METRO COUNCIL GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Wednesday, September 22, 1998

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Jon Kvistad (Chair), Don Morissette, Rod Monroe

Members Absent:    None

Also Present:    Susan McLain

Chair Kvistad called the meeting to order at 1:36 P.M.

 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1998, GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING

2.  PRESENTATION OF PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS

Mark Turpel, Growth Management, reported that the consultant team had been asked to prepare the productivity analysis based on a need figure of 32,000 dwelling units and 2,900 jobs because that was what the council had adopted to date and they had to have a working assumption. He said they realized additional information would be coming at a later date from the urban growth report addendum. He said there were at least 2 important policy issues for council consideration. One was the jobs/housing balance issue because 32,000 dwelling units and 2,900 jobs was not the kind of ratio normally seen in the region as a whole. The question there was should they just look at what it took to accommodate that 2,900 jobs or should they look at what it took to have a balanced community akin to the ratio in the region as a whole. He said that could mean either adding more land to the urban growth boundary than would otherwise be required with 2,900 jobs, and/or looking at industrial areas inside the urban growth boundary that could possibly be changed to residential in order to address that balance. He said the issue of jobs/housing balance was a policy issue and he was prepared to illustrate the pros and cons and what ifs of that issue to council. The second issue he brought up had to do with the riparian buffers and what was reasonable in terms of the steelhead listing or the regional goal 5 analysis that was being done. He said the process now was to present this information to council. He reported it had been presented at MTAC and in the very near future a recommendation would be coming from MPAC for council consideration. He said the consultants or the staff would answer questions at the end of the presentation.

Councilor Morissette entered the chamber.

Councilor Monroe said the jobs/housing question was interesting to him as it sounded like with 32,000 new housing units and only 2,900 new jobs in the UGB expansion areas, it sounded like 90% unemployment and that was not good. He said it was his understanding that the problem, especially in Washington County, had always been too many jobs for the available housing and the cry was for Metro to create more of a balance in Washington County by increasing the available housing to match the excess of jobs in that region.

Mr. Turpel said they could examine the amount of industrial land in Washington County and look at the possibility of changing that balance by rezoning. He said the City of Hillsboro had many more acres of land designated for high tech and industrial use than they did residential. It was his understanding that the state had acknowledged that plan because they were serving the regional need for high tech. He said high tech businesses tended to agglomerate because it needed large flat land and that was available and so designated there. He said traditionally the concern had been not knowing what the market would need and trying to make sure there was an adequate supply given that uncertainty. He said there were other perspectives on how that issue should be addressed.

Councilor Monroe asked if adding housing without additional jobs might that not be a good thing, particularly in Washington County

Mr. Turpel said they had worked with the consultant and had tried to take into consideration the topography and lot size in the various urban reserve areas. He said they tried to get more housing in Washington County, for instance, as opposed to trying to push the envelope in Clackamas County as to how many jobs would be there.

Councilor Monroe said the problem in the north Clackamas County industrial area was that the trucks couldn’t get in and out in less than 3 hours already. He said they would have to have some transportation improvements if they were really going to expand the job base in that region.

Chair Kvistad said 32,000 was the number they were looking at when they set policy and that was probably the floor, but the ordinance was being drafted now at 42,000 because he did not think 32,000 was defensible. He asked where the next step would take them assuming the ordinance passed. He asked how quickly the numbers of the report would be updated.

Elaine Wilkerson, Growth Management, noted that the urban growth report which had the range from 8,500 to 42,000 would be considered further by MPAC and council would receive a recommendation on that shortly.

Chair Kvistad said he was asking how quickly the numbers on the report would be changed once that number was set by council so they would have a document to work from.

Ms. Wilkerson said when the MPAC recommendations came and council made their decision, staff would have to create findings to support the number chosen by council. She said all of the policy issues had a bearing on it. She said at that point the productivity analysis would not have to be changed because it was set up in such a way that it was a total scale of all properties and could be added to if necessary.

Chair Kvistad said he was not looking at adding more or less, they had numbers that said 42,000. He said those were the only numbers he knew that were currently defensible. He said he was asking how long from the time the policy decision was set to the time the growth management department and the consultants got back the numbers for council to work with.

Ms Wilkerson said she was trying to say they did not have to change the report because the report set up the opportunity to have more lands included because although it focused on 32,000 and they were insuring that we would have enough land for 32,000, it did provide for more than that and if you chose use this tables and carry through and add more lands, then in fact you would be in a position to use this report as it is written. She said it did not have to be changed at that point.

Councilor Morissette said hopefully the question of how to get to a conclusion would be answered today because

one of the things they were going to talk about was the process and the timeframes.

Chair Kvistad said the hearings and the meeting dates had been set and if an ordinance came before council in the next 2 weeks they would need to know how quickly the final information would be available to make sure it fit within the schedule. He said he wanted to make sure that he was hearing the original report allowed the flexibility of numbers and it was a matter of findings.

Ms. Wilkerson said it provided for up to 44,000, almost 45,000.

Chair Kvistad said he wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything major they would have to go back and have redone.

Ms. Wilkerson said it was set up specifically to enable them to work within the range that might be the outcome of the urban growth report and the eventual decision of council on need.

