City Council - workshop

This is the City Council work session for Monday, June 29th, 2026.

I call to order the work session of Willsville City Council for June 29th, 2026 at 1.30 p.m. Is there any councilor concerns? Okay. Turning now to our work session, we're going to deal with Urban Renewal Economic Feasibility Study Update at Lorenzen.

Swing in this chair. Okay, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Matt Lorenzen. I'm the city's economic development manager. Nice to see you this afternoon. Today's conversation is pretty straightforward. We're asking for direction on two potential modifications to the proposed town center urban renewal project list. Specifically, we're asking whether council wishes to remove the I-5 bike ped bridge as an eligible urban renewal project and whether the council wishes to explicitly add a food cart pod incentive program to the project list. These changes are really about continuing the work you've been doing to right-size the proposed urban renewal plan and ensure that it reflects community priorities. I'll start with the bike ped bridge. So you can see on this map that it's sort of a critical connection in the city and in the region. I wanna emphasize today that if you choose to remove the bridge from the project list, it doesn't mean the city is abandoning the project. The bridge remains an important long-term transportation project. It's identified in the town center plan, the transportation system plan, the bicycle and pedestrian master plan, and the Metro's regional transportation plan. Excuse me. So... We will continue pursuing external funding as we have done previously. We've applied for the federal BUILD grant twice, and we'll continue looking for other opportunities as development in Town Center progresses. We'll also continue reserving transportation SDCs as a future local match for external grant funding. So the project wouldn't go away. The only question before council today is whether urban renewal should remain one of the potential funding sources. We've heard from some members of the community who question whether the bridge is closely connected enough to one of the core purposes of urban renewal, which is stimulating redevelopment that generates new assessed value. Each of you may agree or disagree with that concern, but removing the bridge is one way to further narrow the scope of the proposed urban renewal plan and reduce the overall financial commitment. Regardless of urban renewal financial commitment, construction of the project will still depend on the city's ability to secure external funding. Removing the project reduces the proposed urban renewal commitment by about $8.4 million, stated in 2027 dollars. The second proposed change would add rather than remove a project. Over the last several years, one of the most consistent pieces of feedback we've heard from the community is a desire for a food cart pod in town center. The draft urban renewal project list already contains economic development incentive funding that could be used for a project like that. What we're proposing tonight is simply making that commitment explicit by naming a food cart pod incentive program directly in the project list. It's important to point out that this is not a grant for operating expenses or private business subsidies. This would be a so-called sticks and bricks incentive. And that's what urban renewal law requires for anything like this. So for example, it could help pay for required infrastructure, utility work, or SDCs that would otherwise be the responsibility of a developer. And these are the types of things that we see precluding or at least complicating this type of a project. If council ultimately decides to use such a program in the future, it would be through a separate development agreement with clear expectations and accountability. Adding this project sends a clear message that attracting a food cart pod is something the council wants to prioritize if voters ultimately approve urban renewal in town center. We've shown a placeholder amount of $1 million for that project. That isn't a binding commitment. It simply reserves capacity within the overall urban renewal budget and any future expenditure would absolutely come back to council for approval and consideration. So what do these two changes mean financially? Removing the bridge reduces the proposed commitment by approximately $8.4 million. Adding the food cart program adds $1 million. So the net effect is a reduction of about $7.4 million. As a result, the proposed maximum indebtedness stated again in 2027 dollars decreases from what you had seen previously at $92.3 million and brings it to $84.9 million. The total of year of expenditure maximum indebtedness will also decrease from what was previously presented to you, although that number will need to be updated as we revise the financial model. So it's not a simple straight line calculation to just inflate the 84.9. It really is a little bit more complex as we look at how funds will be expended in what year. and how that pencils out. But we know for certain that when you see that number, it will be lower than the 164. So once again, we're moving toward a smaller and more focused urban renewal proposal. Today, I'm also sharing what a revised boundary would look like if council does direct staff to remove the bridge project. If council refers town center urban renewal to the ballot later this summer, the proposed ordinance, urban renewal plan, and the accompanying report would use this revised boundary. So you can see here, which is the area that would be needed not only for the landing, but temporary and permanent easements during construction and after construction, and the revised boundary with it just following the frontage on I-5. Following today's discussion, staff will take whatever direction council provides and immediately begin incorporating these changes into the draft urban renewal plan and report. Those documents along with the proposed ordinance and draft ballot title language will return to council on August 3rd for review and consideration. And I believe the city attorney will be bringing you draft ballot language to see in the month of July. Ultimately, if council chooses to continue moving forward toward a November vote, those documents would become the basis for the ballot measure and the public disclosures required under the city charter as amended by measure 3-632. With that, I'd be happy to answer questions and receive your direction.

