale pulling out of some of those fleet maintenance space. But, yeah, that's generally how the building is gonna look. Next slide, please.

And then we put these sheets together obviously for the land use application, but just some more frontal elevations of all sides of the building and and some images of the specific materials that we intend to use on the on the building. So we see the standing seam metal roof in gray, and then the metal wall paneling also in gray, and then some of the glue laminated wood beams. We're showing glue laminated, actually these technicality will have will have mass ply, but they'll essentially look the same from the ground. And then some notes up above just showing height of the building and where the general floor layout, you know, floor levels are relative to grade, all kind of required for our application. Next, please.

And then this is some elevations of building a, so the warehouse building, less tall. It's a single story. And then again, you see the the solar panels mounted to the roof. You see the folding garage doors, and then again, you see the same material palette of the dark gray standing seam metal and and metal wall paneling. Next, please.

And then these are elevations. We just I don't know how interested folks are, but these are elevations of the smaller kind of more utilitarian buildings up in that Upper Northeastern lot for covered storage for some of the bulk bins. And actually, sorry, this is the this is Building C. This is the covered parking, so open air covered parking steel structure. And then Building D, which is the covered bulk bins.

Next, please. And then, again, some more of these covered storage, decant, and vehicle wash buildings up again on that Upper Northeast corner of the lot. And I think that's it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So it's my understanding that the next there will be an opportunity for commissioners to ask questions of staff or the applicant prior to the conclusion of public the closing of the public hearing? Definitely. After public testimony. Is that correct?

That's correct. You could also it's not built into the script, but if you have questions for the applicant, you may also ask them now. But I would recommend that they're factual questions and then you know you can save deliberations for when the hearing is closed.

Okay. So if anyone would like to ask brief questions of the applicant at this time, I think that would be fine and then we'll move on to public testimony. But I would ask that they remain quite brief as this is also included prior to the closing of the public hearing. So we'll have opportunity to ask more questions a little later, if that's okay.

We So will get an opportunity to ask the applicant additional questions later on?

That's my understanding.

Yes. I mean, so there so the procedure from here on out will be you can ask some brief questions of the applicant, and then there will be public testimony. And then there will be rebuttal by the applicant. So the applicant will be able to speak to the testimony that they heard tonight and answer some sort of clarifying questions that they would like to provide, etcetera. And you may ask a final set of questions to the applicant after that rebuttal is complete.

Do want me to save my questions for a second time or you can ask right now?

If if you wanna ask or I I defer to the chair.

I was directing that to

the chair. Exactly.

If if you I

have a number of questions. Relatively brief questions. Relatively brief. I can wait till later if need

Perhaps we can wait until after

That's fine.

The public testimony and rebuttal. Yeah.

If that's okay. Totally fine.

If anyone has brief questions at this time, please. So much.

Thank you.

So now we're moving on to the public testimony. As I mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, if you wish to testify during this hearing, please complete a sign in testimony form and submit it to the staff now. When your name is called, please come forward and state your name and city of residence for the record. Each commenter has five minutes to testify. The neighborhood association representative will have ten minutes.

If you have any written material or other evidence you would like us to see, please hand it to staff. The staff will distribute it to the members of the commission and to the applicant as well as place it in the record. At the end of your testimony, commissioners may ask questions, and please keep your responses brief and to the point. Have we received any requests to testify beyond what I have in front of me?

We did have someone submit an another sheet, but they did not they did not want to testify. They just wanted to be a participant in the proceeding.

Okay. Thank you. So with that, the first speaker is Rob Cauzy. And if you are unfamiliar, you can just press the red button so we can all hear you nice and clear. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you for having me. Now first, I'm not a public speaker, so bear with me and I'll try to be as eloquent or come close to as everybody else. Lynn's got some slides we're waiting on. This is kind of a tale of just kind of beware, heads up, pay attention.

We live across the street. There's another representative here from the neighborhood from the public current public works. We're directly across the street on the West side of the facility and in the South West or excuse me Southeast Corner of Norfolk. Like to pull up the cup at the time we had requirements that were in the cup that we testified on. They had to do with vegetation and protection of screening because they added a building to the facility that was somewhat of an eyesore.

The screening was required to shade that or screen that addition. And the first two items there you can see if you could zoom in. Therefore, it addresses the replacement dead dying existing vegetation shall address continued maintenance new and existing vegetation. This was particular to the ARP provider that I'm gonna show you next. So this is a finding that went into the CUP associated with the original or the expansion in 2011 of the current facility.

Next slide. So this is 2011 again. So this is 2012. This is the location where the Arbovita was originally established. It was about anywhere fifteen, twenty feet tall. You can see it's again on the eastern side of the facility, very good shape. Know, back in 2012, again the prop the project was 2011. After they finished the project, this is maybe six months after. Next. This is just a different direction.

You can see in that white spot there, there's the dead tree on the sidewalk. You can see that's a new panel. They actually tunneled underneath that tree and made a storm water connection to a catch basin right there. So in 2011, the die off started associated with their activity of actually installing a storm line connection to what is a bubbler, which it just comes out of the CB and runs down the curve to another catch basin and then goes to the Wanamer River. This is the beginning of the die off.

Again, they had a condition of their CUP that was required to maintain this and replant as necessary. Next slide. Gonna have to speed up here. It's just another look. 2016, move a little bit ahead, you can see there's more die off in the center there. Next slide we can go. Time here. Again, 2,016 the other way. You can see it's still dying off here down by the cars. Oops.

You can see it's it's starting to lean forward and die off. They were supposed to also put arborvitae in that area that you can see there to the right of the tree. We go back to that one then. Well, this is 2000 oh, 2016. Let's jump ahead to the next one. So this is 2019. We continually would work with the city, talk with the city about trying to maintain this. I told them that we had an agreement that they needed to maintain it. I wasn't aware of the cup actually being produced. I couldn't get a copy of it until recently.

I forwarded it on to Eric at the city who I'm working with now and and members there. We basically got told time and time again that there's not money in the budget. They can't do it. Unfortunately, I did not have the CUP in my hand to say, again, you agreed to this. So we kept we kept getting put off, put off, put off, just told. And we finally got a hold of the mayor about a year and a half, two years ago, called him to the mat. He came out there, looked at it. Public works finally got on board, cleaned things up. So it's better, but now this is the current situation if we wanna just move forward. So again, the condition required they maintain the screening to hide those buildings that you see behind the arbovita.

From day one, never maintained, actually impacted by digging that that storm water and then over time, they continually just die off. We had the ice storm, they were broken, they cut them down. Really not a lot of effort to do anything to screen here over the fifteen years we've been there. You can see one arborvitae that's been planted last year when we had the the mayor out there. Basically, we got everything done.

Working with Eric now, but this is just kind of a buyer beware. As you are doing this, there are requirements, but it appears the city can or over time, don't have to follow the requirements. We're trying to come up with a solution to this. Eric and I have a little bit of a misunderstanding perhaps. Eric at one point said, too much money, we're not doing it. For the two years that they're gonna be there here still. So I don't understand how a cup can happen. There can be requirements. You can go to the city and ask them to do that. They keep putting you off, they don't do it.

