Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You

Thank you.

OK, good afternoon. I'd like to call the July 8 2026 planning commission meeting to order at six o'clock. Can I get a roll call?

Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Rob Candrian. Here. Vice chair of Constantine.

Here.

Nicole Hendricks. Adam, excuse me, Andrew Carr.

Here.

Yana Seminova. Jeff Sundell. Here.

Thank you. Thank you, and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, this is the time for our citizen input according to the agenda. This is an opportunity for the citizens to address the Planning Commission regarding any item that is not already scheduled for a formal public hearing. This includes the opportunity to address any items scheduled for a work session. Therefore, if any member of the audience either here in City Hall or via Zoom would like to speak about any other matter of concern, including any work session item, please raise your hand or send a message to the recorder using the Zoom chat function so that we may hear from you now. If you've not already, please fill out a testimony card and give it to the clerk. Also, please state your name and address for the record or state that your address is as provided on the testimony card. Please limit your comments to no more than three minutes. And I have already several speaker cards, so I will just go ahead and go in order. The first one is Zach Arino, Sorry if I'm not pronouncing that correct. If you wouldn't mind please coming up.

That's correct. I have some handouts to pass out. They're graphic information.

Sure, if you want to hand it to Mandy, I'm assuming, or for some handouts, or Miranda. Some additional copies.

Paula, can you restart the clock?

I am also speaking on behalf of a group, if I could request additional time.

We're going to go ahead and stick with three minutes, just so that we're consistent, but we'd love to hear from you. Okay, perfect.

All right, so jumping right in, I'd really like to discuss the Northwest Industrial Zone and some of the issues that we've seen thus far, reading through the code and the draft form that has gone so far. So if you follow along on page one, slide two, Northwest Industrial Zone has two tracks. You have the track one, which is the clear and objective track, and you have the track two, which is the waiver track. So what I'd really like to discuss is the track one, which is the clear and objective and that is the lack thereof. And as you see in slide three, you have had four projects in the Coffee Creek Industrial Zone, and out of those four projects, all four of them have required waivers, and you have not had a single one go through the clear and objective track. Out of that, 75% of those projects that required waivers to both the addressing street parking requirements and the driveway width standards, 40% of all of the waivers were related to those standards alone. To me, this speaks to a systemic issue with the Track 1 path, and more importantly, the addressing street parking requirements. There are also several contradictions, if you'll go to the next page, please, that are already located within the code. One such example right now is the unintentional ban on parking between supporting streets and the building. As you have stated in Northwest Industrial Table 4, parking is permitted between the supporting street and the building, provided the 15-foot setback is maintained. However, in the next table, NWI 5, your max building setback for these supportings and through connections is 30 feet maximum. It thus becomes impossible to place any parking between the building and the supporting street while maintaining the required setbacks. And if you proceed to the next one just below that, another example is the unintentional requirement that all entrances are required to face the addressing street, even if the building is not bounded by one. In the same NWI-5 table, you already lay the groundwork for the visibility requirements and you stipulate conditions for various situations. Then about two sentences later, you contradict this directive by requiring all entrances must be visible from the adjusting street and giving no consideration for other scenarios. I'd like to move on to the next slide. I'd like you to look at what a typical flex industrial development looks like, and this can be anywhere. This is typically a 40 foot, or excuse me, a 40 acre development. with similar setbacks to neighboring jurisdictions and similar building conditions. What you would have is about a 94% usable building site. Now, if you go down to the next one, as soon as you start to place the connectivity standards on there, you reduce that down to about 56% usable. Moving on to that one. If you go and go to the next page, please. On the next page, once you start to lay buildings on that site, you now reduce the entire building footprint to about 46% usable. And as well, you reduce parking and dock reduction to about 33%.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, next up, I have Mimi Dukas, if I said that right.

That is correct. Good job. It gets butchered often. My name is Mimi Dukas with AKS Engineering. My address is as shown on my testimony card. I'm beginning on slide 14. What I'd like to walk you through are the proposed changes to the draft code that's before you this evening based on what Zach talked about. Slide 14 talks about parcel access. The standards are found in the table four, the draft table four. It currently requires two access points. The primary one has a maximum width of 24 feet for vehicles and visitors. The secondary access can have 40 feet, which is for industrial vehicles, semis and such. Really, industrial land is designed for industrial vehicles. So we would request that only maximum 40 foot access sized throats are required. and that there's not a 24 foot. You've seen waivers requested on two previous applications showing that this is a very hard standard to meet for industrial. Slide 15 is about pedestrian access. Again, table four, it requires an eight foot minimum sidewalk width to the primary entrance. We request that this be changed to six. This is not a high pedestrian use. It's really about mostly vehicles and employees that are interior to the building and not using that front entrance. Slide 16 is about parking location and design. This limits the amount of parking that's between the building and the primary streets. And of the limited amount of parking, 50% has to be for visitors. This is, again, not a visitor-heavy use. And so we would request additional parking for the employees with 28 spaces maximum. And we'd like 10% of those to be limited to visitors. This matches industry standards and is more functional. Slide 17 is about grading and retaining walls. table four. The current code draft requires a five foot step for every five feet height. That really stretches out the grades in a substantial way. Basalt Creek has significant topography across the site and retaining walls are going to be critical for really getting production out of this land. We don't want to spend a bunch of land on retaining walls width wise. There's other treatments you can do to retaining walls to make them more aesthetically pleasing as we've seen in Happy Valley. If you go to slide 18, this is a graphic example of traditional retaining walls on the left and then the five foot stepping on the right. And you can see the amount of blue shows how much land is eaten with those retaining walls. The rest of our slides are there for your review. Thank you.

Am I allowed to ask a question of the public?

This is just the time for citizen input, so you can save it for the work session.

Okay, so I can't ask them a question even though they were inputting?

Correct.

I can't ask them a clarification question?

So this is just the time, well, I'll leave it up to the presiding officer, but this is just the time for input to be received, not for a back and forth.

Oh, it wasn't a back and forth. I just wanted a clarification on whether either of them represented land owners in the area.

Chair, it's up to you to decide.

Go ahead, if you want to ask that one question, then we'll move on.

Yeah, I just wondered if either of you represented landowners that are currently in the proposed area.

Yes, we're both working with Schnitzer. Okay, thanks. Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Christine Connolly.

Hi, good evening. Also representing Schnitzer, Christine Connolly with Kittleson and Associates. Appreciate the opportunity and your consideration of our concerns. I'm speaking to slides 23 and 24 with regard to traffic circulation. As Mimi alluded, industrial uses generate primarily vehicular travel and are not a significant walking travel generator compared to commercial or mixed use development. So this block spacing of 600 by 600 feet really isn't needed for this type of development. Industrial users also have a desire to separate trucks from people walking and biking for safety reasons. When you mix them together, it causes interactions and potential conflicts that could result in high severity So having the sidewalks and any like bike facilities along the perimeter of the site is a lot safer. And it also supports the trail network, the desired trail network in the TSP. A 600 foot grid also creates challenges for heavy vehicles which have larger turning radii than a standard passenger vehicle. Some industrial tenants have security requirements which require gating or segregating different types of vehicles. Some even require that the staff parking be completely separate from truck loading and unloading, which is hard to accomplish on a smaller site. And you also need space for onsite staging of deliveries so that that's not occurring on the public street system. So really all this just points to the need to have larger sites for industrial type users. On the next slide, 24, the left shows what a 600 by 600 foot grid would look like. This is the area east of Grimm's Ferry Road and north of Day Road. It's not very conducive to larger building industrial users. And then in the middle is a more desirable connectivity. And if you kind of look at that middle plan compared to the plan on the right, which shows the trail network that's being proposed, you can see that that desired connectivity can be very compatible with the trail plan that is desired for this area. And that's really it for me. Thank you so much.

Thank you Okay, next up is Ryan Shira Close enough. Okay. Thank you for your kindness

I'm Ryan Scherer. I'm with Schnitzer Properties. We are an industrial owner and operator. We're long-term owner-operators. We cater to manufacturing uses, wholesale uses, suppliers, high-tech type uses. So I'm going to be speaking to slides 25 and 26, which those use types pertain to what you're looking at. So on 25 you've got kind of a typical 40 acre flex industrial layout. Up against to the bottom is what the Northwest industrial standards in terms of the connectivity and also the layout standards show. And if you just do the simple math of how much building square footage you can get, one, you've got smaller buildings on the Northwest Industrial Standard, so you're limiting yourself in terms of employment users coming to town if you're trying to attract them. Okay, you need larger space with the power that's available. And we provide different depths and different sizes for what we call small, mid, and large, and those attract different size employers to town and taking space, leasing space for the long term, and we operate it to, and we design it to be fully functional. In terms of the truck courts, where the parking is located in front of every front entrance, and there's multiple front entries because you don't know how many businesses are coming and how much square footage they're gonna need, They can take three bays, they can take 10 bays, doesn't matter. So when you get to the economics and how that translates to assessed value, which then translates into tax increment revenue that comes into the urban renewal district, you're getting about half of the dollars coming into the urban renewal district. And those dollars go towards public infrastructure, Parks, water, sewer, transportation improvements that this district is gonna need. The next slide, slide 26, shows the growth scenario. The very bottom is what happens if you just sit on the land because the Northwest industrial standards don't cater to development. Well then, what's your alternative if you can't develop? You sit on the land, and so all you're getting is tax revenue based on county zoning, which is basically farm zoning. It's actually future development zoning, but it's farm zoning. Right now, today, it's just a nursery. And same thing for Coffee Creek. They're small farms with a house. And unless you have development standards that attract developers to aggregate, then that development isn't going to happen. and you're not going to get that assessed value and revenue coming into the urban renewal district. And so you can see the comparison in terms of flex industrial versus what you're getting with the Northwest industrial.

