[0:05] All right. I call the June 10th, 2026
Planning Commission meeting to order at
[0:10] 6 PM.
Can I get a roll call, please?
[0:15] » Chair Jana Senova. Simova, excuse me.
>> Here.
[0:19] » Jeff Sundell
>> here.
[0:22] » Nicole Hendricks
>> here.
[0:24] » Matt Constantine.
Rob Candrian
[0:28] » here. Andrew Carr
>> here.
[0:30] » Thank you.
>> Excellent. Thank you. And uh please join
[0:33] me in the pledge of
>> allegiance
[0:40] to the flag of the United States of
America and to the stands one
[0:48] indivisible
and justice for all.
[0:58] All right. For citizen input, this is
the time the citizens have the
[1:01] opportunity to address the planning
commission regarding any item that is
[1:05] not already scheduled for a formal
public hearing tonight. Therefore, if
[1:09] any member of the audience would like to
speak about any work session item or any
[1:13] other matter of concern, please raise
your hand so we hear from you. Now,
[1:20] » I do not have anybody online.
>> Okay.
[1:25] Is is this for now? Okay. Um I do have
Cynthia Russell.
[1:40] Hello. Uh my name is Cynthia Russell. My
address is on the contact card on file.
[1:46] Um I just want to say I was on the task
force, the building height waiver task
[1:50] force committee. It's a long one. Um,
and I I think we had a lot of good
[1:56] discussion and by the end of it, I think
we came to a lot of we agreed on a lot
[2:01] of things. So, I'm just excited to see
your guys' discussion and where it goes
[2:05] with it. And thank you to everyone that
put together all the materials. There
[2:08] was a lot and all the time stamps and
everything. So, there was a lot of work
[2:11] that went into it. So, I just want to
say thanks for everyone's effort on it.
[2:17] » Thank you so much and thank you for
being on the task force.
[2:23] Okay,
[2:27] next on the agenda is a work session
for Wilsonville Industrial Land
[2:32] Readiness for Basalt Creek Master Plan.
This work session is a chance for
[2:38] planning commission to get additional
understanding of and provide guidance of
[2:42] on ongoing legislative projects prior to
a public hearing.
[2:50] So at this time I call for the city
staff to present information they have
[2:53] prepared for the work session. Will the
city staff please present?
[2:59] All right.
[3:16] » Oh, you're right.
[3:23] get started.
>> Yeah.
[3:24] » Thanks. Okay.
>> Good evening, chair, commissioners.
[3:29] » Appreciate your time this evening. Uh,
you know, so tonight's kind of a cool
[3:33] night for us. This is actually a a kind
of a milestone moment in the Basalt
[3:37] Creek master plan process that we've
been involved in. Um, it's been over two
[3:41] years. And uh tonight really begins
tonight's work work session begins a
[3:46] five-month adoption process as we move
to toward finishing up this project. So
[3:51] it's a pretty uh it's a pretty cool
night for us in the planning department.
[3:54] We're pretty excited. So before I get
too far into it, um tonight with me I
[3:58] have uh Lauren Scott from MIG, one of
our consulting firms, Alex Dupy as well,
[4:03] also from MIG. And joining us at some
point in time will be um Jenna Bogurt
[4:08] from DKS who does our transportation
analysis. So, we should have her online.
[4:12] So, um keep an eye out for her. She'll
be in. Perfect.
[4:17] Um so, let's see. Couple things here. Um
where was I? I lost my notes. Uh so,
[4:24] again, over the past several years, um
the city, the community, um our
[4:28] consulting firms, developers, property
owners, we've been involved in the in
[4:32] what was at one time known as the
Wilsonville Industrial Land Readiness
[4:36] Project, right? We've sort of morphed it
now. It's it's the Basalt Creek master
[4:40] plan is the outcome of those of that
project and of the West Railroad um
[4:44] study. And so here here we are um
starting this process. Now Basalt Creek
[4:49] represents one of the largest uh
remaining employment opportunity areas
[4:53] in Wilsonville um as well and it really
provides us a unique opportunity to look
[4:59] forward for future industrial and
employment growth um and to do so in a
[5:04] coordinated manner. Right? So through
this process we've been able to examine
[5:09] transportation needs uh environmental
resources infrastructure requirements uh
[5:15] economic development opportunities and
really doing so in a framework that will
[5:19] help us guide you know future
development in this area for decades to
[5:23] come. So it's a it's a it's a pretty
cool and big deal. Um so as we get into
[5:27] this looks like we are do you advance?
You probably have to advance. Thank you.
[5:32] So tonight's discussion, we're going to
focus on three main components of the
[5:36] draft master plan. The actual master
plan itself, the document. Um there are
[5:42] some comprehensive plan amendments in
your packet that I'll have some slides
[5:45] for as well. And then looking at the
transportation analysis um that was
[5:49] performed by Jenna at DKS. And
ultimately our goal is to receive your
[5:54] feedback about any of those components
that you feel you would like to offer
[5:57] feedback on.
One more slide, please. Um, but before
[6:02] we get too deep into it, uh, I realize
that sometimes as planners and people
[6:06] who live in this world, we get a little
bit ahead of ourselves and forget that
[6:10] not everyone knows what we're talking
about or why we're doing what we do. So,
[6:13] we're just going to take a moment and
talk about what is a master plan and and
[6:18] really just think of it this way that it
it it's the way we establish the
[6:22] long-term vision for an area that we
want to be developed, right? This is
[6:25] where we set the ground rules and the
framework. you know, we can coordinate
[6:29] infrastructure investments. Instead of
peacemeal infrastructure spending, we
[6:32] can do it in a coordinated, more
effective and efficient fashion. Um,
[6:36] this is where we identify long range
transportation needs. What do we as a
[6:41] city, what will we need as this moves
forward and we can really think about
[6:45] that in a long long term fashion. We can
also look at protecting our
[6:49] environmental resources that we all care
so much about. This is where we
[6:52] establish what we want to protect in the
future. So that when we get to that
[6:56] future, we already have that framework
set up that we have decided to protect
[6:59] that. Uh it also helps us guide future
development patterns. What kind of
[7:03] development do we want? Um current codes
don't do that. They implement that. But
[7:09] this is where we decide what we want.
And then this is also a space where we
[7:12] create certainty certainty for property
owners and investors. What can a
[7:16] property owner do or not do on their
property going into the future? Right?
[7:21] Right. So that's really what a master
plan kind of in a nutshell. Next slide.
[7:26] So then why does Basalt Creek matter?
Well, Basalt Creek represents one of the
[7:30] city's as I said largest remaining
employment growth opportunities. It's a
[7:36] key component of Wilsonville's long-term
economic strategy, right? Lots of
[7:40] employment is what we're hoping for.