You find out that there is those conditions still there and you get a response back that says it's too expensive for us to do this in the two years that we have remaining. So that's my concern, that's our experience. Not blaming anybody in particular, I'm not after Eric. I mentioned Eric because he's working with us now. Hopefully, we can come to a solution where we don't have to spend a lot of money to get a little bit of visual screening for the next few years because there's been very little effort up until about nine months ago when they started actually maintaining. Chair,

the time?

Time is up. Thank you very much. Commissioners, are there any questions for Mr. Causey at this time? Miss mister Cozzi? Sorry. If you wouldn't mind just while I ask if commissioners have any questions of you. Yes. Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, chair. Thank you for the your presentation there and and for displaying, you know, the issues that we have with trees. Did did the city ever tell you why all the trees were dying?

We never heard anything about any kind of maintenance, any kind of effort. It was we just don't have time, we don't have the resources, we can barely keep up with what we're doing. If you guys want to cut it down and maintain it, go for it. That's what they told the neighbors across

the street. But they know what nobody ever said why they were dying?

Why it wasn't done?

Well, no. Dying. Why the trees were dying?

They're no. They just they didn't water them. They didn't maintain them. They didn't do anything with them. There's the eco block wall that's it, they have all kinds of material storage, there's water behind it, it drains off of it. So I don't know if it's an environmental thing, I don't know if our provider not the right type that they're into life, I'm not sure. They were tasked with making sure that they maintain and replace as necessary to maintain that screening. You can see where we're at after fifteen years.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Commissioner Deeds? Yeah. Is there a larger point that you're trying to make with this arborvitae reference?

I think my larger point is our understanding is the cup would protect us or that need and it did not. You're telling these people now that this cup has requirements conditions in it that will protect them. There's some planting to be redone for for the resource areas. There's planting be done for landscaping. They're gonna remove trees and plant trees. That's what I heard. I didn't read the whole proposal. I skimmed through it, saw kind of what the requirements were. They're very similar things they promised to us. We didn't get them.

One of the big things that I want is some way that is there an enforcement process for the for a violation of the cup? What is that enforcement process? I I didn't hear anything and it sounds like to me that even now the city is willing to waive the requirement because it's too costly for the time period they're gonna be there. Do they have the ability to waive that? I thought that was the point of the cut. It gives some certainty that they're gonna maintain and replace as necessary. It's not a decision on their part whether they can do it with their budget or not. If they want the use, they need to meet the condition. Right? That's my understanding.

So, again, I'm not, there's been a lot of turnover. It's not one individual. It's a systemic thing. It's getting pushed up. I've got some concerns. There's some environmental issues or one in particular with storm water. I'm asking Eric about it. And I just want the city to do the right thing. You know, if you got storm water that you need to treat for, you know, flow detention and and quality, you need to do it. I don't care if the facility is old, everybody else has to do it.

So to me, it's trying to point out where there's not accountability. We couldn't get any kind of direct response. It took me going to the mayor mayor simply for them to cut the weeds. So again, it goes back to the

point with

this process.

Thank you

passing time. Will be some certainty and some enforcement process that can hold people accountable for the things that you guys are putting into.

Chair, thank you so yes. Thank you so much. I'm going to call on the next person to testify in my queue. And just as a reminder, each person is allotted five minutes. And I I certainly don't wanna cut people off, but I will I will tell you when you have about thirty seconds left just so we can get through as many of these as possible quickly. There's so many of you who showed up today. Very grateful for that. So the next speaker is Terry Cummings.

I know Terry will know this, but since we have so many people, etcetera, from the last meeting we had, just to remind people, if you come up to testify, you do not need to state your full address of where you live, just a reminder.

Thank you. Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Cherry Cummings. I'm a former Westland planning commissioner and chair and three time city councilor. And I'm coming before you today to say that our need for an updated public works facility is indisputable.

It is in fact long overdue. I remember when the second time I was on council in 2000 between 2009 and 2012 touring the facility and wondering when we were gonna fix it. And when we did the 2018 GoBond, I asked, aren't we gonna be putting this on the list? And the city engineer said, no, that'll come later. And I, you know but anyway, the safety and livability of our city depends on having a public works department that is adequately equipped to build and maintain safe streets, water, and sewer lines.

Furthermore, the personal safety of each one of us depends on whether our public works department will be able to immediately respond to floods, landslides, earthquakes, and other disasters. The record indicates very little public outreach was done prior to this application and I think that's regrettable. So I doubt most people know that the proposed site for Westlands new operation support facility is situated on one of Westlands most historical dangerous natural hazard areas. This discretionary decision before us tonight hinges on the question of whether it makes sense to locate a critically necessary disaster management facility on a significant high risk steep slope which includes a ravine, wetlands, and a stream historically known and mapped as a natural disaster prone area. If another landslide or an earthquake occurs on this site that makes it impossible to get critically needed equipment and personnel in and out of the site, will that be a benefit or will it pose an unreasonable risk to the city?

I'm curious to know if an independent comparative analysis of potential site alternatives was conducted prior to committing to this particular site. If an alternative site study was not done, please exercise your right and your responsibility to deny this application and demand an independent study weighing the pros and cons of I would say four or more at least alternative sites or configurations including the acquisition of land. The cost of the site constraints alone to develop this property on this particular site might easily be offset by purchasing property in a better location and more suitable to meet the needs of the city. The discretionary nature of this decision, and it is a discretionary decision, as a reminder, requires you to question deeply in your heart whether this particular site makes any sense at all. It is not enough to hear the applicant claim that it understands the criteria which I see over and over again in this application.

The application must meet all criteria and the applicant should show and demonstrate how it can meet the criteria. Meanwhile, the question of whether this meets the needs of the community for our safety and our and our maintenance of our infrastructure, whether that's appropriate or not, this is the moment. Thank you for your service. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, do you have any questions of Terry? Okay. Thank you very much. The next person to testify will be Robert Jester, please.

Hold on, hold on. Press the green button and we'll start again.

Alright. I thought I saw green. Planning Commission, members of city staff, thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight. I'm Robert Jester. I'm the Barrington Heights Tanner Neighborhood Association president.

And we have had an extensive history with the hillside that's in discussion tonight both in regards to its stability, both in regards to its historic fire risk to the community, both in regards to its accessibility if an emergency was to occur on that property. So it's a juxtaposition that we have in our neighborhood association that some of these questions and concerns we've had for years are actually being answered by an operation center there. First and foremost, there will be a water source that would be an immediate availability of fire suppression which currently we do not have. There would be access to the hillside which currently we do not have. When there was a fire in the early two thousands, the only intelligence that was given in regards to where the fire was, how it was progressing was from a traffic helicopter from one of the new stations.

And TV and FNR did not have an access, they did not have designated fire hydrants that they could use to get water and the evacuation orders for Barrington Heights, people were literally terrified. And that level of concern stays today. So the operation center does answer some of those long standing questions. The ones in and I was interested in in listening to the applicant talk about the noise and also the traffic control. So we have expressed these concerns in meetings both with the city engineer and operations.

They've been very generous with their time in providing Barrington access to early designs, early input in terms of our concerns. One has always been the exit from Barrington Drive for those of you that are familiar. It is right above the current center site And if you're going right, it's pretty easy you can watch the traffic coming up Salamo. If you're going left, it's a little more difficult because the traffic tends to speed down Salamo and by the time you see it, you're already out in the middle of the intersection. So the city did do two accommodations.

