MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, November 6, 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.

1.  Consideration of the Minutes of the October 16, 2001, Community Planning Committee Meeting

2.  Related Committee Updates

•  Natural Resources – Councilor Hosticka reported that staff was in the process of mapping the resources of the region and the Natural Resources Committee was opening the discussion of what was significant. There was a hearing scheduled for the next day. Also, he felt it important to let people know there was a Nov. 19^th evening meeting scheduled for people not able to attend day meetings. The committee work was still on track, he concluded, and they should have a decision on regional resources by the end of the year.

•  JPACT – Councilor Burkholder reported for Councilor Monroe, who had just left to attend a Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council board meeting. Councilor Burkholder said that at the previous week’s JPACT meeting the major issues discussed were reviewing the list of projects proposed by ODOT Region 1 and asking the region’s concurrence on those for Oregon Investment Act (OIA) funding. Three large projects on that list, considered critical by Region 1, were the Jackson School Road interchange on Highway 26, the climbing lane to Camelot on US 26 near the Sylvan interchange (coming from the west), and the East Columbia-Killingsworth Connector in northeast Portland. The list also included Bridge Rehab as well as Pavement Preservation projects. This list was approved by JPACT to be sent down to the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) with the addition of the Nyberg Road interchange project, and a few other refinements.

Chair Park asked Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, if he had anything to add. Mr. Cotugno said at the JPACT meeting it was understood that the targets the OTC set for Preservation funding would get through almost all seven projects on that list, except $800,000. That was incorrect. The actual funding would get through $16 million of projects on that list, not the $21 million they had thought. That meant we should be asking for the rest of that list out of the remaining $20 million that the state would be allocating statewide, which would be about $5 million instead of $800,000. He said he thought we would be more likely to get that out of the $20 million that’s not currently allocated than we would out of the Modernization projects, because the $20 million was set aside in the first place for Bridge and Preservation purposes and this would finish our Preservation list. Mr. Cotugno said we had a good chance of receiving this funding, but it’s less assured than in the base project as thought at JPACT last week. (Mr. Cotugno provided copies of an October 26, 2001, revised memo to JPACT from Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, regarding Oregon Transportation Investment Act Recommendations, and an October 31, 2001, memo from Kay Van Sickel, Region 1, Manager, to Rod Monroe, JPACT Chair, regarding OTIA Priority Funding.)

Councilor Burkholder asked the council to send a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission to address their policy concerns regarding these projects as well as other projects, and regarding the issue of protecting the Jackson School Road interchange and the Regional Transportation Plan policy on rural connectors, as well as to again request that ODOT look at our Regional Street Design Guidelines and the GreenStreets Design Guidelines in all their projects. This would give us another opportunity to assure that Region 1 complies with those guidelines that we have adopted. He said the purpose of this letter would be to reiterate this council’s policy goals and objectives, and to point out that we’d like to see that the funding share be proportionate.

•  WRPAC – Councilor McLain said the Water Resources Policy Advisory Committee would meet again on the 3^rd Monday of November.

3.  Draft Ordinance 01-925 – For the Purpose of Amending Metro Code Title 8 (Compliance Procedures) and Title 1 (Requirements for Housing and Employment Accommodation) of the Urban Growth Management Functional Plan and Section 7.5 of the Regional Framework Plan Ordinance 97-715B to Revise the Process for Adjudication and Determination of Consistency of Local Comprehensive Plans with the Urban Growth Management Functional Plan, and to Revise the Process and Criteria for Exceptions From and Extensions To Comply With the Functional Plan (this ordinance title was amended in the Revised agenda page).

Mr. Dick Benner reviewed the draft ordinance for the committee, going through the architecture of the sections of the ordinance, by name, and what each section meant. He then outlined and explained the principal changes from the version the committee had seen previously. (The additions were underscored and the deletions were in text that was struck out.)

Mr. Cooper clarified a few more points regarding the history of the Metro Charter, the code and the Functional Plan. There was discussion on administrative decisions, criteria and the public hearing process.

At this point, Chair Park suggested the committee review the exceptions portion of the ordinance first. Discussion centered on interim requests from jurisdictions for exceptions, criteria for granting exceptions, industrial lands, the decision making and enforcement authority of the Metro Council, and consistency.

