METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

December 10, 2003 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Herb Brown, Rob Drake, Dave Fuller, Gene Grant, Ed Gronke, Judie Hammerstad, John Hartsock, Tom Hughes, Kent Hutchinson, Vera Katz, Lisa Naito

Alternates Present: Shane Bemis, Jack Hoffman, John Leeper, Karen McKinney, Alice Norris, Larry Sowa

Also Present: Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Bev Bookin, CREEC; Al Burns, City of Portland; Brian Campbell, Port of Portland; Bob Clay, City of Portland; Danielle Cowan, City of Wilsonville; Kay Durtschi, MTAC; Holly Iburg, Newland Com.; Gil Kelley, City of Portland; Norm King, City of West Linn; Hannah Kuhn, City of Portland; Charlotte Lehan, City of Wilsonville; Doug McClain, Clackamas County; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; John Pettis, City of Gresham; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Amy Scheckla Cox, City of Cornelius; Dave Shields, City of Gresham;

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons –Brian Newman, Council District 2; Rod Park, Council District 1. Other: Susan McLain, Council District 4; Carl Hosticka, Council District 3

Metro Staff Present: Kim Bardes, Dick Benner, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, Lydia Neill, Mary Weber, Mike Wetter

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Mayor Tom Hughes, MPAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:10 p.m. Those present introduced themselves.

1.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chair Hughes asked Rob Drake to chair a nominations committee to nominate next year’s officers. He also asked Judie Hammerstad and Lisa Naito to serve on that committee. He asked that they report back at the first meeting of 2004.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summary for November 12 & November 19, 2003.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President Bragdon said that most everything the Council had been dealing with recently related to solid waste and transportation which were both on the agenda for the evening.

6.  2004 DRAFT REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN

Tom Kloster said that they had gone back to MTAC and gathered their recommendations on the Regional Transportation Plan update as it relates to land use planning. He said that the materials were part of the packet and they are attached and form part of the record. Mr. Kloster reviewed the materials in the packet.

Andy Cotugno said that MTAC commented that while the whole RSIA discussion was still a moving target, the principal of having some areas designated as RSIA was not in question. There was clearly a debate about how much more and what the land use restrictions would be in those areas. There was no debate that there would be some degree of regionally significant industrial areas designated. The more aggressive approach, from MTAC’s prospective, was to start lining up the transportation investment in that direction. Let the land use discussion continue to work out the specifics of where they were and what could be done in RSIAs. There was no reason, however, to hold up to the policy linkage to the RTP itself.

Gil Kelley, representing MTAC, said that the reasoning for MTAC’s position was that they had decided as a policy matter that keeping the industrial base, however it was defined, was a key strategy for moving forward on regional economic health and growth strategies. He said there were three parts to accomplishing that: the policy work, the map, and the code restrictions. However those three items end up being applied, it was important to have the policy statement include an investment priority and transportation infrastructure.

Tom Kloster said that the priorities of the regional transportation plan did not preclude funding outside of that primary category. In the last allocation there were several projects funded in town centers and main streets. If they brought a project in that was in a regional center or in an industrial area they would get more points for that project and therefore made it more competitive, but did not preclude funding outside that area.

Andy Cotugno said that the action in front of MPAC was a narrowly defined Regional Transportation Plan update as required to meet the federal requirements. They had previously proposed to, at the same time, adopt a Regional Transportation Plan under state requirements. They had decided not to proceed with the state requirements, however, but rather to pursue a more comprehensive evaluation of whether or not changes needed to be made to the plan in order to meet state requirements. The federal requirement was required now and had a January 26^th, 2004 deadline. The proposal was to proceed on the federal requirement and allow the state requirement more time. Therefore, the Ordinance No. 03-1024 and Resolution No. 03-3382 were both withdrawn. The only Resolution that they would be making a decision on that night was Resolution No. 03-3380.

Chair Hughes said that one of the constraints on agriculture was the congestion on urban roads that were inside the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) but that were necessary to get produce to market. He said they would need to give some attention to special treatment of roads identified as farm-to-market routes through the urban areas.

Andy Cotugno said that the answer was basically yes. The level of information about the freight movement throughout the region was starting to increase. Currently they did not have good information about the freight needs versus people movement needs.

Rod Park said that the freight movement question was broader because a lot of that type of movement was not necessarily on urban roads, but rather on rural country roads. The problem was that trucks have gotten bigger. The only way to fix the problem would be to increase the size of road, which would defeat the attempt to keep rural country roads.

Susan McLain asked about citizen participation before the federal deadline.