Councilor McLain reminded the committee that Dennis Yee had looked at 3 updates. She said when they made the decision on the 32,000 dwelling units using the growth report, they looked at forecasts and averages. She felt it was very important to remember that this was simply an update to a dynamic document that continued to change daily. She pointed out Mr. Yee’s term from the report, “refill”, that he coined to refer to infill and redevelopment. She commented that one of the things she found interesting from the comments made at WRPAC was that they wanted to know what factors were going to be updated next year. They thought it was important to remember which factors were updated in which years as the 5 year need assessment was reviewed. She felt it was important to keep in mind that the productivity study would be a different document over time.

Sumner Sharpe, Pacific Rim Resources, said his team also included Terry Moore of ECONorthwest, who could not be at this meeting, Tom Armstrong of Pacific Rim Resources who served as project coordinator, and Tom Davis and James Kapla representing W&H Pacific who would be available for questions after the presentation.

He said the study was part of a process to determine where and how much the urban growth boundary should be expanded to accommodate future urban growth. This analysis was designed to assist the council in that process. He said there were choices intentionally imbedded in the results which allowed council to look at different options and give council information for Goal 14 analysis. It would also give information about the orderly and economic provision of public facilities and services, and efficiency of land uses. He commented that this analysis operated on a regional scale and was more detailed than previous work, but still didn’t have the level of detail that would occur with urban reserve area plans, some of which were being done now. He said they had had conversations with the consultants and others from cities who were working on those plans and they had been aware of them during this process. He said the detailed urban reserve plans would, in some cases, exceed the assumptions they had made and in some cases he expected them to be less. He felt it was important to recognize they had used a regional approach and had tried to be consistent in the application of that methodology. They recognized that after the plans were done there would be differences with build outs.

He said the operative numbers they used to start were 32,000 dwelling units and 2,900 employees. He said that didn’t limit the results because they looked at a very large number of urban reserve areas. He said there had been 18,570 acres designated initially so with just an average density assumption, it could exceed 32,000. The results would show a capacity to accommodate up to 44-45,000 depending on the assumptions made. He said the purpose was to provide technical information and estimate productivity of land in terms of dwelling units and employees and to estimate the serviceability in terms of relative costs of water, waste and storm water and transportation, again looked at from a regional and subregional perspective.

The process was straightforward and included 3 steps. They began by developing a methodology and then moved into a Phase 1 preliminary screening of all the urban reserve areas. Then they screened out certain urban reserve areas resulting in Phase 2 URAs for more detailed analysis. Each of those phases had a land need analysis component and a public facility analysis component. They also had an expert panel made up of senior planning staff, homebuilders, and people from 1,000 Friends of Oregon reviewing the methodology and giving feedback as they went through the process. They also had people from the community and consultants representing those doing master plans either present at the meetings or calling so they had conversation with them as well.

The land need component of each of the phases looked at land supply which determined the amount of buildable lands in each of the URAs and the productivity of each of the URAs, which was the development capacity of each of those URAs. The land supply analysis determined the amount of buildable lands in the inventory. He said they had used the RLIS database to identify environmental constraints and current development status. He said they also estimated the redevelopment potential and land for institutional uses which was not part of the original study. He said they verified the redevelopment potential with map and aerial photograph reviews and field visits in some cases, then classified those into 3 categories, 1) likely to redevelop, 2) might redevelop, and 3) not likely to redevelop.

The productivity analysis estimated the number of dwelling units and employees for individual URAs. In Phase 1 they applied the Metro Code of 10 dwelling units per net residential acre across the board. Phase 2 applied the 2040 growth concepts and each URA was classified by Metro design types. The final product was a spreadsheet which council could use to make their conclusions. He said a productivity index could be found in the summary document.

Regarding the public facility part, they looked at comparative cost evaluations based on service provider information and professional judgment. They developed unit cost factors and looked at subareas and how URAs fit together. He said the service cost estimates were tied to development capacity coming out of the land analysis. The water supply assumptions were not quite as certain because the supply was uncertain. They made assumptions for the purposes of the study. Storm water facilities were focused on regional and subregional solutions.

They looked at multi-modal transportation solutions. Transit was expressed in terms of qualitative rather than quantitative terms. There was more than sufficient capacity to accommodate the estimated need. He noted table 6, page 14, showed 45,000 dwelling units could be accommodated in all the Phase 2 units, that assuming a 200’ stream buffer.

Chair Kvistad said there was tentative agreement to use the 200’ setback.

Mr. Sharpe continued, the jobs/housing balance had to do with the assumption that a higher density would need service jobs and support to have a balanced community. He said they used the assumption that Metro was looking for a balanced community so the result was more jobs than the 2,900. They tried to take the regional issues into account when they did the allocation of housing and jobs.

Councilor Morissette said part of the difficulty was operating with so many assumptions. One of the assumptions he was most concerned with was the flat 20 year redevelopment infill rate that had been proposed. He asked if anything had been done to analyze the logic based on what was happening and what was likely to happen.

Tom Armstrong, Pacific Rim Resources, responded. He said they looked at the improvement value of the development portion and set up a 3 tiered system with the lower value lands lumped into Category 1. When the map, air photo and site reviews found vacant land in high value residential subdivisions, that land was taken out of the buildable inventory because a 1 acre lot would not be likely to redevelop and split into 10 units when it was surrounded by 1 acre homes. The assumption was that 80% of the Category 1 lands and 10% of the Category 2 lands would redevelop. He said they also looked at a more aggressive redevelopment assumption with less turnover of land to see what difference that made. He noted Terry Moore’s report in the appendices of the larger report included that study.