One, they lowered the speed limit from its previous speed to 30 to provide a slower rate that these cars in theory come over the crust of the hill. They also provided a turnout which I think will eventually be from a left hand lane, but right now it's a place you can turn out and have some safety there. I have concerns about the stability of the hillside only because of historic, you know, maps that I think people are going go into in more detail. I think that geo tech studies are, you know, what they are. There are some that say it's not at an imminent risk.

There's others that say there was a slide in '69 and what has changed with the coal side between then and now. So those would be concerns that I think that have been expressed and I think that the city is paying attention to because it's a tremendous investment the city is going make in site. The other one that I'd like to mention is the parking during construction. Now there's no parking on Salomo and Barrington is somewhat limited if you have a bunch of construction workers parking in Barrington. I know the plan is to have the construction folks parking in the parking lot at the site, but they have to get their first.

They have to build the road. So I would hope that the city has a plan or I should say that the applicant has a plan in regards to perhaps shuttling up the contract workers to that site before they have the ability to pull out and park. So the traffic, the amount of traffic coming up, I think that that's not as much of a concern as it is the kind of traffic that's coming up. So when we talk about the 256 trip trips or whatnot looking at the old center on Cornwall, It's very different when you're coming up Salomo, it's very steep. And when the trucks come out, what's the rate of speed they're going to merge with traffic and how's that going to affect flow on Salomo?

Think it was you mentioned it's one of the busiest roads

Ten seconds.

West Lynn.

May I request that we reset as he's the president of the Neighborhood Association and per the rules? I think he's allotted ten minutes.

Okay.

Are you speaking on behalf of the Neighborhood Association?

I'm sorry?

Are you speaking on behalf of the Neighborhood Association?

Yes.

Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

So

that's a concern and I think that the city is undoubtedly gonna have to mediate some of the traffic as the building is built and usage begins and they see what the actual traffic challenges are. I would venture a guess that's gonna need a controlled intersection at some point. But that would be the diligence of the city to look at the traffic control and make certain that it's meeting the needs of all residents of Westland. Both coming up the hill and going down the hill. That's it. Thank you.

Commissioners, do you have any questions of Mr. Dresser? Thank you very much. I had Carrie Cummings in a couple of places. I would like to call up Carrie Cummings to speak. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Kerry Cummings. I've been a resident of, West Linn since 1992. And a little bit of history behind this whole property in 1969, a young gentleman was actually killed by rocks that fell off. It used to be Highway 212, it's now Highway 205 or 2215205.

Sorry. A year later, a landslide occurred at the same site which destroyed the city's water reservoir and two homes at that time, and then a little bit later, another home was destroyed by a slide. An estimated total of 3,000,000 cubic yards of earth and rock were removed to help stabilize the hill, but I'm not really sure that that's gonna stay in effect for very long and if, you know, some of these other construction work is gonna be taking place. Meanwhile, residents were subjected to rationing their water supply in the Willamette area over a year. It's highly questionable that locating a facility critically necessary for responding to disasters in the area constrained by significant historical natural hazards would provide a meaningful sense of safety and overall benefit to the city.

This application, I feel fails to meet the criteria of 60.07 approval standards and conditions a two, the characteristics of the site are unstable for the proposed use considering topography, natural features, and location. And three, the granting of the proposed proposal will not provide an overall benefit to the city as it may instead put the city at a risk of failure to respond to disasters and financial loss. Thank you.

Yes. Mister McEntreeski.

I'd like to know if

you have any evidence, reports, data to suggest that the hillside continues to be unstable after the reconstruction efforts?

I don't at this time. No. And I've submitted some newspaper articles

for you.

May I ask, have you looked and not found them, or are you focusing strictly on the slide of 1969?

At this point, yes.

I'm sorry?

Yes.

That was an eitheror. Have you looked and not found?

Oh, no, I have not.

I have

not looked, no.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker will be William I apologize if I mispronounced your name. Relyca. Thank you. I'm very sorry.

Good evening, Chair, Planning Commissioners. William Rellier, Westland resident for twenty five years, former city councilor, planning commissioner, neighborhood association president for ten years, and currently neighborhood association president for the Parker Crest Neighborhood Association. So a little bit about myself. I'm a construction project manager mostly for public agencies and major public works projects. I've been a consultant to ODOT, consultant to Metro, and worked primarily for ODOT as a consultant during the OTA three program to help replace bridges and roadways throughout the state of Oregon.

I was a city councilor during the time period that we purchased this particular property from ODOT. And the premise behind the purchase of that property was is that we were just recovering from an ice storm, and we needed to have a lay down area for construction and wood debris that was being stored at Mary S Young Park And Wilderness Park. And rather than continue to use those properties for that wood debris, The city had the opportunity to purchase this property with an understanding that two thirds of it was unstable and not usable for construction, but that our occasional use for heavy equipment would not impact the unstable soils in that area. So ODOT sold it to us cheap, $390,000 for 33 acres. They certainly had the opportunity to build that site, but passed that opportunity and didn't even consider it as a lay down area for another emergency equipment or other uses because they were so concerned about the stability the soils and the slope in

that area.

It's interesting to me at this point that none of the information from the planners or from the planning department really described the topography and the unstable soil conditions that exist in that area. Yet they were known at the time that we purchased that property and discussed it at council. So when we talk about the comprehensive plan and the transportation system plan and you look at those two items independently, yes, there are all these discussions about trip plans and how does what triggers the need for a transportation system plan. But when you look at the discretionary authority that the authority having jurisdiction has, which in this case is the Planning Commission, we have the opportunity to marry those two together and we take a look at site specific conditions and we look at site planning and we say, is this the right site for those kind of facilities and is the type of traffic that we're applying to those facilities and those roadways consistent with the use of our comprehensive plan or TSP. And I find that's also missing from the staff report.

In this case, Salama Road was recently upgraded and there were improvements on that roadway. But those those improvements didn't include any auxiliary lanes in either direction for the heavy equipment that is going to be consistently used coming out of that facility and moving on to Salama Road. So I would ask the planning commission to look closely at the intended use of that facility, the conditional use permit, and the provisions under those codes that preclude regular use of heavy equipment under that conditional use permit. Thank you for your time.

Commissioner Kaczorowski.

Do you have more information about why ODOT passed on that land? Any sources you can cite?

You you would have to refer back to the city council meeting when we approve the purchase of that property and look at those notes.

So they articulated to city council that they had concerns about stability?

Yes.

During the City Council meeting?

During the Council meeting.

Thank you. Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, Chair. Just to piggyback off what Commissioner Kaczorowski was asking. You you had suggested that somebody had indicated that this part of the purchase, this ground was unsuitable and unstable for construction. Do you have any sort of information to back up that claim?

Only the information that was provided to the City Council during our discussion to purchase the property.

So during the City Council discussions, you know, I guess I'm asking you to recall the best of your recollection. Was it something that was said in passing like maybe we didn't build this because we just didn't want to deal with it? Or was it we definitely never did this because it was too high of a risk?

