Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alrighty. I'll call the October 8 Planning Commission meeting to order at 06:02PM. Can I get a roll call?

Matt Constantine.

Good morning.

Alrighty. We're gonna move to citizen input. So this is the time that citizens have the opportunity 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 item scheduled for a work session. Therefore, if any member 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 have 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. Is there anyone who would like to testify at this time? Perfect. Thank you. Okay. So we have Mitch. Do you wanna come on

up? Sure.

And then just a reminder to state your name and address for the record.

So if this is I believe this is on a topic that's scheduled for public hearing. Is it not on the climate action plan?

Oh, we okay.

It's

well Or it's up to you. You this is a general comment period. You can go ahead and say it now, but there's also be a comment period specific to the climate action plan here in probably, what, thirty, forty minutes.

I'll wait.

Okay. Alright. Either way.

Save the e bike comment for later. Cool. Alright. So anybody on Zoom?

I have no attendees on Zoom.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. And with that, we'll move to the consideration of the minutes from September 10 were previously distributed. Are there any corrections to the minutes? No. Seeing none, the minutes are approved as distributed. Okay. Now we're gonna move on to our public hearing. I call to order the public hearing regarding resolution number l P25Dash003 for the climate action plan at 06:05PM. Have all commissioners familiarized themselves with the application?

Yes. Yes.

Seeing yeses. At this time, I'll go ahead and call the city team to present the staff report, including proposed recommendations along with applicable review and approval criteria. Will city staff please present their report?

Sure. Good evening, chair, members of the commission. My name is Carrie Rappold, the natural resources manager. Hopefully, the consultant is with me here. There she is. Yes. Okay. She lives in Newfoundland, so it's four hours later there. So I always feel bad when we're having these meetings. It gets a little late. So, yeah. Tonight, we're here to, present the climate action plan, and, you know, for the adoption by the Planning Commission. And so this has been, you know, about a I wanna say close to

about a year and a

half process. We've certainly had a work session with the planning commission, a couple work sessions. And and so it's an opportunity really to do something that Wilsonville hasn't done to date, and to create this plan, and hopefully carry it forward in terms of implementation. And so tonight, we're gonna go through, basically the context and the components of the plan. What we learned is really the public engagement.

We'll go into a little more detail about that, but we had a number of questionnaires that were done with the community as well as the business sector. So and then I know there's been some confusion about this. Hopefully, we can clear this up tonight, the difference between actions and implementation measures. Because there is a difference there. And, Mori, you'll get into that a little bit more.

I'll discuss it too. But, basically, the actions are the starting point. The implementation measures are where we end up in terms of what we do going forward. I guess I should be a little closer to this. And then we'll look last at how we're gonna integrate this going forward in terms of what the city does and also how this will be brought forward into the community.

So just in regards to that context and the components, really for us as a city, this started with the city council goal for the twenty three-twenty five period. But it's also reliant on what's been happening at the state level. Some of this, know you're very familiar with, with the work that Dan's done with CFAC. And so there are these goals in terms of how, you know, we're going to go about trying to achieve these reductions in global or greenhouse gas emissions. So there's this goal of, you know, reducing it by 45% by 1990.

I mean, from 1990 levels. That wouldn't be good. By 2035. And then by 2050, reducing it by 80%. So those are very ambitious goals, and it's gonna take, you know, certainly a collective effort on the part of the federal level, the state level, the local level, what the private industries are gonna be doing.

And, you know, so it's it's going to be a significant effort to try to reach those goals. So this is really just trying to give you a better understanding of how the plan was put together. So as I mentioned on the the left end here is starting with the city council goal, that state executive order. And so the way the plan is constructed in terms of what we looked at and how we move this forward, there were basically three scenarios identified. One was what we call the business as usual.

It's really what we're doing today in terms of the existing conditions. Then there was this idea of the business as planned, which takes into account more of what's happening, especially at the state level, and how that is implemented down through the local level. But ultimately, where we end up is really the low carbon action scenario. And so that's really what we're adding to this piece of work that's being done at this point. And so it really looks at, ultimately, these low carbon actions.

So in terms of modeling, there was an extensive modeling exercise done that looked at all of our And that when I say all, I mean what's happening within the community, things that the city is responsible for. So it's things such as the wastewater treatment plant, the water treatment plant, all the electricity that's used within the community, and the emissions that are associated with that. And so there were a number of there was five categories of these low carbon actions, and those were what were modeled as far as the plan. But in terms of taking this forward, this is there's idea of, you know, the pathways. How do we do this?

And that's where they really get into measures. And that's what's within the appendix at the back the plan. Now that's not a comprehensive list. There will be the need to do more than what's in that list. But it really is a good starting point and gives you an indication of how do we do this in terms of those actions. So if we look at one of those, you know, we have these different categories, buildings, transportation, solid waste. And this is this one has this goal of by 2050, there's a word missing in here. It should should say retrofit all existing buildings in Wilsonville. And, you know, the goal is to reduce that energy use by 50%. Well, how are we gonna do that?

And then that's where we get into the implementation measures. So, you know, there's the opportunity maybe to present more information to the community and create a retrofit navigator program that will really provide resources information, you know, how they could go about doing, you know, solar panels on their own home or other steps that they could take that would be important from that perspective. And then we could look at a program called PACE that would help us to work with, you know, the commercial operations within the city. And it would provide some of the same information in some ways, but it would be towards that commercial side. So they're all set up that way.