Andy Cotugno said that in order to meet the federal deadline all the projects included in the resolution were intentionally restricted to projects that had already been through the public involvement process.

7.  PERIODIC REVIEW

Lydia Neill gave a presentation based on materials presented at a previous meeting as well as several handouts. The handouts are attached and form part of the record. She said that Resolution No. 03-3386 was an action item and gave a presentation pertaining to the maps and the required action.

Doug McClain, Clackamas County, representing MTAC, said that MTAC did pass a motion supporting the resolution with a caveat and a matter of discussion. There were some areas in Clackamas County that were potentially suitable for industrial land but that were not reflected on the map. MTAC passed the motion with a caveat that directed Metro and Clackamas County to work that issue out. He said the black and white map, Proposed Alternatives Analysis Study Areas map, contained the agreed upon changes. He said that they also had an interesting discussion about urban form. He said it was a question of when do they get to the tough issue of what should the UGB look like? Should the region create a boundary at the Willamette River and not go south of the Willamette River? MTAC wanted to remind everyone that that still needed to be part of the discussion.

Judie Hammerstad asked when they would address the policy issue of how the UGB would look.

Chair Hughes said they had the legal obligation to study all the lands.

Dick Benner said that the question that had come at MTAC was how would the Council choose to designate the approximately 2800 gross acres. The Council would be considering the locational factors of Goal 14. It was likely that the Council would have choices among categories of land, i.e. exception lands or class 2 farmlands, lands that were similarly situated among the locational factors. The Council would then look through policies in the Regional Framework Plan to help them choose. Among those were policies on the form of the region, separation of communities, and equity in the region, etc. All those bear on the decision and were available to the Council to guide decisions, but only within a single hierarchy of land.

Andy Cotugno said that they were trying to narrow the choices to those that make sense and remove those that don’t make sense at all for industrial.

Judie Hammerstad asked if they would have the opportunity to weigh in on policy issues.

Chair Hughes said it would be on MPAC’s schedule to make a recommendation. He said he thought that the question of whether to hold the boundary at the Willamette would come before MPAC.

Council President Bragdon said that there was a big public outreach effort scheduled for March and April.

Andy Cotugno said that earlier in the process, about January or February, they would be discussing the factors that would determine what was selected from amongst the 2800 acres. Therefore by the time they had to make a decision they would know what factors were most important.

Judie Hammerstad expressed concern about MPAC accepting a map that might have implications for a policy decision that would be contrary to what MPAC would actually approve.

Chair Hughes asked if she was concerned that the next sieve was constructed in such a way that they arrived at a final decision that required them to legally include certain areas because those areas met all the agreed upon requirements and because they were part of the 2800 acres.

Judie Hammerstad agreed that she was concerned about that.

Lydia Neill said that they expected to come back to MPAC in January to discuss the alternatives analysis. She said that the jurisdictions had a good opportunity to talk with their staff about the particular areas that had been studied and then come back to MPAC to have a more detailed discussion about the results of the alternatives analysis.

Charlotte Lehan handed out a draft memo, Expanding Industrial Lands South of the Willamette River, for the members to review. She expressed concern about the issue of going south of the Willamette. She said that she and her citizens were not confident that it would be addressed in the proper part of the process and then they would have no recourse to set things straight. She said it felt like they were being driven by the criteria that would just leave them with just the best choices and not necessarily the right choices.

Chair Hughes said that staff had indicated that the path of the process would be clarified by the end of January. He said that the work program or timeline would be presented at that time. He guessed that the policy discussions would take place in late April or May.

Andy Cotugno said the criteria discussion would take place in January and the selection process based on that criteria would be in May.

Charlotte Lehan asked if Metro staff, MTAC or MPAC would create or designate the criteria by which they would look at the policy.

Andy Cotugno said that it would come from two sources: state law, which set out criteria and the Regional Framework Plan. Staff would put that together and then bring it to MPAC for discussion.

Charlotte Lehan said that they needed other input beyond the Metro staff interpretation of the Regional Framework Plan.

Brian Newman said that he and Charlotte Lehan had spoken earlier and the concern seemed to be that up-to-this point that staff had been driving the process and the role of the policy makers had been very limited. He asked if beyond the state law and the Framework Plan MPAC or others could introduce new criteria that would help them make that decision in January 2004 through the spring?

Dick Benner said that the Council was free to add policy to the Regional Framework Plan. They could add a statement that stated that they would not go south of the Willamette and list the reasons/contingencies.

