MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING

Tuesday, April 2, 2002

Metro Council Chamber

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

Members Absent:  Councilor Monroe was excused due to illness.

Chair Park called the meeting to order at 2:12 p.m.

3.  RELATED COMMITTEE UPDATES.

•  Transportation – Councilor Burkholder said there was nothing to report regarding the Transportation Committee.

•  JPACT – There was no report regarding JPACT, according to Councilor Burkholder, in Councilor Monroe’s absence.

•  Natural Resources – Councilor Hosticka, as Vice Chair to the Natural Resources Committee, said the main issues are the ESEE analysis, finishing the riparian mapping, and adopting a map of regional resources on wildlife. The major issue affecting this committee was the timing of all of that and how it works into the upcoming UGB decisions.

6.  LET’S TALK GROWTH CONFERENCE RECAP. Mike Hoglund, Regional Planning Director, recapped the highlights of the Let’s Talk regional conference of March 15 – 16, 2002. Mr. Hoglund’s April 2, 2002, memo on this subject was distributed and is included as a part of this meeting record. The memo described the process for evaluation the conference and the workshops, for compiling the results report, for distributing the conference materials and products, for determining what was next for the outreach effort, for program application and for providing the results to Metro’s committees. Some of the information from the conference had not been compiled as yet but would be forthcoming, he said. Mr. Hoglund said he was pleased with the information gleaned from the conference, and was pleased as well with the staff work to integrate all of this into a format the Council could use in making policy decisions in the future. From this conference information, staff was developing a public opinion survey, and he said they hoped to have it released in late May or early June 2002. He reminded the committee that this conference was one part of the Let’s Talk outreach effort and that coordinating the outreach activities with the upcoming decisions would not only make it clear to the public but would help staff understand the processes.

The preconference report and a video were items on which staff received good feedback, and he said these would be distributed to libraries and schools, and that there are extra copies of those available if any of the councilors would like to use these in the future.

Mr. Hoglund said he would like to distribute his April 2^nd memo to Metro’s advisory committees to get more information and feedback from members who might have attended and to get comments back from them. He asked the committee to look at the last two pages of the memo, which was the analysis of whether or not staff met the goals they’d set for the conference. He asked the committee for their comments.

Councilor Burkholder cautioned that staff not distribute a few pieces of data from the hundreds received, as shown in the memo; he suggested either taking this out of the memo or combining it with more information. One of the most significant things to him, he said, was that people saw how difficult it was to make the needed decisions and they saw how few choices there were; they were realizing that Metro needed to follow local, regional, state and federal rules to make those decisions. He commented that staff brought that out very well.

Councilor McLain thanked all the staff for the successful conference, saying it was one of the first efforts she’d seen with one voice for Metro, and the communication team worked very hard to integrate Metro’s message and the work accomplished in this building into that one voice. The two pluses she saw from having the two-day event were the two very different types of activities and, on Saturday, the five different locations which made for different dialog. She suggested that now Metro needs to go back to the people who participated and close the loop, providing them with knowledge on how the information gleaned will be used, and with timelines and decision making information.

Chair Park again commended the excellent work done by staff. He said he’d hoped for more business and real estate participation. He heard from the public, he said, the question of when they’ll get to do it again, and he thought that was a good sign.

Mr. Hoglund added that the local elected officials forums were interesting and very useful, and he thought doing that again soon, within the decision making timeline, would be very productive.

Chair Park invited comment from the audience; no one came forward.

2.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE MARCH 19, 2002, COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING.

3.  RELATED COMMITTEE UPDATES (Continued from earlier)

•  WRPAC – Councilor McLain said the last meeting had been cancelled and would be rescheduled within the next few weeks. Wildlife habitat issues were upcoming.

4.  URBAN GROWTH REPORT (UGR) PRIMER. Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, spoke to the April 2, 2002, memo to him from Lydia Neill, Principal Regional Planner, re 2002 Urban Growth Report Methodology (distributed and made a part of this meeting record). He first called the committee’s attention to the last two pages of the memo, which were a mock-up of the Urban Growth Report components, saying the memo walked through those and explained the choices to be made. The basics were, he said, what’s the demand, what’s the supply and what’s the shortfall. Then come the policy choices of what to do about the shortfall inside the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) and what to do about the shortfall outside the UGB and where. Right now they were looking at what the shortfall was, not how to deal with it. Within the different components, there were two paths: was Metro accurately measuring the particular numbers and did staff have confidence in the assumptions made as an accurate measure (documenting what’s happening), or, was there a policy direction Metro was trying to set and was there reasonable confidence that the policy direction would be implemented to produce the direction being pursued (establishing what might happen under a different policy direction). He asked that the committee keep these two components in mind. Those lines marked with a “?” were, in his judgment, the places with choices to be made where Metro would address policy direction and on which the council would probably spend more time; the others were either regulated by law or looking at whether Metro was accurately measuring the numbers. This would be the method of debating the criteria before seeing the results, but said staff would look for committee direction on when they wanted to see a draft of the actual numbers.

