MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING

Tuesday, October 22, 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 1:05 p.m.

2.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES

•  OCTOBER 8, 2002, COMMUNITY PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

3.  HOUSING NEED ANALYSIS. Lydia Neill, Principle Regional Planner, summarized the Draft Goal 10 Housing Needs Analysis Report 2000-2022, a copy of which is provided in the meeting packet. The intent of the report is to provide information to the Council on the different projections for housing types according to prices and tenure in terms of rental and ownership. This also complies with ORS 197.296 and 197.303, a reporting requirement. She spoke about Figure 1.1, Regional Housing Demand and Supply 2002 with Base Case Assumptions, detailing the number of housing units, housing price ranges, causes of increase in price, housing supply, and inflation rates. The report found that housing has become less affordable. She gave an historical overview of housing prices. She noted that the report was done to meet Metro’s statutory requirements.

Councilor McLain noted that the report was a profile intended to meet legal requirements. The profile was important because its conclusions would fit into the bigger picture of housing. However, she had not seen a conclusion, and she suggested that staff explain the implications of the numbers.

Andy Cotugno, Planning Director, restated Councilor McLain’s question: Did anything in this analysis cause alarm, and if so, was there something Metro should do a to fix the problem that was developing? He said in the future, Metro may want to pay more attention to housing prices. The analysis showed that housing prices were manageable, but that was a value judgment. The second concern was the density mix of multi- and single-family housing: was the region getting the efficiency out of the land supply in the urban growth boundary (UGB)? He thought the answer was yes, and that the situation had improved over the last 10 years due to some of the actions taken by Metro.

Councilor McLain suggested that these conclusionary comments be included in the report. Councilor Burkholder asked about comparisons between housing and income increases, and said it would be useful to call out that information.

Councilor Atherton asked about the American Housing Survey. Ms. Neill said it was one of the data sets that staff used to produce this report but not the only one. The Metroscope data used the forecast as well as the transportation model. Councilor Atherton asked if staff had gone back and checked the numbers in Metroscope historically. Mr. Cotugno said the overall regional forecast had been done for about ten years. Staff had gone back and checked old forecasts for accuracy. The Metroscope aspect of allocating the location of growth was new and did not yet have a track record.

Chair Park asked if there was a trend of multi-family owner-occupied housing versus renter–occupied, and were they going to be able to stay within the guidelines? Ms. Neill said the split had changed a bit. In 2000, it was 64% for single detached units versus 36% multi-family. In 2022, they projected a change to 52% single detached units and 48% multi-family. The trend is toward more attached multi-family units. Meeting the state requirements would improve drastically to the period 2022, which spoke to more dense development within the UGB.

Dick Benner, Senior Assistant Counsel, said in the statute Metro was required to do two things in the analysis of the capacity of the boundary for housing: 1) analyze the supply of buildable land that was available for housing and then, 2) analyze the need for the next 20 years. Then they were supposed to compare the two. If the supply was not adequate to accommodate the demand based on the housing need analysis, then action would need to be. This was part of Task 2. The housing need analysis should show the need for certain housing types, range of densities, current supply, and either the supply would be added to the boundary or how the capacity of the existing boundary would be increased, and where the need would be accommodated.

4.  REVIEW MTAC RECOMMENDATIONS. Mr. Cotugno distributed comments on Title 4, Industrial and Other Employment Areas, which were submitted to the Metro Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) by the Cities of Hillsboro, Troutdale and Fairview. Copies of the documents are included in the meeting record). MTAC was still working its recommendation for Title 4 requirements. He thought there was good support for establishing regionally significant industrial areas, and agreement that the designation should apply both inside the current UGB as well as in areas added to the UGB for industrial purposes. He talked about the disagreements concerning corporate headquarters.

Councilor Burkholder suggested that the code refer to the number of employees rather than acreage. Then the discussion could focus on whether corporate headquarters were appropriate in an industrial center, based on the number of employees.

Chair Park asked for a definition of corporate headquarters.

Mr. Cotugno said the intent was to avoid general purpose, multi-tenant office buildings in industrial areas. However, the region should be able to accommodate a single, large office user who may want to move into the region

Chair Park said the issue was efficiency, not just the size of a single user. Mr. Cotugno agreed.

Councilor McLain said the regionally significant industrial areas had been proposed because in the past, industrial land has been wasted on other uses. It was important for the Council to have an opinion and weigh in on the discussion. She asked for more information about the standards and minimumsand about Metro staff’s work.

Mr. Cotugno said the original Executive Officer’s recommendation on August 1, 2002, included a draft of Title 4. Since that time, the draft had gone through a series of reviews by MTAC. The October 16^th version reflected MTAC's discussion through last Wednesday. MTAC had not voted yet because it wanted to review the language again before making a final recommendation. Councilor McLain said it would be helpful for staff to engross the language in the August 1^st recommendation with the MTAC draft. She noted that the language was being used to justify breaking the criteria of state code and/or using the specific industrial land need to add more industrial land to the UGB. Mr. Cotugno said the issue was before the committee so that he could share the committee’s discussion with MTAC at its meeting tomorrow. When the item comes to the Metro Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC), Councilors can have that discussion directly with MPAC members. Councilor McLain said she did not feel the language was tough enough.

