MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING

Tuesday, October 1, 2002

Metro Council Chamber

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

Members Absent:  Councilor Bragdon was excused.

1.  CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL. Chair Park called the meeting to order at 1:06 p.m. Chair Park mentioned that the public hearings on the Urban Growth Boundary expansion would begin this evening, starting with the Forest Grove hearing at 6 o’clock, with the map viewing at 5 o’clock.

2.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 17, 2002, COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING.

3.  SUMMARY OF COUNCILOR AMENDMENTS TO EXECUTIVE OFFICER’S RECOMMENDATION ON URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY (UGB) EXPANSION. Chair Park asked the councilors to please submit to Mr. Morrissey any amendments they may have, that staff had been looking at one or two potential amendments that may require additional public notification. They would take care of that, he added.

4.  DRAFT ORDINANCE NO. 02-969 – FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING THE METRO URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY, THE REGIONAL FRAMEWORK PLAN AND THE METRO CODE IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE CAPACITY OF THE BOUNDARY TO ACCOMMODATE POPULATION GROWTH TO THE YEAR 2022; AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY. Mr. Dick Benner spoke to the Decision Track document in the agenda packet, and said it tracked fairly closely the entries in the Urban Growth Report, and that the attached draft ordinance followed the same order. He then spoke to the draft ordinance and pointed out the items (e.g., the numbered items – 1 through 15 – on the second and third pages), which would need to be completed in order, to implement the council’s decision. He drew the committee’s attention to Item 8, the specific performance measures they would need in order to support this Periodic Review decision. Mr. Benner said Item 13 did not, of course, have Appendix A as yet, but would, and blank spaces in the ordinance would eventually be filled in as the council made the decisions.

Mr. Benner said at this time he could not advise whether any part of the UGB decision should be in a separate ordinance as that would depend on the policy decisions made.

Councilor McLain said she was looking for a staff report for the ordinance, and asked who was writing it. She said she hoped it would be ready for the public hearing in Forest Grove later this day, and that it be written so as to be understood by the general public. Chair Park asked staff to please do so.

5.  SUMMARY OF LOCAL REQUESTS ON UGB. Ms. Weber spoke to the yellow/green distributed sheets on the jurisdiction and citizen comments received on the UGB (and made a part of this record), addressing the jurisdiction comments first (green sheets) and specifically outlining each of the comments received after the Executive Officer made his recommendation, beginning with the City of Beaverton request on p. 3. Councilor Hosticka pointed out that some of the entities on the list were not governmental and wondered why. Mr. Dan Cooper, General Counsel, said it was a legal requirement that all comments received from a local government be formally responded to by Metro to make sure a plan was coordinated when it was done. Ms. Weber offered to move the non-governmental comments from the jurisdiction list but Chair Park said to just retitle the list.

Ms. Weber said the City of Sherwood had consistently written saying they were not ready to do any urbanization and they had requested that Metro add a parcel (she said she thought it was Area 58) to the UGB, and this was in the Executive Officer’s recommendation. In a recent letter, Sherwood rescinded that request, she said. It was supposed to be for a school site, and they are no longer going to put a school on that site. Councilor McLain asked legal counsel if, just because a jurisdiction would say they didn’t want to include land how much credence did Metro have to give their request just because they said they didn’t want it. Mr. Cooper said if a jurisdiction made a comment, Metro has to give it some validity as far as the request was based on reality and law. If they said simply that they want farmland or exception land, Metro was still bound to follow the hierarchy, perform the rigid methodology, and then the response could be that state law precluded bringing in the farm land (or whatever) with the facts listed in the reply.

Councilor McLain said she wanted to point out two areas of concern, Stafford and Sherwood, and she said she didn’t think staff had adequately responded nor that Metro had enough information on those areas from a findings perspective. She asked that more work could be done on these, if they weren’t brought in.

Chair Park said what Ms. Weber was presenting was just a list of the comments that had been received, and Ms. Weber added that this was not a copy of any replies staff had made or what they had studied, that that would be premature since the council had not yet made any decisions.