I think we'll go ahead and if you can conclude your comments, that would be great.

Yeah, sure. So as you can see in the chart, there's a significant difference in urban renewal dollars, both the Coffee Creek as well as the future Basalt Creek.

Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience or any other speaker cards that have been submitted?

I do have one attendee online. If you would like to speak during citizen input, please raise your hand now.

I see no hands raised and there's no other speaker cards or nobody else in the audience. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to our administrative matters. Um, consideration of our minutes. The June 10th, 2026 minutes were distributed previously. Are there any corrections to the minutes? Okay, then we'll consider those approved as distributed. Okay and we'll move on to our first work session. On the agenda is a work session for the Wilsonville Industrial Land Readiness Basalt Creek Master Plan. This work session is a chance for the Planning Commission to gain an additional understanding of and provide guidance on ongoing legislative projects prior to a public hearing. At this time I call for city staff to present information they've prepared for the work session and will city staff please present.

Absolutely. Let me just get my presentation up for you. There we go. Okay. Good evening commissioners, thank you for your time. I'm back, we're here for work session two for Basalt Creek Master Plan, as promised. Let's take a look here. There we go. Sorry, I had to get organized. All right, so tonight's discussion, we're gonna be focusing on a couple different things. Proposed development code edits, which do include 11 new definitions to our code and three edits of other definitions currently existing. We're gonna discuss the Northwest Industrial Pattern Book, and we're gonna get into the changes to our recommended use table, or our allowed use table. Before I get too far, I wanna highlight that a month ago when I was here, I mentioned we'd be coming back. This would be our last work session. We've had a little strategic pivot. We've added a third work session in August. Trying to break up some of the mass of stuff that you have to review. So in August, and I'll show you a slide of this later, but just wanted to at least highlight that I know I'm not bringing everything I said I'd bring. In August, you'll be seeing the final draft of the master plan document itself. as well as all of the technical memos for infrastructure related to water, sewer, and stormwater. All right, so let's talk about some of what you're gonna see, or what you've probably saw as you reviewed the packet. We've added some craft industrial code language, section 4.130. You can see up on the map there's a slice of land that will be craft industrial. And that is a new zone here in the city of Wilsonville. And really that's intended for a couple different things. One, it's a diverse range of small scale industrial uses, creative enterprises, incubator spaces, artisan studios, innovation hubs, things of that nature. And as a matter of fact, we've allowed or are allowing, proposing to allow, limited residential uses as well. You're going to typically see things like, as I said, studios, creative workspaces, custom fabrication, printing services, things of that nature, not large-scale industrial uses in the craft zone itself. So that language has been added to the code and is proposed and hopefully will be section 4.130. Another piece that you'll see is the Coffee Creek Design Overlay District has now been changed to the Northwest Industrial Zone, NWI. You'll see that repeatedly over and over again in all those documents, section 4.134. So definitions. We have 11 new definitions in the code. I'm not going to go through every single one of them. You probably saw them in your packet. Contractor establishments, direct-to-consumer e-commerce fulfillment, innovation hubs, maker spaces, my personal favorite, micro-mobility vehicles. Yes, I did have to look that up. So that was somewhat new to me, although my kids do ride e-bikes and scooters, so I should have known, right? So yeah, so we have some new definitions, and just a highlight here, and it'll come up again. Oh, you know, I'm gonna skip that, and I'll get to it in a moment. Another piece that you saw in the packet is the Northwest Industrial Zone Pattern Book, formerly the Coffee Creek Industrial Design Overlay District Pattern Book. And as was brought up earlier tonight, so there's a couple things about the pattern book to know. One, it's really your guidebook as a developer for what you can or might be able to do on your property within that zone, right? And it's true. It is a two-track system. There's track one, which is a clear and objective standard, right? If you meet the standards of that code, it's a very simple process. It's actually staff level. Director Bateshell signs off on it, and everyone moves on. If for some reason, for whatever reason, you cannot meet those code requirements, you would go through track two, what we call the waiver track, right? And that is asking for variances or waivers to code standards. That approval level would go to the DRB. That's how it's set up here in this community. It's a nice check and balance. It makes sure that the community has an opportunity to review things that aren't gonna meet the code that will already have been approved. So that's the pattern book itself. And most of the other changes in the pattern book are changing coffee Creek industrial to Northwest industrial. You probably saw that like 50 or a hundred times. So the, the only real substantive change that you might see in there is I tried to clean up the language expressing what was, you know, an administrative review, what's clear and objective what's waiver. Just tried to make the language a little bit more readable and understandable. Hopefully I got that right. So then let's talk about the use table, which was also in that code change document. I'm not gonna go through all of them, but we've added direct to consumer e-commerce fulfillment uses. That in particular, where'd it go? Here we are, will be restricted in sub-districts. But these are, you know, e-commerce fulfillment, logistics. They're kind of a major industrial land use nowadays, driven by sort of the technology and changing spending habits of consumers, right? Amazon much. So to avoid displacing other industrial users, we're recommending certain maximum building sizes. to be more conducive with the industrial area that we're trying to create. Excuse me. And it would be big enough to support a regional hub. So that's something to consider. Usually you're talking about a 10-acre property-ish, roughly. Another addition... is data centers, which have obviously become a pretty hot topic nationally. Data centers are obviously big users of infrastructure, power, water, And so they do have a typically low employment density, which is not exactly what we're trying to achieve here. So with that in mind, in order to prevent large data centers from trying to use these spaces, we are recommending a maximum building size of 25,000 square feet. Just as a comparison, the Siemens property here in Wilsonville has an existing data center that's roughly 20,000 square feet. So just, you may not even know that, right? It's just over there in the office park. And then residential hospitals, yeah, the residential hospital, there it is. So this would be allowed in all sub-districts and this would really be getting at addressing our city's shortage of land that's large enough for large scale medical uses. And these types of facilities tend to generate higher wage jobs. And unlike clinics or commercial uses, these are typically, they would be managed so that they aren't similar to like retail or office uses. We're talking about typically stays at a hospital, like stay facilities. And then we did remove a few things from the change use table, or we are proposing to remove a few things from the use table. Again, I'm not gonna get too deep into all of these. Commercial recreation, I'm showing a baseball facility on the screen there. All of these uses, self-storage facilities, contractor establishments are typically very low employment but take up a significant space. And many of the commercial recreation need to be taller, two or more stories tall to accommodate the use. And then the contractor establishments I was gonna bring up earlier. I'm sure you're familiar, you've probably seen them if you don't know what they actually are. They're typically a space where contractors are storing their needed goods, signage, bollards, cones, et cetera, tractors, trailers. Again, very usually low employment. At this time, Washington County is going through a process to sort of reestablish, or let me rephrase that, to try to establish some code and some restrictions around contractor establishments. So at this time, we are removing or we are proposing to remove contractor establishments from our use table in order to wait for the county to finish their work and see where they land. And then we will come in after that and kind of take that from there. We want to see where the county goes with the process they go through first. And one of my last slides actually tonight. So as I mentioned, we will be having a third work session We'll be bringing you the full final draft of the master plan itself. In that, you'll be able to review the technical infrastructure work for stormwater done by Brown and Caldwell. And then WSC, another consulting firm, has done our sewer and water analysis. So those will be a part of that package. And that will be on August 12th. And then lastly, these are just prompts. This whole evening is meant to encourage discussion, ask questions. You don't have to answer these questions. These are just things to kind of start the conversation. So certainly feel free to ask whatever comes to mind. Give us direction. If I don't know the answer, if Director Bateshall doesn't know the answer, we'll certainly get it for you, find it and get it for you. So with that, we'll just open it up to discussion.

Thank you. MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION, ANY QUESTIONS, EITHER FROM THE PROMPT OR ANY OTHER GENERAL QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE FOR CITY STAFF? WHO WOULD LIKE TO GO FIRST? OKAY. JEFF? YOU GUYS. JEFF, YOU'RE ON.

THERE IT IS.

ALL RIGHT. Thank you for the presentation.

I think the recommendations that I see in here are great.

I don't really have any objections. And just to clarify, when we talk about those recommended building sizes or maximum building sizes, those are for those specific uses. Correct. So we're not limiting distribution warehouse to 20,000 or 25,000 square foot.

Correct, yeah. Just on those specific uses that we want to make sure don't. sort of take over. I'm sure you've seen the data center discussions going all over the place, and we want to avoid that.

Yeah. Thank you. I have some other questions, but I'm not as eager to jump in. Andrew.

I think, thank you for the presentation. Sure. I appreciate that. So the removal of the contract . Yes.

