MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Rod Park (Chair), Bill Atherton, David Bragdon, Rex Burkholder, Carl Hosticka, Susan McLain and Rod Monroe

Members Absent:  None.

Chair Park called the meeting to order at 2:08 p.m.

2.  Related Committee Updates

•  Natural Resources – Councilor Hosticka said the Natural Resources Committee is continuing its work on the riparian corridor and wildlife protection. On September 28^th maps were released that showed the entire region map using the criteria that were approved this past summer. Now the committee is starting to move their discussion to the consideration of the significance of resources and what constitutes regional resources. The committee has issued a timetable stating that they will take public testimony on criteria of mapping on October 3 and 17. In November they will begin a broader discussion of significance and regional resource issues, with the goal that the entire Council will make a decision on those questions in December. The committee will also be reviewing parks as they progress in their work. Chair Park complimented Councilor Hosticka on the work the Natural Resources Committee presented to MPAC, saying it was very interesting and that Mr. Ketcham's presentation was well laid out and very well done.

•  WRPAC – Councilor McLain reported that there had not been a WRPAC meeting since her last report and there was nothing new to share.

•  JPACT – Councilor Burkholder, in Councilor Monroe’s temporary absence, said JPACT also had not met since Councilor Monroe’s last report, but would be meeting October 4^th. He briefly outlined JPACT’s agenda was for that day.

3.  UGB Code – Draft Ordinance A revised set of proposed amendments to the Regional Framework Plan and the Metro Code was distributed (dated September 29, 2001, and made a part of this record). Councilor McLain made a few general comments before Mr. Dan Cooper, General Counsel, spoke to the process and timeline for these amendments. Mr. Cooper said they were using Mr. Dick Benner’s draft (the proposed amendments document) as the basis for asking Planning Department staff to send out the 45-day notice to DLCD of the first public hearing on consideration of adoption, which starts the clock running. In the interim, this body was free to continue to discuss this in draft format, he said, and make further refinements to it. At some point, the council will need to make the determination of where in the process it should be sent to MPAC for comment. The process to follow, he said, was 1) these amendments will need to be introduced in a formal ordinance; 2) referred to, presumably, this committee; 3) referred to MPAC for their formal review and comment; 4) come back to the council for final adoption.

Mr. Cooper then went into greater detail on the quasi-judicial process for the committee as Mr. Benner set them out in the cover sheet to the proposed ordinance. Mr. Cooper closed by saying it was up to the committee when they wanted to schedule this for a formal first reading, and then Mr. Cooper answered more specific questions from the councilors.

Councilor McLain said Mr. Benner had done a very good job drafting this proposed ordinance, that there were a number of places where he was very clear regarding major and minor amendments, and she hoped the committee would embrace simplifying the system by going to the major and minor amendments. She thought the proposed clarity of the process would also help the public understanding of it, and that would help both the public and staff. She reminded the committee, though, that this was still a draft and still needed the their attention.

Chair Park asked staff to comment on the complexity of the reporting periods, saying he wanted the committee to be aware of the staff resource limitations. Mary Weber, Manager of the Community Development Division, Planning Department, confirmed that this is a very labor intensive process, and said she appreciated the committee’s sensitivity to that. Anything that can be done to make it clear to the public/applicant what their requirement is, and anything that would make it cleaner and more precise what staff does and what limits staff in the review would be an improvement.

There was discussion on major amendments with relation to housing and Goal 14, counties and special districts, and school siting requirements.

The policy matrix requested at the last meeting by Councilor Hosticka on minor/major amendments was being drafted, Chair Park said, and would be available soon. The 45-day clock was now running, staff needed to do the notification process soon and this needed to go before MPAC, so this body needed to finish. Chair Park concluded the discussion, asking the councilors to please bring their concerns forward, and to direct their legal questions to Mr. Cooper or Mr. Benner.

3a.  Quasi-Judicial Process Briefing – Mr. Cooper briefed the committee on the quasi-judicial process regarding the proposed Resolution No. 01-3108, coming before the Metro Council on Thursday, October 4^th, regarding an Urban Growth Boundary major amendment near the City of Wilsonville. He did not get into the substance of the resolution (the Coffee Creek Prison site), but the process and procedures the council was required to follow. (A copy of this resolution was not distributed at this meeting, but is included in the agenda packet for the Metro Council meeting of October 4, 2001.)

