METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

February 25, 2004 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Herb Brown, Rob Drake, Andy Duyck, Dave Fuller, Gene Grant, Ed Gronke, John Hartsock, Laura Hudson, Tom Hughes, Richard Kidd, Lisa Naito, Doug Neeley, Martha Schrader

Alternates Present: Jack Hoffman

Also Present: Linda Bauer, Citizen; Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; John Bliss, Pleasant Valley Advisory Committee; Brian Campbell, Port of Portland; Bob Clay, City of Portland; Danielle Cowan, City of Wilsonville; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Bob Durgan, Anderson Construction; Kay Durtschi, MTAC; Mary Gibsen, Port of Portland; Jonathan Harker, City of Gresham; Jim Jacks, City of Tualatin; Susie Lahsene, Port of Portland; Stephen Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Charlotte Lehan, City of Wilsonville; Doug McClain, Clackamas County; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Damian Pitt, Cogan Owens Cogan, LLC; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Valery Salamabka, PCC; Amy Scheckla-Cox, City of Cornelius; Jay Sugnet, Portland Planning Bureau;

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

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Mayor Charles Becker, MPAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:03.m. Those present introduced themselves.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

There were none.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There were none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summary for January 28, 2004.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President Bragdon said that Ordinance No. 04-1033 was on the Council docket for the following day. That ordinance was on the agenda for MPAC later in the evening. He also wanted to remind committee members of the upcoming open houses for Goal 5 and the industrial lands. He referred to the mailing for the affected property owners.

6.  ANNEXATION CODE CHANGES

Dan Cooper explained the ordinance to the committee members.

Rob Drake asked about dealing with the legal description after a decision had been made – was that in the event that something was modified in the course of an annexation?

Dan Cooper said that it pertained to incorporations of new cities only.

John Hartsock said it was in concert with the ORS, which brought it to the statute. He said that the commissioners had the ability to add and subtract to the incorporation request. It could change when they were deliberating on it and that was why it was safer to do it after.

Dan Cooper said it did not change the requirement that there be a legal description prepared of a proposed annexation prior to when the petition was filed.

Richard Kidd asked if the code covered a situation such as when they had a piece of property to be annexed into a city that was located inside UGB, but part of it was outside Metro’s jurisdictional boundary.

Dan Cooper said yes. The code would provide a one-stop process for the people who were proposing annexation to the city to also propose annexation of the parts that were outside the Metro jurisdictional boundary. Then the Metro Council could make the decision to annex both contemporaneously. The new land would be inside both boundaries and the city would be able to complete the planning and start making the property eligible for development.

Doug Neeley asked about changing the language of section 309 120 E2 to say something about “the territories annexed to a city, or incorporated into a new city, or annexed into services.” He wanted the recognition of the potential of incorporation be included in C2.

Dan Cooper said that those requirements were created at the time that the UGB was moved. Therefore those conditions were imposed by the Council through Title 11 of the Functional Plan and by any conditions attached to the ordinance resulting from the actual UGB move. That section of the document was not creating those conditions but rather reflecting that those conditions existed. The real criteria was that they would bring it inside the new UGB, and to freeze development patterns until the conditions imposed by the additions to the UGB were carried out in the concept planning by Title 11.

Herb Brown asked if it had to be approved by the LCDC as well?

Dan Cooper said no. It was possible that it could be appealed to LUBA as a land use decision, but he could not see the circumstance where LCDC would have jurisdiction to do that. After the city was incorporated then LCDC had to acknowledge that city’s comprehensive plan for compliance.

7.  INDUSTRIAL LANDS MEASURE 26-29 TECHNICAL REPORT

Lydia Neill gave an overview of the report and spoke about the public notice that was sent to citizens. Both the report and the public notice are attached and form part of the record.

Ed Gronke asked how Metro had dealt with the mailing. He wanted to know how they determined who should receive notice.

Lydia Neill said that using the Metro Geographical Information System (GIS) they mailed to property owners affected (about 70,000 households) and to properties within a one-mile buffer of those affected properties. They also mailed to the “interested parties” list for this issue that Metro maintains in a database.

Andy Cotugno said that the one-mile radius included properties both inside and outside the UGB.

Doug Neeley asked if they had discussed the rankings with adjacent city jurisdictions.

Lydia Neill said that they had had extensive conversations with the jurisdictions.