Correct, yeah, correct. Now I guess the impact might be if someone came in to do some type of development or change on that property, it might have that impact. But at this time, no, we're really just trying to hold tight until the county finishes their process.

At what time is it appropriate to talk about what the city can do or would like to do go somewhere else. That's not a nice way to say it, but.

That was well danced, well done. You know, I think that Director Basile and I have had a couple conversations about this, and I think what we're thinking, and correct me if I'm remembering this wrong, is that as the county goes through, we would then come back and open up some conversations about that with Planning Commission. I think Council, we might get direction from Council first?

Uh, yeah. Uh, so commissioner Carr, a great question. We do still have it in the economic development strategy, if you'll recall, in terms of how do we, um, what strategies can we put in place actions we can take as a city to try to see that land develop into more, um, industrial uses in line with the city's vision. Uh, so we still have those kind of economic development actions in place that we can pursue in the future. What we learned is that in the county's long-range planning effort, they are finally moving forward with an assessment of their code around contractors' establishments, particularly in the area zoned FD20. So they have restrictions for contractors' establishments in some of their other zones, but not in the FD20, which is the future development holding zone for areas brought into the UGB. So it should be holding zone type of established use and right now contractors establishments are allowed in that area but they're expanding frequently and as they've recently discovered a lot of them unpermitted. So they have provided a presentation to their planning commission that they've shared with us that was very interesting and had interesting results and it sounds like the hope is through that project they might actually be proposing code amendments at the county level So at this time, we just felt that it prudent to, we're engaged with them, we're working collaboratively with them, we're hoping they'll share this information with our council at some point when it's relevant, and that based on the outcome of that might help determine if we would want to do anything from our code perspective. The way our code operates right now, as you'll know, is that it's really going to, if somebody wants to come in to the city of Wilsonville, annex and develop, it's just gonna push them towards industrial development. And our code, I would say, doesn't outright preclude contractors' establishments. We have some uses in our city limits that would, if you look at how they're actually using their site and operating, they're very similar to a contractor's establishment. But that's not necessarily what they're called. They're a business that's operating in the city. And they're upheld to the same design standards and use standards that any other industrial development in our city would be. And so at this time, because the planning commission and city council were both really struggling with this of like, do we allow it at some level in order to help them come in? But, and what we kind of learned from the economic, um, study that was done is like, that's probably not really going to happen anyway, because why would they come in and pay city taxes to operate the same as they are or have additional standards if they want to continue just as the use that they are. So, um, we didn't see that it was really creating the incentive that we thought it might to help these areas transition over time. So we kind of want to see how the work effort unfolds with the county before we propose that. But there could be outcomes of that effort that would result in additional modifications in a year or a year and a half from now based on that project.

So the current contractor establishments will stay under this FD20 contract? unless there's some other type of development that then would push us and push them into our development code.

Right. And if they needed for some reason to connect to a municipal service, then that would also push them to annexation.

Got it. My next one's going to be a big one because I tried to wrap my head around it and I don't know that I was successful. But this connectivity and access standards, trying to figure out what's an A, what's a B, what's a C, and what's a D. I was trying to picture in my head all the different classifications of streets. And I guess I wasn't very good about seeing it on paper and understanding it. And I didn't have any actual pictures to look at. So is there a way you can explain that? the differences between the typical, or between the- Yeah, and if you have examples in the city where you could show us what a current connecting street is and an adjacent street.

I don't have any visual references for that.

I, if, Do you have the packet in front of you? I'm thinking that in the, a lot of this is depicted within the regulating plan and the NWI standards in terms of specifications for supporting streets and through connections. If we're thinking about Coffee Creek and the developments that we've seen there, Um, garden acres is obviously an addressing, well, I shouldn't say obviously, uh, garden acres is an addressing street, um, for the developments that, um, are along garden acres. And then for example, the black Creek development, which is if you're on garden acres and it's on the west side, kind of the furthest north, if you've been out on garden acres recently, they have constructed a supporting street. Um, so I believe they actually have a supporting street, both on the north and south sides of their property. Okay. So the only area where we have them delineated in this way of like addressing streets versus supporting streets is in Coffee Creek because it's a form-based code. So it's basically saying on an addressing street, that's where like the highest level of design should be. We want the highest design standard to be on the addressing street where people are going to be really seeing it. and allowing not the same kind of level of articulation or, or where parking is, et cetera, on things like supporting streets.

That would be like the front of the building.

Right. Yeah. And so, um, the different, so it's slightly different in the sense that throughout the city, we don't necessarily have the distinction between an addressing street and a supporting street. But we would see the same relationship in some ways throughout the city. It's just the code is slightly different. But the connectivity standards in terms of if you're talking about the connectivity in terms of spacing standards, those are pretty standard across the city. So if that's the question that you have and would like more information on, we can have engineering bring more information back to you at your next meeting. But in terms of our connectivity standards and the spacing that we have for like arterials versus collectors versus local streets are fairly similar throughout the city. Unless you're in a special area, like for example, town center where your connectivity standards are higher because you're wanting smaller blocks for a highly pedestrian oriented area.

Right. So do these standards allow for larger blocks because this is an industrial area compared to like town center and,

Compared to Town Center, yes, and even maybe some of our residential areas, it is similar to our standards like on 95th. So when we went through the form-based code process and established these standards of connectivity, we were trying to mimic off of development along 95th. That was the desired development pattern. And as we went through the reevaluation of these standards a couple years ago, we had that conversation. There was that support from Planning Commission and City Council. along the same lines of wanting to support that same type of employment development.

Right.

Commissioner, I'd be happy to put together some visuals to bring back in August if you want, just some brief shots of what we're kind of talking about, give you that. Okay, no problem.

Let's see, pattern book, I think that one's pretty straightforward. I think I also came to the same conclusion about the, um, driveway widths. Um, since this, since we're looking for this to be in, well, we've got craft industrial, right? Where 24 foot driveway probably makes sense. Right. But as we're looking to the what high tech is high tech going to be, are we expecting trucks in high tech or are we expecting, I mean, where are we going to expect semi-trucks to be? Because that's where 40-foot driveways make sense.

Yeah, I mean, I think you would want to plan to expect it in all throughout.

Okay. So then what is the 24-foot driveway going to give us?

A smaller access point. You know, you're... I think the original, and correct me if I'm wrong, Director, but I think the original intent was for the more industrial use to be the 40 foot off the supporting street and the cars and employees would be through the 24 foot access on the front side.

So the 40 foot's on the supporting and the 24 foot's on the Primary, I'm not coming up with the right one. Yeah. So that's assuming then parking's in front of the building? Correct.

All the trucks in the back of the building?

Mm-hmm.

And is that conducive to a distribution center?

Well, I don't think I'm qualified to answer that. I don't know. I think one of the things to keep in mind is the pattern book in those tracks, although it adds a layer of complexity to your application for land use, there is an avenue to get those changed through the DRB through track two. So I think you need to come forward with a, an applicant would need to come forward with a reasoning behind that but there is an avenue to get there, a pathway.

So Commissioner Carr, if it would be helpful, this was a discussion point that we had two years ago when we revisited the Basalt Creek, or excuse me, Coffee Creek form-based code or design overlay district, right? So we have a lot of what you see in front of you through this NWI is actually coming from the current Coffee Creek Design Overlay District. And so the main question we had during Basalt Creek Master Planning was, do we want to extend the Coffee Creek Design Overlay into Basalt Creek? And the direction we got and feedback we got from Planning Commission and City Council was resoundingly yes. So we've essentially now, we're just calling it the Northwest Industrial Area because it'll be covering both areas. Most of these standards have not been changed. The only standards we've really been changing has been to integrate this use table so that we can make some distinctions between the sub-districts of high-tech, craft industrial, light industrial, and West Railroad, and then maintaining the uses for Coffee Creek, which is a regionally significant industrial area brought in by Metro Title IV as opposed to just an industrial area brought in by Title IV. So the sub-districts essentially maintain kind of all those use standards with only the additions we've talked about with you. And that's being integrated into the NWI as well. So it's like we're combining kind of parts of code in order to make sure that the design overlay applies to both Coffee Creek and the Salt Creek and maintains use zoning correctly. And then you'll recall that when we adopted the design overlay district, we had a, I think it was five year or four applications or five or five, whichever came first. And so a few years ago, we began the process of assessing the Coffee Creek design overlay district to see how it was going. And we solicited input from all of the applicants who had gone through the process. And because nobody had utilized or been able to utilize the track one, we did discuss a number of potential changes in order to make it more track one more viable. And so we did discuss this access significantly and we modified the truck access to an outright 40. The difference is that that truck access is by the code designed to take place off of a supporting street as opposed to an addressing street, which I believe is what the citizen input we've heard would be a request for. There wasn't support from Planning and Commission or City Council to change that primary one because that primary one is on the addressing street where you would see more of your multimodal traffic and connectivity. We would be happy to bring back summaries from the Planning Commission City Council if you want it, but I just wanted to remind you that that conversation did take place a couple years ago and we did make a change in terms of the 40 foot being the base from the supporting street to support that vehicular rather than requiring that to ask for a waiver because that previously was a waiver request.