Councilor Monroe said his concern with the corporate headquarter issue was that just defining it in terms of acreage did not do a good job. He suggested language that required efficient use of land, structured parking, and multi-story buildings if businesses were going to use industrial land for headquarters.

Councilor Hosticka said the word “industrial” was undefined. He wanted to know if there was another way to approach this. He did not think they would be able to anticipate every possible use or write such an airtight list of specifications that they would get exactly what they wanted. He thought the Troutdale comments looked the best.

Chair Park said he did not know whether a research park was office or industrial. It would be helpful to include a definition.

Councilor Atherton commented on a regional economic strategy and how to blend industrial and other employment areas into that strategy. This seemed to be the overarching goal. He asked how this was incorporated.

Chair Park said this language prepared placeholders to protect regionally significant industrial areas, so that once a regional economic strategy has been developed, the language to protect of those areas will have some teeth .

Councilor Atherton asked if future plans for a regional economic strategy helped cast this language. Mr. Cotugno said the only place that called out the importance of a regional economic development strategy was the recognitionthat Metro might not meet all of the job lands need, and that the remaining need may have to be met in a Task 3 . Metro had stated that if it was going to ask for a Task 3, it should be tied to a regional economic development strategy. Councilor Atherton said one example would be agriculture and the role of agriculture in the region, such as locating industrial parks on the edge with buffering against residential areas.

Councilor McLain asked Mr. Benner for a definition of “industrial.” Mr. Benner said “industrial” was not defined in the Title 4 code. Title 4 said that that certain land would be set aside for employment in industrial areas. Local governments would adopt their own plan provisions and their own zoning ordinance using their own definitions . Council could decide to go further on the issue of definitions than it had in the past. He said there was not a clear distinction between commercial and industrial.

Councilor McLain said it should be clear that the Council does not want to give MTAC impossible tasks. If the definitions of industrial and commercial were not clear, then a regional strategy would not work in all parts of the region. An example of this was the different definition of “affordable housing” in each of the jurisdictions. The same problem existed with industrial and commercial land. She suggested that these issues might be addressed in Task 3.

Mr. Cotugno asked for clarification on Task 3. Councilor McLain said she would not add industrial land to the UGBuntil it was protected.

Chair Park asked Mr. Cotugno about standard industrial code (SIC) definitions. Mr. Cotugno said the SIC codes did have some conventional breakdowns between industrial and non-industrial uses. There were a variety of traditional industrial categories. He thought the two main concerns were corporate headquarters and tech-flex high-tech software research and development, both of which were very important to the economic health of the region. These were entirely different categories that needed the flexibility to develop in an office-type format and location. How should they be treated? The effort so far had been to restrict general-purpose office use in industrial areas. He said the message he was hearing from the committee and would take back to MTAC was that definitions were needed before the language could move ahead.

The committee agreed that research and development should be better defined.

Mr. Cotugno briefed the committee on MTAC’s discussion abou tparcelization. He noted the three cities' recommendations. Chair Park asked if the cities had any recommendations as far as risk assessments. Why did they wanteto go up or down in size? Mr. Cotugno said the cities wanted to go down in size to maintain flexibility; they wanted to go up in size to preserve larger size parcels for large size businesses. The question originated around the need for so many 50+-acre parcels.

Councilor Hosticka said Title 4 would apply to all regional significantly industrial land that was currently inside the boundary or considered for inclusion in the boundary. Was it possible to put conditions on parcels that were brought inside the boundary? Mr. Cotugno said yes, that had also been discussed at MTAC. He said there was some concern in the area of preexisting development because existing businesses in regionally significant industrial areas need to have some expansion capability. MTAC was still debating how much flexibility was sufficient, but the principle of allowing current businesses to continue to operate was important. From a mapping point of view there was a strong sense that it was not feasible to designate specific properties in the current timeframe. . MTAC felt Metro should designate the general areas and then set a deadline for Council to adopt a map identifying specific parcels.

Chair Park said they would talk about these issues further on October 29^th and November 5^th.

Councilor McLain said it was necessary to have definite boundaries if Metro is going to include any of this land in the December UGB decision. Mr. Cotugno said if Metro brings in land for industrial purposes, that land would be mapped as regionally significant industrial areas. The proposal to define a conceptual area now and map the specific parcels later only applied to existing industrial areas inside the current UGB.