Richard Kidd asked if they would have larger maps at the open house.

Jack Hoffman asked Lydia Neill to review the schedule and wanted to know what would happen between the open houses and the decision.

Lydia Neill said that workshops would be conducted in March, they would have a recommendation from the Chief Operating Officer by mid-April, the hearings would start around the last week of April through May and into June, and the Council would conclude their decision by about June 25^th.

Andy Cotugno that this dealt with expansion but the other issue was Title 4.

Lydia Neill said that at the March 10^th meeting she would introduce the MPAC RSIA subcommittee recommendation on Title 4 with action on March 25^th.

Chair Becker reported that the MPAC RSIA subcommittee had reached a decision and asked Rob Drake to report.

Rob Drake said that the package they had come up with would call for an approximate increase of a net buildable of between 1600 and 2000 acres. It would probably be about 2800 gross acres. Many of the restrictions that had seemed onerous to industry/cities would be handled in a slightly different way. There would still be protections for industrial land but with flexibility.

8.  FREIGHT MOBILITY IN THE METRO REGION

Susie Lahsene gave a PowerPoint presentation on freight mobility. Copies of the slides are attached and form part of the record.

Rob Drake asked Susie Lahsene to talk about the freight business but not in reference to the “big boys.” He said he was also very interested in warehousing as it related to the industrial expansion. He said that the majority of business in Portland wasn’t necessarily the big business.

Susie Lahsene said that the logistics and distribution sector was the economic infrastructure for the economy. Everyone had to move product in some fashion. Even small companies were very reliant on the distribution system. Therefore, there was a cheaper cost of distribution activity for those smaller businesses, which was a great advantage for them.

Rob Drake asked if the Portland area was disproportionate with the rest of the valley in terms of freight emphasis? He wanted to know what proportion of the state’s freight traveled through Portland versus where it went for the rest of the state?

Susie Lahsene said that it was about 75% to 80%. She said that the Portland region represented about ¾ of the statewide rail volume.

Chair Becker asked what percentage of freight movement went by rail? By air?

Susie Lahsene said that about 67% of freight movement went by truck, whereas about 20% went by rail, and less than 1% went by air. The value of airfreight was very high, even though the percentage was low. She said that about 8% went by barge. Having barge freight available also kept the rail freight costs down and allowed more options for the shipper.

Doug Neeley asked if the relative percentages of inventory in the report presented a good picture of the Portland area.

Susie Lahsene said yes. The longer a product was kept on site, the higher the company costs. Therefore, it was more cost effective for them to consolidate and ship quickly.

Doug Neeley said that a lot of jurisdictions did not like warehousing because it didn’t add a lot of value, nor did it add much in terms of tax assessment or employment. He wondered if the demand for warehouse space would be dropping off or did she expect that industry to grow?

Susie Lahsene said that the traditional style warehousing was changing. The new type of warehousing was to have distribution centers that were very high tech oriented. The increase in distribution centers was very dramatic.

Doug Neeley asked about products/items that were distributed out of the region as well.

Susie Lahsene said it was both items consumed internally and distributed externally that were affected by the new type of distribution centers.

Dave Fuller asked what percentage advantage did north/south have versus east/west?

Susie Lahsene said she did not know specifically. She said it depended on the type of distribution used: rail, boat, truck, etc. Rail distribution dominated for east/west distribution, whereas trucking dominated the north/south distribution.

Dave Fuller asked if she knew the percentage of rail.

Susie Lahsene said that the rail percentage represented about 20% of the overall volume.

Ed Gronke said that the report showed a higher percentage of the work force was employed in distribution and logistics in Portland than in Seattle. He felt that the total number of jobs in Portland versus those in Seattle would be an important number. He asked if she knew the actual number of jobs in Seattle.

Susie Lahsene said that she did not know the exact number, but that number did represent one-in-ten jobs in Portland.

Jack Hoffman asked about the major employment sector, sector economic benefit, and average wage by industry sector. Portland was in third place in terms of workforce, employee, and distribution logistics. He wondered if that was good or bad. The average wage was $46,000, which was $6,000 more than average Portland annual wage. He wanted to know if the $46,000 wage was skewed by the inclusion of longshoremen? If it was, then they could not anticipate an expansion because the docks were employed close to 100% and that would result in a doubling of freight by 2030, then it would be in the $8-$10 per hour jobs.