Responding to a question from Councilor Hosticka, Mr. Cooper said in the end Metro would need findings to explain why the last brought in was better than the land not brought in, in equal tiers. The level of detail of those findings, he said, would depend on the issues of the particular land in question

Councilor Atherton asked what the standard was for evaluation if a community said they did not want to do something. Mr. Benner said a few elements in the coordination requirement in Statewide Planning Goal 2 require a response that Metro had heard from the local jurisdiction and responded to them, not necessarily saying what Metro is going to do. The second element of it says Metro should try to accommodate the request, if possible. If, however, a local jurisdiction is asking Metro not to include land within the UGB just because they don’t want the growth, that would probably not be a legitimate basis for Metro not to include it. Metro may have a legitimate reason to do so if they have evaluated the land and weighed it. Metro does need to respond and to give some consideration to what’s being asked.

Councilor McLain gave some specific examples (areas 55, 53,61 and some of the exception lands in Stafford area) and asked staff about them and if Metro could support bringing them in. Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, said all staff was trying to do now was report what had been asked for, not to evaluate the merits of the requests but he agreed with her that it would be needed. Councilor McLain said she was just giving staff a heads up on her thoughts, as the citizens have been doing.

Carl said it would be useful for the cases of Sherwood and Tualatin on Area 61, where they didn’t just say they didn’t like but gave a certain chain of logic on what they found problematic about including those. He said he thought it would be useful for councilors at some point to go through the chain of logic the local jurisdictions provided to see if it was persuasive or not. There was a brief discussion on the Sherwood request and whether or not they would resubmit it and for what purpose.

Ms. Weber continued listing the jurisdiction comments received. A discussion followed on a Beaverton School District request (Area 85, she said she thought) and what Metro could/could not do regarding school property. Mr. Cotugno said he believed Metro had not yet received a formal request on this.

Ms. Weber then directed the committee’s attention to the September 30^th memo, UGB Correspondence for Selected Study Areas (distributed and made a part of this record), and she reviewed it as it gave a little more detail than the colored summary sheets.

Another discussion followed on Area 42 (Tualatin) which prompted Chair Park to say a letter was being drafted to send to the local jurisdictions asking for official positions and that he hoped to have the replies in by November 5^th. Councilor Burkholder asked for an explanation of how a property designation translated into the planning of an area, and Mr. Cotugno explained the 2040 Growth Concept as the framework requirement. Councilor Burkholder then said the committee should have a discussion of not only what comes into the UGB (or not) but the potential uses of the new areas, and Councilor McLain agreed. Ms. Weber said the council, along with making the UGB decision, would be adopting a 2040 Design Type designation for each of the areas that comes in. Mr. Cooper elaborated on the process that took place after the boundary was moved.

Ms. Weber continued her briefing on the study areas listed in the memo. There was a discussion on Study Area 47 (p. 4) and the I-5/Hwy. 99 connector roadway. The committee held briefly discussed the City of Sherwood and Study Areas 55, as well as Study ARea 65.

Chair Park asked the committee which format they preferred receiving information on comments and requests, the spreadsheet format or the memo format. It was determined to use the memo format as it gave a little more information, so Chair Park asked Ms. Weber to continue updating the memo, for now, although the spreadsheet would also continue to be used for details.

Councilor Atherton said he’d received a request from Mr. Dean Apostol in Damascus/Boring, and that he would be adding that request to the record.

Mr. Cotugno distributed a handout titled A Proposal for Meeting Identified Industrial Land Needs (distributed and made a part of this record) that he said MPAC discussed at their last meeting (September 25, 2002), and that he thought this was a useful framework. Although MPAC was not done with their review process, they did vote to support these priorities, in concept, Mr. Cotugno added, and he spoke on this document in more detail. Councilor McLain and Councilor Burkholder both commented on the document.