Okay. the stepping of the retaining wall. It's, remind me of what it is, something every five feet.

Yeah, so the existing code is five foot step back for every 48 inches, and we're proposing to raise that to 60 inches and a five foot step back. So I'm giving a little bit more.

And what's the, What will the, it's hard to say in that topography, right? What are we thinking a typical wall height is gonna be in some of these areas? Are they gonna be 30 feet? So you're limited with how much?

This isn't the time for the public to provide comment.

So Commissioner Carr, I can note that there is, if you want to drive down Day Road, Delta Logistics had a decent retaining wall that had to be put in place because of the topography on their site and the need to level it to allow for a substantially sized industrial building. It needed to be taller than the standard. So they also, as part of that, utilized that five foot step back. So that would be a real world example where you'd be able to take a look at that. from our, like when you're in the, one of the interesting things about this area is that there are topography issues, but it really changes site to site. So you might actually have some sites that are flat close to Day Road where you're not going to need one. And then you have other sites that have some topography, especially if they're adjacent to the Basalt Creek wetland. And so in those, you could see a 20 foot So part of the question around the design historically has been that you want to have some offsets so you don't just have a 20-foot linear wall. And the standards vary versus whether you can see them from the primary addressing street or not.

So in the back, it's... Yeah, okay, that makes sense. So if it's in the back of the property. Right. Talked about that before.

Can I ask another question on that topic while we're on it? Sure. I guess maybe I had a different interpretation of what offset meant when I was reading through the original packet. But looking at the... Like I've been past the day road development you're talking about and seen their rotating wall. Does offset mean like an angle that it's built at, a leaner, or is it pushed back away from whatever is adjacent to it?

So, sorry. It means that there's a horizontal offset. So if you need to go, like let's say you need a 10-foot wall, retaining wall, then at five feet you would have a horizontal offset.

Just stair steps.

so that it would stair-step, so that it wouldn't just be kind of a sheer wall, but you'd have this stair-step effect. The one at Delta, I will have to say they went through the waiver process, so it is possible that their retaining wall doesn't follow the code precisely. So it's a good example of seeing what a retaining wall could look like in the area. Um, but I'd have to go back and look at what their waiver request was for and whether the design follows the code or whether, cause I know they got a waiver for their wall. So it's possible that the design varies, which is a good example of how this process works, right? It's like, we know what design we want and what the city planning commission and council is comfortable with us allowing outright. And then if development needs to vary from that, what the waiver process would look like. So. we can look up that waiver language and send a link to you because it would be, I believe, still on our projects page.

Okay, thank you. And where does that five foot offset come from? Is that just industry standard?

I would honestly have to go back and look at the record for the form-based code adoption to see what the rationale was at that point in time and or whether that was a code provision that predated the the form-based code. We did use during that project, a task force and a consultant team. So like when that was originally adopted, there were industries at the table, but you know, as we've also talked about in this room, industry standards change. So, but I would have to look at the specific, I know the intent is about not having that does, you know, a sheer wall design. Yeah, exactly. Visible from the primary street frontage. But I'd have to look at the record to determine if that was pure preference or a combination of preference by the city and... That would be interesting to know where it came from.

Let's see. In regards to parking spaces. So we're expecting trucks in the back. Well, so we've got craft industrial, probably smaller trucks, fewer parking spaces. But when we get to the bigger buildings, Expecting trucks in the back, probably separated with a fence, cars in the front. And we're expecting employees to park in this front, or are they parking on a side?

Yeah, there's limited available parking out front. It's meant more for customers incoming and going.

Okay, so then the employees would be parked not on the front street, but on a Connecting street?

Side or rear of the property.

Well, if we're putting the trucks in the rear, we don't want the employees in the rear. I got to think more about that one. I talked about that already. I think that's all I got.

Okay, thank you. Rob. Thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, you know me, I have a list of questions. First, thank you for the people who came out and testified. Appreciate the clarification on some issues that it might pose. That did kind of raise a question for me, like what type of outreach have we had with the current property owners over these proposed changes?

So over the proposed changes specifically, let's see.

I mean, even over the entire rezoning of the area. I'm sorry, I missed the first part of that. Oh, well, not just the proposed changes that we're talking about tonight, but like the entire rezoning of the area.

Yeah, well, through the multi-year process, we've had advisory committees, outreach to property owners. What am I looking for here? We have even more recently sent letters to all property owners in the area. Economic Development Manager has gone on site to meet with some of them to discuss some of those changes, the two that actually responded. So there's been technical advisory committees, as Director Bateshell pointed out. So there's been a fairly extensive outreach throughout the project. On specific code changes, we have not gone door to door and expressed what they are.

Commissioner Kandry, and the only other thing I would add is that on the number of the code edits or code elements within the Coffee Creek Design Overlay District, that when Ms. Lexoy was managing that project, she did developer interviews both with all the applicants who had gone through the development review process for the projects that they developed in Coffee Creek as well as some additional developers. uh, industrial developers. So I just wanted to make sure that was known that, um, a number of the code standards you're seeing, which are just being pulled from that, that, that research was also done a couple of years ago.

And that was presented to the planning commission at that time. Correct.

And the city council was this pre or post COVID post.

Okay.

Um, and then similarly, like, have we had outreach to potential, um, developers of the property? on these changes? I mean, obviously that's hard, right? Yeah, I don't know who is that. Who are those potential developers? You also have to have someone who wants to sell you the land. I guess because just one of my concerns is that some of the things that we specifically address while popular now may not be popular 10, 20 years from now. And if we lock ourselves into having to revisit what that code looks like, I don't want to have a plan that is good for today, but not for the future. And so that's just kind of one thing, you know, taking into consideration some of the things that the public has addressed, but even just looking at the plan in general. So we have the different designations for the various usage. How did we go about deciding like the demand that would meet those different designators?

Are you referring to like the craft industrial and the high tech and those kinds of things? You know, I actually wasn't here for that. I'm sorry to keep punting over to you, Miranda, but... Do you know how we kind of landed on high tech and craft? That's a dangerous question.

Yes, that was during the Basalt Creek concept plan. And so that was a discussion with the planning commission, city council. It was also part of a joint council effort with the city of Tualatin and their city council. But really it was about the Wilsonville City Council and then input from the Planning Commission around what type of employment do we want to see in the Basalt Creek area that will help to generate significant jobs. Knowing that this will be one of our last areas of industrial employment growth for the city is like we want to be able to make sure we are creating a lot of jobs and decent wages for those jobs as much as possible. And so thinking about what are the types of employment uses that we really want to incentivize or codify for, I will say that the code is, we could be, what came out of like the EOA and the EDS, which I think is in line with both what the economic development manager and planning staff would also recommend is to not overly codify those uses. but to be more thinking about, there might be certain uses that you want to be a conditional use in one of those sub-districts, because you'd rather see it in, say, light industrial than in your high-tech, because you are hoping to get the high-tech on the very prominent flat land next to I-5. And so, where do you create maybe more flexibility to get what you want where you want it, versus being overly restrictive? Just kind of giving the background, I think we talked a little bit too here on the craft industrial. Really the reason for the craft industrial is because those properties specifically in that area are highly constrained by natural resources. And so the development area is fairly small. And so most of our industrial land in Wilsonville, we've had the luxury of Greenfield and large lots. So this was a way of creating maybe a more creative industrial district or allowing additional industrial types or uses in an industrial area than we typically would in order to help encourage something that might look different and work with that land.

I think that's a good explanation. I think that kind of highlighted a little bit my concern of the zones being so specific. I mean, I know we had Pearl Bakery, which was kind of over in the industrial area, which would kind of be considered like a craft bakery. They were also distributing. But I think they only stayed in business there for like a year or two, even though it was my favorite bakery. And I'm just sad that they're not there because they had to really get sourdough. So now I've had to learn to bake my own. But like those craft type things, while I think most people would love to have those, that's a tough economic environment, right? Like those types of businesses have a hard time thriving even in Portland where you have a larger customer base. And so I just wonder if we're so specific, if we're almost kind of dooming part of the area to be perpetually vacant because someone tries and while like, you know, their craft kombucha was like a great idea. It just like doesn't, you know, pull in because of where we are and those types of things.

But that's also going to be closest to the Toowalla and the housing developments that are going on just north of that. And then part of that discussion that we had, and Miranda said it, it's highly constrained because half of the property is almost not developable. Right. because of its proximity to the creek bed. And then, of course, we did the high-tech closest to the freeway, because that's also close to houses, and we don't want to put heavy industrial right next to a house. And so it's kind of why the craft industrial section is also heavily residential now. So... the likelihood to be developed is probably in the, probably that 15 to 20 year range, unless somebody wants to buy it, buy a house.

I mean, I guess that's kind of where I go back to like, are we planning for today or the future too, right? Because like 20 years from now is like maybe craft is still, but that kind of ebbs and flows, right? Yes. Um, so that's just kind of, you know, are we making it a little bit too restrictive? Um, The typical, what is, so based on the public testimony, they noted that a lot of the projects that have gone in in the vicinity have required waivers as opposed to just being approved. What is the typical waiver cost of project? I mean, because having been on DRB, like most of the waivers that came before us were approved. So it didn't seem like there was a super high hurdle to overcome to get a waiver. But is there, and I probably should know, but I don't, is there like a fee to apply for a waiver? Is the fee contingent upon the size of the project? I know a few extra things go in, like usually there was a traffic study, those types of things, but do we have a ballpark on what it costs for somebody to ask for a waiver to change up the configuration of a potential development property?