Councilor Morissette said the assumption that redevelopment would be around 28% had been adjusted tentatively to 25% based on what was happening. He asked if the 25% flat rate for 20 years seemed logical for the numbers needed to accomplish that. He thought it would probably trail as time went by and opportunities were built. He said the assumption used here was that the number should trail, although not as much as it could based on lost opportunities because new opportunities would arise over time. He asked if the study found it logical for the assumption to be successful or had the opportunity to be successful with the flat 20 year rate.

Mr. Armstrong said that was a question for Terry Moore. He said he would ask him and report back to the committee.

Councilor McLain reported that she and Mr. Turpel had been at a WRPAC meeting where Dennis Yee had talked about that assumption. She reminded the committee that they were looking at the average and had been adding additional information for a couple of years. She asked for Mr. Turpel to comment.

Mr. Turpel called attention to the Appendix on page A101, which asked “what if” the employment density or the redevelopment assumption. He commented that it was like trying to peer into a crystal ball and come to a reasonable conclusion. He said based on the latest information, the actual rate for the last 2 years was 25.4%. He reported comments made at MTAC was in the future there ought to be more redevelopment occurring. He guessed the reasons for that there would be turnover of properties that were not as old now as they would be in 15 years. He said it was clearly a judgment call.

Councilor Morissette reviewed that they had heavily discounted the higher priced housing that would probably not redevelop where the lower priced housing would. He asked what happened with a quarter million dollar home on a one acre parcel. He wondered if the whole acre was discounted or was some development planned there.

Mr. Armstrong said the RLIS database system was set up with a developed portion and a partially vacant portion. He said for the higher value properties, the partially vacant portion was taken out of the buildable land space as well.

Councilor Morissette asked if the productivity proposal based on the URSAs talked about was middle of the road, based on the current assumptions and some aspirations, was not radically different from the current plan. He asked if that goal seemed attainable through their analysis.

Mr. Armstrong said yes, they looked at lotting patterns and the current development patterns and added in the 2040 design types and the mini concept plans for each urban reserve area.

Mr. Sharpe said it was a moderate position with respect to assumptions.

Councilor Morissette asked if they felt there was a likelihood of it succeeding or if they had just gone on the assumptions they were given.

Mr. Sharpe said they looked at each URA and design type and what made sense, given their collective experience with this kind of landscape, location, etc. He said they checked against the master plans that were in process and felt they had come up with an analysis that was not too extreme or too conservative but in the ballpark.

Mr. Armstrong noted Table 7, Appendix, page 78, from Mr. Moore’s report which showed land allocation by design type and showed that 72% of the land was inner neighborhood residential, 20% was in corridor and the rest was mainstreet, towncenter, outer neighborhood. It was conservative and a moderate allocation to get to this number.

Councilor Morissette suggested to Chair Kvistad that they should set up a system to get the needed assumptions for making the policy decisions flushed out and vote on them.

Chair Kvistad said that was what he getting at earlier. He said there were some general assumptions they had agreed to but they did need to have those numbers as soon as possible.

Councilor McLain felt Mr. Davis had done a good job on the facilities cost portion of the report and asked for him to speak about some of the assumptions the facility costs had been run through. She mentioned the ones that made an impression on her were the economy of scale and connectivity. She wondered if Mr. Davis could explain how that was reviewed and filtered with those basic assumptions.

Tom Davis, W&H Pacific, said unit cost was developed by interacting with various providers. Some of the areas such as stormwater and waste water treatment were based on his experience but he had dealt with consultants and providers on those issues also. He said one of their assumptions was to connect the wastewater conveyance lines where it seemed most opportunistic to connect as long as they had good reason to believe that the lines had the capacity. In some cases they might go all the way to the treatment plant when an actual master plan was done. He commented that they ran from the nearest transmission point, which meant primarily the major line. He observed that he would like to see some fine tuning of that over time, like more expansion of some of the unit cost. He thought it was an excellent start and that it was essentially a cost model for comparative analysis. He felt it was somewhat unique for a regional body to have something like that and thought it could help resolve some regional issues. One of the assumptions they made was areas where there were groupings of urban reserves, they assumed there would be shared facilities. That was one difference between their work and the earlier work where each service area stood on its own so there was a lot of redundant costs if the areas came in together or within a reasonably close timeframe. They assumed connectivity and thought there was a real economy if some of that could be brought into the policy making. He felt the opposite of that would be small areas throughout the entire area where there would be long lines for service. He emphasized that to yesterday’s group. He said a lot of the areas were stand alone areas and it did not apply, but some of them out near Hillsboro and the area around #34, which was quite contentious, had groupings that would make a lot of sense to consider together. He was concerned that they have a good handle on mitigation of downstream impacts of their stormwater work because it was a long way between analyzing it and having it implemented in the future on a day to day basis throughout the jurisdictions

Councilor Morissette said he would be interested in Chair Kvistad’s thought process. He felt it would probably be better to wait until they had gone through the issues they had talked about last week but felt it worked well before to flush out the policy decisions.