6.  DRAFT CENTERS WORK PROGRAM. Ms. Weber said part of the Periodic Review decisionwas to up the refill rate (using land more efficiently) to 2.5% to accommodate 5,000 more units inside the UGB. In order to sustain that argument and make a good faith effort to do that, along with the UGB decision the council makes this year it was recommended they also adopt by resolution a proposed 2040 Centers work program, built off of the three-phases of Centers research and Metro’s experience in working with Centers. Regarding this, Ms. Weber then spoke to the Proposed 2040 Centers Work Program (distributed and made a part of this record) and what the outline for each Task entailed. Some of these tasks could be done within the existing staff, she said, and possibly, if the council desired, some of the locals could assist.

Councilor Burkholder said this was a good work program and he appreciated that it was proactive. He suggested successes of other placed be highlighted, and examples included regarding what was doable. Chair Park and Councilor McLain agreed that the awards program was good for Metro’s partners, and Chair Park said presentations to MPAC and other bodies was helpful, as well. Chair Park recognized that this would need to be looked at in the next budget process in order to help make this happen.

Replying to a question from Councilor Hosticka regarding a higher refill rate, Mr. Benner reminded the committee of their obligation under HB 2709 – analyze the capacity of the boundary, assess the need, and match them. Assume that this time there is more need that the existing capacity. Under the statute, there are three choices: 1) expand the UGB to add capacity, 2) use land inside the UGB more efficiently, or 3) some combination of the two. The statute is written so that if they chooses the 2^nd or 3^rd step, the council can’t just say it’s going to happen, they need to take an action to make it happen, he said. He said they were likely to say they want to do more on the infill and redevelopment side, and the easy way to demonstration the path to this would be to adopt a regulation and change the targets for the cities and counties. That would be all the demonstration the council would need to make. No one has proposed that, Mr. Benner said, and the council did not seem inclined to do this. Instead, and based on the advice received from the consultant, the best thing Metro could do today would be to try to improve the climate for infill and redevelopment in Centers. If the council is not going to regulate it, i.e., require it, there is still the statute obligation to demonstrate that it’s likely they will get there. More than that, Mr. Benner said, he could not give a precise answer as it wasn’t a strictly mathematical equation.

Chair Park said there would certainly be more discussion on this topic as it reflected what could get done. However, he said, if the council doesn’t undertake this they would need to go out and find capacity for another 4,900 dwelling units. There was an assumption in the MetroScope model, he said, that at least a portion of this would be served in the next five years. Many variables would influence this, he said, but this all helped. Revisiting the budget question, Mr. Cotugno replied to Councilor Burkholder that with the council’s interest in pursuing this work program, and with their direction to staff in that regard, that it would be included as a proposal in the upcoming budget process. Chair Park said this should be part of what would be adopted in December along with the adopting UGB ordinance. He then thanked staff for their good work.

7.  PERIODIC REVIEW TASK 3, SUBREGIONAL. Chair Park said he’d asked staff to provide a list of all the necessary technical pieces they feel perhaps would not get finished in Task 2 that are going to be required to finish up in Task 2; and he asked them to provide a list of what would be nice, meaning the pieces beyond the first request – which could be Goal 5, Urban Reserves, the broader discussion; and to relate what the LCDC staff has told them in recent meetings. He invited Mr. Cotugno to brief the committee.

Mr. Cotugno said the future work activities were listed in Mr. Burton’s recommendation – 1. Designation of Urban Reserves, 2. Center Implementation, 3. Follow-up Employment Research, 4. Employment Land Analysis, 5. Adoption of a Goal 5 Program, 6. Green Spaces Bond, 7. Subregional Need, and 8. Revenue Sharing. The immediate question, he said, was amongst all of these which were appropriate to put into Task 3. Metro staff met with DLCD staff to give them a comprehensive review of the whole Periodic Review work program and to give them some idea of what Metro thinks might be concluded by this December vs. what might be left undone. In general, their attitude about a Task 3 was that Metro may not get everything done and they therefore recognized that there was clearly a need for some extensions, but they viewed it as more of a wrap-up activity, not embarking upon a major new endeavor. In their minds, they said, things like Goal 5 and Urban Reserves are major undertakings that really don’t represent wrapping up Periodic Review, he said, although they said it might be an appropriate thing to have done before the next five-year cycle or at the front end of the next five-year cycle. The issue driving DLCD’s attitude is the state statutes that provide a window for when to finish Periodic Review. We should discuss ourselves when and how we want to do Urban Reserves, with or without Periodic Review.

