METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

September 24, 2003 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Herb Brown, Nathalie Darcy, Rob Drake, Ed Gronke, Judie Hammerstad, John Hartsock, Tom Hughes, Richard Kidd, Lisa Naito, Doug Neeley, Martha Schrader

Alternates Present: John Leeper, David Ripma

Also Present: Betty Atteberry, Westside Economic Alliance; Bob Bobosky, Citizen; Beverly Bookin, CCA/CREEC; Al Burns, City of Portland; Danielle Cowan, City of Wilsonville; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Rena Cusma, ODOT; Mike Dennis, TriMet; Paul Gilles, City of Hillsboro; Jack Hoffman, Lake Oswego City Council; Norm King, West Linn City Council; Stephen Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Leeanne MacColl, League of Women Voters; Doug McClain, Clackamas County; Karen McKinney, City of Hillsboro; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Amy Scheckla-Cox, City of Cornelius; Bob Terry, Fisher Farms – Hillsboro Chamber;

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, Brenda Bernards, Dan Cooper, Michael J. Jordan, Patty Montgomery, Sherry Oeser, Mary Weber

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

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

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

Herb Brown asked that the roster be changed to show that Bernie Giusto is now the Sheriff for the City of Gresham.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

The minutes were not ready for approval and were therefore deferred to next meeting.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President Bragdon said that next week he would be in Ontario for the Cascade/Boise trip. He said that several solid waste ordinances had recently been before the Council.

6.  AGRICULTURAL SYMPOSIUM

Chair Hughes said that some issues had come up pertaining to the symposium. He said that the original plan was to have a symposium composed of three panels: 1) Agriculture, 2) High Tech Industrial users, and 3) a combination of the two that would talk about how to preserve agriculture and encourage industry at the same time. To that end his group had prepared three white papers: The Future of Agriculture, Industrial Issues, and the third would look at the problems of both industries. Over the previous few weeks, Mayor Hughes had come to understand that many people felt that the symposium should focus exclusively on agriculture. Mayor Hughes said that the City of Hillsboro had solicited the assistance of the Hillsboro Chamber and the Westside Economic Alliance and they had partnered with Hillsboro to finance the symposium. The problem then became that the agricultural community said that they did not want to participate if the symposium also open focuses on urban industry issues. He asked the committee members to offer advice on how to proceed.

Martha Schrader said that her sense of the process was to look at the needs of agriculture first and do justice to that community, and then eventually move on to subsequent issues that included high tech.

John Leeper said that they needed to have a dialogue among the urbanized areas and the agricultural communities. He said that he supported a regional urban agricultural symposium. If they were to separate it then they were preaching to the choir. He said he thought it would be beneficial to be aware of the issues in one common arena.

Susan McLain said she thought it was an issue of timing. People had called her and expressed the understanding that it was going to be a strictly agricultural discussion at this symposium. She said that she felt they were saying it was their (the agricultural community) turn to have a say and look at their issues. Councilor McLain suggested that the agricultural symposium be the first step of a two-step process and later integrate the high tech community.

Doug Neeley said that they needed education on agriculture. He was impressed with the agricultural white paper report that had spoken of their infrastructural needs.

Richard Kidd said that it was important that the agricultural community educate them. He said that when he talked about agriculture in his area that included issues on transportation, food processing, cold storage, repair of agricultural equipment, and so on. He said that in his mind he could not totally divorce agriculture from industry. He felt it was important to include agri-business in the agricultural symposium.

Nathalie Darcy said that they had discussed in the past the need to talk more about agriculture. She said that she thought that was the focus of the symposium. They needed to learn about the agricultural industry before they could start the discussion of trade-offs.

Charles Becker said that working on a farm was different today than it once was. He said that he hoped the symposium would help identify those differences. He suggested that agricultural industries located on the boundaries of agriculture would lead to a more stable and satisfactory boundary.

Chair Hughes reviewed the items included in the packet, which are attached and form a part of the record. He then introduced Bob Terry with the Hillsboro Chamber and Fisher Farms to speak.

Bob Terry said that what he was hearing was a win-win situation. The focus back in January was to try to bring agriculture to the table as a cluster industry. He said that there was an education process on both sides of the fence. They believe that agriculture and urban can work together within a boundary area. That boundary area does move over the years, but he believed that segments of agriculture could coexist with urban and industrial areas. The idea of the symposium was to have the three pieces of that discussion together. Westside Alliance, the Hillsboro Chamber, and many others had spent considerable time and money to have the focus on all three of those areas together. He said that unless there was a comprehensive plan to bring the two groups together, either now or in the future, then he thought the work done on both sides might be damaged or even lost.

Betty Atteberry said that there had been many changes in the market both for the urban and agricultural communities. She said that if they all sat down at the table to talk about the market, the more they could work together and the more both sides would benefit.

Chair Hughes said that what he was hearing was that the main focus of the symposium should be agriculture including agriculture-related businesses. He said that it was more a two-step approach. He suggested that they do the agricultural forum on October 31^st, 2003 with the idea that they would have a subsequent meeting that would include agriculture and urban industry. He said that was the direction that he would like to go.

Rob Drake asked if Clark County was being included?

Chair Hughes said they had not been included and apologized for it. He said they would like to bring them in the future, however.