Commissioner Candrian, thank you for asking the question at that full length that you did, because it gave me time to pull up the planning fee schedule. No, it was perfect. Thank you. So per waiver is $737. So we've had, I think, one of the projects went through with just a single waiver request. I can remember one that went with around five waiver requests, which would be about $3,500. So it's per waiver.

It's per waiver. So it's not just project. You're like, hey, I have 12 waivers. Here's my $700. It's 12 times 7. I should have said 10.

I think the most that we've seen requested is 5 or 6. So it doesn't tend to turn into something that's astronomical. We have not experienced that yet. And then as I mentioned before, those projects that as a result of doing those projects, there was the revisit to the code. And so I know that for example, one of the things that we've changed that got changed during that process would have removed one waiver request from every single one of those projects. So just to kind of give you some context there, I didn't go through and itemize all of them to see if they would reduce more, Um, that we definitely reduced the need for waivers, probably not as much as some developers might want. Um, but we were balancing, um, that with then the desired development patterns from the planning commission and city council.

Thank you. Can I ask another clarifying building on that? So that's the cost that the city imposes for a waiver, but is there, do we have an estimate of like what the, what costs the developers incur on their end to go through that process? And is it, is it material enough to, to dissuade developers from building in the city? Like, do we know how much it costs outside of what the city is charging them?

We do not. I think that would really depend on each development, the time it's developed, what waivers they're requesting, what the materials and services are at that time, and that can change astronomically as we've seen over the last few years. So we don't have that information that hasn't been presented to us. I would say the fact that we have had five approved developments, if I'm doing that right, four, five? Um, that in the coffee Creek area, I would say that, um, it's not cost prohibitive to do development in the city. It might be to certain developers. Um, I bet we don't have that information and that information is too difficult for us to track.

Okay. Thank you. Um, okay. So separately, um, I think when we talked about this last, um, I had had a question about like whether there was going to be housing there or why not. And there wasn't. and now that's changed where there could be housing in the craft zone. What was the basis behind that change, if you can elaborate?

I think that's been in the craft zone as long as I can remember anyway, since I've been here. If I recall, weren't you asking about a specific property? I'm trying to remember.

Well, I was just asking if there was going to be residential.

Yeah, I mean, it's in there as a component, but I don't...

And how do we specify that right because I could see that being something that could theoretically take on a life of its own if it's like well now it's craft residential, but like one floor is like Low-income housing and then now we have other tax credits and then like it just could spin out of control into like how would we define what works as housing in a craft zone and

And I think Miranda will have a lot more background to this, but I would say we're really talking about maker spaces where you can live on site versus building apartment buildings. But if you want to.

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Kandrean. If you look at the definitions, that's really where it's going to determine what type of residential will be allowed in the area. So we're not allowing residential as the only use on a property by right, unless there's a statutory requirement that would supersede that. But In terms of residential here, it would have to be accessory to the business or in partnership with the business. So we have the BIDU as well as the live work. And those would be the two types of residential.

Yeah, and so I guess like then my follow-up question then, right, is with the state housing laws saying that you can't say something is like single family, you could still in theory have, you know, above business maybe like a multi family type of housing so how would that be enforced if it has to be related to the business being run below is that something that like we could actually zone for or are we kind of stepping into an area where because it becomes housing then all bets are kind of off based upon state housing laws

Multifamily residential is different than middle housing and single family. And so it really is based on the residentially zoned component of a lot. So essentially if you have a lot that's single family residentially zoned, you have to allow all middle housing on it. But you don't have to allow multifamily. Industrial is different. It's industrially zoned. So you don't have to require all these other residential housing types on it. And so we're just specifically saying that essentially IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE EMPLOYMENT USE, YOU COULD HAVE THESE TYPES OF RESIDENTIAL UNITS. IT APPLIES TO RESIDENTIALLY ZONED LOTS AND NOT INDUSTRIAL ZONED LOTS. THE EXCEPTION THAT I'M AWARE OF, WHICH YOUR SECOND PRESENTATION AND PRESENTERS MIGHT HAVE BETTER CLARITY BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT OVER THE LAST MONTH OR AT LEAST SIX MONTHS, IS THAT THERE IS THE ONE, I THINK IT'S SENATE BILL 8, BUT THERE IS A SENATE BILL THAT ALLOWS I believe it is for affordable housing. I don't think it's for all in industrially zoned properties that are publicly owned. So it's very narrow. And so I don't see the potential for state superseding law, at least at this time, creating a bigger residential demand in the Basalt Creek area or supply in the Basalt Creek area than the city has been planning for. it came online, I think part of your original question was when did this, when did we start talking about residential here? And it really was at the beginning in the sense that there is already these residential homes there. And actually some of them already are kind of live work. We've got a couple people out there who have their own businesses and so they're essentially doing live work. And so it felt like something that we could, that's a use that we could continue to support in that area. And it seemed, um, it seemed like a good kind of transitionary use between this residential area to the north and Tualatin and our industrial area. And again, because of the size of the lots, it would potentially make sense to allow those people if they want to continue to grow their business and actually develop like a storefront there, but still live on site that they could. And so that we wanted the council and the commission wanted that flexibility, especially to transition the area over time.

Okay. the inclusion of data centers. Why was that included now as a new potential use?

Well, oh, data centers. We just felt that it is a need, it is something that's coming up, but if we limit the size, we already have one in the city operating that most people don't even know exists, and then it would be a reasonable use of that space.

but I think the one that's currently operating is secondary, right?

It is correct.

So I know, um, I noticed, you know, we had listed out, I think a couple of areas could use it as secondary, but a couple could use it as like the primary.

Correct.

Um, so I, um, despite working for a company that contributes to products that are in data centers like chips, um, I think that one we may want to, to revisit, especially in light of the fact that there's a lot of discussion about how many of those will be also needed in the future. But especially the energy consumption, as you mentioned, they employ relatively few people. And so if employment is, I mean, if we're saying we're taking out recreational use because a training center for sports doesn't employ enough people, but we're putting in a data center I know which one I would rather have, and I'm guessing most people in the area would probably rather see recreational use kept in and data center taken out versus the opposite. So I would think that we, at a minimum, the data center piece should be secondary to whatever goes there and not primary, in my opinion, just based upon what we're trying to maximize as far as value out of the area. Also being like good environmental stewards of things. I mean, you know, it's, I think, pretty well known that that raises energy costs for everyone. And when we've just had, you know, cost increase for water, sewer, those types of things to kind of sell people even if it's just theoretical on the potential that a data center would be there and then we would have more costs go up I think would be, I wouldn't want to be on the city council who voted for that so.

Okay. Chris you said that was an addition to the chart to the use table but Weren't those items discussed previously in the residential hospital we talked about too?

Yeah, I think they've all been talked about, but they are additions at this time, just over time.

They've all been talked about, but what has happened is that we have made additional changes to reflect the conversations of Planning Commission and City Council. For example, to Commissioner Candrian's point, originally it was the restrictions that we've included now were not in there. So we actually further restricted it to secondary use for those two kind of higher use areas and then size. I think originally there wasn't a size cap on the other areas. So those are places we would like your final input on. So if there's further input, which I heard from Commissioner Candrian, if other commissioners have further input on those and want to restrict them even further, that's what this discussion is for tonight. So you have discussed them before. Those are bolded and underlined because they're edits that we've made since then. And we just wanted to, Chris was calling your attention to the specific uses that we've further refined to see if we got them right or if you'd like to provide further input.

And then just one last part on that. If it is secondary, I didn't see a definition on what secondary entailed. I've been at a separate small business where we had our server on site, which theoretically someone could say is a data center, right? Because we're taking in all the data from the business. It was very small. It was like the two computers. But in theory, someone could argue, oh, well, that's a data center because you're storing all this collective data. And I didn't see it in there, and I apologize if I missed it, but it's secondary. spelled out as to what that would mean as far as a data center being a secondary usage of the location, because I wouldn't want to restrict a business who houses their network infrastructure someplace, but I also wouldn't want secondary to be like, hey, we're selling open AI t-shirts at the front desk, and oh, we just happen to have a data center here as well, right? So that's something I think if we go that route, I'd like to see clarified.

Okay. Thank you. And what was the, I'd also love clarification on like the rationale for why data centers are considered secondary in two of the sub districts, but not, we don't have that secondary language for the other two. Was there a rationale for that?

I actually don't remember that discussion. Miranda, do you?