Chair Kvistad noted the tentative timeframe and schedule. He said they would try to get the ordinance with the number of units so they could have a general discussion about the setbacks. He said 200’ would be used as a baseline for decision making. He said dwelling unit amounts would come before committee in 2 weeks for a decision to go forward to the council. He said they would be dealing with an ordinance to set the number of units so they could have the assumptions done so they were defensible.

Councilor McLain asked if the Chair was talking about how to review the updated assumptions and number assumptions and said that had be a council decision as opposed to a committee decision.

Chair Kvistad said they had the updated assumptions, the addendum, the Pacific Rim Resources report and the preliminary numbers. He said they were aware adjustments to the preliminary numbers would be needed and after the presentations of both methods had general agreement to go with the Method 1 approach. He said now it was a matter of setting targets and at the next meeting they would have an ordinance to set those targets. There would be discussion on that and after the selections were made they would be sent forward to the council for action. After that, they would go into the schedule before the committee now and break up the decision by area. Each committee meeting would then focus on specific parcel areas. He said they would take all of the areas and make component decisions, for example, northwest, southwest; south, southeast. That meant they would be making 5 decisions about parcels for inclusion. There would be hearings on each of those so council could pay individual attention to the needs of the particular areas.

Councilor McLain noted the MTAC recommendations from last week she had put in councilor’s boxes with their recommendations about the actual number. She hoped they would have an MPAC meeting where she would be allowed report some of the recommendations on this issue. She asked if that was possible for October 6.

Chair Kvistad said MPAC could testify and their participation was welcome.

Councilor McLain said it might be a good idea for them to be at the council meeting this Thursday to make a recommendation if they had one from Wednesday.

Chair Kvistad said he did not know about getting a recommendation before the committee had looked at it. He said it would probably at either the committee meeting on the 6th or at the following council meeting.

Councilor McLain said she would work on a short report and have MPAC come to the October 6th meeting. She said she wanted to be sure staff had enough time to meet the code requirements which would be 1) had they completed the goal 14, goal 2 and urban reserve concept plan, and 2) where they would be on the list as far as the productivity study numbers. She wanted to ask staff if this order was practical for getting those 3 pieces of needed information. She said a couple of places had started urban reserve planning recently and she felt if they were on the list later on it would give staff more time to analyze what they had done.

Chair Kvistad said they had set up a series of being able to components the decision. We found in the last round, and what he was trying to avoid, was where they made a decision and everyone sued the whole thing and it was thrown into court for a year. He was trying to break it up into components by areas so if there was a controversial area it didn’t take away from their ability to move forward and make decisions on other areas that were not controversial. It was his understanding in terms of the timeline that it was not necessarily a problem. He asked staff if that were so.

Ms. Wilkerson said they had little bit of a problem in the case of Sherwood and she didn’t believe they had the draft work plan yet. She did not anticipate they would be in a position at their council to deal with it until November. She said they might want to think about having the Sherwood consideration as late as possible.

Chair Kvistad said that wasn’t a problem. If there was an area like that, they could take a look and make an adjustment to put it towards the back. He said they would look at it over the next day or so.

Meg Bushman Reinhold, Council Analyst, pointed out that the purpose of the meetings was for public participation. She said staff and local government participation could easily come at the end and they were just trying to get the easiest times for the public to be involved fully at as many meetings as possible.

Councilor McLain responded that it would be hard for the public in Sherwood to be to respond to a plan that was not completed. She hoped they could make sure the public opportunities and testimony matched the work that was completed. Her other issue was Wilsonville and the prison decision because it would make big difference between the Day Road site and the other sites on how that public would react to some of the plans and issues.

Chair Kvistad said there needed to be a discussion about that because if the prison decision was not made, could that land be considered in the first round. He said it would be tough if the prison siting decision was set off until the next round, because it made council’s job of setting the targets difficult as it would change the dynamics of the land available. He agreed that the public testimony was to give everyone an opportunity to have their say about it. He said they could move the Sherwood part without any problem.

Councilor McLain asked Mr. Shaw if doing the decisions in such a componentized way would demonstrate the level of need they would have to have.

Larry Shaw, General Counsel, said yes, it was a strategy they had talked about for some time. How many pieces and how small was a matter of how council wanted to proceed. He said she was correct that the each of the ordinances, when they were adopted, had to do a comparison against the rest of the areas that might be alternatives to that particular site. He said the idea was to break the decision up into subregional ordinances, almost for convenience and they would probably be adopting them in a series that was fairly close together in time.

Councilor McLain reiterated that when they were taking those individual decisions, we did have to make an analysis within that decision that explained how it was part of the larger comparison.

Chair Kvistad said the larger comparison happened before and they were going to make the decision in component parts so they had already done the analysis regionally and looked at all the parcels in total. They were just going to make the decisions based on subregions.

Councilor McLain recalled they had tried to do a severability issue with the urban reserve decision and she felt this was another form of severability but at another level, an urban growth boundary amendment process. She wanted to be assured that the findings that went along with them were not being hampered or duplicated. She said they had to have similar findings to demonstrate where that piece fit into the whole picture.

Mr. Shaw said yes, they had to have a comparison that included everything. As a practical matter, they may or may not use detailed findings, or they might just use a record. He said the analysis was the same but it was not necessarily exactly the same. If they had hearings in one area and a particular issue was raised, they had to respond to that issue in that subarea, but once they had responded to it, they may not have to repeat that in the next ordinance.