3b.  Resolution No. 01-3109, For the Purpose of Interpreting Metro Ordinance No. 99-809 Amending the Urban Growth Boundary. This resolution was not on the Community Planning Committee agenda and not distributed at this meeting, but was on the October 4, 2001, Council agenda; a copy may be found in that agenda packet. Mr. Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, explained that the resolution interprets a prior Metro Council action amending the UGB in an area south of Hillsboro. That UGB amendment, adopted by ordinance, included a series of conditions and the process of meeting those conditions is still going on. The school issue was time critical and that was why this was before the Council now. The school has funding through a bond measure and they need a clear signal that they can go into this area or they’ll need to go elsewhere, which raises the possibility that they may lose the school site. Mr. Cotugno then outlined the recommendation with conditions as submitted by staff, and asked that the committee allow this to move forward. He said this was a cautionary action and that other conditions could be dealt with later.

Chair Park added that this normally would go through the regular process of coming before this committee first, but was on a fast track at Councilor McLain’s request because of the school’s need, and he encouraged the councilors to take their questions or background requests to Mr. Morrissey or Mr. Cotugno.

1.  Consideration of the Minutes of the September 18, 2001, Community Planning Committee Meeting

4.  2040 Reengagement – Mr. Mike Hoglund, Director of Regional Planning, Planning Department, reported on the 2040 Reengagement, Where Do We Grow From Here, Let’s Talk status. Councilor McLain said she had been promised six times that if she didn’t put up a fuss about the phrase Where Do We Grow From Here as a subtitle, it wouldn’t be used as other than that. She said she hated the phrase. Mr. Hoglund said, with due respect, that he was a planner, not in marketing, although he said he understood the issues and the sensitivities. Councilor Bragdon said his understanding was that of the phrases tested, this was the one that came out on top. Councilor McLain said People, Places, Open Spaces was one of the phrases that tested very well.

Mr. Hoglund continued his update, specific to the upcoming Coffee Talks, the Growth Conference that will follow those talks, his hope to get some engagement today about the councilors’ roles in these, as well as a quick update on the sponsorship. Before going into detail on the above, however, he relayed LCDC’s compliment to Metro staff the previous week when he gave an update on this to them. Also, he said LCDC had provided support for the up-and-running Web site on this program, and they contributed to the Davis & Hibbetts survey, and were very interested in the results of that survey. LCDC also provided support for the Centers Study that Terry Moore and ECONorthwest just finished, Mr. Hoglund said. He said he told LCDC that Metro would like to partner more with them, with the obvious implication that Metro might be going back for more funding . . . and he didn’t hear an explicit no on that subject.

Mr. Hoglund resumed his update. The first third of the project was the research phase, last spring and through the summer – the outreach was primarily tied to stakeholders. The second third, now, is the Coffee Talks where the discussion becomes more focused and also broader – this includes bringing up to speed on the issues the stakeholders as well as the general public, and trying to identify trade-offs. Fifty Coffee Talks are scheduled, and 50 to 75 more will hopefully be scheduled, and will continue through the end of the year, with possibly a few taking place in 2002. The councilors’ roles in these needed to be determined, he said. It was the general consensus amongst the committee that their presence was positive since it was important they hear directly from the people, but that they not dominate any discussion. They agreed they would need to guard against that. The information gleaned from these talks would be provided back to the council in report format, Mr. Hoglund added.

Regarding the Growth Conference, Mr. Hoglund said he would probably be back before the committee to nail down some specifics. He filled them in on sponsorship, fundraising, the conference budget and how these are affecting conference activities, as well as topical areas and a venue for each of the councilors. Staff is still on the three tracks of transportation, natural resources and the growth boundary, but they have had feedback on including economic development and how Metro influences it.

Councilor McLain asked if Mr. Hoglund would check the Saturday workshop schedule/date with Washington County’s Vision West date so that there would not be a distraction or direct conflict. Mr. Hoglund apologized for the past communication glitches and said staff has learned considerably and hopefully these won’t happen again.

Councilor Burkholder asked that we make sure we ask questions where the answers will be usable, that what we want is a discussion. People have amazing insights, he said, and they will share them if we ask the right questions. He said he’d like to get from people what the trade-offs are and also some guidance from them. He said he would like the transportation piece to be as open-ended as the other pieces.

Councilor McLain revisited her disappointment with the name, Where Do We Grow From Here. She said she also agreed with Councilor Burkholder on the importance of whether the material that comes out of the Coffee Talks would be usable or not. There was more committee discussion on this and how to achieve it. Councilor Atherton said he would like to settle the Where Do We Grow From Here line. Mr. Hoglund said he would take it back to the Steering Committee, who spent a lot of time on it and thought this issue was behind them. There was a long discussion on this phrase, even though it was pointed out that it was a phrase attached to a project, and that project would end in March 2002, and that it was not perpetual nor Metro’s theme.