There was discussion. Sorry. The prior discussion, there actually wasn't as much discussion at Planning Commission City Council. There was a little bit in terms of the concern for large data centers. But I think we're actually probably discussing it more right now in light of current discussion. It's an important thing. We did talk a bit about the potential impact on utilities. And so we went back. and we provided square footage limitations. And then in the two kind of highest use areas in Coffee Creek Subdistrict, I believe, and the high tech, we felt it being a secondary use was a value to make sure that we were still getting the high employment use densities we want to see in those areas, being the RSIA area and the high tech. Um, so that was the main difference thinking about like light industrial and, um, west railroad, we thought maybe, um, just a size limitation would meet the input of the planning commission and city council. But again, if there's a desire for it to be secondary in all areas or to eliminate it from certain areas, that's also fine. This is, I mean, we're having this discussion. Part of this is that there are a lot, the last time that the industrial code was substantially updated outside of the design overlay, but from like a use standpoint, was quite a while ago. So we don't have things like data centers in our code and they're not defined. We don't have things like the, The Amazons, I can't think of the correct terminology. Distribution centers. Yeah. Where you have fulfillment happening in the same location, right? You can go pick up your stuff at an Amazon warehouse. Those things didn't exist 20 years ago. And so that's why you're seeing, for example, some of these uses added to the table. and some of the definitions being added is so that they're addressed in the code, so that somebody's not coming here and saying, well, you don't call out data centers and how data centers come in, and we meet all these other design standards for a building, so therefore our use, which supports industrial, is industrial. So part of the reason why you're explicit in the code about here's what we do allow for data centers is to draw that line between what is allowed and what isn't allowed, and it makes it more crystal clear for an applicant coming in. So that's part of the desire to put it here. So it could be that you all decide that it should say prohibited across the table or secondary use across the table. We're still open to that discussion, but I think there would be a recommendation from staff that it's added to the use table so that we're clear about whether we allow it or whether we don't and how we would allow it.

And Commissioner Candy, I'm happy to kind of suss out that secondary use, come back with something that might be a little more usable and go from there.

Yeah, I mean, that would be my recommendation right now is, like, I would want to have a definition of what secondary is. I think preference would probably just be not to have them. But I also want to make sure that, like I said, if there's a company... like there could be different arguments over what a data center actually is. So I would want that to be clarified so that we're not restricting a tech company from being there, but we're also not allowing for something that would potentially be a drain on our grid and not really provide the employment opportunities that we're looking to develop in the area.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, those are good comments. I'm happy to go back and do some more research and bring something back in August.

So would you want the secondary use on all? Four areas then?

Well, I guess it would just depend on what we're defining as secondary. But I wouldn't want just a data, I mean, my personal opinion, but I wouldn't want just a data center use in any of the locations as a standalone data center. I haven't really, I think there's other jurisdictions that can fight that battle. And just based upon the fact that it doesn't employ a lot of people. Correct. And it takes a lot of resources, right? So if we're trying to maximize employment, then- Data centers don't make sense. No. I'd rather say, well, let's bring recreation back then, right? Like, so we could at least allow that flexibility. Since, you know, employment-wise, it might be similar. The community is going to get more use out of a recreation center, in theory, than the data center.

And I know we keep providing this ongoing discussion, and it's kind of an iterative process, but it is allowing us to think about it. And I, too, would support looking at options to further limit.

Okay.

I think those comments were well received, so it would be great.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'll go back and bring something when I come back in August, and yet another reason why spreading doubt is benefiting us, right? I mean, these are hard pivots to make in a day, so this gives me a month, well, less than a month, but time to go figure that out. So yeah, I will bring something back in August, and we can go over this part of the conversation again. Thank you.

Okay, any other comments from the commissioners?

Maybe something to ask for some time in August for us to focus on is could we revisit what the intent is behind the street design? I know last time we met we were speaking a little bit about bike paths and pedestrian paths on heavily trafficked car and truck routes, like Day Road, for example. And I'd love to dive deeper into that in our August session to understand why do we need a park-like avenue along an industrial area? Why do we want that? What benefit does it provide to the city, to the industrial areas? I'd like to understand a little bit more about where we're coming from with that. And maybe also reflecting on looking at the areas of the city that have followed that playbook so far, how has it played out? It's a lot of infrastructure to build, it's a lot of concrete to pour for maybe not a lot of use. And as much as I'm an advocate for multimodal transportation, I'm a pretty fierce advocate for that, I'd like to at least understand why we would require that for an area that's meant to be very industrial.

Excellent. Yeah. Happy to do that. And in August, we'll actually have a slew of our consultants here. It's going to be kind of a big party. So we'll have our transportation consulting firm here as well. So that'll fit nicely. So happy to do that.

And then if I just make like one more brief suggestion, I don't, it seemed like there was more material prepared than the public was able to present tonight. So I don't know if, If you guys have met with them previously and this was kind of an outreach from that was the suggestion to come speak before the council or if this was like a first interaction. But if there's additional kind of comments from some of the land owners that might be useful for the city to kind of bring together. Um, you know, cause I kind of went to, I think questions that everyone had up here about what a final plan might look like if, um, maybe having some of those conversations prior since, you know, obviously with the three minute time limit, which, um, I'm, you know, happy that is enforced, but it also limits the amount of time to people for people to elaborate on, on some of these larger issues. Right.

Right. Right. Understood. Yeah. And, and, um, We also will have Matt Lorenzen, our economic development manager here in August who has actually been out having discussions with landowners. So maybe he can give us a decent summary of some of the conversations he's had and he'll be here to discuss that as well. And we're always happy to meet with property owners and developers and have those discussions. We have a pretty open door policy.

Do you want to cover a little bit about the discussions we have had with some of the folks that have testified here tonight?

Yeah, sure. I want to say one or two. I'm sorry, I'm racking my brain. We've had two. We have met with Ryan and some of his group from the Schnitzer Properties team a couple of times discussing their desires for the changes in code, much in line with what you heard tonight. I think they've been pretty consistent on their desires and what they would like, and we've met, we've discussed, we asked them to send us some more detailed information, kind of a summary of what are you actually asking for, and Ryan did that. to, I think it might have been Commissioner Zundel's point, it did cost them money to have a firm do that, so we certainly recognize that. And yeah, I think we are doing our best to thread that needle between the needs of all developers and what the community has asked us to do and the council has asked us to do. over the 12 to 14 years that some of this has been going on, you know, council and planning commission have been pretty clear about the desire and what they would like and we're following that pathway. I certainly can understand both sides of the coin and yeah, so I think I covered most of that.

Okay, seeing more, no more comments. Chris, thank you, well done. Appreciate it guys, thank you. That concludes this work session and we still have one more to go. I think Kim is anxious to get up here. So next on the agenda is a work session for the housing statutory compliance part two. Take two, this is a work session for the Planning Commission to gain additional understanding of and provide guidance on ongoing legislative projects prior to a public hearing. At this time, I'd like to call city staff to present information they have prepared for the work session. Thank you.

Give me just one moment here to pull up my slideshow. Okay. Good evening, I'm Kim Reibold, Senior Planner, and with me tonight is Heather Austin with 3J Consulting. We are here for part two of the Housing Statutory Compliance. It feels like we were just here wrapping up part one. That is now in effect as of July 1st. So we've been working feverishly to get all of our internal processes updated to adapt to that new land use review process that we adopted. So as we've discussed with you previously, this is a two-part project based on some statutory requirements that have come down mostly in the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions. But as you will learn more tonight, we are incorporating some other statutory requirements that have come about in the past several years. that have been minor and we just have not had a good chance to get to them. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Heather to give a little bit of background on what we will be looking at in this part of the project.

Thank you, Kim. Good evening to the commission. Tonight, as we have all alluded to, this is part two of our two-part project on statutory compliance code updates. Tonight, we'd like to introduce you to what we are proposing for part two, as well as in the packet that was submitted for tonight's meeting, You have a matrix that shows what the potential code updates might be in addition to a specific column that identifies for each row which piece of legislation it relates to or if it's a code cleanup or best practice type change that's being proposed. Tonight we're also interested in gathering your input on how we engage decision makers and the public for this round of proposed code updates. Next slide, please. The primary focus of this part of the project, as Kim said, is to focus on the provisions of House Bill 2138. But the city has done a really good job of maintaining a list of other legislative actions that have occurred over the past few years. So we've tried to gather those up in this amendment process as well to make sure that the city's code is fully compliant with all state legislation that's been passed. So like we said in the previous slide to support this primary focus to update the code, we'd also like to engage decision makers specifically in the public on tree removal and preservation standards as they relate to residential development. There's gonna be more in this presentation later specifically about that topic.

Next slide please.