Councilor McLain said she felt comfortable enough to talk to Mr. Shaw independently.

Ms. Wilkerson said she had not answered the question that had been asked of her. She said she thought they would have difficulty getting the record complete for those November hearing dates.

Chair Kvistad said on all the public hearings and decisions made so far where more time was needed they had tried to keep the record open as long as possible prior to making the final decision. He recalled the only places where they had closed the record was where they had only a certain amount of time to complete the package of information.

Ms. Wilkerson said it was more problematic in this case because the record would be much more complicated than anything they had created in the past. She said it would take quite a bit of effort to secure it and that was why she indicated that depending on what came up in the hearings they may find themselves in a position where they continued to the 10th, or, worst case scenario, the 17th. She said they really needed to be sure the record was complete and would stand the test.

Chair Kvistad said that was why December 3rd had been set as the date to get this concluded. He said they had also built in 2 council meetings following that date in case there were areas that didn’t make the timeline, or if there was still work to be done. He said they knew how difficult it was and knew the pressures and the workload for staff that came with the decision making.

Councilor Morissette clarified they first had to create the need, then fill the need through a subregional process to choose parcels based on controversy and appeal. He thought they could use the productivity analysis to help frame the conclusion. He noted that he had asked Ms. Wilkerson for a timeline.

Ms. Wilkerson said counting back the 45 days took them to Friday and she thought that was what had been set up for the notice. She said there would be subsequent notice by mail to the property owners specifically, and everyone within 500’ which would have to be set up to meet the right number of days. She said some of this was dependent on whether the schedule carried out as it was presented here.

Councilor Morissette reiterated that the process to move the urban growth boundary was the December 3rd goal and then they needed to notify land owners and cities so they knew to make application. He said based on their process they were looking for ones that had local jurisdiction support......

Ms. Wilkerson felt that was the weakest link and they needed to communicate with the jurisdictions being considered and ask them to submit indication of an expectation of completion or how they perceived they would proceed with the commitments required in the code. She wanted to make be sure she knew what was going on and that she could give them dates. She anticipated, even though the public was speaking at these particular events, that it might be an opportunity for some of the councils to make representations to Metro too so they wouldn’t have to wait until they were at the council meeting on November 24. She thought council might want to hear from them before then. She had some concern about Sherwood because they were not prepared to speak yet and she thought they might need to be worked with a little differently than others.

Chair Kvistad said if they were not ready, regardless of where they were on the tiering factor, they could go into the inventory next year when the other 50% need was dealt with. He thought they should be accommodated as best they could.

Ms. Wilkerson said Sherwood’s commitments may not be in place until just before the final decision. She thought they could talk about how they were going to go about it, though.

Councilor Morissette asked when she thought council could make that request of the landowners and the local governments.

Ms. Wilkerson said they should probably make contacts now to remind people about the new code and the schedule, or even set up meetings with the individual jurisdictions. She said they would have their hands more than full doing the necessary record for bringing this forward. She said was necessary to get those commitments from the councils to do the UGB amendments.

Councilor Morissette commented that there would certainly be councilor debate as to which URSAs were the ones they wanted. He wondered when exactly they would choose them.

Chair Kvistad said part of the November 19th and 24th meetings and the December 3rd meeting for the final decision would be discussions about which areas they would choose. He said they were casting as wide a net as possible for property being noticed based on whether or not they were master planning. He said just because a piece was noticed did not mean it would come in, it only meant it was being considered. They also had to look at public hearings so property owners and local jurisdictions had the opportunity to come before the growth management committee so the committee could make preliminary recommendations to council. He said once that was done they would take it to council, as for the 2040 and urban reserve decisions, and start with the November 10 land use public hearing on the Hillsboro URSAs and others on the schedule. He said they might have to move some of them around but the general timeline was the schedule before them. He said there would be overall discussions between November 16 and December 3. November 16th would be the last public hearing, then they would go back to growth management committee and/or to council as a whole if they felt the package was complete.

Councilor Morissette did not see how it work to have a lengthy process of listening to people and then a very short timeframe of narrowing the specific parcels.

Chair Kvistad said they had done the urban reserves in two meetings after almost 2½ months of hearings and overview. He said they would know the parcels and would have had discussions and public hearings on the areas so they would be ready to make parcel decisions. He said the controversial ones would have another week for making those decisions. He said they had built in 2-3 weeks of actual decision making. He felt since it was only a 50% need it would come in pretty short order.

Councilor Morissette asked who would be the one to say these were the goals and requirements needed to accomplish this.

Ms. Wilkerson said they were responsible for getting a complete record that assessed Goal 14, Metro code requirements and anything else encountered along the way at those hearings and to get it to Council by the 24th which was when they planned to begin discussions on the land.

Councilor Morissette felt Chair Kvistad had done a good job laying out the schedule although he wasn’t sure there was enough time for choosing the parcels. He thought things had been laid out pretty well other than possibly moving some things around. He requested information regarding the mechanics of the process so they could make sure they met Goal 14 and the other requirements they had.