If you start reading the actions and looking at what those say, then the parallel there is really what does the imp what do the implementation measures point out? Or what do they call for? So it's structured that way in terms of the whole plan. So I'm going to hand it over to Moria now, and we'll kind of go back and forth a little bit on the presentation as we move through it.

Sure. Thank you. It's nice to see all of you again. The last time we were here, we looked at this slide, and we talked about a couple of the the ways in which we expect the climate to change specifically within Wilsonville. We talked about the number of hot days increasing and what that will mean for people.

And we also talked, I believe, about freezing days and how having fewer freezing days will mean that the snowpack will be impacted in the mountains, and that'll impact the amount of water that's available throughout the year. Today, I thought I would mention a different one, and that is the the dry days and how dry days are going to to impact the community and and the broader broader area as well. According to this chart, it suggests or the the monitoring and forecasting that's being done suggests that the number of days when there will be less than point zero one inches of precipitation will increase from a 149 to a 159 a year by 2050. That doesn't sound like much, but it's a 7%, decrease in days with rain, basically. And if you're a farmer, that's a big difference.

You're gonna have to require more irrigation. You're gonna have to rely more on irrigation. And within the cities, it's also going to make a difference because you're going to have any outdoor use of water, and particularly for landscaping and for use in parks, is going to increase. People are going to rely and place greater demands on the fresh water that you're providing as a municipality. So that, in turn, has all kinds of implications for what the city may choose to do to proactively manage that.

And there are many things you could get into there, but it's another example of the way in which climate change will impact Wilsonville, both its residents and the way that the municipality is is going to have to operate. Next slide. This one we talked about last time as well. This is just a reminder that a significant majority of your community members have, over a period of three years, indicated that this is either somewhat important or very important to them. And so that's going to be something that's useful to you when you bring projects forward and ideas forward to be able to remind your council that the citizens of the community find this important and that they they want to see action happening.

Next slide. So a very quick refresher. This slide show is gonna show you two graphs. The first one shows what's going to happen to emissions in Wilsonville if we change nothing about what we're doing, the way we're living right now. The second one shows you what we did we managed to do with our low carbon actions.

So on the left hand side, you're gonna see an increase of emissions. If we continue operating as we do today, driving vehicles that have gas engines and diesel engines, relying on vehicles a lot for transportation as opposed to biking or taking transit, and if we continue to keep our buildings functioning at the energy efficiency levels they have now rather than improving those, you're gonna see emissions rise, and that's across all of the sectors. The transportation one has a little dip for a little while in the middle there, but then it starts to rise again as well. If we implement this plan, there's a dramatic drop in emissions, and the primary area that's gonna be left in 2050 is gonna be transportation emissions. So there's, there's a strong car culture and a lot of commuting that happens from outs from suburbs and other communities into Wilsonville, and that's going to be a difficult curve to bend in terms of behavior and in terms of the timelines of vehicles being ready, especially heavy duty vehicles and so on.

So that leaves us with a little bit of emissions at the end, but it does get us to very close to the state's targets. So it is it's taking us to the direction that we wanna go. Next slide. Actions and implementation measures. Is this one mine, Carrie?

I think, yes, this is yours.

Okay. Alright. This is a summary of the five categories in which, first of all, emissions are arising in Wilsonville, and secondly, in which actions need to be taken in order to change the way that we operate in these areas of of of a city community. So first of all, we have buildings and industry, and Carrie's already mentioned. It's a focus on retrofitting buildings, our existing building stock to make it more energy efficient and also increasing the standards for new buildings so that they become much more energy efficient in the future.

Transportation ranges from getting people to do more active transportation, walking and biking, to taking more transit. And then finally, with the vehicles you have left, shifting to electric engines for the vast majority of those, whether it's tran rail, light rail, or vehicles, or most modes of transportation are trying to shift to electricity. Renewable energy, we focused very much on solar and also on, green electricity procurement. So helping the community buy green electricity even if it isn't necessarily produced directly within the community, but giving them ways of supporting, the generation of of zero emissions electricity. And then reducing solid waste, that's one that a lot of people are already more familiar with.

But increasing recycling and fundamentally decreasing decreasing the amount of waste that goes to landfills and is converted into methane. That's what we focus on in solid waste. And green infrastructure ties this plan very much into your urban forest management activities and plans to try and plant more trees and then make sure that the natural areas of the city remain healthy and provide not only green spaces and healthy spaces for recreation, but also sequester carbon and carbon dioxide. Next slide.

One thing I'll I'll add is we just had the natural areas management plan adopted by the city council on Monday night. So

Oh, great.

Yeah. That'll be a a critical piece of ensuring those natural areas are are functioning in a healthy and sustainable way.

Okay. The last time we presented to you, someone asked a question specifically and what the emissions are from town center in the different scenarios that we modeled to allow you to to do some more thinking about around the plans that you're developing for town center. So we've provided you with two graphs. The first one that you're looking at here shows you the business as usual curve on the top just for Town Center, and then the pink line is the business business as planned. So if you implement the plans that you have in place right now for town center, that will reduce the emissions just from that area by about 15% or so.

And then if you add on top of that the low carbon actions that we modeled here, you'll cut the emissions by about I what is that? I think it was about 60%. I think that's what I saw. And that's without the grid becoming clean. So we did model whether the state manages to get the electricity grid to be zero emissions by 2040, which is their goal, or whether they don't.

