METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

March 13, 2002 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Chair Michael Jordan, Charles Becker, Larry Cooper, Paul Curcio, Nathalie Darcy, Andy Duyck, Eugene Grant, Ed Gronke, Judie Hammerstad, John Hartsock, Richard Kidd, Annette Mattson, Lisa Naito, David Ripma, Jim Zehren

Alternates Present: Meg Fernekees, Jack Hoffman, Dave Lohman

Also Present: Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Al Burns, City of Portland; Maggie Collins, City of Wilsonville; Valerie Counts, City of Hillsboro; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Kay Durtschi, MCCI; Gregory Jenks, Clackamas County; Stephan Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Doug McClain, Clackamas County; Irene Marvich, League of Women Voters; Michael Ogan, Portland Development Commission; Lynn Peterson, Tri-Met; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Richard Ross, City of Gresham; Kimi Iboshi Sloop, McKeever/Morris

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons – Carl Hosticka, Presiding Officer; Rod Park, Metro Council District 1; Susan McLain, Metro Council District 4.

Metro Staff Present: Brenda Bernards, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, Suzanne Myers Harold, Lori Hennings, Mike Hoglund, Paul Ketcham, Marci LaBerge, Michael Morrissey, Mark Turpel, Mary Weber

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Chair Jordan called the meeting to order at 5:07 p.m. Those present introduced themselves. Chair Jordan complimented Ms. Weber on her house, which was featured in the March/April 2002 issue of Oregon Home Magazine.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

There were none.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

4.1  Meeting minutes for February 27, 2002

4.2  Appointment of MTAC members

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Presiding Officer Hosticka reminded members of the Let’s Talk Regional Conference on Friday, March 15, and community workshops Saturday morning in Tigard, Milwaukie, Hillsboro, Portland and Gresham. He distributed copies of Resolution No. 02-3171A, which was adopted by the Metro Council on Thursday, March 7. The resolution directs that a petition be sent to the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) for a declaratory ruling on subregional issues. A copy of the resolution is included in the meeting record.

Ms. Fernekees said she expected LCDC to make a process decision on Metro’s request at its meeting on Thursday, March 14.

6.  SUBCOMMITTEE UPDATES

Mr. Lohman said the Jobs Subcommittee has finished reviewing its first two policy statements and has begun discussion on Policy 3, concerning large lot parcels for industrial purposes within the urban growth boundary (UGB).

7.  WILDLIFE HABITAT CRITERIA AND MAP INVENTORY

Mr. Cotugno said in the next month, two resolutions will come before the Metro Council. One resolution relates to the riparian corridor action taken December 2001, and the other relates to the wildlife territory, which will be introduced tonight. The details of the riparian corridor will not come before MPAC, as the resolution simply implements policy direction given in December. The process for wildlife territory mapping will mirror the one for riparian mapping, as MPAC and the Council determine how to define what habitat is regional and significant. Once the decision has been made, an economic, social, energy and environmental (ESEE) analysis will begin for riparian corridor and wildlife habitat simultaneously.

Mr. Ketcham reviewed the revised Wildlife Habitat Model and Wildlife Model Score Distribution, a copy of which is included in the meeting packet. He noted that Metro received a conservation and restoration grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which funded field work to compare randomly selected sites with Metro’s revised wildlife model. The field work confirmed that Metro’s original inventory based on satellite photographs was too coarse, but that the revised model is quite accurate. Referring to maps posted at the front of the room, Mr. Ketcham reviewed the region’s wildlife habitat. He noted that 94 percent of the wildlife habitat is contained within the significant regional riparian corridors, as identified by the Metro Council in December.

Chair Jordan noted that a large portion of upland habitat falls into wildlife score area #2, and asked why.

Ms. Hennings said a lot of the low scoring habitat is low structure vegetation along riparian corridors.

Mr. Ketcham added that much of the land in area #2 is small, disconnected fragments of forest patches, such as Ladds Addition.

Chair Jordan asked how significant established subdivisions are to wildlife as habitat.

Mr. Ketcham said established subdivisions, such as Ladds Addition, are significant habitat for songbirds, squirrels and other small wildlife. It is a policy decision whether to define these areas as regional and significant wildlife habitat.

