METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

March 10, 2004 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Nathalie Darcy, Rob Drake, Dave Fuller, Gene Grant, Ed Gronke, Judie Hammerstad, John Hartsock, Tom Hughes, Vera Katz, Lisa Naito, Doug Neeley, Dan Saltzman, Martha Schrader

Alternates Present: Jack Hoffman, Laura Hudson, John Leeper, Karen McKinney

Also Present: Betty Atteberry, Westside Economic Alliance; Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Beverly Bookin, CCA/CREEC; Donald Bratscu, Citizens to Save the Valley; Al Burns, City of Portland; Brian Campbell, Port of Portland; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Bob Durgan, Anderson Construction; Kay Durtschi, MTAC; Chris Eaton, Angelo Eaton & Assoc.; Kelly Hossaini, Miller Nash; Holly Iburg, Newland Comm.; Dean Kampfer, WMI; Bill Kenny, Citizens to Save the Valley; Stephen Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Charlotte Lehan, City of Wilsonville; Leanne MacColl, League of Women Voters; Chris Maletis, Langdon Farms; Tom Maletis, Langdon Farms; Doug McClain, Clackamas County; Deanna Mueller-Crispin, Citizen; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Laura Oppenheimer, The Oregonian; Steve Pfeiffer, Perkins Coie; Ray Phelps, WRI; John Ramig, Hagen O’Connell, LLP; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Michael Robinson, Perkins Coie; Robert Russell, Citizens to Save the Valley; Amy Scheckla-Cox, City of Cornelius; Dave Shields, City of Gresham; Marty Stiven, Stiven Planning & Development; Thane Tienson, Landye Bennett

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons – Carl Hosticka, Council District 3; Susan McLain, Council District 4; David Bragdon, Council President

Metro Staff Present: Kim Bardes, Dick Benner, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, Chris Deffebach, Mike Hoglund, Ted Leybold

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Mayor Charles Becker, MPAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:06 p.m. Those present introduced themselves.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

There were none.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

Jim Labbe handed out flyers for the Regional Equity Summit and spoke briefly about the conference. That flyer is attached and forms a part of the record.

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President Bragdon said that everything on the Council agenda for the next few weeks was also on MPAC’s agendas and therefore he yielded his three minutes.

6.  GOAL 5: ESEE RESULTS – TUALATIN BASIN

Chris Deffebach gave an update on the Fish & Wildlife Protection Program. She explained that the ground phase of the Economic, Social, Environmental, and Energy (ESEE) was complete. The open houses were an opportunity for the public to review the results and to give their opinion on the appropriate level of habitat protection for the region and the appropriate mix of regulatory and non-regulatory approaches to achieve that protection. She handed out a brochure on the Fish & Wildlife Protection Open Houses; a summary brochure of the Fish & Wildlife Protection Program: Protecting the Nature of the Region; a spreadsheet on the Regulatory Program Options and Tradeoffs; and a draft spreadsheet on Potential Non-regulatory Fish & Wildlife Protection Programs, all of which are attached and form part of the record.

Brent Curtis gave an overview of the Tualatin Basin’s preliminary recommendation for allowing, limiting or prohibiting development on the habitat lands and for the Tualatin Basin group on adjusting the recommendation. He reminded the committee that Tualatin Basin had an IGA with Metro that allowed them to develop a protection program that met the vision statement and to submit it to Metro for approval.

Doug Neeley asked if there was anything about the upland habitat in their vision statement.

Brent Curtis said that while it was not in the vision statement they were definitely looking at upland resources.

Chris Deffebach said that the vision statement was longer than what was presented on the easel.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summary for February 25, 2004.

7.  SOLID WASTE RECYCLING GOAL: PROPOSED CONTINGENCY PLAN

David Bragdon introduced Mike Hoglund, Director of Solid Waste and Recycling at Metro.

Mike Hoglund gave an overview of the plan.

Lee Barrett spoke about the top two programs: 1) requiring all construction demolition be processed before they were land-filled, and 2) mandatory business recycling ordinances for specific materials.

Rob Drake said that at some point he would like to invite Metro out to speak to his council and asked if they had thought of presenting to chamber groups, the economic alliance, etc. for information-sharing and feedback.

Mike Hoglund said not to that specific degree, they had not defined the outreach efforts yet, but would be working on that soon.

Rob Drake said that 90% of businesses in his jurisdiction had 20 or fewer employees. He said it might be good to have those people at some of the meetings as well as businesses that already had a recycling program in place, so that they could share their experiences. He recommended that Metro expand funding to help local businesses if that plan got adopted.

Ed Gronke said that the way to get businesses to recycle was to make it worth their while. He wondered if Metro had given some thought to including economic incentives.

Lee Barrett said that all the jurisdictions outside of Portland had a franchise system, where the city regulated the solid waste and recycling collection rate. That rate already provided incentive to recycle because the more garbage to be moved, the more costly it would be for them. Whereas, if they recycled, then they would have less garbage and save more money.