Ms. Wilkerson said that had been working on that for 2 months. She said it was difficult because Goal 14 was very vague and had very few clear parameters. She said they had been talking to people at the state level and had concluded that it was very hard to know how to provide the information in a fashion that would be useful to the council. She said the productivity analysis did not address everything. She said they would bring together the urban reserve analysis done previously, the productivity analysis and all the missing pieces in an organized way for council to assess. The staff’s goal for that was November 24.

Chair Kvistad said the latter part of the schedule had some flexibility and an additional council work session or meeting would not be a problem providing all 7 of the councilors would be available. He said they would be fairly rigid about the timeline because he wanted everyone to have surety about exactly when they needed to come. He said the council would add whatever meetings they needed to get the work done. He thought they would have a handle on it by November regarding what may or may not be falling out.

Councilor McLain said in the 8 years she had been on the council they had not done a major legislative urban growth boundary amendment and she felt like they were covering new ground and would have to be very careful about the level of detail and specificity so they had a good legal package as well as a good policy package.

Chair Kvistad disagreed and said they had done this before and the only thing that was different was they broke it into component parts..

Councilor McLain said she was not talking about 2040, urban reserves or land use decisions. She said the level of findings and the record they were requesting of staff that was necessary and legally binding was quite large and she wanted to make sure staff understood they respected the level of detail it needed. She said she was trying to support the schedule with her comments and thought they would be able to rely on the 2 months of work from the hearings and discussions on November 24 and on December 3 and the two potential council meetings that could be added to finish the work if they had to. She said to Councilor Morissette that they would have time for those conversations with each other. She thought it was important to make notification to the landowners and she asked for reports on how the notification was proceeding. She agreed with Councilor Morissette that a schedule for putting together the record would be nice to see so they had an understanding of what they were facing.

Chair Kvistad said this would be the preliminary schedule with the exception of the added times, and they would work with staff to help with the Sherwood situation to see what could be done there.

Councilor Morissette asked Mr. Shaw to explain ex parte communications on individual parcels and what the requirements were.

Mr. Shaw said ex parte had to do with quasi-judicial decisions where they were sitting like a judge. The kind of decisions made based on an application of criteria to a single property or a very small number of properties was where the ex parte contact rules came in. He said this did not apply to the legislative amendments

Councilor Morissette asked what happened when people called in lobbyists on individual pieces.

Chair Kvistad said so long as it was not on the actual urban growth boundary amendment packages coming through the hearings officer where they act as judge, in any of the decisions someone can talk to you about any of these parcels.

Mr. Shaw said the kinds of decisions coming through from the hearings officers right now with recommendations involved small parcels, mostly with individual ownerships. He said those were the kind that could not be lobbied by the owner or their neighbors because council was supposed to hear it through the record from the hearings officer and the objections process built into that system. He said if some of the legislative packages being talked about got denied (he noted one that had been recommended for denial that he received a call on that morning wanting to go back through the legislative process), then even that piece could be talked about once it was only in the legislative arena.

Councilor Morissette asked for clarification of whether they had to disclaim if a person came and said this parcel was a good one. He asked if they could listen to anyone who wanted to talk to them.

Mr. Shaw said only on parcels that were not part of the hearings officer bunch that would be coming so he would need to identify which ones those were and be careful.

Councilor Morissette asked Mr. Shaw to identify those.

Chair Kvistad added that if someone talked to them about parcels in the upcoming decisions, he needed to disclose that beforehand.

Councilor Monroe said on all of their deliberations, the open meetings law was certainly still in effect and although any 2 councilors could chat about this or maybe even any 3. If it were 2 members of the same committee they could not or if it was 4 members of the whole council they couldn’t talk off the record on a subject that was leading toward a decision. That would a violation of the open meetings law. We need to watch out for the open meetings law as well as the legal ramifications discussed by Mr. Shaw.

Councilor McLain asked Mr. Shaw to alert the councilors because Thursday was the first hearings officer report on Valley View which was a locational adjustment in Cornelius. She said there were reasons for the hearings officer to either say yes it met the criteria for locational adjustment or no, it did no, but she was concerned that there might be information that they knew from their legislative amendments that could make a difference. She asked Mr. Shaw if she believed the hearing officer had missed something could she send him back to take care of it or would she have to deny it to get him to do that.

Mr. Shaw said she was expressing the frustrations of a judge who only got to look at the evidence before him. If one side or the other didn’t get all their stuff into the record, it could not be considered.

Councilor McLain asked what would happen if there were three legal processes being worked on at the same time and the hearings officer closed his report before and this was no longer necessary for the basic thesis of the case.

Mr. Shaw said there was a process where advocates and/or the council could reopen the record and have the hearings officer consider additional information. He said that was usually done by the advocates.

Councilor McLain said her concern was she would have some ability to talk to legal counsel and do a motion that would allow that important information to be brought forward.

Mr. Shaw said he would have to go back and recheck because they had not had that many of these, but his memory was yes.

Councilor Morissette asked Ms. Wilkerson to give him a copy of what they sent out for making their requests of local governments and land owners.

Ms. Wilkerson said they would probably send a letter and she would make sure council got a copy, but contact by phone would be made as well.

Councilor Morissette asked if it would be to 12,000 acres.

Ms. Wilkerson said she proposed the contacting the jurisdictions that were working on the reserve plans and had to show commitments. She said the property owner notice was a separate issue and had to go 20 days before the hearing.