The other issue out there was subregional. The Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) was scheduled later in October to consider adopting Metro’s proposed rule, so that process was moving along, Mr. Cotugno said. This rule, he said, would not mandate anything, it would allow the council to make decisions through a particular approach. If we have an unmet need that we’re carrying over into Task 3, then we could use this approach, he said. If we’ve satisfied the need and there’s no need to be met, then there is no application of the subregional approach. If we’re going to include meeting further need in Task 3 since we didn’t finish it in Task 2, do we want to consider using subregional under the new rule as a method to meeting that outstanding need, he asked. That possibility should be left open, he said he thought, but the council may get into the analysis and decide they don’t want to actually apply it at this time and carry it over to a future time. They are not tied down to adopting on a subregional basis, so their hands aren’t tied.

Chair Park said what was driving the question about this was that Metro was told very strongly that they have their Task 3 requests in from the the Commission before they finish Task 2, so that meant the work needed to be in to LCDC staff by November 1^st. He said the committee needed to ask MPAC again, as they voted favorably for a Task 3 but without a quorum, so that needed to be revisited. Also, Chair Park said, was that the Task 3 list needed to be written similar to the way Task 1 was written, saying “may include subregional.” These were discussions the committee needed to have, he added, and determine what to put in the Task 3 request. Councilor McLain agreed with Chair Park that these discussions were needed, but said that couldn’t take place until the LCDC staff provides the essential list, which Mr. Cotugno said they’d done, i.e., meet the 20-year housing and employment need.

8.  POPULATION FORECAST RANGE. Chair Park said Councilor Atherton had requested a high/low range on the forecast. Mr. Cotugno addressed the committee and explained that Mr. Dennis Yee, Metro Chief Economist, would discuss his population forecast, which was substantially the same since it was first presented to the council in the spring. He’s now added the highs and the lows, Mr. Cotugno said, and would review those for the committee. Mr. Cotugno said Mr. Scott Drumm of the Port of Portland was also present to explain the difference between the Port’s forecast and Metro’s forecast.

Mr. Yee spoke first to the Proposed Final Draft, Economic Report to the Metro Council, 2000-2030 Regional Forecast (distributed and made a part of this record), specifically Appendices A through D (p. 47-48) and Appendix Table 14 which were new in this document, he said. The consultant, DRI/WEFA, provided the macro economic outlook for the Metro regional forecast as well as the commodity flow forecast for the Port of Portland, Mr. Yee said. After pointing out the portions of the document that the councilors may want to peruse, he then spoke to another handout, the sheet dated October 1, titled Metro Regional Forecast: 2000-2030 (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Clark and Yamhill).

Responding to a question from Councilor Monroe, Mr. Yee said it was his professional judgment that the economic assumptions that he made in March were still tracking reasonably well with current conditions and current expectations. He pointed out that near-term fluctuations in business cycles generally do not change a longer-term trend. Mr. Yee added that the base case forecast by DRI/WEFA represented what they thought was the likely outcome given how their reading the tea leaves, so to speak. Metro takes the information as given for this region, he said, and downloads it through the model (Metro Area Regional Integrated Output Model, or the Metro Economic Model, referred to by Mr. Yee as MARIO) to come up with the relationship for how the national backdrop translates into a regional outlook. Councilor Monroe said he thought it inappropriate for this committee to question the specifics of Mr. Yee’s methodology, and he recalled previous years when working on the state’s budget being told by the state economist that economic forecasts could never be done accurately.