Chair Park asked when MPAC would receive this same presentation so that level of discussion on policy would occur. Mr. Cotugno said he hoped to do this same kind of review at MPAC’s next meeting, pending this committee’s decision on that, and then, pending both of those reviews, asked Chair Park when he wanted the numbers brought forward.

Lydia Neill, Principal Regional Planner, Community Development Division, Planning Department, first explained the sets of nine maps she’d provided on the 2000 Vacant Land Inventory (and offered individual sets for the members of the committee upon request – these maps are made a part of this record). She then spoke to her March 28, 2002, memo to Andy Cotugno regarding Map Atlas Release (distributed and made a part of this record), and her April 2, 2002, memo to Andy Cotugno and Mike Hoglund regarding the 2002 Urban Growth Report Methodology (also distributed and made a part of this record). Ms. Neill explained that the Urban Growth Report (UGR) is basically an accounting statement of the UGB, and staff was attempting to develop the balance sheet comparing the 20-year period demand with the available supply within the UGB. Once those are matched, excess capacity or shortfall can be determined.

Ms. Neill explained the compilation of the map data and her confidence in the sources used, and she emphasized that the analyses staff performs is regional. The state has been very clear in what staff was to study. She then spoke in greater detail, explaining the pieces of the analysis as outlined in her 2002 Urban Growth Report Methodology memo. Mr. Cotugno added that today’s report was focused on the housing side and that the employment side would be at a later side. There was some discussion on most of the points called out in the memo.

Chair Park invited Mr. Bob Durgan, Development and Acquisition Representative for Anderson Construction, Inc., 6712 N. Cutter Circle, Portland, OR 97217, to add his point of view on the housing vacancy rate, which he said runs on a 5% factor in the loan industry and that has been and is the benchmark.

Concluding, Mr. Cotugno asked when the committee would like to see a draft of the numbers. Councilor McLain said she liked the idea of staff presenting the format without the numbers to get people to look at the categories, and thanked staff for that. She added that she thought the committee needed time for review and asked for at least 6-8 weeks. Chair Park said the decision on how staff should bring this forward again and when would be made after this went to MPAC.

5.  DRAFT FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT AND UGR LETTER TO DLCD. Mr. Cotugno spoke to his draft letter of March 25, 2002, to Mr. Paul Curcio, Director of the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) (included in the agenda packet), which was based on the meeting Metro staff had with DLCD staff approximately six weeks ago. The issues as stated in the memo regarding Metro’s fish and wildlife program, capacity estimates for Periodic Review, and the study of the possible upcoming UGB expansion were discussed.

Councilor Burkholder expressed concern that he was of the understanding that it didn’t matter what answer the agency gave, Metro’s position would still be vulnerable to legal action. Mr. Benner responded in detail to the committee’s questions regarding defensible decisions and conditions/ prohibitions, explaining how each would work and their timelines and jurisdictional responsibilities.

Councilor McLain said she didn’t think sending this letter would hurt and recommended the letter be sent. Councilor Hosticka said he thought it a good idea to send the letter if it would save a step, and that not to send it because of a possible lawsuit was not a good reason to not to send it. Mr. Benner said LCDC would be the entity being sued, but he agreed with Councilor Burkholder that Metro would need to assess their risk if the questions weren’t really answered.

Chair Park said he thought it should be sent because the questions needed to be asked, and it would be helpful to have the answers.

Chair Park, responding to Mr. Cotugno’s request as to whether or not to send the letter, asked Mr. Cotugno to redraft it to reflect the discussion and to restate what Metro is doing now and clarify the questions. Mr. Cotugno and Mr. Benner agreed to do this. Chair Park said he understood Councilor Burkholder’s concern about receiving a definitive answer, and said he thought posing the questions at least would allow Metro to state that this was what we heard, are we correct, and if it’s not, have it clarified. Councilor Hosticka said he didn’t think it would hurt anything to send the letter, even though there may be no gain, either.

7.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS.

There being no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 4:56 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Rooney Barker

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF APRIL 2, 2002

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

TESTIMONY CARDS. No card, but testimony received from Mr. Bob Durgan, Development and Acquisition Representative for Anderson Construction, Inc., 6712 N. Cutter Circle, Portland, OR 97217