Councilor Hosticka asked Mr. Cooper to provide a copy of the statutory provision from the Metro Charter relevant to Exhibit A., 3.07.810, E. He also asked that whoever worked on the transition group do a general review of all Metro’s plans, legislation, etc., to determine whether it will be the Council or administrative staff making the decisions, since Metro will be moving into a situation where the head of administration is not an elected official. This prompted a discussion on administrative vs. Council authority, in the past, currently, and what the Council may choose to do in the future. Mr. Cooper and Mr. Benner pointed out that the Council could decide the question, as long as they don’t go against state law.

After this discussion, Chair Park sought the committee’s concurrence to send this ordinance to MPAC with one change making it clear that extensions have to come through the Council, and that the Council may suggest an exception with administrative criteria. After more deliberation, the committee agreed to not include the administrative criteria at this time. Chair Park asked Mr. Benner and Mr. Cooper to make those changes to the ordinance and to forward it to MPAC.

4.  Resolution 01-3114 – For the Purpose of Authorizing an Amendment to an Intergovernmental Agreement with Tri-Met Concerning Transit-Oriented Development and Increasing the Level of Transit Service.

Phil Whitmore spoke to the staff report for this resolution that clarified this amendment to the Intergovernmental Agreement.

5.  Follow-up to Jurisdiction Reports and Requests for Extensions to Functional Plan Compliance. Chair Park thanked staff again for all their work on the public hearing of October 30^th.

Brenda Bernards, Senior Regional Planner, Regional Planning Division, Planning Department, spoke to her memo of November 6^th to Chair Park and the committee, Summary of the Discussion of the October 30, 2001, Special Meeting of the Community Planning Committee (distributed and made a permanent part of this record), which summarized her interpretation of the testimony, the direction she heard from the committee, and the next steps.

Ms. Bernards said as she received information from the jurisdictions regarding updates on their compliance, she would provide copies of those for the workbooks the committee used at the October 30^th meeting. At the time of decision on the actual granting of extensions, these workbooks would provide pertinent information.

In response to questions regarding Clackamas County’s compliance, Mr. Cooper suggested a written report or analysis be prepared that would detail what is known, what ordinances Clackamas County has adopted and when, and lay it all out. Ms. Bernards added that, per two memos from Ray Valone that were added to the workbooks, Clackamas County’s outstanding Title 3 work was more than they said it was, being not just for Water Quality but also Flood Plain and Erosion Control. Councilor Hosticka asked if Ms. Bernards could include in her analysis some discussion of what functions Clackamas County was providing to other jurisdictions and what the legal status of those were. Councilor Atherton agreed.

Ms. Bernards continued her discussion with the committee on the October 30^th meeting and other information received from the jurisdictions.

Chair Park said he would like Ms. Bernards’ summary memo circulated to MPAC as an information item and to verify that the information Metro had was correct. It would also give the jurisdictions the opportunity to listen to and check in with each other.

Councilor Burkholder suggested a few changes to Ms. Bernards’ memo before she circulated it by dividing the Titles, with 1 and 3 being critical to Metro and possibly letting the other Titles slip, at least for now. He also thought it critical that the jurisdictions that had not yet done so provide an impact of delayed compliance. Regarding the suggestion in the memo of considering interim regulations, Councilor Burkholder thought this might be an option where this body would want to go farther, and said it may be a question for MPAC. He proposed taking all of these to MPAC to ask them how they would solve these. Councilor Atherton agreed that Title 3 needed to be addressed and action taken. Councilor McLain said she also agreed with what Councilor Burkholder said.

Chair Park agreed with Councilor McLain that it was time for Metro to take action, but proposed a moderate response in the spirit of regional cooperation since most of the jurisdictions are taking action. He then directed staff to continue their work with the jurisdictions on viable/non-viable work plans, and to move the resolution ahead and bring it before this committee November 20^th.

5a.  Alternatives Analysis Study. Chair Park added this item to the agenda in order to finish the discussion from the October 16^th meeting, when the committee asked Lydia Neill, Senior Regional Planner, Community Development, Planning Department, and staff to gather information on the pink (mapped) areas. Mr. Cotugno explained that Planning would like to reactivate their consultant to pull all the information together that could be needed about all the various Goal 14 factors for the areas under study. He spoke to the different tiers on a large map (no copy provided for this record), but did not identify the areas he spoke to. There was a limited budget and he said it would be more efficient to consolidate the study now, but they needed to council’s okay before they commit. If the had to wait, he said, the schedule could be crunched and it would also be more expensive. Collecting the information now did not oblige Metro to take action on a subregional basis, but simply would provide the information so it could be considered when the time comes.