So we have two variations. So the one on the left shows how much the your work would achieve without the grid getting green, and the one on the right shows the impact of this the statewide grid becoming clean by 2040. So there you can see that there's clearly, a significant impact, even just within town center. So in that case, you're getting down to closer to a 70% reduction by 2050 in the low low carbon scenario, and even the plans that you have in place right now achieve a really significant reduction as well. I also wanted to mention that it's interesting to me that, that one zone of the city actually makes up almost 20% of your city's emissions, which I hadn't realized.

So it's good to focus on that area because you can get a lot done, by making that kind of a model community to whatever extent you you decide to do that. And we can take questions on that at the end if you have some more questions you wanted to ask specifically about that. And Carrie Yeah.

I'll take this over. There's certainly this aspect of how do we integrate this into the city's work, and that's really going to be based on, as I mentioned previously, that there's really going to have to be some continued to be some strong direction from the state. And the support that they provide, whether that's through legislation, through funding, through ensuring that the grid is going to end up being greener in the future working with the power companies. And certainly there's been some things that have happened recently in terms of federal support, but there's always the potential for that to be really helpful too in the future going forward in terms of what that means and the standards. Because it's we can do a lot at the local level, but we really need that support as realize, you know, that happens at the state and federal level.

As far as locally, the expectation with this plan is to to look at, you know, what can we do is in specifically an area like Town Center where there is a plan like that. And if it makes up 20% of our emissions, that would be a significant step forward in terms of seeing implementation within Town Center. Working with HOAs, with the community, with our business community, in terms of how can we incentivize, provide education. A lot of these things are called out within the implementation measures, what those might mean in terms of providing that type of support. And then certainly, where does the leadership come in terms of ensuring that the plan can happen and how do we do that?

And we'll talk a little bit about that at the end. The next steps that would really have to take place in terms of ensuring that. And what would that mean in terms of those next steps? So I'll hand this over to Maria again, and then I'll finish up at the end.

Sure. So when we presented this to city council, they asked if so, basically, if the state has set these targets on behalf of all of us, are they also providing funding to help us achieve those targets? And the answer is yes. There is a lot of funding available, and it's increasing. There was actually an announcement I noticed just yesterday, specifically for utilities to, it was a number of millions of dollars to help them take the next step again in, greening another portion of their energy stock.

So it was a it's moving that grid greening forwards, which is excellent. For local governments and for residents, the state also provides a lot of resources, and we've listed a few of them here. So resources for local governments, that includes not just funding, but also guidance, consultancy services to you come up with feasibility plans or identify the best services for the conditions that you're operating in. And then there are things like community renewable energy grants, so funding to support the purchase and installation of renewable energy, and then solar and energy storage rebates, so rebates that are specific to those particular technologies. For communities, the home efficiency, electrification, and appliance rebates really help you get at those building retrofit actions to help make homes become much more energy efficient and really reduce that building emissions portion.

And then there's a program specifically for schools as well, and which is an awesome thing for you to be able to partner with them or at least make them aware of that because I think there's a lot of with with the funding that we had within the IRA, that we there was a lot of cases in which schools weren't aware of how much was available to them. So that's an area where municipalities can definitely help. The next slide is the energy trust. Trust. They have a wonderful array of programs that provide not only funding but also guidance.

And it's really interesting how diverse their knowledge is. So they have everything everything from specifically assistance around hydropower, and power can be got can be derived from the smallest sources of of water flow. You wouldn't believe it. So there's all kinds of things. Multifamily residential retrofit, that's really important because it's hard in a multifamily unit to do major retrofits to your building unless it's coordinated across all of those residences.

So they help with that kind of thing as well. So here's another list of of sources of funding and guidance. And then on the next slide, we have one more, and that is specifically to solar. And this is an interesting program that helps with residential subscriptions. So if you can't actually install solar on your home, can you subscribe to purchase green electricity and have that money directed to a utility to make sure that they're actually making the grid greener, as well as support for low income residents and specific guidance for developers, which is really useful as well.

So those are just some of the programs that are available. And I'll also mention that the federal grants are still available, some of them anyway. Geothermal heating is hasn't been touched at all. The grants around that have not gone away. They have persisted, and they're gonna continue to be in place for a while yet as far as we know. So that the big beautiful bill did not take those away. So that's a very good thing. And so it's there is still a lot of support for this work going forward. And I'll switch back to Carrie.

Yeah. And I just listened to a story on NPR, I believe it was yesterday about geothermal and how the state of Oregon is probably gonna be one of the leaders. And they're doing some research right now with in the area of the Newberry Crater and testing out these ways they of accessing geothermal from what they call hot rocks. And and so there's there's a hope there, a tremendous hope that, you know, with the availability of something like that in Oregon, it could be a significant contributor. My wife and I took a trip to Iceland a few years ago, and to see what they do with geothermal there is really impressive.

So there's a lot of potential. So next steps. Yes. So the plan certainly is wonderful framework for how the city can move forward. And it represents the starting point in terms of what we're thinking, especially in terms of these implementation measures. But really, we're gonna have to take a number of steps yet in terms of how we go about creating the leadership, the governance, in terms of how this happens. I mean, we'd want to involve the community as broadly as possible. So we could look at the possibility of a task force that might lead that implementation as it goes forward. One of the key steps would be really looking at a financial analysis. And we would dig deeper into those implementation measures.