I think it comes from two factors. It comes from my knowledge of working to and with ODOT as a consultant and knowing what they were doing with their right of ways and what they were not doing with their right of way properties and what they were doing with their excess properties and also how that property was described to the City Council during our decisions and deliberations to purchase it and what our intended use of that facility was at the time that we did purchase it.

Okay. Thank you, chair.

Mr. Watten.

Can you tell me again what year the purchase the city purchased it again? You said it and I I didn't pick It

was 2021. Thank you.

Mister Dietz. Back when the city purchased it, what was the intended use or function for that land or the idea behind it?

It it was primarily purchased as a lay down area for wood debris from the ice storm. So we were using two two different parks as lay down areas, and we felt it was inappropriate for us to use those parks for that purpose. And so we we picked all that material up and moved it into that facility.

Yes. Commissioner.

So the lay down would have been a temporary use. I'm just curious to know what the thinking was for further use once those materials had been consumed.

During the presentation to us by Lance Calvert, was the director of public works at the time, he had told us that that he was considering to use that as a public works and operation center because he had promised those people that live adjacent to the existing facility that they would be moving out of that facility at some point, and he was considering that particular property for that purpose. However, the the council asked under what authority he informed the public of that decision that our existing facility was going to close and he couldn't provide any because council had never made that kind of decision or gave him direction on doing so.

So once the lay down was consumed, what was the intended use? Because it was purchased versus leased, borrowed.

So I part of the decision to purchase that property was there was a a request to FEMA for emergency funding of a and we needed to have at least a million dollars worth claims in order to qualify for those funds. And it's my understanding that the purchase of that property was tied in with those emergency funds so that we had a place to put those wood debris.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to keep hammering this. I just I'm not sure if I'm not following or if the answer isn't being given. Once the wood debris was cleared, because I'm assuming it wasn't intended to store the wood debris forever. Right?

The wood debris is still there as far as I know.

Was it intended as a permanent storage for wood debris? That's what I'm asking is so the city spent $350,000 on a place to put wood forever? That's what I'm wanting clarity on.

Yeah, you would have to ask the public works director what his intended use of that facility is beyond how it was used. We purchased it as part of that operation in order to bring that wood debris from the community to a place that we felt was appropriate. $390,000 wasn't an awful lot of money for that much property. And if the city were to incur any additional type of damage from ice storms in the future, we would need to have that type of facility in order to store that workability.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Yabalier. Oh, excuse me. Just under the wire. Yes. Commissioner Jones.

First off, thank you so much for coming. This This is a lot of clarity for a lot of gray areas or or grayness. One of my questions that I'd had even before you started speaking was when the city made the purchase,

purchase, were any surveys done then? Were you know, was there any studies done then? That's you know, fairly frequently typical

started or something that would one expect. Were there any surveys or reports done of the status or, you know, geotech or anything on the property?

I I don't believe there were at that point. It was just vacant property. We had a idea of how it could be used, but there were no long term plans in place at that point nor were there any geotechnical or water or storm water control type of plans initiated at that point before the purchase.

And when you said disclose, and again, I apologize. Who is the person or agency that you said disclosed, you

know,

that the property wasn't safe to develop on?

I'm sorry. What was the question?

Who was it that disclosed that the property wasn't safe to develop on?

This this was an ODOT's description of the property to the city.

So was that description in writing given to the city of Westside? As

far as I know, was. Yes. I recall reading that material as part of our packet.

I'm writing. Just one sec. Okay. Was there anything else do you think that is germane that we should know that was discussed or disclosed or specifically that is that would be documented or the records would still be held over for from and during that purchase?

Nothing that I can think of.

Okay. Thank you. Thank

you very much.

The

next speaker is Roberta Schwartz. And I I believe we Okay. And okay. And this is the Savannah Oaks Neighborhood Association, and so I request ten minutes for this. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. This is Roberta Schwartz. And would you mind please stating your name as well?

Thank you. Name is Ed Schwartz. I'm Roberta's husband. I'm also the treasurer of Savannah Oaks Neighborhood Association and here at the request of our members to discuss this project.

Welcome. Thank you.

Well, first of all, thank you all. You're all volunteers, just like we're volunteers. And I want to thank you. You don't get enough thank yous for doing what you're doing. Thank you very much for doing this. And as I think this gentleman said, it has been an amazing amount of material that has been written about this from both sides. We have never done as much research for anything that we have come to talk to the planning commission and the city council about as we have on this. Hours and hours and hours and both we're both supposed to be retired. So please know that a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and brainpower went into this. Okay.

So first of all, the operations complex is going to cost $45,000,000 and will be located on a piece of land on the East Side Of Salamo at the intersection of Salamo and Green Street. Please see the location maps that I've included in your lengthy packets. You've got it's the thickest packet you've got. Please please go through that as I'm talking to you today. We we used a lot of paper to do this, and we're to do that, but you need to go along with us today on this.

Okay. It was purchased by West Lynn by ODOT in 2021 for $396,000. That was the actual cost. As part of the ODOT sales process, the parcel was first offered to any federal or state agency. Now, I wanna just kinda restate that. It was offered to anybody, federal or state, who would like it. Everybody passed. Nobody said they'd like it. You need to think about that. Nobody wanted this land.

Not the steal that it was for 396,000 for 33 acres. They didn't want it. Think about that. The proposal being heard tonight by the Westland Planning Commission is for three buildings totaling 40,000 square feet. This land has a wetland and a stream on it, and that stream is called Bernard Creek. The site contains areas of slopes greater than 25%. This area has been identified in the landslide maps that we have included in your packets. Please follow along with those with me. The first one is the Slido. The Slido is a statewide landslide information layer for Oregon, and that's your exhibit number one.

The second one is a dogamy. Dogamy is a Department of Geology and Mineral Industries map dated 2009. And my husband will go up and show you the the spot that we're talking about. Look at that map, folks. What what really calls is is called out to you? The red zone. The red zone is where you're thinking about putting this facility. The red zone. Okay. Why is it red? It's red because that is the landslide. That's the landslide area, folks. Also in your exhibits on number 3 is a dogma map that was updated. This one's 2009, I've given you 2013. You folks have been asking great questions.

How do we know there's still a problem? Those maps show you there's a problem. It's right in front of you. It was this in 2009, it was what you're seeing in front of you if you're looking at exhibit three in 2013. It's getting worse. The map from the West Linn Natural this is okay. The West Linn Natural hazard mitigation plan is your exhibit four. That's the city telling the city where the hazards are. It's right in front of you. There is the problem. It's a blue kidney shaped spot. And that's that spot. And that's the spot where they wanna do this. See something at Could

you and I'm happy to extend time. Could you go over that again? Because if you're listening, we're all flipping through pages, so we're trying to hear

And process you'll give me extra time. Is that okay? Okay. Great. Sorry. I have to speak loud loudly and quickly if I think I'm under time constraint. Okay. So if you guys would go to page exhibit four, which is Westland's own natural hazard mitigation plan. Please go to four. It's in your packet. So in your very packet, alright, please go to four. And that shows that's from Westland's own natural hazard mitigation plan. Westland tells itself where its worst areas are. This is one of the worst. It's the blue kidney shaped area in the big packet that you're hopefully going through, which is the packet that we gave you today.