Chair Park asked about the history of Title 4. Brenda Bernards, Senior Regional Planner, said the design types on Growth Concept map were meant to be concepts. The difference was the Title 4 map was boundary specific and those boundary specific design types were taken and put on the Growth Concept map. Chair Park asked why they could not be specific about these areas being regionally significant, and start with those areas that were already mapped? Ms. Bernards said this time they had taken existing industrial areas and were still working on the criteria that would determine the higher level of protection. Mr. Cotugno said when Metro originally adopted Title 4, anything that was zoned industrial in local plans was designated industrial on the map. After it was adopted some things were moved from industrial to employment and vice versa, once the local jurisdictions had a chance to assess what was on the ground. Now they were proposing to take the industrial component and split it into higher- and lower-order industrial.

Jim Jacks, Planning Director, City of Tualatin, talked about the employment design type definition interpretation they had made and how that changed for Tualatin.

Councilor Hosticka asked if MTAC considered specific recommendations on lands at its last meeting. Mr. Cotugno said MTAC considered two different areas for job related purposes: the Stafford Basin and the area southwest of the Damascus town center, which was proposed for special needs for large lots. MTAC voted to not recommend those two areas for inclusion in the UGB. Councilor Atherton spoke about blending industrial land and economic strategy. What if they were to designate all industrial land right now that was over 10 acres?

5.  PERFORMANCE MEASURES - SCHEDULE FOR PERIODIC REVIEW MEASURES. Mark Turpel, Long Range Planning Manager, talked about performance measures related to Periodic Review. He asked the committee to consider the schedule so it could be added to Ordinance No. 02-969. The ordinance will be forwarded to MPAC and MTAC for discussion, and will come back to the Committee.

Gerry Uba, Program Supervisor, talked about the eight performance measures to evaluate efforts to improve land use efficiency. A copy of October 17, 2002, draft is included in the meeting record. He spoke specifically about the measures to analyze the rate of conversion of vacant land, the density and price ranges of residential development, the level of job creation within individual cities and the urban areas of a county, and the number of residential units added to small sites.

Councilor Burkholder said he was trying to make the connection between the performance measures in the draft and those listed in the statute. Mr. Uba explained the difference. Councilor McLain explained how the report would be utilized. She noted data on pages 2 and 6, including tax lot size, which she thought would be interesting.

Councilor Atherton asked about the sale price of vacant land and the cost of growth. As growth impact fees increase, the price paid for land should go down. Was this accounted for, he asked. Mr. Uba said it would be a stretch to link the sales price and improvements in land use. Chair Park said the bigger stretch was defining vacant land in the different tiers. Was it reflecting the difficulty of providing infrastructure, he asked. He cautioned that Metro should be careful what it was measuring. Mr. Uba said sales price was one of the most difficult factors to measure. There was limited data and the national studies staff had used previously had been discontinued.

Councilor Burkholder asked about the maps in the draft. Mr. Uba talked about the mixed-use index map. If there was better connectivity in some areas and that connectivity led to more jobs and an increase of population, how could that be measured? He said the map showed that in the central city in 1996, there were 42 traffic analysis zones (TAZs); the number of TAZs went down in 2000. In the regional centers and town centers the reverse was the case: there was an increase in employment that helped increase efficiency of land use. Staff found a strong relationship between an increased employment and transportation accessibility. Mr. Turpel said staff could produce a map that showed the TAZ changes.

Chair Park said the results may indicate both the age of the town centers and that not all town centers were created equally. Mr. Uba said the intent of the performance measures was to raise these types of questions. Mr. Turpel added that a full report would be provided at a later date.

6.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS. Councilor Hosticka asked about his request to place the DRI/WEFA forecast in the record. He noted that it was not listed in the documents received at the last meeting. He also suggested changing the header to reflect October 8^th instead of October 1^st. He asked that the Port of Portland's letter from Bill Wyatt and the staff report Regional Commodity Flow Forecast Economic Models be included in the record.

Mr. Cotugno said staff would include the current DRI/WEFA forecast in the record as well as the upcoming DRI/WEFA forecast. Councilor Atherton asked when the new DRI/WEFA report would be out.

Chair Park reviewed the Community Planning Periodic Review Calendar and Work Program, a copy of which is includedin the meeting record. Councilor McLain gave an overview of the policy decisions during the next two months. Councilor Hosticka suggested scheduling a Council/Executive Officer Informal or a long Community Planning Committee meeting on November 5th to analyze the strategic issues surrounding the UGB decision, such as the risk analysis of over-shooting or under-shooting the forecast.

Chair Park said the committee will discuss centers at its special meeting on October 30^th. He announced that the next public hearing would be tonight at the Gregory Forum at Clackamas Community College. He draw the committee’s attention to the Urban Growth Boundary Public Involvement/Outreach process prepared by John Donovan, Communications Officer. Acopy of the document is included in the meeting record.

6.  There being no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 2:48 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Billington

Council Clerk

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF OCTOBER 22, 2002

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

TESTIMONY CARDS. None.