Gene Grant said that MPAC had weighed in on this once before. He said they had voted on it and had asked staff to recommend to the Council that they set the criteria so that they wouldn’t go south of the river but Metro chose not to that. He said there had been some question at the time whether it could legally be done, but it sounded like Dick Benner had said that it could and that it was just a matter of amending the plan. Gene Grant said that based on that previous discussion, Metro staff already had MPAC’s recommendation on that issue.

Susan McLain said that they were trying to make absolutely sure that they didn’t do anything to compromise the use of the State criteria because that was the bottom line. Therefore they decided to proceed with all lands that met the criteria and then at the appropriate time they would look more closely at the lands and decide which to keep in and which to eliminate.

Charlotte Lehan said that the public was confused about the process and when the decision points were scheduled, and what they could do to participate in the decisions being made.

Lisa Naito asked if there was a way to vote on the resolution with the caveat that decisions on inclusion of specific land was deferred to a later date.

Chair Hughes said they could follow the MTAC advice to adopt the resolution and make a note that the resolution was yet to be finalized.

Rob Drake said that there were interested parties south of Willamette that they needed to work with and together they needed to keep the balance of decisions fair.

Charlotte Lehan said that the handout she passed around was in anticipation of the time when it would be appropriate to the discussion. She said she was not suggesting that they change the technical piece of the work. Both the technical piece and the policy piece needed to move forward but she wanted the policy piece to get a fair hearing before time unexpectedly ran out.

Judie Hammerstad asked for a 7-minute break to look at two maps and read the resolution.

Andy Cotugno said that the most important feature of the resolution was to take areas off the map from further study. Those areas taken off would be removed because they really weren’t suitable for industrial purposes. He said they could add language to resolution or to the record that said: “in no way was MPAC giving preference to any particular part of the 2800 acres.” He said the important thing for the resolution was that they were taking off the map land that really wasn’t suitable for industrial uses and those areas would no longer even be considered for further study.

Judie Hammerstad said that she would like to move map B because it also removed property and reduced the number of total acres, which was consistent with the resolution. If that didn’t pass then they could go to the next reduction of acres and work their way towards an agreement. She said that map B seemed more sensible and addressed, in a different way, the Wilsonville concerns.

Vera Katz said that she would like clarification on the language for the “be it resolved” portion of the resolution. She asked if there was a possibility for further removal.

David Bragdon said that 90% of it would be removed.

Vera Katz wanted to know where in the resolution it allowed for the possibility for further reduction.

Andy Cotugno said that in the “whereas” section is stated what they were looking for was up to 1968 net acres of land and the “resolved” stated the pool that they would be using to for that consideration.

Judie Hammerstad said it should, at the very least, reflect the areas possibly suitable.

Vera Katz said that staff should quantify “suitable” because it did not give them a way out as it was stated on the resolution.

Susan McLain said that they did not want to cut themselves off to the point of not being able to meet the industrial needs that were sited in the study. The two maps were very different as far as limitations and they were hoping that the “be it resolved” was worded in such a way as to demonstrate that they would definitely be cutting out land for consideration yet again. They did not, however, want to limit the land choices so early that they would not have the potential lands needed for the true industrial requirements of the region.

Vera Katz said that the language did not clearly reflect that they would make further reductions.

Rod Park said that if they tried to go with the criteria on the version 2 map it would eliminate exception land prior to the study, which could be troublesome with the state. He said that essentially they had a legal obligation to study all land that met the criteria and at the next stage they could eliminate those areas that that they did not want to include based on policy.

Alice Norris asked how many acres map B contained.

Lydia Neill said 9000 acres.

Lisa Naito asked if they could change the resolution to include a second part that said they would further reduce the number of acres.

Chair Hughes called a break so that the members could study the map and read the resolution.

After the break, Judie Hammerstad asked to have the “be it resolved” part of the resolution say “the Metro Council adopts to reduce the 2002-2003 Alternatives Analysis Study Area map to reflect the areas possibly suitable for industrial use and to be considered for inclusion in the Urban Growth Boundary expansion.”

Larry Sowa asked that the black and white map be included in the resolution.

Chair Hughes said that they were considering the staff recommendation plus the Clackamas County addition that was in the black and white map with the language that Judie Hammerstad had just recommended.

Judie Hammerstad said that within the policy discussions they had, which were not germane to this, they also needed to have the discussion about available industrial lands for redevelopment within the UGB. They need to decide how much land they actually need before the Metro Council made that decision in June. She said that she believed that 9000 acres, on the reduced map that they were not considering, was four-times the number of acres that was stated as being needed. She said she doubted that that was an accurate amount.