It's a major industrial and employment
[7:44] center within the Portland metropolitan
region. Um and it's also an again an
[7:49] opportunity for us to coordinate growth
before development happens to do it in a
[7:54] a concerned and um a thoughtful manner.
Next slide.
[7:59] So the Basalt Creek vision, right? We
have some guiding principles that we've
[8:03] sort of been operating under. You know,
employment focused development,
[8:07] transportation connectivity, uh
environmental stewardship. These all
[8:11] kind of apply. You'll hear these themes
coming up. flexible industrial
[8:15] opportunities,
uh, efficient infrastructure investment
[8:18] and long-term economic vitality.
Thank you. So, next steps, um, we're re
[8:26] on July 8th, uh, we will be back for a
second work session here at the comm uh,
[8:30] planning commission. That's where we're
going to look at draft code amendments.
[8:33] So, you'll actually get to see some
really, um, exciting code.
[8:38] These are usually where uh, the rubber
hits the road, if you will. Those draft
[8:42] code amendments are going to help
implement some of the stuff that we're
[8:45] working on. Um you'll see the final
draft master plan um with you know
[8:49] hopefully only a few little tweaks here
and there that you might want and then
[8:52] there will be some more technical
appendices as well. Storm water, sewer,
[8:56] water lines, things like that. So those
technical appendices will come through
[8:59] as well in the second session. Go for
it.
[9:03] Oh, and now I forgot the blank slide was
my cue. And now actually Lauren is going
[9:08] to walk you through the actual draft
master plan and then she'll kick it back
[9:12] to me for some um good comp plan
amendment talk. So Lauren, take it away.
[9:16] » Thanks Chris and good evening
commissioners. It's good to see you all
[9:18] again. Like Chris said, I'll be spending
some time just briefly walking through
[9:22] the structure of the document, some key
components, reviewing some of the
[9:25] placeholders. You may have noticed uh a
bit of red text in several chapters just
[9:29] to give you an idea of what's coming in
work session number two. Um so the plan
[9:34] starts off with the introduction
providing the foundation for the master
[9:38] plan. It's introducing the Basalt Creek
uh planning area explaining how this
[9:43] document builds upon the Basalt Creek
concept plan and describing the role
[9:48] that uh or the role this area plays in
Wilsonville's long-term employment and
[9:53] industrial growth strategy. And this
chapter also spends a bit of time
[9:57] connecting this plan and this work to
the city's recently adopted economic
[10:03] opportunities analysis and economic
development strategy. Uh both of which
[10:07] spend a bit of time um and effort
talking about Basalt Creek and what
[10:10] should happen out there.
Chapter 2 uh reviews a lot of the
[10:16] information. A lot of technical analysis
and reports went into this. I think
[10:20] there's a long list of appendices. We're
adding more to that with the upcoming
[10:24] infrastructure analysis. So, this
chapter walks through that. Uh, it um
[10:29] includes the original Basalt Creek
concept plan guiding principles. It
[10:34] includes the guiding principles that
were adapted for this specific process.
[10:38] It talks about the comprehensive plan
policies, those areas of special concern
[10:43] that affected this planning work and
then listing the uh technical studies as
[10:48] well as some of the key themes from the
stakeholder outreach and work that the
[10:53] city has done.
[10:56] And then chapter 3 reviews a lot of that
information, summarizing it at a very
[11:02] high level. It's looking at the economic
conditions, summarizing the industrial
[11:06] land readiness, talking about those
contractor establishments and the role
[11:10] they play um in that area's future
development potential. Talks about
[11:15] transportation, a light touch on
infrastructure with more to come. And
[11:20] then natural resources as well. Uh, I
think Chris said this earlier, but the
[11:24] key takeaway is that Basalt Creek really
remains one of Wilsonville's most
[11:28] important long-term employment areas,
but there are challenges bringing
[11:32] infrastructure, uh, bringing
transportation, the the fragmented
[11:36] ownership and and contractor
establishments and making that work.
[11:41] Chapter four, we're really building out
the master plan. Um, so we have these
[11:46] layers. That's how the chapter is
organized. I'll spend a little bit of
[11:49] time talking about each. We have our
natural resources section. The updated
[11:55] natural resources inventory which is
included as an appendix identified the
[11:59] wetlands, the repairarian corridors,
upland tree groves, the streams and
[12:04] wildlife habitat areas throughout the
Basalt Creek planning area. And these
[12:08] resources, as we talked about a lot for
West Railroad, helped shape those land
[12:11] use considerations. They affect where
the roads will go. Um, and they also
[12:15] affected the uh bike and pedestrian
trail concepts. um the habitat
[12:20] restoration that could occur in the
environmental stewardship as well.
[12:26] And then getting into the land use
framework, this builds upon the vision
[12:31] in the 2019 concept plan while refining
some of the land use expectations and of
[12:36] course including West Railroad uh as an
area that has a land use identified for
[12:41] it. And this framework includes the
high-tech employment, light industrial,
[12:46] craft, industrial, and west railroad
districts. Each district is intended to
[12:51] support different employment and
industrial opportunities based on the
[12:55] site characteristics, infrastructure
availability, and market conditions.
[13:03] And then I'll just briefly cover
transportation. I know that Chris and
[13:06] DKS are planning a deeper dive into
that. We talked about this at the
[13:11] previous work session for West Railroad.
Um, this work integrates that and then
[13:16] includes a full uh concept and framework
plan for transportation. Um, and
[13:22] basically talking about what projects
and key intersections uh will be needed.
[13:35] In terms of the bike and pedestrian
framework that also carries through a
[13:39] lot of the concepts identified in the
2019 plan, this is emphasizing
[13:44] connections between employment areas,
uh, future transit service, natural
[13:49] resources, and those regional trail
systems that run through it. That
[13:52] includes the Basalt Creek Canyon Trail
and the Ice Age Tonkan Trail, as well as
[13:57] some future pathways and improved
crossings at certain locations.
[14:04] and then infrastructure. More to come on
this one. It remains one of the most
[14:08] important implementation considerations
for the planning area. Uh the draft plan
[14:12] builds upon the previous utility
planning and will identify
[14:16] infrastructure readiness, utility
coordination and phased investment. We
[14:20] do have a bit of information about that
in the plan now, but obviously uh
[14:25] recommendations graphics will uh be
forthcoming in work session number two
[14:29] and we'll have more information about
that.
[14:34] And then chapter five is our
implementation and phasing chapter. It
[14:39] organizes the plans recommendations into
different buckets. Those are further
[14:43] exploration, planning, funding, and
investments. And the intent here is to
[14:48] create a practical implementation
framework rather than some list of
[14:53] isolated projects. This chapter also
includes a phasing strategy that
[14:58] recognizes that implementation will
occur over many years and will depend a
[15:03] lot on infrastructure funding, market
demand, uh redevelopment opportunities
[15:08] and and those partnerships as well.