But also look at, you know, what other measures would be really necessary to move those actions forward. And so, in conjunction with that, we'd wanna look at policy and strategy alignment and how this takes place in terms of how the city's mechanisms would be able to move this forward. And then, look at who would be responsible specifically for this implementation. Would we have one department, one individual that would really take more of a lead? Or would this be really kind of spread out among departments?

So there's some things that would need to be figured out yet. But this really, like I said, gives us that basis for having those discussions and, you know, looking at what this would take in order to fully implement this plan. Because as you can see, it's very ambitious and it's a long time frame. And ultimately, things are going to change along the way too, in terms of what happens at the federal state level, in the marketplace, all sorts of things. We'd have to be, you know, be able to adapt to that also and have that approach to it. So that's the presentation, but we can take any questions you have. And, yeah.

All Thank you both for the presentation. So I'll look to my fellow planning commissioners. Do you have any questions for staff at this time? And there will be additional opportunity to ask questions following public testimony, too. Ready? Ready. So

first question is, I thought it was the information regarding Town Center was very good, but I'm curious about how that data was carved out. And, and actually the statement that that, kinda sparked my interest there is stated at the end there that the the carbon footprint was higher in that area than it was a 20% of the total package. So I'm curious of how how we how we got there.

Could you explain that, Maria? Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. So so the way that we come up with that is by looking specifically at the buildings that are within that zone of the city and the types of activities that happen within them. So we were provided with a lot of data by the city through Carrie when we started this. And so we know exactly what the buildings the building types are, approximately how many residents there are living in the area, how many commercial opportunities, and so on, and what the energy consumption is on average for each of those archetypes of buildings.

Then we also add on top of that the transportation patterns through the region through through the the streets that are within that zone. And because it's the center of town, there is significant transportation going through there, and that, I suspect, is probably a reason for a lot of the the higher emissions than some of the other parts of the city would have. But I'm sure there are other contributing factors, but we take on top of those things, we also incorporate water use, the waste that's generated within those buildings, but I think those are probably lower contributing factors than the transportation patterns. That's my guess.

Okay. So question two. Could we go back to the the charts there where Sure. Had the business as usual For Town Center? Yeah. Well, you we could use any one of those. That's this is fine. So I kinda follow this, you know, in the news and read a lot about it. It it's it's very important to me, you know, for the future and everything. So the question I have is you have the baseline is, you know, business as usual. With the the Feds wanting to take programs away, which they're doing right now and everything, does that exacerbate the business as usual and make that line worse, that top line worse?

Maybe I'll let you speak to that too, Moria, this year. Yeah.

Yeah. It's always so hard to guess what what they're going to do. The one thing that comes to mind that might make that worse is they are working dismantling the what we call the CAFE standards, which are the standards that require vehicle fuel efficiency to be improved annually, and that's been running for years and and is a sort of a standard improvement that that we build into the business as usual scenario because we don't ever expect that to go away. We consider that to be a fundamental. And they're they are working on actually eliminating the need to improve fuel efficiency standards in vehicles.

So that's one that comes to mind. I can't ever I can't imagine, though, that vehicle manufacturers would actually make their vehicles worse again. I don't know. It it's a it's strange. But I can't think of any others that might do that.

Okay. Good question, though. Yeah. Yeah.

And it just goes I've said I've had this comment a couple times in reviewing this. It's a good plan. It's a lot of good information and good work. And I think somewhere, if we were to move forward with this, I think somewhere in this, we need to trend that type of information. And I go back to, you know, what is our cost of doing nothing because I think that cost of doing nothing is more than the cost of doing something. Yeah. So it's kind of a if you look down the road, it's kind of we're stepping over pennies right now to well, we're stepping over dollars to I don't know which way that goes. Stepping over pennies to get to get to dollars. Yeah. If if by not spending money now or through the program.

Saving pennies to avoid Yeah.

It works out one way or the other.

I can't remember. No. It's a good analogy.

I'm good. Thank you.

Thanks, commissioner Scholl. Commissioner Carr?

I like this plan. I think it's good. It's aggressive, but I think it's aggressive at the state level. Yeah. Looks like success is dependent upon a clean grid. It's a huge contributor. It seems to be in most cases, most of the graphs, the largest delta is due to a clean grid. So and that's completely outside of our control. Mhmm. So are we aiming for obviously, we're only gonna try to control what we can control.

Yeah. But how is the state going to how are we gonna be held accountable for something that's outside of our control? That's a concern that I have because they have these aggressive goals. But if they don't help us meet those goals by cleaning the grid I mean, every effort that we make is good. Yeah. But are is there any accountability on us if we don't hit those targets?

Well, I think no. Go ahead. Go

ahead. Does the state have any teeth to hold us accountable when even though we make a great effort and but we can't accomplish with our actions, we can't get to those percentages without a clean grid.

Yes. I mean, I think there's some things, as you've seen, like where we've had to go in and revise our parking standards and the things that are specifically called out. Or if look you at the building code, you know, those things will not be going away. And so those those are mandated by the state in that sense. But I don't know what we can do itself doesn't, you know, green to the extent that this hopefully, you know, leads us towards our clean can we get a cleaner grid? So that that's that's a big challenge.