Karen McKinney said they should compliment the various cities that participated in recycling but did not have the resources to be aggressively involved. She expressed concern that recycling in business could negatively impact or even close facilities. An increase in rate would pass through haulers and transfer to the ratepayers. She said that the City of Hillsboro would like additional time to study the cost implications to haulers and ratepayers before implementing a higher rate. Recycling of specific materials and mandatory requirements of business might not be productive without outreach and education. To achieve recycling mandates it would be best to involve the business community. The City of Hillsboro would also want to know the dollar amounts of a potential increase and how that money would be applied. Karen McKinney wanted to stress that the City of Hillsboro was supportive but they just wanted more time to look at all the considerations.

Mike Hoglund said that the suggested program implementation date was July 2004 for the contingency plan. The construction demolition program would take about 12 months to implement and the business recycling plan would be implemented later in 2005. Mike Hoglund said they would be happy to attend any council meeting or board meetings to talk about the program.

Lee Barrett said that part of the draft outreach plan was to ask the jurisdictions who Metro should meet with.

Rob Drake said that they should visit when Beaverton’s council met and was on TV so that they could reach a broader audience.

Dan Saltzman said that the City of Portland supported the programs. He said that the City of Portland already had mandatory recycling. Material recovery was not only good for the environment but also created jobs.

8.  MTIP POLICY/REVIEW & DIRECTION

Chair Becker introduced Ted Leybold, Metro Planning Department.

Ted Leybold reviewed the MTIP Policy Direction.

Andy Cotugno said that the last time this topic was discussed at MPAC he had asked the committee how they wanted to be involved with the process. At that point in time they had responded that they wanted to be informed of the process and milestones. Andy Cotugno wanted to know if they still just wanted to be informed of progress or if they now wanted to participate.

Doug Neeley asked if the regionally significant industrial areas would be identified by the time the MTIP review took place.

David Bragdon said that there might be a minor change or two related to Troutdale.

Doug Neeley asked if there was a distinction between the map in terms of new lands that would be brought in and those which would, in fact, be defined as regionally significant.

David Bragdon said that would be known by June.

John Hartsock referred to Exhibit A, page 3, and wanted to know if the 2008-2009 priorities would have basically the same language regarding the UGB expansion areas and completion as the 2004-2007 concept plan.

Ted Leybold said yes. Those areas remained a policy priority but there was a refinement in terms of the 2040 Tier 1 & 2 mixed-use industrial areas within the UGB expansion areas.

John Hartsock asked if that pushed Damascus to the next cycle.

Ted Leybold said he was unsure.

Judie Hammerstad asked Metro to let local jurisdictions know the functional plan compliance was a criterion.

Ted Leybold said he was aware that the City of Cornelius staff was concerned about compliance for smaller jurisdictions that had smaller staff.

9.  ORDINANCE 04-1041

Councilor Hosticka reviewed the ordinance, Exhibit A, and the overall proposal.

Doug Neeley asked the Metro Council to take consideration of the Clackamas River as a boundary too.

Gene Grant invited Mayor Lehan to speak to this issue.

Rob Drake said that, at the last discussion on this issue, Mayor Lehan had participated on the same level as any MPAC member. Normally they invited people to give testimony, and then MPAC discussed the issue.

Doug Neeley said that if they had a jurisdiction that was being impacted, that jurisdiction should have a participatory role.

Karen McKinney said that they should consider what the state wanted foremost, which was to identify industrials lands for RSIA. She said there had been many discussions at the MPAC table of what should be included in the study areas, and Metro staff said that they needed to do research, set standards, and set criteria in which to make their best judgments. She said that the point made by staff related to a prior reprimand from LCDC that Metro needed to apply criteria in a uniform way. She said that there was division at the table on what should be included and what should not be included. She agreed that agriculture was a major part of the regional economy, and that all members of the agricultural community and other stakeholders had not fully had an opportunity to give input on the proposed ordinance. She said that conclusions needed to be based on research and data. She suggested that they needed more time to do the research fully and should, therefore, postpone the decision.

Carl Hosticka asked Dick Benner to briefly address the question of whether or not the ordinance was in violation of applying the criteria in a uniform way and whether or not all the state land use goals were encompassed within the proposal.

Dick Benner said that Metro was required to satisfy the need with the lowest priority land and the highest priority conclusion. That meant rural residential land. He said that the class of land under the microscope south of the Willamette River was mostly class 2 soil. It was, therefore, okay for Metro to have a criteria to exclude some class 2 lands as long as they were studying much more land than they needed. It was impossible to know beforehand whether there might be a collision between a policy such as this and state law, but there was quite a bit of class 2 soil land and therefore it was very possible that this policy would not collide with state law.

Chair Becker invited Mayor Lehan to come to the table and make her statement.

Charlotte Lehan said that she felt it was the appropriate time to have the policy discussion on this issue. The technical analysis had been done and had brought the study area from 60-thousand acres down to 20-thousand acres. It was appropriate to look at policy issues at this point and make some policy decisions.

Lisa Naito asked if other parcels or boundaries were suggested, such as the Sandy River or Sauvie Island, what would the result be - conceptually? Were there criteria/standards to determine what agricultural land was less important to the continuation of commercial agriculture?