And so just a highlevel uh overview of
[15:16] the phasing strategy, it's three
buckets. Near-term actions, medium-term
[15:20] actions, and long-term actions. Those
near-term actions are really focused on
[15:24] planning, coordination, policy updates,
building a strong foundation for the
[15:29] future implementation. Medium-term
actions are focused more on
[15:33] infrastructure planning, those funding
strategies that are identified in the
[15:37] plan, working to implement those uh
creating and and forming those
[15:42] partnerships and uh addressing
redevelopment readiness. And then
[15:47] long-term actions are focused on
continued investment. It's envisioning
[15:52] the infrastructure buildout, that
redevelopment actually occurring, and
[15:56] then the longer range implementation.
Um, you'll notice that many of the
[15:59] recommendations span multiple phases,
uh, just because implementation might
[16:04] expect to start within the next year,
but would actually finally be completed
[16:08] in, you know, year 15, year 20 for some
of those longer planning items.
[16:14] And I think that oh and then covering
just the placeholder uh analysis that
[16:20] we've noted um the plan will become just
a little bit longer with the graphics
[16:24] and text covering infrastructure. We've
noted placeholders for now. Um but
[16:29] hopefully that was clear what's to come.
Like Chris said it's the water system
[16:33] analysis, the sanitary sewer analysis,
storm water. those uh zoning code
[16:38] refinements which will be a large focus
of work session two will also maybe
[16:42] affect some of the recommendations as
well as phasing in chapter 5 and build
[16:47] out some of the development district uh
descriptions in chapter 4. And then of
[16:53] course just all the maps and figures uh
that go along with with those pieces as
[16:58] well will be finalized and it will
include hopefully a nice summary graphic
[17:02] of what this master plan is in chapter
4.
[17:07] And with that, I think I'm passing it
back to
[17:09] » Chris.
>> All right, lots of slides for you guys
[17:14] tonight. Sorry about that.
Kind of is what it is sometimes.
[17:20] All right, so the next component um is
our proposed comprehensive plan
[17:24] amendments. Right, these are,
you know, essentially the point here or
[17:28] the purpose is you updating our comp
plan language that'll reflect more of
[17:31] today's current economic conditions. Um,
I believe we brought to you the economic
[17:36] opportunities analysis and the economic
development strategy. That must have
[17:40] been two or three months ago at this
point. So, we need to implement those.
[17:44] Um, and also updating the language helps
us to support future industrial and
[17:49] employment growth and then align our
policies with the Basalt Creek master
[17:52] plan. You really can't have a comp plan
and a master plan that uh that are in
[17:56] conflict with one another. They need to
align. So, we're in that process.
[18:01] Um so the existing language uh much of
our um comp plan language is written in
[18:06] in the n 1990s and early 2000s. So we
need to update to reflect more of today.
[18:13] Um we have some proposed changes in um
employment forecasts um recognizing
[18:18] Wilsonville as a major regional
employment center um and incorporate the
[18:22] findings from the economic opportunities
analysis and the um economic development
[18:27] strategy as well. Um and ultimately, you
know, the bottom bullet there, modernize
[18:31] our economic development policies, kind
of get up to date a little bit.
[18:38] So, we've highlighted a few things in
the comp plan amendments. Um you know,
[18:41] the um projected job growth is an
important piece to Wilson's view,
[18:45] Wilsonville's future over the next 20 or
more years. Um also recognizing our role
[18:50] in manufacturing and logistics,
technology, um professional services,
[18:55] health related industries. So, you know,
our breadth of industries, we needed to
[18:59] sort of get some of that um written up
into the um comprehensive plan as well.
[19:03] So, next slide.
Uh modernizing our industrial
[19:08] development policies. Yeah, economic
resilience. You know, one of the things
[19:11] that we need to make sure that we have
here in Wilsonville and we act have more
[19:15] opportunity than many jurisdictions do
um with the Basalt Creek planning area.
[19:18] It's a real advantage for our community.
um preparing and and making sure we have
[19:23] employment land readiness um strategic
infrastructure investment as I talked
[19:27] about coordinated efficient and
strategic infrastructure and then
[19:30] long-term competitiveness for
Wilsonville to be both an employment
[19:34] area and a place that people want to be.
[19:38] There we go. Um so some new uh
implementation measures development
[19:43] ready employment lands. You'll hear some
themes throughout all these work
[19:46] sessions, right? And that's a big one
for us is development ready employment
[19:49] land multiple building types and tenants
not leaning on just one thing to get us
[19:54] through to the next several generations.
Um interconnected street networks
[19:59] connectivity has been expressed as a
very important piece of what the city of
[20:03] Wilsonville and the community would
like. Um uh improving but also ensuring
[20:09] um positive freight mobility uh bicycle
and pedestrian circulation even in
[20:14] industrial areas. uh transit supportive
design, want SMA smart to be able to run
[20:19] uh get people to their jobs and
infrastructure readiness. These are all
[20:23] represented as parts of the comp plan
amendments that we've written up
[20:28] um supporting innovation and economic
diversity. So, some new industrial types
[20:33] um that we haven't had in the comp plan
previously. Craft industrial businesses,
[20:37] maker spaces, artisan manufacturing,
breweries and distilleries, um small
[20:43] business entrepreneurship. Um those are
now represented in the comp plan and
[20:47] they weren't before. Um you know,
ultimately the goal as we've kind of
[20:51] chatted about diversity, uh diversity
employment opportunities, encourage
[20:56] innovation and and support some of those
emerging industries.
[21:02] And that's my pause on the comp plan
stuff. I know we're just like flying
[21:06] through slides tonight. Sorry. Um
I have one more uh I have five more
[21:11] slides on transportation. Are we filling
up for it or you want to stop for a
[21:15] question or two or
power through? Let's do it. All right.
[21:20] These are a little more text heavy. My
apologies. Um I need I didn't uh I
[21:24] didn't edit them very well. though. Um
so, uh Jenna, who I believe is is online
[21:29] right now, um for DKS and Associates, um
she performed a transportation analysis
[21:35] of um the Basalt Creek planning area and
the West Railroad area. And this was
[21:41] essentially, as you can see, evaluating
the transportation impacts associated
[21:44] with the future buildout of those areas.
What will happen when we develop when
[21:48] those areas develop? Hey, there's Jenna.
Um hey, Jenna. Um she assessed roadway,
[21:54] freight, bicycle, ped and trail
connections. Um identified needed
[21:59] transportation improvements that will
support that future development and then
[22:03] of course ensured that whatever we're
going to do is consistent with the
[22:07] state's transportation planning rule.