Susie Lahsene said that longshoremen did not skew the calculation. It was the wholesale trade number that was the lion share of the average wage for the state of Oregon.

Jack Hoffman said that if she forecasted the freight was going to double, and then the Portland/Vancouver freight tonnage by 2030, he wanted to know what she anticipated the wage would become?

Susie Lahsene said that she did not know the answer to that question and it would be hard to answer. She said that they could look at the Metro economic forecast to understand better what to expect. The $8-$10 per hour was more on the service side of the economy as opposed to the distribution side.

Herb Brown wanted to know how many acres were considered/needed for a freight distribution center and once that was met, was there still enough land for other uses?

Susie Lahsene said that it depended on the market. She gave the example of Columbia Sportswear who had a campus of about 30 acres and a distribution center of nearly a million square feet. They had wanted to expand in Portland but could not because there wasn’t an adequate land supply. She said that the bigger entities were looking at 30-50 or as big as 500 acres.

Dave Fuller asked what the average number of jobs per square acre and how did that compare the figures for manufacturing?

Susie Lahsene said that there was a study/report that was included in the packet, which is attached and forms part of the record, that had a website address that could provide the full report. In that report, the employment numbers vary by each sector.

Dave Fuller asked what the average was per square acre.

Mary Gibson said they had it per square foot and not acre. She said that .5-.8 was the jobs value per square foot. So it was about 15-40 per acre.

Doug Neeley referred to the report and the land requirement with respect to distribution centers, which required the largest facilities to average about 80,000 square feet per operation. He wanted to know if that was per chain in an area.

Susie Lahsene said it was per distribution center operation and not per the entire chain in an area.

Dave Fuller asked if the number of jobs per acre was including the actual building/facility.

Mary Gibson said it was based on the total facility, so it would include the building, parking, landscaping and some trucking activities in and out of the building.

Jim Jacks asked what Metro needed in order to find land for industrial jobs/warehousing. He asked if, for the region to be highly competitive in the world market place, new land for future warehousing should be located further out in Gresham and Hillsboro or closer to the water facilities, rail, and established trucking.

Susie Lahsene said that is should be on the key corridors whether that was rail, road, or water. A 5-mile radius to those corridors was most effective and efficient.

Brian Campbell said that the key locational criteria was to be within 3-miles of the interchange on I-5 or I-205, etc.

Jim Jacks said that it seemed that the prime location for distribution would be somewhere near the water, airport, rail, or road facilities.

Susie Lahsene said that all the modes did not need to be together. What was a requirement was being adjacent to one of those corridors, and usually that was a trucking corridor.

Andy Cotugno said that it was no accident that ⅔ of all the truck terminals were along the Columbia Corridor because they do have the best access to business. Therefore, the locations along I-5 and I-205 were vitally important. A great deal of the economy was very tied to distribution these days and that was another reason why the entire issue of industrial lands was so important.

Rob Drake said that nobody probably wanted a new distribution center in their area, however a lot of the freight distribution tied into the discussion of people living on one side of the region and traveling to the other to work. This was creating many traffic problems. The problem would be if everything was coming from the corridor or from one spot and thereby clogging the region with trucks. He cautioned the committee to think that everything should be on the Columbia corridor. There might not be enough land left and traffic considerations were very important to this issue.

Martha Schrader wanted to make a point that agriculture was a value-added sector that was key for freight movement. Consideration needed to be made for that industry and the logistics of moving their product.

Andy Cotugno said that there were warehousing distribution centers along 217, as well as out in the Forest Grove area, and they were key to localized markets. That was not, however, where the international or Pacific Northwest or national distribution groups want to locate. They want to locate along I-5 or I-205. Local markets also needed more distribution land as well.

Rob Drake said that as the Washington Square Regional center plan evolved they would see some of that local distribution go away as they densified. The region would need to provide freight transportation additions because some of the existing older facilities would have a new use.

9.  PLEASANT VALLEY PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

Jonathan Harker gave a PowerPoint presentation and copies of the slides are attached and form part of the record.

Doug Neeley asked if there was going to be a masterplan for Pleasant Valley.

Jonathan Harker said that was correct.

There being no further business, Chair Becker adjourned the meeting at 6:53 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR FEBRUARY 25, 2004

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