Chair Hughes said that discussion would come up on the next topic on the agenda.

8.  TITLE 4 RSIA ORDINANCES

Chair Hughes said that said that they had a rather “non-recommendation” type recommendation from MTAC and asked Council President Bragdon to speak on the issue.

Council President Bragdon said that this was a follow up from a decision from last December in which they had recognized a shortage of industrial land and decided to address that through 1) protecting the industrial land that they already had, particularly the large lots, and 2) through the expansion of the UGB. What they were actually considering was the staff proposal to proceed with protecting the industrial land. He said he agreed with Mayor Hammerstad that there was a nexus between these two things. The consequences discussed for this item does also reflect on the Task 3 item. Some of the issues raised over the last several weeks raised questions over the blurring of line between industrial and commercial, the role of offices in industrial areas, the 21^st century economy and the role of manufacturing, etc. He said that the Council was open to hearing what MPAC wanted to recommend and he thanked Mayor Drake and Hal Bergsma for pulling folks together and their efforts for the process.

Brian Campbell, Port of Portland, said that MTAC and several others had labored a great deal on this issue. He said that even with all that work MTAC had not come to any firm recommendation. The two primary issues were 1) the role that offices play in the industrial equation, and 2) the issue of larger parcels. They needed to examine office use issues versus how much RSIA area was actually on the map. If they had extensive RSIA on the map then they could have less restrictive language, which would allow more uses. They could, on the other hand, restrict the number of RSIA areas down to a few and then they would have to be more restrictive of the uses for those areas. Pertaining to the issue of preserving large lots MTAC had agreed that they needed to make adjustments to the way the ordinance read as it stood. He said that MTAC did achieve consensus on severely restricting retail types of uses within the RSIAs. They also agreed that research and development types of uses were legitimate industrial types of uses. He then reviewed the materials that were emailed to members, alternates, and interested parties, which were also available in the back of the room, and which are attached and form part of the record.

Lisa Naito asked why corporate headquarters did not fall under the 5% cap?

Andy Cotugno said that it would be allowed if it could be kept within the 5% cap.

Rob Drake asked if the ordinances were adopted as they stood and someone moved out of a building and the jurisdiction was over the cap, what happened to the building if folks moved out?

Brian Campbell said it would be grandfathered in under the existing uses.

Dan Cooper said that the Functional Plan work had not reached the detail yet that got into the whole question of conversion of non-conforming uses and when they lapse. He said it was fair to say that they did not know yet. They did have a provision in one of the earlier proposals that said an existing use was not non-conforming because it would have the right to expand, but the question of when it lapsed had not yet been reached.

Rob Drake asked if they were then insinuating that if it was adopted that the Metro Council would have to deal with that option.

Dan Cooper said that when they wrote the Functional Plan one of the things they did was to leave the whole question of how to interpret or who decides when substantial compliances occurred was an iterative process and so local governments could seek guidance if they wanted. Council could decide those things on a case-by-case basis later. There were a lot of potential questions about how the Functional Plan would be enforced as they fined tuned the process and they had not yet gotten there.

Rob Drake said that if some facsimile of option 2 went forward there might be some backlash from property owners. He said that some of the jurisdictions did not even know what percentage of use was office-zoned. In some cases it was above 10% and that could get people very excited if they could no longer use their property in the same way.

Brian Campbell said that Metro staff proposed to define “industrial neighborhoods” so that those would be defined in advance and then staff would provide the square footage of the land areas that existed and percentages that existed in that defined area. Then staff and the jurisdiction could examine the percentages for each area.

Chair Hughes asked if there was a way to reference on the map or in any way which areas would be left as RSIAs under option 2.

Brian Campbell said not yet.

Mary Weber passed out an Option 2 map, which is attached and forms part of the record.

Vera Katz asked if Metro staff had lessened the restrictions on Regionally Significant Industrial Areas (RSIAs) for option 1 and for option 2 in order to obtain their goal.

Brian Campbell said that they loosened the restrictions on all the RSIAs. On option 2 specifically they tried to restrict the uses in RSIAs and put additional restrictions on industrial areas.

Mary Weber said that the approach that was taken in option 2 provided more flexibility for local governments for what goes into the cap. Other non-industrial uses would be decided at the local level. What the document had restricted was real estate, financial services, etc. and staff was trying to get away from that and make it more user-friendly at local level.

Larry Sowa said they should use the suggestions as guidelines and let local governments make the final determinations on specific use instead of following something hard and fast that had come down from Metro Council.

Chair Hughes said he understood that option 2 was going more towards the use of performance measures and that those performance measures would be at the discretion of the local governments.