Next slide, please. Um that's a lot. Um
[22:13] existing transportation conditions. So
you know some existing challenges. Uh
[22:17] the west railroad area currently has
limited access. Uh there is some
[22:22] significant environmental constraints,
wetlands and such. Uh the railroad
[22:26] corridor does limit connectivity. We all
know that that's a little too shallow
[22:30] for trucks to go under and that creates
a a bit of a conflict. Um incomplete
[22:34] pedestrian and bicycle facilities and of
course there is some existing congestion
[22:39] at Grahams Ferry and Day right now. But
some of the assets, Basalt Creek
[22:44] Parkway, Grahams Ferry Road, Tonken
Road, um good regional freight access,
[22:49] and the planned ice age tonken trail.
[22:55] So then the the access strategy and
Jenna can speak to this um after we get
[23:00] through these slides. I'm sure uh she'll
need to correct me a couple of times,
[23:03] but uh you know the future uh
development uh oh sorry the planned
[23:07] access strategy the future development
is antic anticipated to be served by the
[23:12] northern access via the Tonkan road via
Tonkan Road um southern access via
[23:17] Gramps Ferry and then the internal local
street network and in a lot of cases
[23:22] well at least in the west railroad area
that's generally going to be decided by
[23:25] the type of development that we have. Um
we'll still have code um requirements,
[23:30] but the location won't we won't
necessarily have in West Railroad. Um
[23:35] additional opportunities are potential
future public railroad crossing at
[23:39] Cahalen Road. Um the Ice Age Tonkan
Trail connection um and future
[23:44] pedestrian and bicycle network
improvements.
[23:47] I think this might be my last one here.
Oh no, it's not. Um existing conditions.
[23:53] So most study intersections, the good
news, currently meet mobility standards,
[23:57] Grahams Ferry and Day Road is the
primary existing deficiency at this
[24:01] time. Anyone who's been around there
probably understands that. Um so future
[24:06] conditions so about 20 years out the
analysis assumes completion of the
[24:10] planned transportation system uh uh
system planned projects which include
[24:14] Basalt Creek Parkway extension uh grants
fairy road improvements uh day road
[24:20] widening and garden acres road
intersection reconstruction.
[24:25] Next slide please.
So the key recommendations were to
[24:29] continue or are to continue
implementation of the transportation
[24:32] system plan projects that we have now.
Um advance ice age tonken trail
[24:37] connections, preserve opportunities for
future railroad crossing discussion. Um
[24:42] those are ongoing discussions. They're
difficult, complex, and expensive. So
[24:48] yay. Uh preserve opportunity. Oh, sorry.
Coordinate transportation improvements
[24:52] with future development. We talked
earlier about that trying to be
[24:55] efficient with our with our um looking
forward to development and how we spend
[25:00] infrastructure and transportation
dollars and it it continues to be a
[25:03] theme. The conclusion is that the
transportation and or the uh basalt
[25:08] creek planning area in the west railroad
area can be developed with planned
[25:11] network and currently identified
transportation improvements. We we don't
[25:16] need any additional major transportation
capacity projects that we don't have on
[25:19] the list now uh to support that future
buildout. So, that's all good news. Uh,
[25:25] for the most part, it's we recognize it.
The projects are in there. We just need
[25:29] to keep moving forward on those
projects. Next slide, please. Um, so the
[25:35] overall next steps for where we're at,
we'll be back here in a month uh is July
[25:41] 8th for our second work session. Um, on
August 3rd, we'll be at uh city council
[25:46] for their only work session on this
project. And then on September 9th,
[25:50] we'll be back here for a public hearing
uh looking for recommendations to
[25:53] council from the commission to council.
And then we'll start the council's um
[25:57] public hearing process in October. So
we've got about five months. Um as I
[26:01] said, this is step one in in a six-step
process. Um so that might be my last
[26:08] slide. Oh my question slide. That's
right. Uh so these were the questions
[26:14] that I prompted that we have in the
staff report. Um but again the your
[26:19] questions do not have to follow this
pattern. These were just
[26:23] discussion questions to think about but
we are done with slides and we would
[26:28] like to hear any and all feedback that
you may have. Thank you.
[26:32] » Excellent. Thank you. All right members
of the commission.
[26:38] Do you have any questions for staff? Any
comments or discussions you want to
[26:42] have?
>> I see no
[26:50] Oh, awesome. All right. First of all,
thanks so much. Great presentation. It
[26:54] was um really interesting to dive into
the plan as it exists so far. So, great
[26:58] work on this. Um a lot of the the really
like burning questions that I had that I
[27:03] have had to do with the transportation
um system plan. So, excellent. Uh, one
[27:08] of the things that I was trying to make
sense of as I was looking at the studies
[27:11] and and what they might mean is uh how
do we reconcile the local traffic needs
[27:19] of this area with the uh the through
traffic needs. So like on Graham Road
[27:24] and Day Road and on Ellis or on Boon
Ferry Road that leads leads toward the
[27:29] freeway. I I my my observation as a non
professional here is that almost all of
[27:36] that traffic is through traffic and it's
not really servicing the the local
[27:41] businesses that operate there or the
local industry. Um, how do we reconcile
[27:46] kind of as we make a change to extending
B to Salt Creek,
[27:50] » how that may affect what how much Day
Road actually gets used, how much of
[27:55] that through traffic moves north and in
Dayude maybe doesn't need to be widened.
[28:00] » Um, how do how do we think about I know
we've got professionals here.
[28:03] » So, how should we be thinking about that
as a planning commission? Um, and how
[28:07] can we maybe
I guess a lot of this is coming from the
[28:10] standpoint of like how do we avoid maybe
creating such capacity that we end up
[28:15] inducing more through traffic demand in
the area. Um, so
[28:20] » that's a good question and it's one of
those moments where I'm so happy that we
[28:25] have a transportation expert here to
talk to us about stuff like that. Jenna,
[28:29] I'm hoping you heard that question.
>> I did. Yes. Yeah. Thanks for that
[28:35] question. Um it's it's a good one to
consider in this area, right? You're
[28:38] you're totally right on. There's so much
um regional and local traffic happening
[28:43] there at the interchange. We've
definitely seen an uptick since the
[28:48] 124th extension was built in what 2018
2019 um of that kind of regional traffic
[28:55] moving through the area. these
transportation system plan projects that
[28:59] Chris covered in his presentation that
the city has in their TSP, they they're
[29:05] also in the metro TSP. So, the the
greater Portland area acknowledges that
[29:11] a lot of these improvements are um
needed for regional purposes, right, for
[29:16] this kind of cross city travel, access
to the I-5 interchange. Um yeah, it's
[29:23] tough there. There's definitely
kind of a chicken and egg situation,
[29:28] right, where if you build these
improvements, traffic will come. But,
[29:32] um, this area specifically just has so
much potential for development. I think
[29:38] we'll find that that these improvements
are needed and that it'll probably
[29:42] quickly fill up. You know, if we look at
the next 20 years, a lot of that traffic
[29:45] will growth will be consisting of
Assault Creek um, and just the job
[29:51] growth that we're expecting to see out
here. So, um I wouldn't say that I'm I'm
[29:57] concerned about regional traffic eating
up all of that capacity. Um and and
[30:03] there's certainly uh partners in this
these projects between city Wilsonville,
[30:09] city of Talton, Washington County, and
and Metro that are, you know, keeping
[30:13] their eye on things out here as well.
