METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

June 25, 2003 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Larry Cooper, Nathalie Darcy, Dave Fuller, Judie Hammerstad, John Hartsock, Alan Hipolito, Laura Hudson, Richard Kidd, Cheryl Perrin, Martha Schrader

Alternates Present: Richard Carson, Meg Fernekees, Jack Hoffman, Charlotte Lehan,

Also Present: Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Tom Bouillion, Port of Portland; Al Burns, City of Portland; Cindy Catto, AGC; Bob Clay, City of Portland; Valerie Counts, City of Hillsboro; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Mike Dennis, TriMet; Bob Durgan, Andersen Construction; Holly Iburg, Newland Communities; Jim Jacks, City of Tualatin; Leeanne MacCall, League of Women Voters; Norm King, City of West Linn; Mary Kyle McCurdy, 1000 Friends; Greg Miller, AGC; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Laura Oppenheimer, The Oregonian; Amy Scheckla-Cox, City of Cornelius

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons – David Bragdon, Council President; Brian Newman, Council District 2

Metro Staff Present: Kim Bardes, Brenda Bernards, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, Lydia Neill, Tim O’Brien

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Acting Chair, Mayor Charles Becker, called the meeting to order at 5:07 p.m. Those present introduced themselves.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

There were no announcements.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summary for June 11, 2003.

There were not enough members for a quorum; the consent agenda was forwarded to the next MPAC meeting.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President David Bragdon said that the Council had adopted the MTIP. The Council had also authorized Metro membership in the Regional Economic Development Partnership. Council had amended the RTP to include the I-205 light-rail project.

6.  PORT OF PORTLAND

Cheryl Perrin handed out brochures from the Port of Portland and introduced Mary Gibson to make a presentation on their regional warehouse and distribution site study.

Mary Gibson, Port of Portland, handed out copies of slides on the presentation and both the brochure and the slides are attached and form part of the record.

Andy Cotugno said that there were not a lot of sites that were readily available inside the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) that met the siting needs of warehousing. They would need to decide what the study areas for additional UGB expansion should be.

Charlotte Lehan wanted to know the size of acceptable lots.

Mary Gibson said it was a single tax lot.

Charlotte Lehan wanted to know if two 10-acre lots side-by-side would count.

Andy Cotugno said no, anything under a 20-acre slot would fall off.

David Fuller asked if higher skilled labor and value-added factors would be equated to the number of jobs per acre.

Mary Gibson said not yet, but they would be able to soon. She said that the Port of Portland had undertaken a study on the economic impact assessment and analysis of the distribution logistics and freight transport sectors. The results from the study, including information pertaining to his question, would be available in September.

David Fuller wanted to know what kind of value-added they were doing for warehousing.

Mary Gibson said it was bar coding and small parts.

David Fuller asked if the study considered the desires of an affected jurisdiction.

Andy Cotugno said it was from the industry’s perspective.

Brian Newman asked if the inventory was based only on vacant land.

Mary Gibson said that it also looked at redevelopment land where improvements would be less than 20% of the total property value.

Brian Newman said that if it had other industry that was vacant, then it would not show up on the study.

Mary Gibson said many redevelopment sites would not show up.

Tom Bouillion, Port of Portland, said that it was based on the tax assessor’s evaluation so a vacant industrial building would not show up as an available site, but would still have value.

Brian Newman asked if they had only looked at interstates.

Tom Bouillion said that there were two that were non-interstate: Columbia Boulevard reflected trends in industrial areas along the Columbia corridor and Highway 224.

Brian Newman asked if he meant east of 205.

Tom Bouillion said it included east of 205 within approximately three miles.

Brian Newman was curious as to why 217 and 26 were not on the study.

Mary Gibson said that 26 and 217 had to do with congestion.

Tom Bouillion said that they were probably suited to other industrial uses.

Andy Cotugno said that there were three markets that the distribution business was trying to serve. One market was local where a Westside site was as good as an eastside site. Second was some exit – heading north to Seattle, east to the mountains, or south to California. The whole east side had a significantly greater advantage in accessing all three of those major exit points, than on the west side. There was no major market to the west because of the ocean. The third market was terminals – the air cargo, railroad, and marine terminals. All those terminals were located centrally, so industrial businesses wanted to be near the I-5 corridor and near the terminals.

Bob Durgan said that distribution hubs were Reno, Woodland California, Las Vegas, and some places around Portland. He said they were all freight-in and freight-out distribution centers. He said he was puzzled about the purpose of the study.

7.  PERIODIC REVIEW

Lydia Neill introduced herself and reviewed the materials that were included in the meeting packet. Those materials are attached and form part of the record. She asked for comments on the memorandum, Industrial Land Locational and Siting Criteria. She said they were short about 2700 gross acres of industrial land in the region. She said they had studied approximately 60,000 acres during the last review and they weren’t able to fulfill all the industrial land needs. They wanted to expand the study areas they had looked at in the past and they would mainly be looking at class 1 and 2 farmland.

