METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

April 23, 2003 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Rob Drake, Dave Fuller, Eugene Grant, Ed Gronke, John Hartsock, Alan Hipolito, Tom Hughes, Richard Kidd, Mark Knudson, Doug Neeley, Cheryl Perrin

Alternates Present: Jack Hoffman, John Leeper, David Ripma, Maria Rojo de Steffey, Larry Sowa

Also Present: Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Beverly Bookin, Columbia Corridor Assoc.; Brian Campbell, Port of Portland; Bob DeGraff, Portland Business Alliance; Michael Dennis, TriMet; Bob Durgan, Anderson Construction; Kay Durtschi, MCCI; Elissa Gertler, PDC; Norm King, City of West Linn; Stephen Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Irene Marvich, League of Women Voters; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Louis Ornelas, OHSU; Beth Park, Tualatin Hills Park & Rec District; Pat Ribellia, Doug Rux, City of Tualatin; Thane Tienson, Landye Bennett Blumstein; City of Hillsboro; George Van Bergen, Dielsey Praire

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons – David Bragdon, Council President; Brian Newman, Council District 2; Rod Park, Council District 1. Other: Susan McLain, Council District 4.

Metro Staff Present: Kim Bardes, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, Mary Weber

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Tom Hughes, Mayor of Hillsboro and MPAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:05 p.m. Those present introduced themselves.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chair Hughes announced that membership to the subregional subcommittee would be closed on April 30^th.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summaries for March 12, 2003 and April 9, 2003.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President Bragdon said that Council had recently spent some time working on solid waste and the Metro internal budget. He said that land use items slated for MPAC would not be coming through until May. He also mentioned that the Convention Center had opened the prior week. He informed the members that the Council had one request for support on a grant application related to the centers program.

Councilor Newman presented information on the grant. Metro, in partnership with PSU’s Institute for Metropolitan Studies, was submitting the grant application for $20,000 to the Bullitt Foundation. The grant would fund the development of a resource center and website, primarily targeted towards local governments in order to pull all available information together on encouraging development in centers. He was requesting a letter of endorsement for the centers grant application from MPAC.

Council President Bragdon said that the LCDC would meet on May 8^th and 9^th to consider the residential and commercial part of Metro’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) decision from last December.

6.  METROPOLITAN ECONOMIC POLICY TASK FORCE

Ethan Seltzer gave a presentation on the Metropolitan Economic Task Force, which is attached and forms part of the record.

Marty Harris of the Portland Development Commission, handed out a brochure, which is attached and forms a part of this record. She spoke about the Regional Economic Development Partners and what they were working together to accomplish.

Doug Neeley spoke about the economic downturn being both regional and statewide. He said that some of the economic strategies he had heard were not for one Oregon, but just for our region.

Ethan Seltzer said that our region exported a common tax revenue to the rest of the state of Oregon. He talked about the migration of young people, and that by being part of a broader landscape Portland was attractive to people inside and outside the state. It also was beneficial that we had locally developed products, with industry clusters. He also mentioned that similar industries tended to attract each other. He said that Portland created good opportunities for entrepreneurs and that we as a region needed to continue to focus on those attributes.

Jack Hoffman said a region was composed of neighborhoods, and he asked how the smaller/outer cities would take part in the partnership.

Ethan Seltzer said that 1) regional partners represented the real resource for the metropolitan area and it was important to make sure that it developed into the proper kind of convener and 2) that not all communities wanted to do the same thing, also they didn’t have the staff or resources dedicated to the purpose of developing an economic strategy.

Jack Hoffman asked how Metro or the Regional Partners would convince one city to commit or develop land that would ultimately benefit the whole region.

Ethan Seltzer said that not all locations could do the same thing. He said that it was a big step for a group like MPAC to gather together and say that some locations would play unique roles in the metropolitan area. Those places would need to be identified, scrutinized, and invested in by other parts of the region. If they were able to do that, it would make them more competitive with other metropolitan areas.

Marty Harris said they were creating a vision. Then each community needed to determine what they wanted for their own vision. The partners would try to create a model that other communities could use. She said it would make the metropolitan area more competitive if they included the communities across the river in the equation.

Chair Hughes said that one of the things he had observed last year while working on the UGB was that there had been a split, even within jurisdictions, between the planners and the economic developers. He said that they needed to develop a way to bring land use strategies and economic development strategies under the same microscope. He said that industrial land not yet allocated was a good place to apply those joint strategies. He wondered how it would apply to Title 4 changes for the regionally significant industrial lands. He asked how they would avoid having the planners place regulations on those lands that would make the land less attractive to potential buyers.

Ethan Seltzer said that some decisions would have to be balanced out by the local and regional decision-makers. He said that the region did not have a vision for the economy in place, like they did for the environment. He said they needed to look for a way that economic and environmental issues worked together.

Rob Drake said that the local jurisdictions could still retain their local economy and identity while cultivating business. He said that people did not stay in their communities, but travelled elsewhere for education, entertainment, work, etc. He said that the partners represented an independent, theoretically non-political entity. Elected officials come and go, but the partners had the long-term ability to make a difference.

Ethan Seltzer said that the current effort was a fact-finding effort. The vision was something to come down the line, and it was a long-term project. He said that a six-month action strategy was a good and challenging place for the partners to start.

Chair Hughes said that due to time constraints the discussion would continue at another meeting.

7.  MTIP 1^ST CUT LIST – COMMENTS ON LAND USE COMPONENT OF PROJECTS

Andy Cotugno introduced the material included in the packet. He mentioned that they were in the public comment period until May 16^th.

Ted Leybold spoke about MPAC recommendations on the MTIP program, as proposed by MTAC, a memo summarizing this was distributed as part of the packet and therefore forms part of the record. He said that the decision process would begin at the end of May and the beginning of June.

Chair Hughes asked if the members were comfortable moving forward with the recommendations outlined in the memo.

Rob Drake said that he felt that it generally met the intent for regional centers.

Ed Gronke said that Oregon and the region were in an economic crisis which did not appear to be getting better, but worse, was there any thought directing the projects towards getting the best possible economic impact on the region. He said he would love to see all the projects completed, but job creation and economics should, perhaps, be an overriding factor.

Doug Neeley said that part of economic development was livability and he sometimes had a hard time determining where they were separated. He said it was livability that drew business.

Richard Kidd supported the idea of a balance between economic interest and livability. He recommended that they follow through and take final action on May 14^th.

Gene Grant asked if any of the road modernization projects would get money.

Andy Cotungo said that the first emphasis was on the first three items while the second emphasis was on funding other projects that met the criteria, which included some modernization projects.

Rod Park said money was being programmed for 2006 and 2007 and hopefully by that time the recession would be over. He said that the goal was to determine whether those things on the list were the best way to guide funds, regardless of how those funds were accrued over the years.

Phil Whitmore and Marc Guichard gave a presentation on ridership. A printout of the slides presentation is attached and forms part of this record.

Ed Gronke asked if they had problems with finding or creating places for children to play in some of the high density housing areas.

Phil Whitmore said they had commons and special daycare areas. There were some units with lots of children and some without children. He said that the higher density housing would not be as attractive to families with children and that the Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) projects only funded those high density types of housing.

Doug Neeley said that high density would tie into affordable housing and thus you would need places for children to play.

Phil Whitmore said that some sites would have beautiful parks or public areas/open spaces.

Gene Grant wanted to know where the funds to invest in TOD programs came from.

Phil Whitmore said it was all federal money.

There being no further business, Chair Hughes adjourned the meeting at 7:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR APRIL 23, 2003

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