Chair Park suggested to Mr. Hoglund that perhaps staff could work on the phrase. Mr. Hoglund said it may be early enough in the process to change it to Where Do We Go From Here, although that meant something different.

Executive Officer Mike Burton entered the discussion, saying Councilor Burkholder had it right in that this was a program tag line. This line was to engage people in discussion, Mr. Burton said, and if Metro didn’t want to talk to people about growth, then there would be no discussion with them because that’s what Metro does. He also said that staff is looking for the public’s opinion, not his, which was why he would not be attending the Coffee Talks. He was less concerned about what was on the front of the Discussion Guide that on what was inside. There was more discussion on the tag line, and it was concluded that staff would work with Mr. Burton and perhaps discuss it in the one-on-one meetings Mr. Hoglund has scheduled with the councilors.

Chair Park thanked Mr. Burton for his comments, and thanked Mr. Hoglund for the good job his staff had done on the Discussion Guide, and said he understood the difficulty they faced when seven councilors all wanted to be in control.

5.  Time Extensions – Jurisdiction Status Report – Ms. Weber pointed out that it’s been three years since the Functional Plan was adopted and past practice has been that Metro staff has recommended approval of requested time extensions. At this point, she said, staff is very uncomfortable recommending any time extensions and, in fact, recommends that the individual jurisdictions come before the committee and plead their case directly. She said staff would convey that information to the jurisdictions, if the committee requests. Ms. Weber said that after Ms. Bernards completed reviewing the list of jurisdictions in noncompliance, staff would ask the committee what direction they would like staff to convey to the jurisdictions.

Ms. Brenda Bernards, Senior Regional Planner, Community Development Division, Regional Planning Section, Planning Department, first informed the committee that a letter had been sent this date to Milwaukie, Rivergrove, Tigard and Gladstone regarding their Title 3 noncompliance, and in the case of Gladstone, also Title 4 noncompliance, stating that Metro needs a new time schedule from them, and that Measure 7 right now is not in effect and they should be moving ahead. Ms. Bernards then spoke to the memo from Andy Cotugno to the committee of October 2, 2001, re Extension Requests (a copy of which was distributed and is included as a part of this record), specifically the attached tables, by Title. Ms. Bernards echoed Ms. Weber’s comment that Metro was getting close to the three-year mark in its Periodic Review and it was time to clean up nonconformance.

Chair Park said Metro has the responsibility under Periodic Review of completing the Urban Growth Report by May 2002. He said the proposed schedule, which was broached to MPAC without a rejoinder, was that this body would not entertain extensions past December 2001, they would be looking at either exceptions with conditions or extensions potentially with conditions (but not straight extensions any longer), in order to get the work done by May 2002. This would allow a month for substantial compliance arguments, and then in February 2002 start the exceptions process at this committee. Then they would go to MPAC and then to the full Council, for those allowed. Getting the other work completed while working on this, he said, if the committee was comfortable with that schedule, he would like to hold a special Community Planning Committee meeting with all the jurisdictions coming in at the same time to explain why they are not in compliance. At a later meeting, this committee can then decide what to do about extensions. The committee concurred with head nods. There was more discussion on the schedule, on getting MPAC involved at the appropriate time, on being fair and concise, and on enforcement. Councilor McLain said she thought the process laid out was good, and that it was fair and concise.

Councilor Atherton questioned Metro’s enforcement authority regarding this. Ms. Weber replied that Metro does have enforcement authority within the Code, and regarding the Functional Plan the Council has broad powers. Stepping out of her role as staff, she added that this was a good opportunity for the Metro Council to show the leadership they have and to get on with it.

Chair Park asked Mr. Cotugno and his staff to move in the direction as outlined. Ms. Weber asked Chair Park when the committee would like the jurisdictions to appear, and he said the sooner, the better, suggesting possibly after an MPAC meeting on a Wednesday. Councilor McLain said West Linn always had their meeting on Wednesdays, which meant they could never attend MPAC meetings, so she asked that this be noted, at least for that jurisdiction. Ms. Weber said she would work with the calendar of all the jurisdiction’s meetings, and find a good day.

6.  Alternatives Analysis – Questions to DLCD – Mr. Cotugno requested that this agenda item be deferred to the next meeting.

7.  Councilor Communications – None.

There being no further business before the committee, they adjourned at 4:29 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Rooney Barker

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF  OCTOBER 2, 2001

The following have been included as part of the official public record:

Testimony cards – None.