And the reason we gave you the packet, rather than having you go back and forth on the computer, is exactly what's already been happening tonight. You have too many documents to look through. One seven hundred and thirty two pages, and that's the staff report. One is 650 pages, and that's an additional report that was done. So, when it comes to ours, we'd like you to see it right in front of you. There it is. Your work is done. This is not a good place. In fact, I'm gonna venture to say it's one of the worst places you could put 40,000 square feet and three buildings this kind of housing, this kind of weight, with all of our emergency vehicles. Okay.

Everybody with me so far? Okay. Let's go now to this map, this West Linn hazard mitigation map. On its very own map it's listed as very high, very high landslide susceptibility. Very high chance it's going to happen. Did you have a question for me?

The last the last

map you'd mentioned, can you tell me what what which one that

That last map is the the one from Westland's own landslide susceptibility exposure map. And you'll find it in the actual Westland mapping.

There it is Can you describe

Thank you

so much for showing. Yeah. That's what it looks like.

Thank you.

You bet. Okay. There there is a geologic there is geologically recent landslide history that goes along with these maps that dates to the construction of the I 205 Freeway. Eight miles of the second section of this freeway between Tualatin and West Linn began in 1968 and was completed by 01/12/1971. The work included the blasting of basalt cliffs.

Excavation for the project caused a series of landslides in 1969 that severely damaged the city's own water source, its own water reservoir. It destroyed three homes. It delayed the opening of the section for several months. After several months of water rationing, the 500,000 gallon reservoir was replaced with one that was 600,000 in capacity, and that was done by the state of Oregon. These facts are recorded in four newspaper articles that we have discovered in the archives of The Oregonian and The Oregon Journal, and they're dated from 1968 to 1971.

There was also an article about a high school senior, Steven Raider, who was mentioned earlier. We should all think about him. Steven Rader was killed in June 1968, days before he was to graduate from the West Linn High School. They almost discontinued the high school graduation that year, they were so upset. He was driving along on the the what was to become I 205, and a rock pierced his windshield and hit him in the head, and he died instantaneously.

What's important to know, and this happened not at this spot where all these other things have happened, this happened in Sunset. So a little bit further down, there are eight miles of construction. Okay? What's important to know is the construction contractors, Gibbons and Reed Company, went to the family that took it to court, and they went all the way to the state supreme court. And finally won, and it was called negligence on the part of Gibbons and Reed Company.

And I wanna just emphasize that. They were and this happened, the suit was finally settled in 1972. I wanna emphasize that a grieving family spent three years to get $40,000 for a brand new high school student with his whole life ahead of him. $40,000, and it spent They spent three years to get $40,000 and had to go to the high court. There is also a letter in the investigation of the reservoir and the landscape that was submitted to the city by CH two m, and that's your exhibit five.

If you could please turn the page to the next page. It was dated in this report pardon me. The report is dated 11/10/1969 and can be found in the staff report for the operations complex on page seven zero seven. So if you want to look at your own source document, it's on page seven zero seven of the 732 page 30¢. Staff document. I I believe I'm getting extra time because of the delay.

That is with the extra time.

Thank you. You will find these maps or newspaper articles in that lengthy staff pardon me. You will not find these maps we're we're referring to or the newspaper articles in the lengthy 732 page report. I've got them if you want copies of the newspaper articles, you've seen the maps. It took hours of investigation, discussions with experts, speaking with long time West Westland residents for Ed and me, two Savannah Oaks Neighborhood Association officers officers, to put this information together for you. We even gave the city a copy of the 2009 dogma map, paid for it with our own money,

and it was

it was not included. You said you were gonna give me extra time if I I answered a gentleman's question.

I would like to request extra time.

We did give We did provide which

is plain unfair to not actually had twelve minutes. You were at

I still feel that this testimony is valuable, commissioner. And I would like to hear the end of what they're saying.

Commissioner Jones, I feel like that she's had twelve minutes. And we have a number of other people who have testimony I to get through still feel that their testimony And I think is we should not move on to allow

questions of the end of it.

I was given the understanding that I could answer questions and continue with extra time. Is that not correct? I believe that the the people in the audience heard that

as well. Chair, think this is at your discretion.

I respectfully request a five minute recess, if that's okay. Sure.

That's no problem.

Because there's disagreement amongst the commissioners if that

is We're

gonna have a recess for five minutes?

Yes, please.

Though, just to be clear, we can't discuss this amongst the commissioners in private. That's Yeah. That's talk to you if you would like.

Thank you.

Okay. That's okay. Alright.

Okay. I call this meeting to order. Respectfully, as you were, Roberta, as you were given twelve minutes to speak, I have to say that, your testimony has exceeded the allotted amount of time even for the Neighborhood Association, understanding that there were brief interruptions. However, mister Schwartz, if you would like to speak separately, you will be given five minutes, and I will inform you when you are thirty seconds away from conclusion. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. So again, Ed Schwarz. I'll speak now as just a resident of West Linn. You've got my summary in front of you, just a few pages.

I think there are several places in the CDC that this application falls short. I think the primary one, Commissioner Dietz and Commissioner Wolvotny have hit upon which is the lack of a traffic study. As described earlier, all that all that was done to was a count of vehicles going in and out of the existing public works facility. The average daily traffic of that was 256 vehicles which exceeds the level that would call for a traffic study. And this number did not include any of the additional traffic that will be generated because they're gonna be adding environmental services department and the parks and recreation department to this new facility.

So there's gonna be a lot more traffic than than just from the public works department. So that's why I think it's very clear that there needs to be a traffic study done. And by not submitting a traffic study at this time, they have not met the CDC. So I think you have grounds to deny this application. I would like to state for the record that my wife and I and the members of Savannah Oaks Neighborhood Association all support this facility just not in this location.

This is not the right place for this facility as you've heard from others tonight. Now in my prepared testimony, had other places in the CDC where I don't think this application meets code also. And you can see that and you can decide for yourselves without my talking about it whether you agree with me or not. But I think it's very clear, very evident that there needs to be a traffic study if they're gonna continue to do it in this place, in this location. But I wanted to make it clear that everybody from Savannah Oaks, my wife and I, support the need for this facility.

We know the existing facility is almost 90 years old and needs to be replaced. But as other people have said tonight, we need to find a better location for that. And I'll call back to when we were gonna lose our post office several years ago here in West Linn, you recall. One that was down by Market Of Choice. They they closed that, tore down that building.

We I don't know how long it took, maybe it was a couple years before the city identified a location or a new post office, which is great for me because it's closer to my house. But the point is, we need to take our time as a city and identify a proper spot for this facility. I think I've made that point a few times already. Other than that, I do think again there are some places in code where they have not met the requirement. We talked about not locating in areas subject to slumping and sliding.

I think the maps that we have presented to you indicate that this is still an active potential landslide zone and that would have slumping and sliding that was CDC 55100 B 4. I'll also point out CDC 55100 I 3 where we don't want to develop a known hazard sites. And again, I think this is very clearly a known hazard site despite the ability or the input of the engineers who say they can build it there. Yes, they can probably build it there. Is it gonna be safe?

Is it gonna last? I think we have a lot of other choices that come to mind before that location. Talked about the traffic impact analysis. I also don't think they really support the conditional use permit because they're talking about this being a primary facility for storing their vehicles and maintenance on their vehicles. I don't believe that that meets with the code for a conditional use permit which talks about just incidental storage of vehicles. This is not incidental. This is the primary facility as described in their application.