So where are we in this project schedule? Phase two kicked off, sort of had a soft start in the spring, early summer with us doing the code assessment, that matrix of which items of the code we may need to update. We did get that published here in June, July, and are having planning commission and city council work sessions this month to introduce that information. In the fall, late summer and fall, we're planning to kick off some project outreach, again, probably specific to those tree standards. We'll draft the development code amendments given the feedback that we receive from planning commission, city council, and any kind of engagement we do. And then we'll look to have work sessions again with both planning commission and city council before we draft those final code amendments. And then we're shooting for late 2026 to early 2027 for our public hearing processes to adopt this. HB 2138, most of it is effective January 1st of 2027. You'll note that our timeframe extends a little bit beyond that. So that's also true of some of the other legislative actions that we're introducing this evening that maybe are already in effect or have effective date before this project will be complete. So to that end, staff will implement those pieces of legislation directly until which time the development code is up to date. Next slide, please. So the primary focus is HB 2138 and the primary piece of that is the tree code update that'll be needed to establish clear and objective standards for tree preservation and removal in regards to residential development. The city has a robust tree preservation program that they've been implementing in the code now for years. So this will be definitely a change to how the city processes tree removal review specifically for residential development. The plan is to keep the current process in place for anything that's not a residential development. In addition, 2138 streamlines the land division process for middle housing. Again, the city has this in the code already. You're up to date with prior middle housing land division requirements, but there's a few kind of small revisions to how those are processed and what rules apply to Middle Housing Land Division. That image there on the bottom right of the screen is from City of Lake Oswego, where they have a descriptor of dividing an attached triplex, which here would be a permitted use on all residential property, into three individual lots. So that, again, is something you can do already in the City of Wilsonville, just the rules will change a little bit with how those are processed. and what rules apply to those. And then in addition, there's some other housing that's regulated through 2138, such as single room occupancy development. Next slide, please. So 2130, it's the primary focus of part two, but as we said, there was a slew of legislation that the city was keeping track of that we need to also look to updating. Those pieces of legislation include affordable housing provisions. So this is such as allowing an additional unit or two units with a middle housing development if that middle housing includes affordable or accessible units. There's also some state law about how affordable housing developments can occur that we've noted in the matrix as potentially being best to apply state law directly. There's some really deep nuance that would be really hard to capture in a local development code as we got to looking at it and trying to figure that out. The definition of household is currently refers to the number of people in a familial unit or their familial status. So we need to look at that and try to remove those references to number of residents and familial status from the definition of household. We do need to update where in the city childcare homes, family childcare homes, childcare centers, residential treatment facilities, and residential treatment homes are permitted. Generally, those are permitted in residential zoning districts, although childcare centers are only permitted now in high density residential, as well as all of these are permitted in commercial zones as well. So we'll need to make that update. The city has reference to the condominium platting requirement. That's now been explicitly made into a state function without the city having the ability to review condominium platting. So we made some recommended adjustments to that language. The ability to convert a commercial building to a residential building is covered in the legislation. There's limits now to the amount of frontage improvements the city can require for small scale alterations and renovations to a project. that's in the table, it's pretty nuanced as well in how you determine what small scale is and what applies there, but that is also included and it's meant to support economic development and allow smaller developments It's a little similar to the modification standard that we adopted in the last code changes where we allowed a slightly larger modification to an existing commercial development. So I would say most of these changes relate to residential zoning or residential development. And this is like one of those small economic development pieces that's in there too. And then finally, currently the city allows 18 months for application on a destroyed or damaged residential project to be replaced or refurbished. And the state statute now says you can have up to three years to submit that permit, up to four years to begin that construction. I know that's a lot but it's also in your packet so hopefully there's plenty of that information and we'll definitely have time to answer your questions at the end. I'll hand it over to Kim.

Thank you. So I want to talk a little more specifically about tree preservation and protection as it relates to residential development. This is always a topic of high interest. The city established its current tree ordinance back in 1996. And since then, it has been used pretty extensively throughout the city, both when it comes to things like regulating tree removal in people's yards and or street trees, as well as how we look at tree retention and removal during the course of the development review process. And this is something I think the city for a long time has taken a lot of pride in. We've been a Tree City USA for many years. This is something that we hear a lot is a really high priority in the community and has been over the course of this ordinance being in place. What this slide shows here are some examples of how the city has used its tree protection and preservation ordinance in looking at residential development. It is inherently been kind of a site specific and nuanced approach that the city has taken. The code really looks at tree preservation as an equal design principle when looking at a development site. We should be considering tree preservation just as we are considering public facilities and pedestrian infrastructure and building design. The current code really elevates tree preservation equivalently to those other design principles. Notably, the tree code does not say you can't remove trees if they exist, but what it does is for every development directs applicants to consider reasonable and feasible design alternatives to just the simple removal of trees as the first priority. And so there is language in there that specifically talks about residential units and designing and constructing them. to blend into natural settings. And the pictures I have here on the screen I think are a few examples of how the city has done that really well since the tree ordinance has been in place. The top left image, that is a pre-construction image of Villebois. When some of damage was in the course of being removed, and you can see some of the initial streets going in there, that is a part of Costa Circle. If you see kind of what looks like it's running horizontally, that is the old 110th Street. And the trees that you see there, there's this patch of evergreens that you can kind of see here. These were preserved in an open space that still exists if you're over in that part of Villebois. Some of the other trees that you see were preserved as straight trees in the development. And the thought there was that, hey, we've got these assets, these trees that are here, let's work them into the development as we can to provide a sense of maturity to something that is new. That's not to say that every single tree in Villebois was preserved, but where it was feasible, they were incorporated into the design. The image you see below that, that is in Frog Pond West. That is a development application where back when I was a slightly younger planner here, I was reviewing it and was looking at a tree survey and it was proposed for removal, but it said, hey, I think it was like a 36 inch excellent condition Oregon white oak. And I was like, well, why haven't we tried to design around that? Is there something we can do? And so kind of posed the question back to the applicant. Hey, have you looked at what we can maybe do to see if there's an opportunity to preserve this tree? With employing some waivers and a little bit of creativity, we were able to work with the developer. And that is now an interesting median feature that you'll see in FrogCon West. The master plan also, that aerial image you can see, that's another example of how master planning takes into consideration existing tree groves and seeks to preserve them. With development, you can still see there's plenty of housing surrounding those trees, but those trees were preserved in an open space. And then lastly, the newly constructed boiler project, one of the goals the city council had was preserving a few of the more mature Douglas fir trees that were there. There were several other trees that were removed, but the developer was able to integrate those into the design. So one of the key things here is that part of what is required in the review of these applications is a tree survey where we get information on what are the trees, what is the condition of those trees, approximate size, things that really help us make the assessment of whether or not we should pursue preservation of a tree or not. I know there's examples when there's been really great, healthy, large trees that have been removed. because it's not feasible to retain them. So it's a little bit of a give and take that the city has used historically. But it has resulted in a fair amount of tree reservation. Notably, we do have a one for one mitigation standard. So when trees are removed, they either have to be mitigated on site or in some cases, if there's too many trees being removed and not enough room, there are tree fund payment options as well. I present all of that to you to really give you some perspective on the task in front of us, which is taking an approach to tree preservation and removal that is clear and objective. You've heard me talk many, many times about residential development needing to be clear and objective, and now trees are specifically written into that. The process I just described is inherently discretionary. It is based on fact, but there's a flexibility to it that a clear and objective process doesn't necessarily have. But that is where we have to go with residential development. One of the things I'll note is that as we've begun thinking about this, we recognize that that tree survey is an important tool. It's one that typically is provided to us by an applicant, prepared by an arborist if they're choosing. They range. They range in level of detail or quality as things often do with development applications. And so one of the things we've been thinking about is perhaps standardizing this process, utilizing something more consistent with our transportation studies, which is that the city has the tree survey prepared. a cost to the applicant to make sure that if we have to use a clear and objective standard and apply it consistently that we are doing so with a consistent baseline of information. So I mention that to you because as we start thinking about these other considerations, that is an approach that staff has really thought about. to ensure that we're operating with the information we need to to make these clear and objective decisions. And so what really becomes important then for us to start thinking about as we rewrite this part of the code is what What is it that we want to see with development? What are these important considerations? So things that come to mind, at least to me, are things like tree species, potentially. You know, there's a variety of species that grow or might be present on a site. Some of those are native, some of those might not be, and so there could be some prioritization that comes there. There might be other characteristics like tree size, the location on the site, health, whether or not the tree, if the tree is kind of alone or is it in a grove that is more substantial, is there interrelationship between those trees. So that's another piece to think about in developing a clear and objective process. Another thing that we've given some thought to as we often do with other residential development standards is the ability to continue to offer a discretionary path for an applicant that wants to take it. I don't think we've read the statutory update to prohibit us from doing that. And so that is something I think initially we would want to put on the table for us to consider as well. So that leads to our discussion questions. So looking at what questions you have on the project overall, specifically if there's any questions about anything you saw in the matrix that you would want some more information on. Likewise, we really do want to dig into this tree preservation piece because we see this as being kind of a more, even though this is a statutory update process, there is a little more policy consideration here. If you have any initial thoughts on these considerations, any new considerations you want us to think about, are there any examples you've seen in the community that you think we would want to continue to replicate? Those are all things that would be helpful for us to know now. And then lastly, what kind of information is going to be helpful for you down the road to make a decision? How should we be engaging the community and experts to think about what makes the clear and objective standards that we would want to have in Wilsonville for residential development? So with that, that concludes our presentation, and we're happy to hear more from you. Thank you.

Thank you, Kim. Commissioners, what do you have? Questions do you have for the city staff?

So definition of household, can we, it says relational occupants. Can you just say occupants? Can you just eliminate the relation?

Because I think that's... And not talk about the familial relationship?

Yeah, just say...

I believe that the number of occupants is something we need to go away from too, but let me pull that up while we are talking. Do you have other questions we can look up while we're looking up that one?