Yeah. I mean, that's my my concern is they've got these massively aggressive goals in there. It almost sounds like they're asking us to be accountable for those goals. But we're what we can do has a much lower impact to accomplishing those goals than a clean grid.

I would just expect that the state would recognize that this is this is impacting any community within the state if the the grid isn't reaching those goals. And so, you know, there couldn't be the expectation that you do anything beyond that if that's not happening.

K. So there's not any subset of these goals that says the city is responsible for this amount amount of this reduction?

No. K. Yeah. Not that I

There is one way in you can support the the grid. A couple ways, actually. I think it emphasize the fact that there you are so reliant on the grid becoming clean emphasizes the role that a municipality can and should play in advocating for that, like, in being aware of what's happening with utilities and continuing to pressure them and to pressure the state to stick to those targets, especially as things like data centers are becoming more present in all kinds of communities, and the demand that they place on electricity is Massive. Something like 40 times an average commercial building. So it's going to really strain utilities' ability to reach their renewable targets.

But if you continue to advocate for the importance of that, that will be heard, that will carry weight. And the second thing I would say is that another way in which the demand on the grid has to be managed is by reducing the demand within the cities. So making your buildings more energy efficient is going to is the only way really that we can avoid overstretching the grid. We have to make these changes within the communities so that the electricity that is provided is going to be sufficient when we electrify our communities. Does that make sense?

Yes. So with that said, does our business as usual take into account that Coffee Creek, Basalt Creek, we want

want data center. Right? Is Yeah. They they are not reflected in this because we we didn't have specific data about them, about what their demands would be, but it would be a good thing to integrate into the work. It's something to really pay attention to.

Especially as we go forward and, you know, do a deeper analysis with implementing, you know, the measures that are in the plan or that we would identify. And then, you know, having that policy strategy discussion in terms of what that means in terms of some of these industrial areas that will be coming into the city.

So will this policy then be taken into account when we look at building permits and what we allow to be built in our new industrial

section?

I don't know if I can answer that question if Planty wants to take a shot at it, but I don't. Yeah.

I think that falls within that next steps that we described of policy alignment. It would be these kinds of things that you need to look at and decide where you wanna make changes in your policies to incorporate all of this new information.

Yeah. That makes sense.

It's an interesting point because, yeah, we're we're just having these conversations

about this topic. Actually gonna go like this if we And then change our industrial section to be

Right.

Energy heavy. Right?

And that those competing priorities of, yeah, climate, economic, you know, with where does that where do we land in all of that? And then, I mean, there I think there's a section in this plan that talks about that, like, the plan the paradigm of, like, you know, first you wanna avoid and then you wanna you know, there's all these different temps, and then the last bit is, like, well, you can offset. Or you know? So you have to maybe the that's the approach or there's some kinda in between when we think about these other, you know, than than the economic needs we have. So interesting.

Right.

Do you guys have any questions? First one? Go for

it. I'll just say, Carrie, we've seen this before. Thank you. I appreciate the addition of separating out Town Center. It's interesting knowledge to have as we look to the future. But no, it's good information, all nine ninety four pages of the staff report. But I appreciate the work. Sure. And I agree. I think we shouldn't just do this and put it on a shelf. I mean, this should be used in our decision making going forward. And the answer to the question should be yes. We should review this in planning and building permit issuance.

Thank you. Sure. Thank you.

Commissioner Sevonova?

Yeah. I noticed that PGE was missing from, like, the key stakeholders to work with to improve it, but Energy Trust was listed. And but I wanna make sure that, you know, the city and any businesses there utilizing that resource to partner with, you know, understanding the programs are available because the organization is working very, very hard to reach these goals. And, you know, the community does have some influence in how they vote or decisions that they make, and and things like that as a way to drive towards a clean grid. So, yeah, it it is disheartening to see the recent changes in the in the grants and that impacts, you know, these goals.

But I think it's really important work, and I definitely appreciate this and, hope we do get to reach the goal for a better future. And I think it's important that the city is always a leader and, showing what can't be done.

I would agree. Thank you.

Okay. With that, the next portion of our public hearing will be provide an opportunity for the planning commission to hear testimony from audience members. We will take public testimony in the following order, those present in person at City Hall, then those participating remotely via teleconference, and finally reading email testimony into the record. To submit testimony via email, use the following email address, planning@wilsonvilleoregon.gov. Please note written testimony received after the public hearing has closed cannot be considered.

As you are given the opportunity to testify either in person or via Zoom, please state your name and address or state that your address is as provided on the testimony card, and then present any testimony to the planning commission regarding the matter before us. Please do your best to speak clearly and directly into the microphone so other participants are sure to hear your comments. After each participant's participant's testimony, testimony, I will ask the planning commission if they have any questions for the speaker. Before I call for testimony from the audience, is there any member of the audience at City Hall who wishes to testify who has not yet filled out, a testimony card? If so, please fill out a card now and give it to our clerk.

And I see that we do have one one card. So I'll go ahead and call Mitch. Do you wanna come up to the podium? Sure. Thank you.

Oh, actually The

maybe that one. This? Oh, yes. Thanks.

Yeah. Mhmm. Let's see. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. My name is Mitch Besser, and my address is 29280 Southwest Parkway Court, Apartment 73, and it is in Wilsonville. I have submitted this, what you're gonna what I have here on email, but this gives you a chance to ask questions. So one of the things that I'm constantly talking about with SMART, there are different ways to use their transportation. So this is really about the transportation portion of what I saw.