Tim O’Brien gave a presentation on the study areas. He reviewed a map, which was included in the packet and forms a part of this record.

Lydia Neill said that besides studying the new areas they would have to go over all those areas they had studied before in order to make sure they were tagged correctly. It might be possible to use some of those areas for industrial use if they meet the criteria for industrial land.

Richard Carson said he did not see large lot industrial. He said that Clark County was looking to add two 200-acre sites to attract industry.

Andy Cotugno said that the paper they had reviewed at the last meeting talked about supply versus demand, including parcel size spaces. It had provided an analysis of small and large lot needs. He said that now they were trying to get to where, not just what size.

Lydia Neill said it was hard for Dennis Yee to forecast that large lot demand for the single user. She said that the study did make it clear, however, that it was something that should be provided for the region.

Judie Hammerstad asked if there were some criteria that trumped others.

Lydia Neill said that she did not think so. She said that certain industries might feel that some criteria were more important than others. She said that it would depend on the individual business and market conditions.

Judie Hammerstad asked at what point were local jurisdictions able to weigh in on how identified property was developed.

Lydia Neill said that they wanted comments throughout the process. She said that if they had missed characteristics of sites, they would want to know that. She said that if they were to bring some areas into the UGB they would have to complete the concept planning process. That would be where it was invaluable to have the cities weigh-in on site-specific uses.

Andy Cotugno said the question was where do they find the 2700 acres of industrial land. He said they would study a whole lot of land that was not suitable for industrial purposes. He said they had to first follow the hierarchy when determining what land was most suitable for industrial use. In terms of picking from within that hierarchy of exception lands first and agricultural lands last they then needed to look to state criteria pertaining to impact on agricultural land, efficiency of delivering public services, and environmental impact. Then, after considering the state requirements, they could look at regional and local policies.

Richard Kidd asked if they were considering the ability to provide infrastructure as part of which sites to look at, or was that just part of the study.

Lydia Neill said it was not part of their initial screening. She said that those were, however, important characteristics to consider.

Mary Gibson asked if they would be looking at study areas by the three different industry sectors.

Lydia Neill said it was a policy question. She said they had identified a specific acreage need that was associated with the three sectors and had broken them down by parcel size. The way the region had approached zoning for industrial purposes was not so specific as to zone for warehouse use. She said they had identified a large portion of their need for the warehouse and distribution sector.

Mary Gibson asked if they weren’t able to find acreage for a particular sector would they call that out?

Lydia Neill said yes.

John Hartsock asked if they were looking at the general underlying land pertaining to industrial needs rather than by parcels.

Lydia Neill said they had not looked at it in terms of individual parcels. They were working on an aggregation methodology in order to look at potential study areas and be able to characterize them in a general way. She said they would look at adjoining ownerships in a different way than a developer would.

David Bragdon said it was an analysis that was presented to MPAC and would have factors in terms of utility service and governance. He said he anticipated that matrix would be public and therefore debated. Value judgments would be made by the council in consultation with MPAC and the public. He said it was a wide net and the numbers were staggering but there would be a lot of places to check in on the process.

Judie Hammerstad said they had erosion of possibilities by the development of schools, churches, etc. in places that might have otherwise been used more productively. She hoped that they would not cite uses that could be more thoughtfully used in the future for other things.

Acting Chair Charles Becker asked if the process would develop in a timely manner. He wondered when they would come to speak with Gresham officials about their needs, especially in a community that had low jobs to housing ratio.

Charlotte Lehan asked about acreage inside the UGB that currently met the criteria.

Lydia Neill said they had not applied the criteria to the existing lands located within the UGB. She said they were in the process of looking at regionally significant designations for Title 4 and the criteria would be one tool for evaluating whether those lands should be regionally significant or not. Some of the industrial areas may be suited for alternative employment uses.

Charlotte Lehan said they had a significant amount of vacant land in Wilsonville.

Andy Cotugno said they could go back through the numbers that were adopted in December that laid out the demand for land versus what was currently available within the UGB. That would determine the shortfall.

David Bragdon said that they also had the Title 4 effort. He said it was an important factor in the process in terms of protecting what they had. He felt those efforts should be considered in concert and also to look at how these studies tied into the centers effort.

Andy Cotugno said that the 2700 acres that they were looking for was predicated on half the industrial land not converting to commercial. He said that the forecast was that 2800 acres of industrial land would get developed for non-industrial purposes. If Title 4 was implemented then assume that half of that would not be converted. If Title 4 was not implemented, or implemented on a very limited basis throughout the region, then we won’t stem those 1400 acres of conversion to non-industrial purposes. If Title 4 coverage was widespread then that number would come down, otherwise it would go up.

Lydia Neill said that they were looking for a 20-year supply and that there was a short-term component of that. She said that Dennis Yee’s forecast was a trend forecast so there were highs and lows. She said that the forecast would not be right on either low or high numbers. Currently, we were in a down period and therefore there would be more vacancies than if we were in an up period.