Councillor Shevin. Thank you, Matt. In regards to the food cart pod, I know you've mentioned all along, or I believe you have, that you have developers that you've been talking to that are interested in general in our town center. Will adding an incentive program such as this for the food cart pod enhance that interest? How do you see that impacting developers that would like to be involved in our project?

Yeah. I think the short answer is yes, it does enhance that interest. I think what it does is sort of remove one of the barriers, whether that be fees or whether that be the installation of roads. Either way, it's providing one thing out of the way that otherwise might complicate the completion of a project like this. And let's say that it penciled out without the program, this is the type of thing that sort of does create additional interest, a true incentive. Councillor Cunningham.

Yeah, to piggyback on that question, I remember last year, council was surveyed on what we would prioritize around the town center plan. And one of those things was asking if we would prioritize directing staff to work on a food cart policy. I believe at the time it was described that Not having that policy in place can have a dampening effect on somebody wanting to come in and do that development. So with this, I think that it is important that we would also then increase the priority and take another look back at directing staff to institute or to, to create that food cart policy for council review, to put that in place in order to, as you were kind of saying is to remove that next barrier to give somebody who would be interested in that some assurances and idea, uh, some blueprint of what they can and can't do so that they can feel more comfortable coming and doing that. So I think, uh, you know, possibly, you know, it's, it's, it's great to have this incentive in place and to have some of that funding there. I think that gets us a part of the way there. Uh, but I think if we really want to get to the finish line on this and show the community that we're serious about instituting, uh, this amenity that, that they're excited about, um, I think council should consider that we also really prioritize that policy as well. I don't know what your thoughts are on how do you feel about that policy and what effect that could have on this kind of development.

Yeah. No, I agree with your assessment. Can a food cart pod come to Wilsonville today? Yes, it can. But if someone who's in the business, so to speak, were to visit the city website and try to look up a straight path toward project completion, they would struggle to find it. It's not there. It's through special conditional land use approvals that they would be able to get to where they want to go rather than a specifically codified process. So yes, incentive is important, but let's clean up policy as well to make it a straight path. I'll also say that I'm not the planning director, but certainly council sets the agenda. And so if there's direction to elevate that prioritization, you're prerogative, but yeah, I don't want to speak for the planning director. Council President Barrett.

Matt, thank you for your presentation. I like that we're tightening up what the town center renewal proposal could look like. So taking the bridge out for pedestrians, especially knowing that it could be funded by other means, sounds like a good idea to me. And then on the food cart pod, in the report you mentioned, it could be similar to like Happy Valley or Salem, but I haven't been to those places. So when you were writing the report or, you know, just what is staff thinking, like the number of vendors that could participate and would it be enclosed or open air or?

So that piece would be left to the private sector. But if the council does create an incentive program, if urban renewal passes at the ballot box, some of those parameters can be set. In other words, you don't receive the incentive unless. And so if there's a desire for a covered or an enclosed or an air-conditioned or heated space, that could certainly be one of the strings that are attached to the incentive program. So there's an additional benefit to having this program in that the council could set some parameters on what you want to see rather than it just being some picnic tables and an unprotected area. So... Yeah, we don't get to decide that unless, of course, an adopted food cart policy did establish that.

And what about the number of vendors? Do you have like a general idea, like three or more than 10 or 25? I can't say exactly.

What we would mandate, that would be a council decision attached to the incentive program. But as far as Happy Valley Station or the yard go, I'd estimate that they have between 10 and 15 carts associated with that. And then a central dining hall where it's air conditioned and heated. And there's usually a bar or tap type situation where you can have beverages and things like that. Thank you.

Councilor Skoll.

I think you've answered my question between Council President Berry and Councillor Cunningham relative to how it would be configured. And a question I have, and this may be a planning issue too, is if we approve this, will it be for any of the districts? Or are we going to look at specific districts within the urban renewal boundary?

Yeah, so by adding this to the project list, I would, I guess, urge you to think of it as a bit of a to-be-determined type situation. So we're holding budget by taking this action, if you take this action. But then as far as the structure of the program, where it's applicable, all of those things, if there are requirements for an indoor space, number of vendors, et cetera, those are all things that would be fleshed out subsequent to... a successful vote in November.