And and everyone's kind of doing their
[30:18] part to uh claim their their piece of
the the issues out here. So, um, yeah.
[30:24] Does that kind of help answer your
question or?
[30:27] » Yeah, I think that's helpful. I wonder
if there are other materials that also
[30:32] help to kind of explain how this fits
into or or maybe maybe even just for my
[30:36] benefit, but if it it would help the the
public understand also how the these
[30:40] transportation system plans fit into the
the broader regional system plans. Um
[30:46] because one of the other questions that
I that came into my mind as I was
[30:49] reading the the packet was um when we
look at the non non-car traffic that we
[30:56] expect uh and specifically the the more
human scale transportation modes like
[31:02] walking and biking. Um how do we
determine where to put those? Um, is it
[31:08] is it right to really build out a huge
like nonprotected bicycle lane
[31:13] infrastructure on the major caropair,
car and truck thoroughfare, or is that
[31:19] going to create an environment that's so
hostile to bikes that no bike is ever
[31:22] actually going to ride on it? And would
it be would it be better to maybe think
[31:25] about putting the bike somewhere else
for instance?
[31:28] » Um, creating something that's more
amendable to biking and and uh and
[31:33] pedestrian infrastructure.
And I maybe this is like too early to
[31:38] get into that level of detail. I know
like the the plan is kind of a little
[31:41] bit higher level, but it was one of the
things that popped in my head is we're
[31:44] thinking about we're measuring current
pedestrian and we're measuring current
[31:48] bicycle traffic and and it's zero right
now. And it's not hard to imagine why.
[31:52] It's such a such a very hostile
environment for a person on foot or on
[31:56] bike.
>> Um so rather than kind of continuing to
[31:59] build the infrastructure there and
assuming like well this is day road this
[32:02] is where we should put all of our
traffic. Well maybe not. Maybe bikes and
[32:06] pedestrians can be somewhere adjacent to
it or orthogonal to that main car throw
[32:11] fair.
>> Yeah.
[32:13] » So I um Commissioner Zundal, I can reply
to a few of those items and then maybe
[32:19] um Jenna might have a few things to add
as well in terms of how we model and and
[32:23] design uh the system. But um I would
note some additional documentation
[32:31] around the transportation planning in
this area that has happened over a
[32:34] number of years. So the first was um
actually the adoption of the Basalt
[32:38] Creek transportation refinement plan in
2014. Um that actually predated the
[32:44] concept plan between the cities of um
Wilsonville and Twolitin. And that was
[32:50] because uh this the Basalt Creek
planning area that's in both cities was
[32:56] brought into the metro uh urban growth
boundary for the purposes of serving
[33:01] regional industrial need. Um and there
was a recognition that a transportation
[33:07] system in the south county industrial
area was needed in order to support the
[33:12] industrial area growth of land that was
brought in in Twolitin, Wilsonville, and
[33:16] in Sherwood. So that plan was adopted
and it essentially modeled and accounted
[33:22] for the regional traffic that would be
coming through that south county area
[33:25] and connecting all three of those
industrial areas as well as what would
[33:29] be the traffic generated by the local um
growth that is planned for in this area.
[33:35] And so there was kind of this split of
trips and anybody who was around during
[33:39] the Basalt Creek concept planning might
remember we talked about trip caps and
[33:43] uh internal uh trip rates. Um and that
was a part of the discussion to ensure
[33:48] that we were being cognizant of the land
uses we were planning for in
[33:51] relationship to the transportation
system that's being planned regionally.
[33:56] Um and so you see things like the Basalt
Creek Parkway which is an investment by
[34:00] the county. um the majority of that
money coming from the county or from the
[34:04] feds uh federal money they're able to
obtain to help to build that um
[34:09] framework project. It's really a project
that will be necessary to serve all the
[34:13] industrial areas in this um kind of
south county what we call the south
[34:17] county area. So in addition to that
project, there was actually a South
[34:20] County infrastructure project that
followed. Um it was happening basically
[34:25] during the Basalt Creek planning project
that was to help the county to
[34:29] prioritize specific projects for them to
help um allocate their TDT to and one of
[34:36] the main projects there was improvements
to Day Road. understanding that the
[34:41] parallel improvements to Day Road along
with Basalt Creek Parkway are both
[34:44] needed in order for the area to function
well and efficiently. So, we can
[34:49] definitely share both of those um
planning documents uh with you. Um and I
[34:54] would just note that that is something
that we consistently model and work with
[34:58] and our own transportation modeling as
developments are approved. Um that is we
[35:03] have our traffic analysis that goes with
every development project. So we're able
[35:08] to continually track how is the growth
and the development actually um like
[35:14] happening in comparison to what we
planned for. And so then we better
[35:18] understand whether pivots need to be
made, adjustments need to be made, if
[35:22] things are developing different than
what our uh assumptions were during
[35:25] these long range uh planning projects. I
would also note on the last comment
[35:30] about kind of the multimodal um we look
at that during the planning process to
[35:35] think about what would be the best
placement for things in the Basalt Creek
[35:38] planning area. We looked at the trails
that would potentially go um off kind of
[35:43] network. We have the Ice Age Tonkan
Trail throughout West Railroad. We then
[35:46] have the hopefully ridge trail that will
happen um up in the Basalt Creek um area
[35:53] um just north of Day Road. Um, and then
we look at bicycle infrastructure
[35:57] differently than we used to in the past.
So, if you have been on Gardenacres
[36:01] Road, you'll note that our latest
industrial road project has a buffered
[36:05] bike lane um actually separated by a a
curb. Um, so we are working on
[36:12] infrastructure for bike and pedestrian
movement that is more um friendly, less
[36:18] hostile, um more buffered. Some of the
infrastructure we don't control. So,
[36:24] there are some roads out there currently
that are in like Washington County um
[36:28] ownership at this time until they
transfer to the city in the future. Uh
[36:33] during that time period, it will things
get built to Washington County
[36:36] standards. Um and so that kind of there
could be differences there in terms of
[36:42] how they'll build a cross-section uh in
versus once it becomes urbanized and the
[36:46] city um has control and we have
different cross-section standards. So, I
[36:52] hope that answered all the points. I
think I heard you made all the questions
[36:55] you had, but if I missed anything,
please let me know.