There's for some reason, they don't usually seem to have meetings for the public, so this one looked like an opportunity to me. And I'm a avid cycler. I like to use it, I would say, in a way that is different than most people. I don't ride, like, in the Lycra, you know, cycling way. I try to do it use it in a way that facilitates shopping, getting to work, visiting, that sort of thing. Like, it's a real transportation. And as I get older, it gets harder and harder to cycle. And so occasionally, I think about getting electric bike. And I noticed that in town, are a lot more people riding electric bikes. And I have looked at them.

They're expensive. So I don't currently have one, but one day, I probably will be getting one. The To use that, and the way I often use my bike is putting it on Smart to do the longer things, especially in Wilsonville, because it's, I would say, nearly impossible to get over to Oregon City at this point by even the bus. But even getting other places is difficult to use public transit to get out of the city. Beaverton's not too bad if you can use West, if you're doing that, but the East Side is difficult.

So when I looked at electric bikes, I noticed SMART does not allow them on their buses because their racks do not support that. Their electric bikes tend to be heavier. They tend to have larger wheels, larger wheel bases, and the racks just do not support that. And I personally love things that are, I don't want to say cheap, but compared to a lot of other solutions when it's cheaper and it's effective, I think that's important. And I do notice a lot of younger people not being able to afford cars and using electric things. I think that's a big wave in the future. And this is just me trying to promote that ahead of the game.

Great.

That's pretty much it. And again, it's here, you can ask questions if there's any.

Thanks, Mitch. Does the commission have any questions for

Mitch? No.

Okay. Just so I'd just like

to say thank you for your comments.

I think

those were very well very well said.

Thank you. I would just note that I I shared the comment with Smart.

Thank you.

And Dwight said that he would provide a response.

Oh, great.

Perfect.

Mhmm.

Okay. Awesome. Sounds good. Thanks for giving public testimony. Alrighty. So I'm gonna move over to see if there's any audience members on the Zoom call that wish to testify.

I currently have no attendees on Zoom. Okay.

Then because there's no people there oh, sorry. I'm gonna skip over this paragraph. Okay. Sorry. Okay. So is there any testimony that was submitted via email? And if so, can we read those into the record at this time?

There were

Besides Mitch, there were a couple, but they're in the record.

Okay. Great.

All of the public testimony was in the record. Perfect.

Alrighty. And then do commissioners have any additional questions for the audience members? That feels redundant, but I'm just gonna double check there. Okay. Do commissioners have any additional questions for staff, or the staff report based on the testimony? Seeing none. Okay. What if any discussion does any commissioner wish to have to help ensure they have gathered all the information they need to make a decision? This is different than the discussion we will have to deliberate once a motion is made. Discussion at this point should focus on ensuring understanding of the facts presented and clarifying particular points rather than expressing conclusions, which we will do in a few minutes.

Alrighty. Look. We're looking good here. So hearing no further discussion, I'm prepared to close the hearing. Once the hearing is closed, there cannot be any other discussion, comment, or question pertaining to the material matters of the case file except among commissioners. However, the commission may ask staff specific clarifying procedural questions. Please confirm there is no additional discussion needed at this point. And okay. I guess I'm not supposed to read that out loud, but it's part of the paragraph, So I might have an edit for our little script book. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So with that, I declare this public hearing closed at 06:48PM. Okay. So with the hearing closed, it's time for us to entertain a motion to deliberate and make a decision on the resolution before us.

So if a commissioner wishes to amend anything for the staff report in any way, it needs to be included in the motion, but I don't think we need to do that. So do I have a motion for the resolution, commissioner Carr?

So I move to adopt a resolution LP25Dash0003 recommending that city council approve the climate action plan.

Wonderful. Do I have a second?

Second.

Alright. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded that, I'm supposed to repeat the sorry. Yes. The resolution number LP25Dash003 is we're recommending the city council for approval of the climate action plan. So is it hot in here, or is

it just me? I'm

sorry. I'm struggling. This is great. This is great. Okay. So hearing no further discussion, I will call the question. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. Cool.

Well, thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

I will I will say well, am I allowed to say anything now that it's closed? Sure. Okay. I I think this is exciting because it's, the first, yeah, comprehensive plan we have, and the feedback that we got on the surveys were like, yes. Climate is already impacting my life. So it's like this comes at a time that's we need it. And then I also like how some of the actions in the plan also help some of our other goals in terms of, like, housing, family housing, multi use housing, so it's it's great. Anyways, I'm done speaking about that.

Well, thank you. We appreciate your time.

Thanks to Mara. She did a great job in presenting. I think she's talked to us three or four times and Sorry. Good information.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Mario. Thank

you. I know. Don't do this. I can't handle two meetings in one week.

Yep. We'll we'll let you get to sleep because I know it's what, almost eleven Oh,

yeah. Thank you. Thanks for joining us.

Don't worry about it. Thanks. Very nice to see you.

Alright. Thank you. Good night.

Okay. And then the only other things on our agenda are just the informational the action minutes are listed there and the work, program. Any questions on those two things or announcements?

Yes. The plan director has a special announcement. Mhmm. Thank you very much, chair Hendrix. So for those of you who have not already learned, mister Polly, planning manager, has chosen to move out of state and has put in his resignation here at the city of Wilsonville.