Councilor Hosticka asked how Mr. Yee’s projections weighed against the statement on p. 44 of the Metro Regional Forecast report that stated the economy was projected to turn around in early 2002, which in fact did not happen. Mr. Yee said that was the DRI/WEFA projection, and that fortunately, being a Portland resident, he did incorporate the latest census information into the population data he used for his projections.

Mr. Yee said Metro pays DRI/WEFA a lot of money for their expertise and their judgment. Councilor McLain said she respected and trusted Mr. Yee’s assumptions, but she just liked to have a base for her understanding. This was very helpful to her, she said, and she hoped he wouldn’t take any questions to mean the committee does or does not agree or disagree, but that they just needed understanding. She said she appreciated what he’d provided them today.

Regarding her request to provide a range of numbers, Mr. Yee said he was asked to give a number, that it would have been very difficult for him to have provided a range. In none of the data he’s presented to this point had he given a reasonable range as he had never received direction to do that, nor was he sure he could, yet. He provided a bandwidth that said if you assume this set of assumptions, your economy could run at this level. The middle of that bandwidth was what the professionals believe was the most likely outcome, given what they know. Mr. Cotugno added that hitting the high or the low was very, very unlikely. He said he was trying to get a handle on how wide was a reasonable range of forecast.

Chair Park said he understood that the committee had more questions on this and that Mr. Yee would need to come back, but because of time constraints due to the 6 o’clock public hearing in Forest Grove, he asked Mr. Yee if he could capsulize the different conclusions (he was referring to the report and to the e-mail from Paul Bingham). Mr. Yee replied that he had reviewed some of the literature DRI/WEFA presented as part of their commodity flow forecast. One of the reasons the Port chose DRI/WEFA was that much of the Port’s activity is driven by interests outside this region, which DRI/WEFA could provide. The models were clearly different, he said.

Chair Park invited Mr. Scott Drumm, Senior Research Association, Research and Marketing Information Department, Port of Portland, P.O. Box 3529, Portland, OR 97208, to address this from his perspective and say how he viewed it for the committee. Mr. Drumm said he did not disagree with anything Mr. Yee had said. The Port did consider the Metro forecast, he said, and also took into account the fact that DRI/WEFA recommended their forecast. To be consistent with all the assumptions and the way the model operated, the Port chose to go with the DRI model, he said, and they also chose DRI as a consultant because of their experience and their expertise. Not only is DRI one of the premier economic forecasting firms in the country, they also have a great deal of experience in the field of commodity flow assessment which is a very narrow field, and very few firms do this.

Councilor Hosticka asked if Mr. Drumm’s comments were mostly about the value of the forecast for the Port’s policy directions and not necessarily the accuracy of the forecast itself. Mr. Drumm replied that in terms of the population forecast, the Port looked at it, they knew it was lower than Metro’s. It was not substantially lower, in their opinion, and because it also meshed well with the other two nationals and their national models, the Port felt it was a better set, he said.

Responding to a question from Councilor Atherton, Mr. Yee said they were forecasting about half a percent wage and salary job growth to go with that. What that means is that they’re thinking that this region has very little of an economic engine going for it and that we’re going to be in recession, or near recession-like economic conditions for 20 years, and that produced that 1.3%. That was something Mr. Yee said he was able to draw out of the data tables, and his professional opinion was that it was not accurate, that that was not the kind of region we have here. The profile, whether economic or population wise, he said he found that there was a disconnect there.

There was discussion on the Port’s commodity forecast and how their needs differed from Metro’s. Councilor Burkholder said he’d Metro had been successful in the past in projecting what was going to happen, they had the methodology that had been tested and found, by people who know what they’re talking about, to be good quality. That was how he could make my decision, just on that, he said. Chair Park thanked Mr. Drumm and Mr. Yee.

9.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS. There were none.

10.  ADJOURN. There being no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 4:08 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Rooney Barker

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF OCTOBER 1, 2002

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

TESTIMONY CARDS. None.