[36:58] » I think that Thank you. I think that's
great, actually. And maybe I can follow
[37:01] up um separately to get more of those
resources from benefit in education.
[37:06] Thank you.
Commissioner Kandine.
[37:10] » Um just to kind of follow up with what
Jeff said too, um especially like
[37:15] talking about the through traffic and I
know from my time on the DRB that when
[37:19] we do traffic studies, we're not allowed
to look at I5. Um but that's always the
[37:26] elephant in the room, right? Is that
if I works, we don't have as much
[37:31] through traffic to your point. But if I5
is always a bottleneck,
[37:35] » then people are always going to be
trying to save that one minute because
[37:39] ways or Google maps told them that if
they exited early and went through the
[37:42] neighborhood, they could, you know, save
a little bit of time. So,
[37:47] has that been factored into this at all
about, you know, how much does success
[37:54] from the transportation side depend upon
a boon bridge replacement?
[37:59] » Yeah. Jenna, do you want to jump on that
question, please?
[38:01] » Yeah. Thank you.
>> The traffic forecasts we um traffic
[38:08] forecast that we use from Metro from the
Metro model
[38:13] did not include the Boone Bridge
replacement. It's it's an unconstrained
[38:17] project, right? So, it's not funded.
It's not on their financially
[38:21] constrained list that's kind of on their
ability to priority right now. So, um,
[38:28] that so that wasn't that project is not
kind of baked into those traffic
[38:32] forecasts that were used for this
analysis. That's kind of standard
[38:36] practice to not include those unfunded
um, long range projects and to only
[38:42] include those projects that are um,
funded. But
[38:47] yeah, I I know that some changes to the
interchange ramps in the last few years
[38:52] have kind of made it more difficult for
folks to to make those types of
[38:55] movements. Used to be able to take the
southbound off-ramp and just keep on
[38:59] gliding on through the interchange and
get back onto I5. Um that ability has
[39:05] been kind of removed down uh up at the
North Ellison interchange. Um
[39:11] I yeah I guess the travel models and
travel forecasts account for those
[39:18] constraints, right? The the I-5 pinch
points, the the congestion at the
[39:23] offramps and through the
um corridor between 205 um on I5 and and
[39:29] the boom bridge. So um
those have been considered. Those are
[39:34] those are included in those traffic
assumptions and and the growth um growth
[39:39] rates and um we look at those peak hour
conditions and you know some days
[39:44] especially in this area are in when
incidents happen they feel um really
[39:51] catastrophic but those are not the
average days. Um, and so we really try
[39:55] to capture that that kind of typical
average day. And so I I see I see most
[39:59] of that kind of significant detour
happening when there's accidents on I5,
[40:03] when there's those road closures on I5.
And so um, yeah, I I'm Yeah, I hope that
[40:11] answers your question. I there's only
Yeah, the modeling accounts for a lot of
[40:16] that as much as it can, you know, the
congestion and the pinch points in in
[40:19] the street network. So
>> yeah.
[40:24] » Yeah. Obviously it's difficult with it
not being funded. So but I mean like in
[40:29] theory like the funding time frame would
account for this if this goes out to
[40:32] like 2046 but um and then I kind of had
a follow-up question again still
[40:38] transportation related but also um with
the overall development. What type of
[40:42] coordination do we do with Tolatin and
Sherwood as well as how this looks
[40:48] compared to like what they're planning
to build, what they're planning to do? I
[40:51] mean, I know there's a lot of housing
kind of going up um like next to Horizon
[40:55] Christian, which could feed in, you
know, to to possible employment
[41:00] opportunities for people in that area.
But is there like what type of
[41:04] collaboration do we have with
neighboring jurisdictions on these types
[41:07] of plans?
>> Yeah, that's a good question. And I'm
[41:09] actually and I think she already knows
I'm going to look toward uh toward uh
[41:12] planning director Bait Shell over here
since she's been here quite a bit longer
[41:15] than I have. We have done quite a bit of
coordination, but I'll let Miranda speak
[41:18] to that.
>> Yeah, thank you for the question,
[41:20] Commissioner Candrian. We um during the
the concept planning process, we worked
[41:26] um very like closely with the city of
Talatin. As I mentioned earlier, this
[41:30] land was brought into the urban growth
boundary by Metro and it was intended to
[41:34] be split. So essentially during that
entire process there were joint council
[41:39] meetings, there were numerous I think it
was every couple weeks um staff were
[41:44] meeting uh to work on the plan uh the
concept plan and so through that process
[41:49] is where you have like those guiding
principles that came from and a concept
[41:54] for the growth in this area. Uh what
land uses would be there and that was uh
[41:58] built upon that transportation
refinement plan I talked about. that
[42:01] transportation refinement plan was done
with uh in joint partnership with uh the
[42:05] county metro Tallatin and Wilsonville.
So both of those plans were done with a
[42:11] high level of coordination. Once we got
through that process, um there was
[42:16] continued coordination when we did our
comprehensive plan amendments um where
[42:21] because we did essentially the
transportation modeling together um with
[42:26] those findings for um uh the
transportation the TPR findings,
[42:32] transportation
planning rule. Thank you.
[42:36] How easily I can forget simple words.
Um, so we had to do those findings for
[42:41] the state and so we did all of that work
together. At this point where we're
[42:45] doing kind of master planning which
turns into our own code um and the
[42:50] details of implementation, that's where
there's less coordination that occurs
[42:54] because it's really about how we want uh
the look and feel to be how we what
[42:58] types of um kind of the details that go
into the land uses, the site design, the
[43:04] transportation design, uh the public
realm design. like those are all things
[43:08] that kind of happen um at that um more
local level and there's less
[43:13] coordination at that point. But things
like the trail um I know Tolatin has
[43:18] like we know what that alignment is
generally going to be and where it will
[43:22] connect underneath the parkway. Um and
so then we know at that point how it'll
[43:26] be designed. Uh north and south can
happen independently. But we often will
[43:32] coordinate to ensure that like if
they've created a design well what are
[43:35] they doing? what are they talking about
doing so we can look at how that might
[43:40] um be embedded within the trail design
we have to the south where it takes into
[43:43] consideration our own standards but also
would coordinate so there's continued
[43:48] coordination where um kind of the
elements in place uh need further
[43:53] coordination
and then we do track the other piece of
[43:57] it is we do track their development um
they invite us to their preapp meetings
[44:02] so if we want to connect with them um
one of the key concerns that came out
[44:07] through the concept planning is that
most of the storm water will eventually
[44:10] make its way into our system um and down
into our wetlands. And so, um one of the
[44:15] key things that we tend to coordinate
with them on is the transportation
[44:18] system and the storm water when we're
participating in that process. We don't
[44:21] really get into, uh the weeds on
anything, um because they're, you know,
[44:25] they're following the concept plan, um
through their own zoning code and and
[44:30] comprehensive plan regulations. And so,
but we do participate just to make sure
[44:34] we don't have any concerns. Um, and they
will be invited to do the same when we
[44:39] uh see development in our area of the
planning area.