There was discussion, and Councilor Burkholder asked for more information in order to understand how everything was defined. Chair Park replied that it hadn’t been decided to study subregions or what was of regional significance yet. He said we want to map it all to decide what’s there and what type of land it is. In this case, he explained, staff was asking to map these areas even though they don’t know if they’ll study them, but they have the resources now to do this. If we ask them to wait and map it later, it will crunch their time and it may be more expensive. All they were asking was what they could study.

Ms. Neill concurred that the request was to minimize expense to the agency. After extensive discussion, Presiding Officer Bragdon asked Ms. Neill the incremental cost of having the consultant do all the land at the same time. Ms. Neill said she hadn’t received a firm price yet but estimated that Metro could get all the pink area studied in the existing contract of, she believed, $35,000, of which $31,000 was remaining. She said she thought it would cost an additional $30,000 to come back later to study the additional land staff was proposing be studied now. Presiding Officer Bragdon suggested the committee weigh the order of magnitude.

Responding to a question from Councilor Hosticka, Chair Park said that getting the Alternatives Analysis completed was a priority, and getting that off to LCDC. The subregions question has created more questions than it answered. Discussion centered on the colored areas on the map (which were not identified for this record). Because the discussion kept moving off to subregional areas, Chair Park cautioned the committee not to get two points mixed up: 1) Metro had not decided to study subregions, and 2) staff brought forward this proposal to use funds more efficiently.

Councilor Hosticka suggested, since a consensus could not be reached, that an actual proposal be brought back at another meeting. Chair Park asked staff to do so. Mr. Cotugno also reported what had been discussed on this proposal at MPAC.

Gresham Charette. Phil Whitmore briefed the committee on the July 12^th Gresham Charette. His presentation brought the committee up to date on the various Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) projects throughout the region, and the interaction with architects, developers, builders and jurisdictions in order to create cost-effective, unique developments. The Gresham Civic Neighborhood TOD was a focal point of this presentation, and he focused on the contributions of the City of Gresham, Tri-Met, Center Oak Development, and Mentrum Architecture, Inc. A copy of the Gresham Civic neighborhood slides from this presentation is included as a part of this record.

6.  I-5 Trade Corridor Study Update. Councilor Park mentioned that he served on the land-use subcommittee portion of this study. Richard Brandman, Deputy Planning Director, filled in the committee on the transportation portion of this project. He said this was an ODOT project, not a Metro project, but he would keep them informed as it progressed. He then spoke to his handout (I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership, Update for Community Planning, November 6, 2001, and made a part of this record), addressing the options the Policy Committee evaluated.

Councilor Burkholder proposed having a discussion with Executive Officer Mike Burton, Metro’s representative on the I-5 Trade Corridor’s Policy Committee, before that committee makes any decisions. Mr. Cotugno suggested the Councilor schedule that with Mr. Burton.

Mr. Cotugno completed the briefing by addressing the land use portion of the update, speaking to his handout (I-5 Partnership Regional Land Use Committee Findings and Recommendations, November 6, 2001, and made a part of this record). Due to time constraints, he was only able to highlight the key points, but said he would like to come back before the committee at a later date with more detail. Chair Park asked staff to arrange that.

7.  Metro’s “Let’s Talk” Conference – This agenda item canceled because of time constraints and Mr. Hoglund was asked to brief the councilors individually.

8.  Councilor Communications – Councilor McLain said she had received reactions to the Metro-sponsored Coffee Talks, and she thought some adjustments needed to be made. She suggested staff make certain to get the facts correct in the dialog and the education piece, and that it was the facilitator’s obligation to clear up fallacies and misinformation (at one of the Coffee Talks, a statement that 60% of Metro’s and the region’s transportation money was spent on bike lanes, and cable TV picked that up – it was not corrected by the meeting facilitator). She also asked any Councilors who attended these to suggest any other modifications they felt could be made. Another point she made was that the Coffee Talks were not the only part of outreach, and her last point was that Goal 5 was to have been highlighted at enough of these Talks so that it would be a good part of the outreach for Goal 5, but she wasn’t sure how many of these had been done. She asked Mr. Donovan to check and let her know. Councilor Hosticka said that at this point all the Talks should include Goal 5, and Mr. Cotugno said they did, that the three main topics in the Discussion Guide are the UGB, Goal 5 and Transportation. He said he thought Councilor McLain was referring to some of the Talks where the entire second hour was devoted to Goal 5. Councilor McLain said she thought part of these Talks were sloppy and that someone needed to work with the facilitators.

There being no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 5:43 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Rooney Barker

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF NOVEMBER 6, 2001

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

Testimony cards – None.