Councilor Morissette asked if they would be describing, in case a local jurisdiction did not understand the process where they were looking for buy in from a local jurisdiction to make a commitment to a timeframe for planning the land as well as one of the 12,000 acres.

Ms. Wilkerson said she was thinking of sending a letter and then phoning them because she recognized that they may not be geared up for this. She knew some of them were as they had been working with Clackamas and Gresham because they had grants. She said they had been talking to Hillsboro quite a bit but in the case of Sherwood they had just begun the conversations. She said they still had to figure out how to handle some of the details.

Chair Kvistad said they would release the 45 day notice tomorrow. He mentioned a short conversation he had earlier in the day about the fact that Metro didn’t know who was doing master planning in their urban reserves and that they never did anything to check. He asked why they had not sent out a notice to all of the urban reserves around the area to find out what their master planning goals and requirements were. He said they were getting calls concerning master plans that the agency had not heard of.

Ms. Wilkerson said #63 did show they were underway. The information was the best they had available and recognized that some were underway. She cited page 13 of the productivity analysis which had the status of the urban reserve plans. It said “to the best knowledge of Metro staff as of September 9”. She said that meant either a public or private urban reserve plan had been initiated for part or all of the urban reserve area. She indicated that #65 had talked about wanting to come in so some of the yesses could indicate they were close to completion and others that they were just starting.

Chair Kvistad asked if they had contacted the owners or did they guess how these became yes or no.

Ms. Wilkerson said it was based on various contacts with local governments and/or private owners.

Chair Kvistad said they were not actively involved in finding out,

Ms. Wilkerson said in some areas there might be 100 owners and they would not have known who to contact to find out who was organizing what. They hadn’t actually done a full notice to property owners. She said that would come out in the notice that Councilor Morissette was referring to.

Chair Kvistad said he was getting calls at the last minute and didn’t want to add anything more than was justified to be added. He said they would add parcels they knew were doing masterplanning whether or not they actually came in. He only had three parcels (62, 63A which were the ones that were together, and 65) which he was going to add to the notice and he thought 43 had been added before. He reiterated that the only ones that would be added to the notice would be 62-63A, 65 and 43. He said if others hadn’t noticed it or if they had not contacted Metro to be added, they would not be noticed tomorrow.

Councilor Morissette asked which parcels would be noticed.

Chair Kvistad said the parcels were listed on the calendar.

Councilor McLain asked if all of those on the calendar had a yes in that column.

Chair Kvistad said they had been confirmed to have master planning to some degree so they were being included. He said they were casting the widest net possible to be sure everybody that was doing master planning had a fair opportunity.

Councilor McLain confirmed that the Chair had added 62, 63 and 65.

Chair Kvistad said only 62, 63A, and 65 were being added and not currently on the list here. He thought 43 was also supposed to be there. He checked with Ms. Reinhold.

Ms. Reinhold said no, it was not there. She would check on it.

Councilor Morissette said he did not have a problem doing the wider net. He felt they should emphasize that they were doing a broad based notification based on what they had done their research on. He asked if the numbers added up to what they said they were going to do the study on. He thought in committee they had decided not to do a productivity study on Stafford so he wondered how they could analyze it.

Chair Kvistad said there were 70 parcels and of those 70 parcels, only the Stafford parcels, the St. Mary’s parcels, and the Burton parcels were included in the recommendation, plus the ones that they had been talking about today that had master planning done. Anything else that we don’t know if there is master planning happening or they were not involved are not going to be included.

Councilor Morissette asked how the list was compiled.

Chair Kvistad said the list was a compilation of the recommendations of the Executive Officer, the inclusion of the Stafford and St. Mary’s pieces which they knew had masterplanning happening and the 3 parcels noted at this meeting that had master planning happening and that they had done some further followup on.

Councilor Morissette asked if the Chair was comfortable that all of the ones who had been making an effort to meet the requirements had been covered.

Chair Kvistad said they had done the best they could. He said he hadn’t heard anything about masterplanning or ongoing discussion anywhere else for inclusion in this round. He said they could have an opportunity next year but for now, these 3 were all for this year with the exception of #43 south of Tualatin which Ms. Reinhold would check on.

Mr. Turpel said the areas studied by productivity analysis were about 12,000 acres and the ones that were not studied ended up being those more than ½-mile out from the existing urban growth boundary. He said that was fundamentally one of the things they did. The southern part of Beaver Creek was not studied and the most eastern portions of Damascus did not get included, but anything that was within ½-mile was included for about 12,100 acres for which there was a map available.

Councilor Morissette asked to see the map.

Councilor McLain wanted to make sure they were clear about the map and language that none of them had seen except the Chair. She said basically, it would be sent out to make sure the public understood that it was the URSAs they had done productivity studies on, it was URSAs that had some acknowledged urban reserve planning, and it had URSAs of people who had contacted council to say they were in the process of completing some planning. She asked if there was a description.

Chair Kvistad said also that they did not just take their work for it, they did some follow up checking that there was some local involvement

Councilor McLain said since they were only doing 50% of the need this year and there was a criteria that said all Goal 14, Goal 2 and urban reserve planning done, or a timeline and almost done with all the items, or some acceptable governance issues solved, service provisions ready to go, and funding ideas for getting the urban reserve planning done. For example 63A, they received a letter in the mail yesterday that indicated they might have an appointment with Hillsboro. She felt maybe having an appointment with Hillsboro was a big difference from starting to work on service provision with Hillsboro. She wanted to be sure it was carefully described in the general net that there was a wide variety of URSAs there.