[44:43] » Cool. Thank you.
[44:50] Maybe before we move off of
transportation, I don't know if Alex,
[44:53] you look like you're about to speak, but
before we move on for trans
[44:56] transportation, I had a a kind of a
curiosity around uh we in the in the uh
[45:02] in the packet, I saw a kind of open
question that some of these
[45:06] intersections as we build them will be
roundabouts, some of them will be
[45:09] signal, and we don't really know yet.
Um, right. Is is that an accurate
[45:12] interpretation of that?
>> I think so.
[45:17] » Yeah. Well, I guess I was just kind of
curious like what are the um what are
[45:22] the criteria for especially in an
industrial zone where we might see like
[45:26] heavier vehicles, larger vehicles. Are
there different criteria that we use for
[45:30] determining when something can be a
roundabout considering maybe a big
[45:34] semi-truck needs to be able to move
through it um versus a signaled
[45:38] intersection?
[45:42] Jenna, would you would you like to take
that one?
[45:46] » Yeah, sure.
>> Yeah, there's a couple things we look
[45:49] at. There's um there's an analysis we'll
do called an intersection control
[45:52] evaluation at the time when it's time to
decide what needs to be um constructed.
[45:58] And that looks at a lot of things. the
capacity um the the delay kind of those
[46:05] mobility metrics but it also looks at
the impacts from rideway cost storm
[46:10] water um it's kind of a whole slew truck
and freight movement is another big one
[46:14] so those are definitely considerations
and we look at it um you know heavy
[46:19] freight and truck movement through an
intersection does not disqualify a
[46:23] roundabout from being an option and
staying on the table um there's there's
[46:28] given if there's enough ride of way and
um ability to make a roundabout the
[46:33] right size and give it the right design.
Um freight and truck can can navigate
[46:38] those um well and safely. And so there's
there's kind of a detailed uh like list
[46:44] of criteria that we'll kind of work our
way through when the time comes. And um
[46:50] but yeah, a lot of times there's just
that kind of multiaceted
[46:55] approach. you have to look at all the
variables and and weigh the pros and
[46:59] cons of of each of those and kind of to
get a comprehensive picture of which
[47:03] option signal or roundabout is going to
be most um appropriate and preferred. So
[47:09] um yeah, there's there's definitely
benefits and um and um challenges with
[47:16] with roundabouts and freight and and
traffic. So it it will definitely be a
[47:21] consideration.
>> Thank you.
[47:28] I have a couple I guess are
transportation related. The um
[47:33] uh on the west railroad area, how
dependent
[47:38] will traffic flow be on a potential new
railroad crossing?
[47:45] » You want me to take that one? Yeah,
Chris.
[47:47] » Yeah, please.
Um, we analyzed
[47:54] the traffic for the west railroad area
and found that we can serve the area via
[48:02] two access points. one to the north um
on Tonquin Road and one to the south on
[48:07] Grahams Ferry Road um without the
connection across uh to K Halen across
[48:14] the railroad um like but that is not
necessary to serve that area under full
[48:20] development assumptions. So um of course
if that is a a opportunity that we can
[48:29] take advantage of and and you know
coordinate with railroad to get some
[48:33] kind of public crossing um at Cahalen
over the railroad there that would be
[48:38] all the much better but um those two
access points um north to Ton and south
[48:43] to Grans Ferry would will be adequate to
serve that area.
[48:47] » Okay. So follow-up question then with
the
[48:51] anticipated expense of the south
um access being Graham's Ferry
[48:59] uh the
overpass I guess you would call it the
[49:02] railroad crossing
>> uh is that a nearterm um shortterm
[49:08] near-term short-term or future
>> consideration
[49:13] commissioner you referring to the
undercrossing the under
[49:15] » crossing okay Yeah, I
I actually don't know where that slates
[49:21] out on a
>> um Commissioner Carr at this point. That
[49:26] project is a long-term investment. Um as
you know, we currently have our uh
[49:32] Coffee Creek Industrial Area and the
urban renewal plan that's helping to
[49:36] finance infrastructure projects in that
area that has a infrastructure project
[49:40] list that's incorporated into our CIP.
um until we have a sense of when this
[49:45] area might come online, um we wouldn't,
you know, we'd be looking at that point
[49:51] and trying to figure out, okay, how do
we make that project work? As we've
[49:54] already um
uh explored, the cost is high. Um it
[50:01] likely will need some kind of city
investment, likely urban renewal. Um,
[50:06] and we're doing that additional analysis
now to see like if it was integrated in,
[50:11] what impact does that have on our
initial uh, estimates for potentially
[50:17] expanding urban renewal into Basalt
Creek. So, kind of understanding what
[50:21] that might do based on the revenue we
might generate will feed at least some
[50:25] inputs for future decisions. But there
will be future decisions essentially on
[50:29] that project. Um, we're identifying it
now as we need to have a north, we need
[50:34] to have two access points getting in and
out. we likely need that south one
[50:37] regardless um even without Cahalen um to
get the connectivity that we need the
[50:42] through traffic connectivity um and that
improvement has already been identified
[50:47] not just for west road if you remember
when we were here discussing with you
[50:50] last time it's also to help citywide um
that improvement so um we essentially
[50:57] that project is it's not in the CIP now
it's probably not in the next you know
[51:02] update to it might be two or three out
um because there's a lot of other
[51:06] improvements that need to be made first
in order to then get that improvement uh
[51:10] moving forward.
>> Knowing that both
[51:15] the railroad crossing and the
undercrossing
[51:21] require coordination with
a railroad and or well I guess they're
[51:27] both with the railroad. Mhm.
>> How much
[51:32] how much of a delay is that coordination
would that coordination resulting and
[51:39] and how long of a decision point do they
have?
[51:43] » I don't think that we could provide that
information to you definitively. Every
[51:47] situation's going to look different. Uh,
but I do know that like the fifth
[51:52] tokensman project um had it took a long
time to do some work with the railroad.
[51:59] » I think that's my concern is the two
our two our two access points. The only
[52:06] one that's really viable currently is
the one that we're talking about on the
[52:10] north,
>> which isn't there yet. Mhm.
[52:12] » Um, so we've got
the two access points that we would well
[52:19] the one access point that we need on the
south and the one that we would like um
[52:24] uh the new railroad crossing are both
constrained by someone else. They're
[52:29] they're both in somebody else's control.
>> So it's going to limit our ability to do
[52:34] anything.