Richard Carson said that it would be productive for local governments to create a fast track process for industry.

David Bragdon said it was on the Council agenda for the 10^th of July, and he hoped for comments from MPAC at the July 9^th meeting.

Charlotte Lehan said she was serving as the alternate’s alternate for the Clackamas County Other Cities and that she had spoken to the six different mayors in Clackamas County and Washington County and to a person they were not supportive of going south of the Willamette. She said the desire was to focus industrial development in communities that have undertaken the process of developing industry. If the criteria drove them to very flat, very large parcels, next to a freeway, then they were headed down I-5. This was not what cities and centers in her jurisdiction or surrounding area wanted. She submitted a memo for the record pertaining to the industrial lands study and it is attached and forms part of the record. She said that MPAC was the place to wrestle with the larger policy issues, and not just the technical ones. There was concern that the south end would drop off the scope due to infrastructure and access issues.

Richard Kidd said that the southern part of Washington County had also expressed some concern about crossing the river and adding land that could not be served because there was no infrastructure. He said those folks were opposed to MPAC even studying that area, but that they also thought they would fall out of the study in the future. He said that when it was scheduled to go before the Metro Council he would make a statement that Forest Grove would not support development south of the river.

Al Burns said that they were not crossing the river to the north and he felt it would therefore follow that we did not need to cross the river to the south, either.

Martha Schrader said that she would recommend to her colleagues to vote against moving further south.

Andy Cotugno said they had proposed studying everything that was equal so that if they proposed adding site A into the UGB they would be able to say that it was better than all the other sites of equivalent status and that was their basis for adding site A.

Charlotte Lehan asked why all those others sites had fallen out.

Andy Cotugno said that Sauvie Island and Government Island access was not the same as the access to south of the Willamette River. South of the Willamette River had a freeway with an interchange, whereas Sauvie Island had a freeway with no interchange.

Charlotte Lehan said she could make a lot of logical arguments to not include areas south of the river. She said she could argue that the bridge could not handle industrial traffic.

Andy Cotugno said all of that would be ranked during the study process.

Charlotte Lehan said that the current criteria seemed to indicate that south of the Willamette would come out scoring high on the study.

Lydia Neill said they were trying cull down the land that they were looking at for monetary reasons. They had limited staffing for the project, and no M&S budget for consulting. She said that this time they would contact local jurisdictions directly to talk about servicing issues. It was expected that this would provide a better product by doing it that way. They would work through the alternatives analysis first then take things off the table that had no hope of meeting industry needs.

Charlotte Lehan suggested that they would save money by not studying beyond the Willamette. She said it was a very controversial issue for her area.

David Fuller asked if there were other limitations beyond the current access to Government Island.

Mary Gibson and Cheryl Perrin thought it was a fly over issue.

Charlotte Lehan suggested that they could not go south of the Willamette without building another bridge. She said that if the current bridge was down for some reason people right now had to go 50 miles to cross the Willamette. She also said that if you added another 6 or 7 thousand trucks going over that bridge you would have major backups.

Martha Schrader said the Canby ferry was the only other access.

Acting Chair Charles Becker asked if they would be meeting with individual jurisdictions.

Lydia Neill said yes.

8.  CENTERS UPDATE

Brenda Bernards gave a presentation/update of the centers program on the materials included in the meeting packet, which are attached and form part of the record.

Andy Cotugno said that they were looking for input and feedback at the next meeting on the broad Metro centers work program, the specific centers pilot project work program, as well as the factors to select which areas to use for the pilot project.

David Bragdon said it was one of the most important projects that they had undertaken with regards to investment in 2040. He said that Periodic Review and Centers were two sides of the same coin. Every square foot that went into an office or retail space was a square foot that was not going into industrial land.

Judie Hammerstad said that there had been discussion about infusing dollars into centers that had difficulty getting off the ground rather than centers that were doing well. She wanted clarification on whether Metro wanted to jumpstart a regional center that had not done well or reward a town center that was doing well on its own. She wanted to know whether she should write a proposal or simply apply the ten criteria.

Brian Newman said they were trying to find something in the middle of that spectrum. He said that there were centers that were not doing well for various reasons and it was difficult to put Metro resources into those place if they were not doing well. There were also centers that were so far along that Metro would not want to focus on them, either. He said that those issues, along with the seven factors already laid out, would be part of the discussion that they would have at the next meeting.

Andy Cotugno suggested that they think about successful centers that they could learn from.

Al Burns said that at last MTAC meeting Gil Kelly had offered to have the City of Portland restructure based on the criteria in the centers study with the hope that it would make the study more valuable to other jurisdictions.

Andy Cotugno said specifically for Gateway Regional Center.

John Hartsock asked about desired centers such as Damascus.

Brian Newman said that they only had enough money for one or maybe two pilot development strategies and they wanted to spend the money where it would be most effective.

There being no further business, Acting Chair Becker adjourned the meeting at 6:35 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes, MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR June 25, 2003

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