And we were all very bummed about that news when we received it. And so if the commission would allow, I would like to just say a few words. Yes. Excellent. And so, Dan, I will be repeating a little bit of from the other night, but adding kind of a few additional thoughts here at planning commission where we have a little bit more casual of a approach to things.

Really? I wonder why. Sorry.

So Dan has worked with the city for over seventeen years. Dang. So he is a very integral component, not just to the city team, but to planning within the city. He has served in every position that has existed within the planning division except for planning director. If you'd only stayed long enough.

He has really touched this community in a lot of ways that can be seen in the built environment and in buildings and in neighborhoods. He's been involved in nearly every Villabois development approval. He's participated in the oversight and construction of parks in the city. He has, really guided our planning efforts in Frog Pond East and South, setting the future up for a really great future in terms of planning for housing for all. Included within that was updating and modernizing our residential code and updating to include all of our middle housing and accessory dwelling unit standards.

He's written written a good portion of our code, so don't think that we're not gonna call you if we can't remember the intent of something. And he's really just provided a lot of key leadership to the planning division team. Pretty much all of our assistant and associate planners have had his hand to really help them learn the ropes and to learn the code and to be able to successfully take development applications to our development review board. He's even guided them here, especially providing a lot of guidance to Cindy lately on the Wilsonville Industrial Land Readiness Project, helping the staff develop the housing reports that have become much more beautiful since they left my oversight. And he's helped many of you that served on the development review board in terms of onboarding and training and assisting you at being successful volunteers both there and here at the planning commission.

There are few Danisms I wanted to share tonight. Yes. Yes. Let's hear. Dan is really great with the spreadsheet. I'm just gonna in case you ever need advice, you call him. There are many things I would ask for something, expect a Word document or a note, and I would get a spreadsheet that I would have to actually spend some time trying to figure out myself. So you wouldn't think some of these things could end up in a spreadsheet, but they do. Sometimes the complicated one. It also means, though, recently when I needed some great analysis done, I was like, you know who would be really great at this?

And I can always hand it over to Dan and get really great info. I think he enjoys it a lot and didn't actually get as much time in spreadsheets. Maybe that's your next calling. I also will joke with Dan, and he will appreciate this, is his one year timeline for everything.

He'd be

like, oh, yeah. We can get that master plan done in a year. A new code? A year. Anything and everything in the planning division a year.

And I

was like, it's a whole new code under a whole new way of doing planning in the state of Oregon. Maybe we should budget budget just a little bit more time. How long did that code take?

I've learned to budget time more wisely than that.

I'm also going to give you a hard time for creating a definition, a new term in our code with the term habitable. I don't know if you guys will remember this.

I knew that one. I

was hoping that was good.

And how many times Stan would sit right there Yeah. And get tripped up over habitable or habitability. I can't even say habitability. So thanks for leaving us with that little gift. A couple fun things that we treasure is if you can never remember a code reference, you just ask Dan. You'll say, Dan, there's that part of the code about, like, what has to go to administrative review versus this, and it's based on the 10 parking spaces, and he'll just, like, give you the number. He will know even, like, the sub number, which just has always amazed me. I'm always like, I think it's in section 4.14.

It's only if I'm awake that day.

And then one more fun thing and then I'll share the microphone, but is as many of you won't know that he has a hidden skill and that is baking. So apparently before I even came here, he won an award for the pie baking contest for a lemon meringue. I have worked with him for a lemon meringue. And never got a lemon meringue pie.

Up, Dan. That's messed up.

Excuse me.

Yeah. Code.

But he's made some fancy cakes for his family and he's actually made some fancy cakes for our Halloween parties and it's kind of a fun hidden skill of his. He is a very calm and steady presence. I think you've seen that here in this room. He serves that to our whole team. He also brings a sense of humor and is just a very kind hearted person, and for that, he is just a great force on our team.

And I said this the other night, and I'll say it probably about 10 more times before you leave. I am personally grateful for all of the thousands of ways that you support me and the team and that you've done that for so long and that you've supported this community. And even if the community doesn't know that you're the person to thank them Mhmm. They are thankful for the many contributions you have made in service to this community over those years.

Thank you. So

I know Mandy has a few pictures she wants to share, but I Oh my gosh. This is

getting better. This is getting better

and better. Uh-oh. But I'm also going to then open the microphone to anyone else who'd like to say something.

Yeah. I mean, do we do you have the photos ready? Mean, I just threw

them together.

I'm Let's see. They're all in the end because

some of them are

messed up. Yeah. Okay.

Let's see the pictures.

This is great. Okay. There's the whole slideshow.

My last day will be Halloween for

Oh. Okay.

And it is a fun little

I wish like we like to have here. Oh my gosh. Cute. Oh, no.

There you go. That's a good one.

Oh. That's pretty good.

Wait. So these are themes, right, for the whole

team. So the planning

division dress up by myself, but

we're not

too well.

Yeah. The planning division always

sounds the a

bit on these. And

Yeah. Yeah. The first one was strawberry shortcake. Okay. And then we were gods and goddesses. Yep. Okay. We all came as a zoo one year, and he dressed as a frog in honor of frog pond. Oh. That was frog pond there. Yeah. And then there was Mario Kart. And then this is the cereal mask ops because we all had to wear masks.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

You guys are so creative. This was Candyland. Love that. Gorgeous.