Councilor Morissette responded to Councilor McLain that Chair Kvistad’s strategy of a little broader notice so they could take into account there was master planning out there had merit. He said there obviously was some downside to everything but they did not, referring to Stafford as an example, have a governance resolution so as they went around the boundary to find solutions that added up to 50% of the need was going to be one of the indicators that would figure out whether or not that was there. He thought the Chair had done a good job of showing where there was masterplanning. He thought if they had been recommended or had shown an interest they should be noticed.

Councilor McLain said she did not disagree but since it was the first time she might get to see the actual piece she wanted to make sure the description of that net was appropriate.

Chair Kvistad said the descriptions were based on, for example, what the Executive Office had prepared for the general document based on his criteria, then council overlaid that with the other parcels where masterplanning had been confirmed and the parcels were available. He said there were still some he would like to see on the list but the owners had made no move to make their wishes known so they would not be added at this time.

Councilor McLain said her issue was not which ones but that the description explained what the notice really was. She said if the notice was simply that these were all the possible URSAs that could be discussed, or if it said that council was in the process of reviewing the URSAs for possible amendments to the urban growth boundary, then she was fine, but to Councilor Morissette’s consideration of their partners, if they came out with a wide reaching general net for this notice, she thought the local jurisdictions at MPAC would have trouble. She agreed that they needed to make the notice, but she wanted to make sure it said “possible amendments” to the UGB.

Ms. Reinhold said that was exactly what it said, for possible amendment to the urban growth boundary. It said the council had chosen these to notice because they were either actively being planned or there was a local government commitment to complete the plan.

Councilor McLain said she had a problem with “the council” because the council had not done that. Mr. Burton may have suggested some things that have gone to MPAC, the Chair may have gone through a phone call tree with Ms. Reinhold and Mr. Stone, or maybe with Ms. Wilkerson and Mr. Turpel, but the council did not notice these.

Chair Kvistad asked for a motion from the committee to accept the amendments. He said it was an administrative notice that the Chair was bringing forward for discussion.

Councilor McLain asked if the Presiding Officer’s name was on it as the notifier.

Chair Kvistad said the notice was an administrative notice that came from the Metro council based on and required by law to meet the 45 day deadline. He said these were the parcels.

Councilor Monroe said with a motion it become a notice from the council. He asked if that was the Chair’s intent.

Chair Kvistad said he was asking for a motion that this was presented by the Presiding Officer of the Council as a notice and that it was, at least by the members of the committee, acceptable to go out for public notice tomorrow.

Councilor Monroe clarified that it meant all of the items listed plus 62, 63A and 65 and 43. So the motion is that would be the list of URSAs that would be appropriately noticed.

Councilor Morissette asked for clarification that it was the list from the schedule they had received plus the addition of URSAs 43, 62, 63A and 65.

Chair Kvistad said yes, those and nothing more. If the URSAs did not appear on this notice they would not be on the table for consideration. He said this was the 45 day notice that would go out on Friday.

3.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS

Councilor McLain said the other two required notices were going to be fairly expensive, especially the ones to people within 500’ of a decision. She thought there should be a way to narrow down the URSAs just noticed to be sure they were noticing only the people on the real decision properties list. She thought it could happen in the Presiding Officer’s process if it could be taken up by the November 17 Growth Management committee so all the councilors could be invited to discuss those pieces before the 20 day notification was due.

Chair Kvistad said as part of the process the staff would be working on the documentation council would require to step those down. He said that was what the public testimony was for and why the process was laid out the way it was.

Councilor McLain asked for the date.

Ms. Reinhold said it had to be 20 days from the first public hearing of November 10, not from the decision.

Councilor McLain said there were 3 notifications and that was number 2. She asked Mr. Shaw if the 20 days was from the decision or the hearing.

Mr. Shaw said this was an unusual process and as he understood it, there were 4 general hearings which would be noticed 45 days before those hearings. There would then be a second notice to LCDC which would have the draft ordinances for the subregional batches. He said the safest way, since there would be multiple hearings, would be to notice 20 days before the very first hearing on November 10th. He said he would double check but thought it would be okay 20 days prior to the final hearing.

Councilor Morissette communicated to Councilor McLain that he would be able to make the night meeting.

Ms. Wilkerson reported that one of the code amendments changed yesterday related to the 2040 design types and stipulated that prior to doing the UGB amendments the concept map would have to be amended to incorporate appropriate design types so one of the decisions council would be making besides the selection of properties would be which design types to incorporate. She suggested giving notice of that as well at this time in the same notice because that would give people the opportunity to speak to it at the hearings. She said otherwise the only notice given would be as part of the meeting notice and that would not be much opportunity for people to speak. She felt council would probably want to deal with that matter at the same meetings.

Chair Kvistad said they could go through and refine the schedule over the next couple of days. He commented to Mr. Shaw that they should check on the notice dates so everything would be compartmentalized and they could meet the notice requirements fairly specifically and give maximum flexibility.

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Kvistad adjourned the meeting at 3:25 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Acting Council Assistant

i:\minutes\1998\grwthmgt\09228gmm.doc

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1998

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