Okay, thank you. Councilor Shevin. Thank you. So hooking on a couple of comments here from the dais and recognizing that our planning director is not here. So this is really just my personal request, but it has to do with location and timing and all that. It would be, in my opinion, ideal if the food cart pod could be one of the first installations in the project uh but understanding that there's a lot that is going to be built up around it and adjacent etc but i would love if we could again demonstrate to our community that yes we've heard them and we're very interested in getting the fod installed and then it would have to be designed. And this is where I lack the knowledge, but so that it isn't closed off during certain construction. So it'd have to be located somewhere where it could have access sooner than other parts of town center and then continual access. And that's probably a big ask. So it's just sort of my pie in the sky dream piece, but yeah. I just wanted to put that out there because I just feel strongly about demonstrating that for myself personally, I'm in support of the food card pod jumping over incentive program in regards to your questions, jumping over to the bridge. I also support taking the bike pad bridge out of the urban renewal plan and reducing it, reducing the overall impact. uh, maximum expenditure and then finding funding sometime in the future. I really liked what you said in the packet about, you know, we're not ready for that yet. We haven't demonstrated the need for a lot of foot and, and bicycle traffic. We hope to get to that, but we're a little ways off from that and finding funding further down the road, I think is more appropriate approach. Thank you.

Counselor Cunningham.

Yeah. Another question. Um, In the first town center height waiver task force meeting, there was some information that was shared and it indicated that food cart pods would be 20, it kind of put like a 20 to 30 year timeline. Would this kind of signal that we're looking at moving that up? I'm not sure where that 20 to 30 year timeline came from. I'm not sure if you know where that came from.

Yeah, I'm in a moment of panic right now because I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Okay, it was just one slide that I saw during that task force meeting. And I know that you weren't the one presenting it. But I have heard questions from community members about that timeline. To me, it would seem like this would indicate that we're looking not at a 20 to 30 year timeline, but at a much sooner, higher priority type of situation. Would that be accurate in your assessment?

Ms. Kyle-Hyman, are you familiar with the discussion?

Yeah, I think if I recall, the presentation you're talking about was the overview of the town center plan kind of generally. And I think that that's more how it was being discussed of infill sort of redevelopment would happen first and then these like larger developments could happen later. As infrastructure becomes available, but to council's point, if council direction is to prioritize this particular item in the urban renewal plan, assuming an approval in November, then staff will take that direction.

Yeah. Like I said, I'm not even sure where that information had come from, but that slide was a little bit kind of shocking to some folks to see such a long timeline on a high priority amenity.

We can follow up with planning on that as well and get that back to you.

It sounds to me like maybe just something that was maybe unintentionally misleading on that slide because I don't know that anyone has said that it was a desirable outcome to wait 20 or 30 years for this.

yeah and i hadn't seen it anywhere else in any other documentation so i think that maybe it was just uh like you said maybe just something unintentionally misleading yeah counselor skull and i didn't bring this up uh i'm in in support of the food cart pod uh activity but also want to mention that i'm in support of transfer or moving the uh the pedestrian bridge out and basically making it a cip project for a long-term effort because I do think the pedestrian bridge is important to the town center plan to make sure that we have pedestrian bicycle and all that access both east and west and everything so but I'm supporting the fact that we're going to remove it from the urban renewal from town center urban renewal. Anybody else?

Okay, my thoughts. I concur with everything that Council said as a whole. I think that I joined Councilor Cunningham on a policy on food cart pods being developed as a priority. I think SMART, I hope I'm not misremembering, but I think SMART's advertising bus service going to Canby to enjoy their Food carts. I love Camby, but it'd be a lot nicer to say they're going to ours. So I think we should make that a priority. I do think we have people in our community that really want that I-5 bicycle pedestrian bridge. It's comforting to hear staff say that while it's being removed from the urban rural district. It's still part of the town center plan and it will be developed over time. Hopefully we'll see federal funds that will materialize long-term or other grants that are available. But I love all the comments from my colleagues and I think I joined them with that.

Okay.

Yep. Um, so just to recap, again, take given this direction, we will get to work in drafting the plan and report, which are going to look very, very similar to the feasibility study, which you saw earlier this month, it's just going to incorporate these changes, and it will be formatted in the way that state law requires, basically. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. This work session is adjourned at 1.51 p.m. The City Council will meet in executive session pursuant to Oregon Revised Statute Section 192.660, subsection 2, paragraph F, exempt public records to consider information or records that are exempt by law from public inspection. In paragraph H, legal counsel litigation to consult with counsel regarding legal rights and duties of a public body With regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed, we will be adjourned for five minutes or sooner, depending on how quick staff can switch the cameras.