Thirty seconds.

Thank you. And then lastly or firstly I think I had the comprehensive plan goal seven which was referenced also earlier tonight. Policy one says require development and associated alterations to the surrounding land to be directed away from hazardous areas. So again, we're getting back to these maps. It's clearly a hazardous area and I don't think where they meet policy one of Thank goal you.

Thank you. Does anyone have questions for either Roberta or Ed Schwartz? Commissioner Evans. Thank you chair.

Thank you, Mr. And Mrs. Schwartz, for your testimony tonight. I just during Mrs. Schwartz's testimony, there was a lot of information that was conveyed, and I'm just hoping to follow-up on a little bit of the information. So your implication earlier in your testimony was that other agencies that passed it up because something was wrong with the site. And I was wondering if you have any information directly from those agencies about why they passed it up.

The information came directly from the bid sale, the bid of sale. So there's a four page, which you'll find in the seven page 732 page staff report. It includes the bid. In the bid it says, one of the things that they had to do was to offer to all agencies, be they federal or state, and no one accepted anything to do with this. And therefore and they all they all looked at the maps. They had all the maps. So that that's my inference. My inference is they did not buy it because even at $396,000 for 33 acres, it wasn't much of a steal.

So I guess you didn't quite answer the question that I was asking. Do you have information directly related to why these other agencies supposedly passed it up? Your implication is they passed it up because there's issues with the site. But I just wondering if you have information directly to knowledge of that.

They did not have to fill out any paperwork saying why they were passing, they just passed.

So you don't have any information on that? Okay. Can you tell me where the Savannah Oaks subdivision is at? I apologize.

Where the Savannah Oaks, I'm sorry?

Neighborhood or subdivision is at?

Yes. So we're we're between Willamette Neighborhood Association and Barrington Heights Neighborhood Association. That's the best way I can tell you. And that's why all three of us were allowed to go to the pre application and all three of us are eligible for doing the appeal.

Okay. So normally when people come and they give testimony, they're they're opposed to what's ever on the docket. And I'm having difficulty understanding why you're opposed to it. You talk about not sites not suitable. There's problems with somebody who was killed in 1969.

And all of this the way I look at this is that the city is an owner. The owner has purchased a piece of property and they decided to develop it in this way. And I'm just curious why you are opposed to this owner developing the property the way they want to. Would you also be opposed to another developer developing it the way they want to in other areas? I'm just curious why you're opposed because you you haven't really laid it clear.

I think that the maps and the explanation of the four newspaper articles, again, that I'm more than willing to give you copies of, they all spell it out. We shouldn't be doing anything that is going to endanger the people of West Linn or the people that work at any of the three agencies that will be taking up headquarters in this in this space. And the the people at Gibbons and Reed Company, the general contractor in 1968, they came to a city council at the time and said they could do a bang up job right there. And the people that lost their homes, the people that ration water for months, and the young man that lost his life would beg to differ, sir.

I have no further questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. And Mrs. Schwartz.

Chair, I just wanted to let you and the audience know that I have additional testimony forms if any else anyone else wants to fill them out.

Thank you. Next speaker, and I apologize if I mispronounce your surname, is Michael Kopejian. And please correct me if I'm wrong. Thank you.

Is it Kapkin?

That's is this on? Thank you. That's way Al Switrin would say it. That's fine. Thank you for the opportunity. Maybe I'll get a question why I'm here. I don't know. I see that the process is set up in such a way that the applicant is the city and we are the citizens. And to the degree we wanna give our input to this application as part of the owner, I think that we are. I think part of the problem in this process while I appreciate there's applicable that criteria and I will get to that is that the city council hasn't really had an open house, hasn't really had a public opportunity to have this discussion And they sort of dumped it on the Planning Commission to move forward.

So I think what you're hearing is part of the feedback that the City Council would have gotten had they done some open houses and had an opportunity to take some public input. That being said, I'm gonna try to get right to the criteria. I'm gonna try not to be repetitious. I've had the opportunity to listen to the testimony in front of me. The traffic study, I appreciate.

I can certainly tell the people that have reviewed the application diligently, just by listening to the questions and the others that maybe have not. But certainly with the traffic study that's not being proposed, I think it's a mistake and I think the Planning Commission should, at their discretion, require a full traffic analysis to ensure that they will not have greater adverse impacts on Barrington as it relates to accessing onto Saloma Road. Clearly, it's been identified by others how the analysis was done that said they don't need a traffic study. But I believe there's more intense use than at the existing site and I won't belabor that point. I would ask that the record be left open pursuant to ORS one nine seven point seven nine seven six a so that I will be able to give additional written testimony and make sure that those points are made.

So what really got me going on this while I don't believe it's a safe site, I think the city the city planning commission should go ahead and request that geologists do a secondary review. I don't think that's out of line with the questions and the concerns that are put out there. But I think it's very simple and straightforward. One of my main issues is the sound and the noise that will be generated from the site. I believe staff has errored on their assumption that it's not necessary to do at the minimum have us an acoustical engineer do a make a statement, a written statement that this will be able to meet the standards set by the state in our comprehensive plan.

I'm not sure if the commission is familiar enough to understand what I'm saying. I know that our community development director, where my discussion with him did not understand some of the language in our comprehensive plan that talks about the importance of the noise study being done before the application is approved and should be accompanied with the application of submittal from an acoustical engineer saying that the abutting properties will not adversely be affected and that it will be able to meet the DEQ standard. I don't believe it's a specialty understanding the kooks and how they attenuate and how they will affect the neighbor as well as understanding the actual standards that are there. Staff does not have that expertise. In fact, when I talked to staff, it was posed to me that well maybe this isn't a noise generating use.

Clearly it's a noise generating use. We're going to have trucks backing up to the loaders, backing up in the gravel pits, doing all kinds of activity. So I would request that this be done and I will put that in writing so that that could be addressed. I don't have a lot of time. I also question if you some of you I'm sure have read the application diligently.

And we can see at the pre application meeting, the applicant first suggested this was general general industrially zoned. At the end they said no, it's a maybe it's our and then the city staff says, no, this is zoned r 10 based on a 1983 map from the city. And I don't think that map applies because they've adopted a new map in the zoning and the comprehensive plan that would apply from, I think it was 2023. So I would question if this land is even properly zoned to where we can figure out if a conditional use is permitted within that zone. Because I would argue to say if it is our zoned R 10 which I don't think it has adequately been zoned by the city.

If it is R 10, then I don't believe the use that they're putting there, is mechanical maintenance, fleet maintenance, and these kind of things would be allowed in that zone. I think the applicant knew and should stick with.

Thirty seconds.

The general general industrial zone like it's across the freeway along Willamette Falls Drive. Trip generation noise map from and and yeah, and the hazardous maps it shows some of the areas in the city. I've done some research on what the city's hazardous map. Not not the ideal site. I'm not expert at it. I'm not going to pretend to be. But I would certainly ask that this body do due diligence. There is

That is time.

I won't go any further, but I did ask to leave the record open. Are there any questions?

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So Chair, before we move on and you can go ahead and sit down if

you would Thank you. Yes.