Wow. Oh,

and this was the inaugural. This is Wizard of Oz.

Oh. That's good.

That's great. Thank you for sharing those.

Yeah. It's good to see.

Very nice. Great costumes too. Well, I'm sure some of the commissioners want to say a couple things. Do you wanna Sure. I'll over it. I'll just kinda go down the line.

It was a surprise, but I met Dan, I think, about ten years ago. And, I wanna thank Dan for all of his support and his help. He's, kind of, taken care of me and a bunch of others through this whole process. So again, say thank you. Totally appreciate the support. Learned a lot from you. A whole bunch. I came into this not knowing anything, so I learned a bunch. And good luck. And wish you the best. Okay?

Appreciate it. I I echo those comments. I think it's been fabulous working with you to make this city a better place. I think you have always been very calm, cool, collected, and that has helped in in many situations. And you've just been here for anybody that needs something within the city. So I think you will be greatly missed, I think Idaho is getting a good treat. So.

Well, I am super sad. This is sad sad for the community and for us, and you've guided us through so much. And I am very excited for your next chapter, though. That's great. And hearing that it was seventeen years with this city is incredible. So that's a huge accomplishment, and thank you for all that you've done, and thanks for sharing everything too because it's like, I didn't I didn't know that some of those things, and I also just appreciate your yes. Calm and and cool and collected, and you're kinda quirky, and I love that. I love it. Never. So I'm gonna miss that.

Dan, it's only been, a year and a half and a few meetings, but I really appreciated working with you. Congratulations on your new adventure. I hope you have a lot of fun, and thank you for the city you've helped build, plan, build, and that we the community that we get to enjoy. It's amazing. It's beautiful, and you've definitely left your mark

here. Thank

you, Yonah. Congratulations.

Mhmm. Thank

you. Thank you, Matt.

Do you have any parting thoughts? Or oh, Carrie. Yeah. Boy.

Come on up. Carrie's stories.

Is there a process for no.

I'm just kidding.

When when when Dan let let the staff know in community development that he was leaving Oh. With an email, he mentioned that there were is it four people that have been here all the time that you've been with the city? Yeah.

What was it for? Community development.

Yeah. And I'm one of those.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. This is this is my twenty fourth year with

Don't get any ideas. No. I'm just kidding.

He'll he'll have to retire someday.

Exactly. Yeah. The plan is yeah. Alright. But So, yeah. It's been great to see, you know, Dan's evolution. I mean, you think about he started as an intern. And Yeah. I don't really remember that, but I'm sure there were some noteworthy moments with that. And, yeah, just I mean, Dan and I have worked together on a number of projects. In fact, we're working on one right now that certainly won't be finished within a year. And it's the National Flood Insurance Program. Yeah.

So it's been a big Good luck with that one.

Yeah. Good luck. Thanks, Dan. But the thing I fear the most is now with Dan leaving that planning is gonna be looking for other people to fill that spot with the Halloween celebration. Are you volunteering? I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Yeah. Yeah. I know.

Yeah. But if you would love this year's theme, you should come join.

I I don't know the theme yet, though.

But it's top secret.

I know it's always top secret.

Trust us. Wow. Intense. Yeah.

But, yeah, I hope you have you know, Boise is a wonderful place to live. Idaho is an amazing place to live. And just being closer to your family, and I think that's, you know, that's the best we could hope for in life.

So Yeah.

I I wish you the best, and I hope everything turns out the way that you want it. And we miss you.

Thank you, Yeah. I'll just say thank you for all the kind words. It has been one of the great parts of this job has been working with the volunteers on especially some of these planning commissioners that, you know, do two terms all their terms on DRB and then all their terms in planning commission. I mean, get to work together and become friends for over quite an extended amount of time. Especially living in the community together and seeing each other around.

It's been really great. And, you know, some of you may end up on council even, right? Have those counselors that have done everything and have been around for all of them. So it's great to be able to develop those relationships, and it's been a joy. This has been And I appreciate the contribution that you've been able to give to the city, because this is a city that's changed a lot over the last seventeen years.

It has been a really critical period in its history. And I've been here most of the time the Villa Wah is being built out, and that's just very professionally, very rewarding to be able to live through that experience and see those visions on paper come together and really have high hopes for how Frog Pond continues to come together and make Wilsonville really a special place. That's what's really attracted to stay here for so long. Because my plan was to come to Wilsonville for two years originally, like

Oh, wow.

While I was in graduate school. It's been a bit longer than that. I've been here over nineteen years now. And, you know, there's something that I'll tell you, I even choose it. My mother-in-law and my wife drove up looking for a place to live around here and landed in Wilsonville. And I'm glad they did because it really is a special place on the map, a unique place that has a lot going for it. And it's been a joy to work with the volunteers and the appointed elected officials and great staff, a lot of great long tenured staff, a lot of great support all around to make good things happen, to make it a special place and continue, you know, what makes Wilson the Wilsonville way, really, and make it make it special. So thank you.

Okay. Well, I think means that we've completed all of our scheduled agenda items. And so I'll I'll go ahead and ask for a motion because I'm just, like, pushing the line here, though. So do I have a motion to adjourn?

Make a motion to adjourn.

Alright. Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay. The meeting is adjourned at 07:06PM. Thanks. And we have a card for you, Dan.

Oh, thank you.