Mr. Gronke asked how much overlap exists between the wildlife habitat map and the capacity analysis for the region, which identifies land that is technically available for development.

Mr. Cotugno said there is a lot of overlap between both the riparian resource territory and the uplands resources territory and vacant, buildable land. That is the reason for determining how much of the uplands habitat to preserve versus develop.

Chair Jordan said he could envision including area #2 in the inventory, and then differentiating those acres in the program. Habitat in subdivisions and urban settings may have a different program for protection.

Mr. Ketcham said that once a decision has been made regarding regionally significant wildlife resource, Metro will proceed with the ESEE analysis, and look at the tradeoffs between conservation and development. There is flexibility in the ESEE analysis and the program phase to differentiate among kinds of habitat patches.

Councilor McLain said the ESEE analysis also considers social aspects such as the desirability of nuisance animals in neighborhoods.

Mr. Cotugno said MPAC will need to make its recommendation on what habitat is regional over the course of the next several months. MPAC will receive a recommendation from the Metro Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) and the Goal 5 Technical Advisory Committee, as it did for the riparian corridor decision.

Mr. Zehren asked if it is known how much of the 17,000 acres of park land is in public versus private ownership.

Mr. Cotugno said most of it is publicly owned. Any privately owned land included in the parks inventory has been legally dedicated for open space purposes.

Mr. Zehren said privately owned park land may be a larger component than assumed, if parks includes private golf courses and cemeteries. He said Metro needs to be careful to not assume that there are 17,000 acres of land in public ownership simply because the inventory says “parks.”

Mr. Cotugno said designated open space, for example a homeowners association that dedicates an open space area in a development, would appear on the inventory of parks and open spaces. It is not necessarily public ownership, but it is land that is dedicated to open space preservation. He would have to check to see if golf courses are included in the parks inventory.

Mr. Turpel said he did not think golf courses were included in the parks inventory. He recalled that MTAC had recommended that gold courses should be included. He offered to provide Mr. Zehren with a break down of the inventory categories.

Chair Jordan said Mr. Zehren may be inferring two different policy questions – wildlife preservation versus public access to those areas. In other words, there are probably many acres in private ownership that are wonderful wildlife habitat, but are not open to the public.

Mayor Hammerstad said Metro is really looking at developable land within the UGB. It does not matter whether open space is privately owned, because if the land is not developable, then those acres have been removed from the developable land supply. She asked Mr. Cotugno what policy questions MPAC needs to answer, based on this wildlife model.

Mr. Cotugno said the policy question at hand is, which part of the model is significant enough to move forward into an economic/social tradeoff analysis? The next step is another policy question: once the analysis finds that there is a conflicting use, is it a significant or insignificant conflicting use? Should that territory should be protected for natural resource purposes, or is the conflicting use more important? The following question is how to protect the territory.

Mayor Hammerstad asked if Metro is only determining the regional significance of habitat that is in the buildable lands inventory.

Mr. Cotugno said no, Metro is determining what the natural resource is, in order to determine how much of that natural resource should be protected. Then it will look at how much of the land to be protected is on the buildable lands inventory.

Mr. Zehren asked if is possible for land to be moved into the buildable lands inventory, based on new knowledge.

Chair Jordan said it would be rare for that to happen.

Commissioner Naito said the point is to include uplands habitat with the riparian corridor program, so that the public is not confused or frustrated by two separate processes.

Mr. Cotugno directed the committee’s attention to the map of significant riparian resource, as adopted last year. He reminded the committee that the map shows two classes of territory: primary and secondary. There are far more acres of secondary riparian resource, and much of the secondary riparian resource is primary wildlife resource.

Chair Jordan said this item will return to MPAC in the next couple of months. He reminded the committee that the process is analogous to the riparian corridor process, in that it is a staged approach: MPAC will make an inventory decision, a significant decision, an ESEE decision, a program decision and at some point, the number of acres that will impact the developable land inventory will be determined.

There being no further business, Chair Jordan adjourned the meeting at 5:56 p.m. He added that the Jobs Subcommittee will meet in the Council Chamber in about five minutes.

Respectfully submitted,

Suzanne Myers Harold

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR MARCH 13, 2002

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