I don't want to make you sit up there for too long. But there was a request for a continuance. And so, essentially what that means, is that we must either we must choose to either leave the record open for seven days to allow additional evidence and arguments or choose to continue the record or continue the hearing. So we can choose either to leave the record open or to continue the hearing. And either must be either we must leave the record open for seven days or we will continue the hearing at least seven days from now.

So council or I I apologize, Planning Commission, you all can choose which one of those two options we want to do. We can also continue to hear testimony tonight, or if you continue the hearing, you can continue that testimony at the subsequent hearing that's held. So I guess to you all, I would like to hear if you have any opinions on whether we should leave the record open and just receive written testimony.

So does that require a motion to do that?

Yes. We will need to do a motion on one of these two actions.

Oh.

I make a motion that we continue.

Oh, I I I apologize for that. But I would just I would love to hear you can go ahead and make the motion or I guess if anyone else has any opinions on it. But there's also in the script, there's a way to make those motions.

We will.

But we will need to set a date and time certain. So our recommendation, if you were to make a motion for a hearing date, it would be March 4.

Do we feel like I'm just talking out loud to my fellow commissioners. Do we feel like additional time might be needed for other people to testify?

Yeah. I do think there should be additional time. And I honestly think, just as an ethical duty, I want to be able to review these comments that we got tonight. I think it's important to look them over and to carefully consider them.

Commissioner Movahti.

Thank you, chair. I agree completely with commissioner Dietz that the public testimony that we were provided this evening, we've had no time to consider. I agree with commissioner Dietz that we've had no time to consider the public testimony that we received tonight, the written testimony.

Yeah. Yeah. Given the amount of testimony we're likely to receive and continue after we can if we continue, we will be up late, you know, trying to debate this and probably better to hear everybody at an additional time and then have time to debate this as well. So I'm on board with that.

Okay. So I'm hearing generally and of course chair, please feel free to make this call yourself, but I'm what I'm hearing is a general leaning towards continuing the public hearing and holding another public hearing at a date or time certain that is more than seven days from this date. You can make that motion now or you can wait and hear the rest of these people who have showed up to testify today and, you know, allow them their their opportunity to comment now rather than needing to come again. But that is also at your discretion.

My preference is to allow the remaining people here who would like to testify pardon me. I would like for them to have the opportunity to to testify. They took the time out. We have two more people. Perfect. Pardon?

Think when you have another staff.

Chair, I don't know if this was another request to speak, so I was gonna hand Okay. They didn't indicate if they wanted to speak.

Okay. So we have potentially three more people who would like to speak after which time I believe we can proceed with making a request for continuation at a date certain date and time certain.

That sounds great. So then what I recommend is this was a helpful side conversation, I recommend allowing that testimony to continue and then when we get to the place of in the script of closing the public hearing instead, we can entertain a motion to continue the hearing to a date and time certain, which I'm hearing would be either March 4 or February 18.

Chair, if I may, I'd like to make sure we get an opportunity to to for the applicant to to ask questions of them. I've got a litany of stuff, I just feel like it's fresh in my mind. It's best for me to do that.

My understanding is that the attorney is suggesting that we we move the request for continuance and ascertain the details of the to the point before we would close.

Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. That's correct.

So we

will just correct. So we would hear the remainder of the testimony and then we would allow questions, we would allow the rebuttal, and then rather than closing the hearing we would simply continue it.

Perfect. Great. Thank Thank

you.

Okay. So next to speak we have Kerry Oakes.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Carrie Oakes. I'm a resident of West Linn. Thank you very much for your service and particularly on this hearing for this very important matter. I saw this billed as to preserve and to celebrate the wetlands and the ravine on this site.

You heard the applicant tonight even say some of those words. And so I thought that's great because I am very much concerned about the environmental impacts of this development and on the high risk of landslides and hazards on this piece of property. And so I looked at it and like Commissioner Evans, I couldn't find that there was a stream on most of the maps. Which I thought, wow, that's weird, where is it? They mention it in the narrative, but I really couldn't.

And I eventually too did find it on sheet c one, which is the paving plan. And I noticed that it doesn't even show a stream. It shows kind of like downward arrows. I'm usually seeing a stream as a line, you know, and it's noted as such. It does show the water resource area around it.

It's in its steep ravine, but you wouldn't know because you can't see the grading, the actual topography. But most of that lower part of this facility with the pavement and all the storage facility where the road goes down there, that's all in the water resource not all of it, but it covers a large section of the water resource area of that stream. A large section. And so I thought, wow, that's kind of like paving paradise, you know? And then I read more and I saw that they decided to do the standard process which says that you're for the water resource area permit.

There's a standard process. And water resource area permit says to to avoid avoid the water resource area. And they certainly hadn't. And so what they decided to do though is go ahead and take 15,000 square feet of water resource area from both there and also the wetland and develop it. And they only are mitigating half of that, so about 7,000 square foot.

And this is on a hillside that's prone to landslides. And you know, that's the minimum the city requires for mitigation, is half of it. And I thought, gee, this is a city application. Don't they have higher standards for themselves? Or certainly I know we value that.

It's one of the highest things in West Linn that we value. So I don't think it meets the criteria for the water resource area permit because they have not shown that there wasn't better location or plans to avoid those water resource areas. And they haven't, in the narrative, said enough to me about why they need to pave that and make the roads and everything so big and so many and all the parking lots and the whole facility, why that's a need. So I think they need to do that to really meet the criteria for that. The other thing is on page two seventy two, CDC 32 five zero

Thirty seconds?

I don't believe they've met that criteria because they don't explain the geotech on this in a narrative that a normal person, you know, just a trade just a can understand. There's on page six eleven, there's a geotech engineering report where it says that the slope where the access road comes in is unstable and could slide Thank in the event of a seismic

you.

Could I make one closing comment? I will make it just short. So, or at least finish this. There is no other access road out of there. ODOT would not allow it through their property that's adjacent, and I don't think that's wise to build a facility that's so critical in an emergency, in an area where you only have one access in.

Thank you. Does anyone have questions

for Ms. Oaks?

Thank you very much. Next speaker is David Dodds.

Mister Dodds, do you is your green button green?

Sorry. I I was supposed to press the button. Anyway, David Dodds, long term resident of Westland. And I'd like to thank the commissioners for entertaining the request for continuance as opposed to just leaving the record open. I would encourage you to go to the further date, the March 4 date, and as much as I think you've already seen that there is tremendous community interest in this and I'm hopeful that after the must see TV that is planning commission meetings that there would likely be even more public interest in the future and therefore letting both the commission have more time to absorb all the information that they've gotten as well as any additional information, a longer time period would be better.

And given the importance of this proposal and also the difficulties and site constraints on this, I don't think that rushing is something that is beneficial to the city or to the public process. Thanks to miss Carrie Oaks. She was able to find what former counselor Reilly referenced, and the purchase agreement for the property is agenda bill twenty twenty one DashO7Dash112DashO5. And prior to your next meeting, I will make every effort to get a copy of that and get that to the commission. I would also I will also try to reach out to ODOT and hopefully have them either comment or maybe have someone appear at your meeting.