I can keep going. Yeah, that'd be great. I think the ones where we're deferring to an Oregon standard seems to make most sense, so that way we don't have to come up with our own definition. If the state's gonna come up with one, let's use theirs, because they'll make us change anyway if we don't, right? Subheading residential users, I think I'm fine with that. A tree, okay, that's the only one I think I had on the tree preservation. So clear and objective. I do like the idea of, I guess, standardizing the tree survey so that people provide the same level of detail across the tree. across the residential developments. I do like the quality of the tree, right, because I don't want to keep a tree that's dying. The size, I think that's an important one. Location or proximity to other trees is relevant. Uh, it would be nice if when we did, um, community outreach, if we supplied pictures, maybe gave them eight different picture options and said which, which ones makes most sense to you to keep trees and et cetera. Um, I think just asking a random person on the street, would you like to keep trees? Right, you're not gonna get any useful information, but if you had a, I mean some of the other community involvement we've had is I think it's like a white board that's got six different options and people put a sticker on the one that they like, right? So something like that to say which tree, which tree design would you like to see in a residential? Might be helpful. And then I like the pictures that you had that said, okay, this is kind of what we started with and maybe a picture of here's what we ended with to show what the city's intent has been as we try to go from a kind of a site by site discussion to something more clear and... more clearly defined, I guess.

I think that's my, hang on. Do you want us to keep going, Kim, or do you have an answer, or how do you want us to proceed?

I have HB 2583 from 2022 almost pulled up because I want to refer directly to the statute. Okay, the website just loaded. But I think that's great feedback on the tree. So it's very short. It says a maximum occupancy limit may not be established or enforced by any local government for any residential dwelling unit as defined in ORS 900.100. If the restriction is based on familial or non-familial relationships among any occupants. So it's just, I read that as just the familial relationships. I'm looking at your city attorney.

You can't limit occupancy if it's familial or non-familial? That's pretty much everybody, right? That didn't really tell me anything.

I think I would read that as you can't use... a familial status, like a family relationship status as a means of defining what a household is, right? So you can still establish occupancy limits that would be based on what the building code says, right? The building code has occupancy limits depending on what type of unit it is. That's not governed by the development code.

So then do we just define a household as having occupants?

So potentially, yes. I do think one of the questions I would ask is, what does household mean in the context of a development code? Do we still need it? I think as we figure out how to make the definition. As opposed to just a room. Right. Right. I've seen this too with other recent rule making at the state. They're moving away from the use of the word family when it pertains to development altogether. So instead of single family or multi-family, they're changing to single unit, multi-unit, really getting rid of the notion that a family, in terms of how we think of it, is what makes for a housing unit.

So it's that intent. So is the definition of a household assumed to be familial?

I think that's the point. It is currently.

So if we got rid of household completely and just used unit?

Right. That is definitely an option that would be in alignment with the state law.

Just a living unit?

Dwelling unit.

You're unit one, I'm unit two. Right. Okay. I mean, if that's the way the state's pushing us, right?

The unit is the space, right? The people are in the unit. You could be together in that unit. Okay, yes.

But we can limit the number of bodies that we're putting into a space.

The building code does that.

The building code does, okay. So I can't have 75 people in a five-by-five room.

Yeah, I don't know what the exact measurements are, but essentially different occupancy types for different, you know, each use, each structure has an occupancy assigned to it, and that occupancy, you know, this room has an occupancy limit. Right. Don't know what it is, but it's there.

So we have, so basically removing household. Right. And any implication of them being related in any way, shape, or form, and just say unit. Yes.

I'll just jump in. Frankly speaking, that's also probably much more aligned with the Fair Housing Act anyway. Federal Fair Housing Act anyway, to your point. I think your note is well taken.

There was a line in there in one of your slides about limiting frontage update requirements. Can you expand on that a little bit? What kinds of frontage updates do we typically see in that context?

So, and this is specific to an existing development that would be making a renovation, and there's some limit to the amount they can do. The statute specifies $150,000 of value of the increase in 2025, but it can be increased based on certain standards. So again, that's a little hard to put in a development code, but say it's $150,000 of an increase. So if you have a project that wants to add a small vestibule, maybe change around some parking, and the total for that improvement's gonna be $130,000. You can't review that as a city and say, okay, but we need a sidewalk repair on this panel that's broken or something. Although that's a really bad example, because I think you can do ADA still. So forget the sidewalk thing, but say that you have... A bike lane where it doesn't exist. Yes. you couldn't come in and say yep you need to expand that bike lane or maybe your um you know your curb doesn't meet the current city standard and you would typically be like oh a curb adjustment is something we typically see and maybe a driveway apron that's kind of a typical improvement that we do see sometimes if a development was done in the 60s or 70s sometimes when they come in with a renovation you might need to bring it up to current standards for the driveway apron that's probably something that would be required that you can no longer um there might even If it's under that threshold. You can't require the frontage improvements. You can still review it for your site development review standards, but, and I guess I don't know how often there are frontage improvements required with those smaller developments, how much of an impact it will be.

It's historically not been as much, given that a lot of, you know, we don't have as much older development, but there are cases where we do have, development where maybe The curb example, we'll use that. The public work standards have changed over time, and sometimes if an applicant comes in and is proposing a lane use change, that lane use action is often then grounds to have a condition that says, prior to issuance of the building permit, you shall do this, or prior to occupancy. And so I think the intent of this, and I think it's, Based on things that have happened in other places that are not here where that type of requirement was preventing new tenants from coming into spaces and opening businesses, then they're being hit with a bill to do something else that didn't feel commensurate with the work they were doing.

Is this around residential?

No, this one is not. This is the one that's around more economic development, commercial kind of development.

I guess I just had a general question. This is proposed amendments to the development code as it relates to trees. How does this connect or coordinate with ongoing tree preservation? like on a HOA or a commonly owned area? Are they the same?

No, so the key here is housing development. So it's applications for the development of housing. So I think in that case, if it was housing that already existed and there was an application to do for some kind of tree removal permit on an open space and an HOA, but you're not proposing new housing, you're gonna just fall under the current process. What we're looking at is things that would be residential subdivisions or potentially infill development on an existing lot where true removal's necessary to accommodate residential development. Those would be the circumstances where we would need to apply clear and objective standards.

So the process if they were to develop it, proceed under some assumptions and then come in after the fact and say okay now we want to remove the trees or remove some of them. There are different standards, different approaches

At this time, we're not proposing to change our current standards. I think there's a nuance because sometimes there's a bit of an in-between. We run into this a lot when a development's under construction and okay, we approved these trees to be removed, but we did something and now we have to remove these too. That is going to still need to be clear and objective at that point because it's still furthering a residential development project. I think once the development is there and the development is occupied, that's probably where that switch happens.

So these changes would apply to, like, Frog Pond?

Not the parts of Frog Pond that are developed, right?

Correct. But the undeveloped, it would apply to those? Correct.

And this would only apply for housing specifically, so we wouldn't need to account for industrial or commercial cases? Correct, correct.

We're not proposing changes there.

Okay, any other questions from the commission?

I have one on, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the unit bonus.

Oh, yes.

Or most of us.

So we have to allow a unit bonus for a middle housing project that includes at least one affordable or accessible. So how does that work?

Explain that to me. Yeah, so say you're coming in with a duplex application, and one of my units is going to be affordable, regulated, so I'm actually going to build three instead of two.

Okay, it allows you to build a third.

But on three or four, you get to add two. One for a duplex, two for the other.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Or triplex may be one as well. Let me just believe it's duplex, triplex.

And how does a unit in a duplex be classified as affordable units? And the other one, or are they both affordable, I guess?

Well, you could regulate the rental of that unit with the deed restrictions and things. You would have to have legal documents that require that to happen. It would be very tricky. I'm just envisioning.

A six plex, right? And the last unit is affordable and the rest aren't. Yeah, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that.

You're not alone.

Whereas if it's an ADU, I can see that, right? That makes, in my head, makes more sense. All right.

So it is duplex and triplex where it's allowed one additional unit. And then quadplex and townhouses, you can do two. Yes. Okay.

And the SRO makes me think of college, I guess.

That's a decent way of thinking of that.

Because I got four rooms and we're all sharing a kitchen.

And a bathroom.

And a bathroom, yeah.

Yep, that is a decent way to think of that.

I just can't see that in Frog Pond. But anyway, I think that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, no other comments.

Thank you, Kim and Heather. That's very helpful. A lot of tree discussion. Okay, on the agenda, we go to informational items. There is the city council minutes for many meetings, four or five of them. and the PC work program that's on there. This is a chance for the Planning Commission to learn about a specific topic. No public comment will be taken. If the public has questions, they're encouraged to reach out to city staff directly. We'll look to city staff to see if there's any presentations. Assuming no. Commissioners, do you have any questions about the informational items? Jeff does? Oh no, he does not, okay.

Oh, you do? Okay.

And unlike Nicole, we'll go to adjournment and then ask for a motion to adjourn and a second. Correct? I move to adjourn.

Technically, you don't have to ask as long as all the items are completed. Second. You're saying that Nicole is right? But if you'd like to ask for a motion, you can. I do. You're the chair.

I move to adjourn. And I second. Nice.

Too late.

No, that's not what it says. Motion, second, bang.

That script needs to be updated.

Thank you.