Rod Park asked what the purpose would be of having the urban folks give their opinions about issues, concerns, etc. pertaining to agriculture to MPAC. Would it be to explain the problems that the urban side was having, or would it be to attempt to convince them that urbanization was good for their area. Currently it was not a question of if they urbanize EFU areas, but rather when. He said that the symposium was sold as the opportunity for the agricultural community to come and give their side of the issue.

Bob Terry said that they had sent the agricultural folks information about what the symposium would be attempting. He said that they did try to make it clear that there would be an interplay of agriculture with urban industry. He said that they had tried to get some feedback from the east side about the process, but had not heard from them and therefore thought the process that they were incorporating on the west-side was fine. He said that he hoped with all industries giving input they would make better decisions for agriculture, and urban industry together.

Chair Hughes said that many in the agricultural community thought there was an ulterior motive to combining the two groups, and had stated that they would not show up. This was not at all the case; they were looking for information to guide decisions in the region. It was not a problem to lengthen the process by adding a second meeting after the October 31^st meeting.

Bob Terry said that roughly 80 people attended the first two focus groups. He said he thought that the majority of them would continue attendance.

John Leeper said it sounded like they were talking about a series of symposiums. He did not think that a one-day symposium would hit more than a broad spectrum, so a second and third symposium sounded like a good idea.

Lisa Naito said that she wanted to support the idea that the first symposium was for agriculture. This would be a good learning experience for Metro and MPAC. She also said she supported the idea of a second discussion that would look at both industries and find ways to protect both while working together once the informational groundwork was laid.

Martha Schrader said that they didn’t want to preclude that discussion of agriculture and urban working together. Metro was often perceived as an urban government and she urged that Metro focus on agriculture and give them the same level of importance.

Doug Neeley said that the experience from the Washington County focus groups might be different than what would happen with the Clackamas County group. Clackamas County was looking to expand the industrial base, and maybe could learn from Washington County how to avoid some issues related to high tech industries versus agriculture.

Chair Hughes said that he agreed that they had evolved differently. He said he wanted to get back with his planning team and see what they could do to create a product that everyone would be happy with and create a new schedule. He said that he had to be respectful to those that had put time, energy, and money into what had been done so far.

7.  ORDINANCE NO. 03-1014

Brenda Bernards said that it was time for the annual housekeeping of the 2040 Growth Concept Map. They had three changes this time. She reviewed that materials included in the meeting packet and those materials are attached and form a part of the record.

Chair Hughes said that this was just an introduction to the material and it would be on the agenda again at the next meeting for recommendation.

8.  NEW COLUMBIA

Howard Shapiro gave a description of what the Housing Authority of Portland (HAP) did and a little of their history. He introduced Julia Livingston from HAP.

Julia Livingston gave a presentation on the Villa and reviewed two large maps.

Ed Gronke asked if they were going to increase the number of affordable housing units and low-income housing units in the reconstituted building.

Margaret Van Vliet handed out materials to the members and those materials are attached and form part of this record. Margaret Van Vliet said that he was correct that there would be more housing units, but also a diversity of income levels that did not exist there today.

Ed Gronke said that they appeared to be proposing densities that were much lower than Metro’s recommended densities.

Julia Livingston said that they had actually achieved the minimum density required by zoning. The neighborhood had made it clear early in the process that they would like density to be low and similar to the surrounding areas. The minimum density allowed them to develop family housing units with 3 bedrooms and higher, and to give all those units ground floor access. So families on site would have both a front yard and a back yard for children.

Margaret Van Vliet said they had to account for marketability of the units also. Part of the balance was their own policy objectives, what the neighbors wanted to see, and the market.

Ed Gronke said that it was in the paper that some of their federal support had disappeared and he wondered if they had been able to overcome that setback.

Margaret Van Vliet said that they were still working on. They had certainly counted on that money even thought they knew that there was some measure of risk that they might not get it. They were scrambling a bit, but they thought they would get through it and manage okay.

Rob Drake said that the master plan looked nice. He wanted to know if they were selling the single family lots and then everyone builds or were they hand-picking developers.

Margaret Van Vliet said that they were offering the lots for sale to homebuilders. They had talked to everyone from Habitat for Humanity, Post, some of the smaller non-profits, to Centex Homes. They were more experienced developing rental units so they were developing houses. There would be a procurement process for selecting contractors. They would put out an RFP for the 60 elderly units also. Homes were found for all the families that were displaced. She said that HAP did a good job of taking care of the residents and heavily involved the neighboring community in the process.

Julie Livingston said that they had a series of public workshops with residents, neighbors, neighborhood association, agencies, etc that all helped put together the master plan. She said that they had done surveys with the residents and found that 70% of them wanted to return when the site was done.

Howard Shapiro said that 70% was a high number. He said it was a very diverse population and a rather complicated dynamic, but they wanted to come back together as a community. He found that very heartening.

Ed Gronke said that relocating the families also relocated their children to other schools, which was hard on them.

Margaret Van Vliet said that was a big focus for HAP on this project. They knew that disrupting the school year was not a good thing for the kids or the families. They had taken great pains to move families in the summer and keep a good number of children in the same school district. It was great because for the first time people had a choice about how to handle that issue. Most wanted to stay in the same area.

Howard Shapiro said that if they watch the 11 o’clock news they would see the first of the buildings come down.

There being no further business, Chair Hughes adjourned the meeting at 6:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR SEPTEMBER 24, 2003

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