Dick Benner said that the ordinance could be expanded to say that there were other boundaries beyond which they would not go. If, however, they excluded too much it might not be possible to achieve the amount of land that was needed. Regarding the ranking of agricultural land, there was no distinction in the state hierarchy between types of class 1 soils. He said that Metro was, however, getting input from the agricultural community about how to distinguish from class 1 and class 2 soils in order to help staff make the technical decisions.

Susan McLain said that this was the first time they were getting guidance from the agriculture industry about those distinctions of soil classifications.

Doug Neeley said that it was important to have class distinctions for all types of soil. He said that he thought the policy was much more broad than just going south of the Willamette, there were other areas they needed to look at that perhaps would define the boundaries of the Metro area. He said he felt it was appropriate to have an issue that was triggering the broader discussion.

Councilor Hosticka said that agricultural industry had said that they needed a critical mass of area so that they could implement dealers, marketers, processors, and so on. This issue was just as important to the discussion as soil classification and irrigation.

Lisa Naito said she had concern that there was objective criteria applied to defend the selection process of one parcel over another.

John Leeper said that he had serious misgivings about excluding agricultural land south of Willamette and west of the Pudding River. He said he was concerned that MPAC and the Metro Council was creating an ordinance that would be reversed/rescinded at a future date. He said that the UGB could not go beyond the limits of the three counties without going back and getting a significant change through the legislature.

Ed Gronke said he did not agree with John Leeper’s position. He had seen the results of not having boundaries – mainly that there was no open land and no greenspaces. He said he thought setting some sort of line would benefit the region.

Laura Hudson reminded the committee that the region included the City of Vancouver on the Washington side of the river in terms of industrial development and industrial land. She said that they were also going through the process of expanding their own boundaries. She said that none of the discussion about industrial land and development that the City of Vancouver has had was included in Metro’s or MPAC’s calculations. She urged Metro and MPAC to include Vancouver in that discussion.

Charlotte Lehan said the issue wasn’t really about the City of Wilsonville, but rather about the Willamette Valley. She said that the Willamette Valley had the finest agricultural land in the region and once development crossed the river it would be very difficult to protect the valley. The danger was that I-5 ran down the valley like an artery. She said that the agricultural land and the area itself deserved special treatment.

Karen McKinney said they should look at providing adequate land for warehousing and distribution as a high criterion in their determinations. She said she felt it would be detrimental to the economy and jobs to set permanent boundary lines.

Chair Becker said that it should be sent back to MTAC.

Rob Drake said that the land south of the Willamette was not Forest Park or Muir Redwoods. The Charbonneau subdivision had been there for 30 years, there was a golf course there that would never be farmed again, there was a rest stop and an airport there also. The prime farmland that they wanted to preserve was probably east of Airport Road. He said that the area was not pristine but rather part of the evolution of the region. He said that the area east of Airport Road should be protected, otherwise south of the Willamette had ideal I-5 access and it met the Metro criteria to be included in the study. He said that he did not think that the line should be drawn at the river.

Doug Neeley asked if Metro expanded through the counties of Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah boundaries, did that mean that they could swallow up jurisdictions that already existed outside of Metro.

Dan Cooper said that there was a lawful process to annex cities and it was very difficult to annex those who did not want to be annexed.

Judie Hammerstad requested that the ordinance not go back to MTAC, she felt it was a policy issue not a technical issue. She said that the land south of the Willamette did fit the objective criteria in that it was close to a highway and it was flat, but it still needed to be protected for farming, which was much of the current use.

Councilor Hosticka said it would be helpful to have staff flesh out some of the questions that had been brought up during the meeting. He said that he agreed that it was more a policy issue than a technical issue. He also agreed that the purpose was to indeed to make it hard for future generations to expand the boundary. He said that the ordinance was not about one piece of property. He said it was about where the metropolitan region ended and about the Willamette Valley. He said that the fact that it was a desirable piece of property made it all the more important to make the decision. He said it would set a precedent.

Chair Becker said that it would go back to staff to work on Carl Hosticka’s requests, and then it would come back to MPAC at the next meeting.

Lisa Naito said that it would be useful to have staff provide the facts on the technical pieces behind the decision.

10.  TITLE 4 RSIA ORDINANCES/SUBCOMMITTEE UPDATE

Rob Drake reported on the work of the subcommittee. He said that there was some interest in more comment and he requested that they hold an additional subcommittee meeting next week and then send a recommendation out for the next MPAC meeting.

Chair Becker suggested that after the subcommittee met, they send it back to MTAC, and then it would come back to MPAC at the next meeting.

Rob Drake said he was concerned that if it went to MTAC and then to the subcommittee it would be too large to be reviewed for the next meeting. He reminded the committee that the Metro Council was shooting for a June decision.

Andy Cotugno said that there was a standing meeting for MTAC next week, so it was possible to do both.

Chair Becker said he would like it to go to MTAC as well as the subcommittee.

Doug Neeley said they should specify permitted uses for educational facilities when they reviewed it.

11.  ORDINANCE 04-1046

Susan McLain gave a brief overview of the ordinance.

There being no further business, Chair Becker adjourned the meeting at 7:13 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR MARCH 10, 2004

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