Brian Campbell said that they were trying to give a big performance measure of a 5% or 10% cap on the uses and the local jurisdiction had to figure out how to meet that and then meet with Metro to determine if they were in standard compliance with the general policy provision.

Vera Katz asked if they were at the same level of industrial use or at a lesser level. Were they meeting the goals they had set in the past – were they allocating fewer acres for truly industrial use or were they restricting the same industrial land.

Dick Benner said that the region set as a goal that rather than expand the boundary with no efficiency measures inside the boundary, they would set efficiency measures on the existing industrial land use. Title 4 was adopted to do that in a certain way. These options presented that evening to MPAC would do it in a different way but get to the same place.

Vera Katz said that the amount of acres of pure industrial use was the same as it was when Metro had adopted Title 4. They were just mixing it up a little more.

Dick Benner said that was correct. They would be moving the RSIAs around and adding limitations on non-industrial uses in industrial zones and not just in RSIAs, and ultimately they would get to the same place with more flexibility.

Rob Drake said that the discussion had gone beyond the need for large industrial sites to what were the employment needs and where was employment concentrated. He said that it was difficult to define industrial land because it was changing so quickly. The matter was further complicated by the fact that they all defined employment differently.

David Fuller said that map did not look like it addressed the concerns from Troutdale, Wood Village, and Gresham. He said that taking 50% of the land and designating it for strictly industrial use would limit and remove all control of that land from local concerns. He said that they had put two-years worth of work on a vision for that area that included recreation, tourism, industrial, commercial, and retail uses. He suggested that perhaps cities under a certain size should be excluded from consideration for Regionally Significant Industrial lands exclusivity.

Brian Campbell said that option 3 was the proposed changes to Metro code and the adoption of the map that the jurisdictions originally submitted.

Vera Katz asked how they would ascertain if it was really the same amount of acreage for industrial use.

Brian Campbell said he did not know the answer to that.

Chair Hughes said that in the codes for all the 24 cities in the Metro area there was a dramatic difference in how they defined industrial land.

Rob Drake said it seemed rather apparent that they were not at an answer yet. He suggested that MPAC make their recommendation at the January 14^th meeting so that they had more time to review the materials.

Chair Hughes said that they could defer the decision to the January 14^th meeting.

Vera Katz said that she was concerned that even the Governor’s industrial land task force couldn’t define ‘industrial.’ She said the concern was that as they worked on planning for the future it all got translated as pushing the UGB further and further out. She suggested that they should be thinking about the new framework for planning for years down the road.

Chair Hughes said the report had already raised the issue that they were looking at expansion of the UGB to accommodate industrial land, 75% of which was for warehousing and distribution and the other 25% which was for tech-flex. He said that the attractive thing about option 2 was that it finally separated those things.

Susan McLain supported extending the work schedule to accommodate more time to make good decisions about this issue and to make sure that the public outreach was significant and substantial.

John Leeper asked if any of the options were not acceptable to the committee and if they could take that option out of consideration.

Chair Hughes said that that answer was different for each of them.

Rob Drake said that CREEC was sponsoring a study on employment. He suggested that Metro staff should review that process and determine if it might have significance in what they were doing, and then report back to MPAC in January.

Council President Bragdon said that he would not bring something before the Council when MPAC was so very divided and still had so many questions. The deadline that they had pertaining to this piece was a self-imposed deadline, but this piece did ultimately affect their deadline with the State. He said that it appeared that MPAC did not yet have a recommendation. He said that it would remain on the agenda for the Council, but it would no longer be an action item. He requested a letter from Mayor Drake expressing the region’s concerns about this issue and their collective desire to slow down the process a bit. This letter would demonstrate to LCDC that Metro and MPAC were working diligently on the issue, but that they wanted to do a thorough examination of the issue.

Vera Katz asked how would MPAC decipher the policies to get them to come together and find agreement on the issue.

Rob Drake said that the employment study by CREEC might offer good input and help them to reach a collective option.

Chair Hughes said that now that the business sector was giving input on this issue they should reach a conclusion in January.

Andy Cotugno said that the Greater Metropolitan and Employment Land study initiated by CREEC was designed to impact the next periodic review and not this periodic review. It was developed to be a long-term comprehensive evaluation of employment land needs throughout the metropolitan region and not just industrial land needs. It was a three-phase process wherein phase 1 was intended to scope the issue and that was all that had been done so far. Therefore it would not be useful to this discussion at this time.

There being no further business, Chair Hughes adjourned the meeting at 7:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR DECEMBER 10, 2003

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