But I would also recommend to the commission that is something you might wanna do at your own behest. The only thing out there I have to say at this particular point in time that was touched on by miss Oaks is that

one of

the things that has been touted in the city's discussion of this facility is that it is combining various different city facilities and a lot of these facilities all have to do with emergency services. And from my lights, actually, is not a good thing in as much as putting all of your public emergency services facilities in one location, especially a location that maybe is subject to landslides or would literally go directly against the purpose of making it available in the case of an emergency. And I actually have little time left. That's all I had to say for this evening. Thank you.

Are any questions for Mr. Dodds? Thank you very much. And our final speaker is Beth Carr. Beth Beth did you?

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

This point in the hearing, there is an opportunity for rebuttal by the applicant. Does the applicant wish to respond? And if so, you have ten minutes.

Yes. Thank you. I think we're both gonna respond to some of these issues if that's okay.

Green light. Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Sid Scott, principal with Scott Edwards Architecture. And along with mister Dunn, we'd like to respond to the items that we can respond to that are part of the application. And the areas of I also wanted to point out online, we have our civil engineer, traffic engineer, and soils engineer.

So they'll also be able to respond to some of the testimony we heard tonight. K? And I just wanna say to the the folks here tonight, thank you for coming out and we appreciate your concerns. And we're gonna address them the best we can. Okay.

Starting with the areas that that I had noted to respond to, one is use of the site or use, so the existing versus the new. Noise, which is a very understandable concern. Construction parking, soils, traffic study, and water resource. So those are areas that will address what we can. And then questions, we're happy to answer the questions that you have in any of those areas as well.

Okay? One thing that and this really wasn't part of our application process, but I did bring up the question came about the purchase of the site And we happen to have the from city of Westland, the agenda bill twenty twenty one dash o seven dash twelve dash o five, which was prepared in 06/23/2021. I think it was for the council meeting on 07/12/2021. And the first item on there, it's the purpose of the purchase, which and this is coming from the public works department, to receive council approval to acquire surplus property owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation, ODOT, to be used for future construction of a new operations facility. So that is was the request that came directly from the public works department.

So we'd like to get that in the record. Okay. Related to uses for the property. So basically, this is replacing their current facility. The the same functions that are there, the current facility will be in the new facility.

It's the same folks, same equipment. My understanding from Eric that there's no additional FTE that will be coming to the new site. So it's essentially what they have currently in terms of the use. I do believe there are a couple storage facilities that are off-site that they will be bringing that storage to the site. But as far as the use, the function, very similar to what they currently have.

Related to the noise and we fully understand that concern and wanna respond to that. So one of the things that we would propose and we could we would agree to as a condition of approval is to do an acoustic analysis of the property and the projected noise that it will create. So we can we're again willing to do that and and add that as a condition. Related to construction parking, which we again, we fully understand that's a concern of the neighbors. The contractor Skanska that's on board to build this, their plan is to put that road in first, which is it's gonna be a small amount of folks working on that to get it down to the bottom and build the first parking area and then that will be all of the construction parking down in there.

So it'll be the period of when they actually build the road that they will be parking and I don't think they've got that quite worked out yet exactly where they're gonna be parking, but they are very sensitive to the neighbors concern about parking there. Let's see. In terms of traffic, we can respond to that. Mister Bell is online. Are you there?

Matt Bell?

There he is.

Oh, let's unmute you. Did you select your microphone? Click your down arrow at mute and select your microphone. Oh, we can't hear you. No.

Okay.

I'm gonna switch to another can you guys hear me now?

We got you now. Sorry

for the technical difficulties there. And I appreciate the opportunity to to respond to some of these questions. I know there's been a lot of questions about traffic, and so I can kinda cut to a couple of really specific ones. Regarding regarding the approach that we took, I think most folks have pointed this out already is that we we did a trip generation study at the existing facility trying to understand those characteristics, primarily because it it's a bit of a unique use. So we just really wanted to make sure that we were capturing it adequately.

What we found was that it was really close to the city's threshold for warranting a traffic study. A couple of people pointed out two of the days it was below, one of the days it was above. Average of the overall three was just a little bit above. And then again, somebody mentioned that the criteria is is a traffic study may be required if you if you meet this threshold. So just based on the volumes, based on our assessment of of the proposed use, we ultimately determine that the traffic study wouldn't be necessary for this for the site.

I think there was couple other a couple other questions about traffic that sort of stray from what we've prepared. So I'm hesitant to respond to those questions unless unless folks really want me to.

Alright. Thanks, Matt. Stand by for more questions from the perhaps from the commission. Okay. Let's move over to the soils and we'll have our geotech engineer respond to, again, some of the questions and what we can respond to in terms of what's part of our application.

Yeah. Hi. Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Yes.

Hi. This is the Jeep Kalas, Columbia's engineering and principal geotechnical engineer. And, yeah, thanks everybody for the the comments and the testimonies. But I took I took down some notes from the also testimony so I could answer to it, you know, hazard site, natural hazard, site is site is getting worse, Lab says it's active landslide. So all these comments, known hazards. So I wanna just specify and clarify. So it's true the site has landslide. I need to emphasize it wasn't a natural landslide. It was a man made landslide. So I'm gonna specify.

So Oregon State Highway Department, OSHD wasn't all that at that time. And when they started this folks mentioned, when they start excavation for I 205

Can you guys hear Najeeb? Sorry, Najeeb. I think people are having trouble hearing you.

So we can hear him. It's just that it's hard to understand. But if you guys look at the script

I was reading that MSOs

comment, but below. Seeing a bit of a discrepancy between what it was saying and what he's saying, and I'm struggling to hear him.

So perhaps

And I it's really important to me what he says.

Yeah. Najeeb, maybe you could just slow down a little bit.

Yes. Lower maybe.

And is it possible to change his mic or something like that?

What what kind of microphone are you using?

I'm actually using my laptop. My my device built in. So I could try something different and see see if I can

That is better. That sounds better. Yeah.

That's better. Could you could please could you please mister Carlos, could you please summarize again what you've before this?

Thank you.

I just yeah, no problem. So I want to just can clarify some background information about the landslide. It was not a natural landslide. It was manmade. That's made big difference as we discuss the site from engineering standpoint. So as some testimonies mentioned, there was excavation, rock blasting cuts for I-two 05 construction and a potential rest area. That triggered the landslide. So essentially, what you have, you have a hill and basalt rock. There are different ages of flows of the basalt. I I don't wanna get too descriptive, but it's important to explain it so people know what is the risk.

Essentially, you have a mass of rock sitting on a layer of weak material. Let's say, they call it the vantage horizon. Somebody wanna Google it or researcher. Essentially, it's weak soil material and below it, there is another layer of frog. If you excavate into this vantage horizon, you are exposing a weak layer, which cannot trigger a landslide.

So this is what happened with the side. They took out landslide at the bottom of the hill, and it keep working its way up the hill all the way there to the actual now existing slope as a north property line, which is about the residential houses to the north. So so that's that's that's the history of the landslide. Now with our development of the site, we understand the mechanism. We know the history. These buildings are, I you know

need to interrupt you.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

We're overtime for the rebuttal. How much time would you like to give would you like me to give the team more time to speak?

Yeah. It's a few more minutes, please, due to the technical difficulties. If you could go finish discussion of soil and water resources as briefly as possible, please. Thank you.