So, at what point do we say we have to
[52:39] get the ball rolling
before we can kind of
[52:45] approve a master plan? Well, I would I
would um pivot that maybe slightly,
[52:50] Commissioner Carr, and say that we
create a master plan to then be able to
[52:54] put in motion those decisions
>> because if we know that the that that is
[53:01] that this area, the planning commission
and city council want developed out in a
[53:05] certain way and we have that framework
adopted into our comprehensive plan and
[53:09] into a master plan, then staff have the
guidance to be able to go out and do
[53:13] that work in order to initiate those
conversations. ations in order to and we
[53:18] you know we wouldn't initiate
conversations with the railroad after
[53:20] we've figured out a whole bunch of stuff
for the right we would go out and we
[53:24] would initiate those conversations
earlier as we're doing those other
[53:27] analyses um and doing the other plans to
try to get these projects in motion.
[53:32] » So do we emphasize the new railroad
crossing to give you the the legs to go
[53:37] to the railroad and say this is what we
want?
[53:41] So both um currently right now as we
were talking about West Railroad the
[53:45] Cahalen crossing was listed I believe as
an opportunity um and I know there's
[53:49] been some preliminary conversation with
the railroads just to see is it a hard
[53:53] no is it a maybe what that starts to
look like and so as um as Miranda was
[53:59] mentioning identifying that within a
plan as a potential future connection is
[54:04] is direction enough for to be able to at
least start to look at that um you know
[54:08] the undercrossing Railroads will always
look for least kind of impact to their
[54:13] systems and so
>> they do take a long time um when you
[54:17] start to coordinate with them but that
like really those connections however
[54:22] that comes to be in the future will be
essential for that future development.
[54:25] Um and so I think showing both within
the plan gives some flexibility in how
[54:31] that starts to come for West Railroad
specifically. But as Miranda mentioned,
[54:35] the undercrossing is a broader question
um that that project that engineering is
[54:41] looking at is trying to address as well.
So it's not just about West Railroad
[54:45] area. There's there's other um kind of
benefits that that project would provide
[54:50] even if it's a long-term project.
And to just to tack one more thing on
[54:55] Alex touched on it, but our uh economic
city's economic development manager has
[54:59] reached out and been having a couple
conversations with the railroad already
[55:03] and they were actually far more positive
than we might have expected. Obviously,
[55:07] it'll still take a very it'll still take
a very long time, but the those
[55:11] conversations have started. So, um Okay.
Yeah.
[55:15] » Switching gears completely. um the BPA
um easements. Um have we done any kind
[55:22] of negotiations with them so that we can
um
[55:28] take advantage of the real estate under
their easement for uh trails, storm
[55:34] water, parking, etc.
>> Well, as far as
[55:38] » And how long does that process take?
[55:43] » Time. Time. Always time, right? Well,
uh, yeah, as far as building structures
[55:47] and whatnot, that's obviously not
something they're going to let you do,
[55:50] but I believe we're allowed to do things
that are gravel and trails and whatnot.
[55:54] I don't know if Miranda's been in those
past conversations, so I couldn't speak
[55:58] to how much time it takes. Um, but
that's something we've dealt with in the
[56:02] past. Yeah, I could note uh Commissioner
Carr that uh during the Frog Pond East
[56:07] planning uh we did have conversations
with BPA to understand what could or
[56:12] could not go in or adjacent to the
easement as we were discussing things
[56:16] like the adjacency of the park um and
the desire to make that regional trail
[56:22] connection. Um and essentially our
discussions at that point with them were
[56:26] essentially what you just heard from the
team, which is um that there you can
[56:32] have things like trails um but there's a
lot of things you can't have. So things
[56:36] that have any height pretty much so no
trees um no metal um and you also risk
[56:43] if they need to go in there to access
their facility in any way, shape or form
[56:47] that what is there could be disturbed.
Um, and so there is some ability to have
[56:52] improvements in that area, but it can be
hard to really count on its permanency
[56:56] and the cost of replacement could be on
not on BPA. Um, is typically how they
[57:01] negotiate those things in the easement.
Um, and so a lot of times what we see is
[57:07] like with Frog Pond East, we'll work on
having that regional trail. We'll
[57:11] partner to try to get um the rights to
be able to have that regional trail
[57:15] there and understand that improvements
might have to be done over time. Um but
[57:19] things like uh you know maybe parking
that would be part of a what the
[57:25] developer may or may not want. A lot of
those negotiations might be then with
[57:30] like the property owner depending upon
what how they may or may not want to um
[57:35] coordinate with BPA on accessing that
easement.
[57:38] » I just speak because there is a BPA
easement right by my house and they just
[57:44] strip mine everything that's under their
lines.
[57:48] Um, so I wouldn't want us to do any kind
of improvements that would be
[57:55] altered.
>> Yeah.
[57:57] » Right.
>> Um,
[58:00] shifting gears even more. So the uh your
question here is does the um the master
[58:07] plan reflect the long-term vision? I
think it does. I think um adding the uh
[58:13] economic opportunity analysis and the
economic development strategy
[58:18] um just further hits on I think the nine
guiding principles that we got from the
[58:24] concept plan. Um uh and and I appreciate
the work that went into
[58:31] um giving us the different concepts and
then taking a couple of the concept
[58:36] plans and and melding them together. I
think that was uh that did a great job I
[58:41] think again of of hitting those those
guiding principles to answer your
[58:46] question. Um do the comprehensive plan
amendments hit I think yes they're um
[58:53] you know the the key elements that we
had were the land use and development
[58:57] transportation parks and natural
resource and utilities and I think all
[59:01] of those were um covered well again
under that um uh under the plan
[59:06] amendment. So, yeah, I appreciate the
work there.
[59:12] What do I want you to work on? Um,
I do have concerns over
[59:21] um the fragmented ownership and existing
uses. I think we've talked about this ad
[59:27] nauseium. Um,
I have a concern that
[59:35] without some
proactive intervention by the city, if
[59:40] we
if we wait for them to do something,
[59:44] nothing will happen. I think the city is
going to need to do something
[59:47] proactively.
[59:50] I don't know if that has to be built
into the master plan or if that's more
[59:54] of an implementation.
Um, but I do have a concern that uh
[1:00:01] especially the um
the um construction spaces um the
[1:00:11] unless we
ask them nicely to move, they won't. Um
[1:00:16] and and that's a concern. Uh I also am a
strong proponent of urban renewal. Um,
[1:00:24] and I want to make sure that that is
utilized effectively in this area,
[1:00:31] whether it's an expansion of the current
CPY Creek one or whether it's a new one.
[1:00:36] Um, I don't know what's the best way to
do that, but I think there should be an
[1:00:40] emphasis on using that at least to uh
fund the infrastructure.
[1:00:46] And then I think we've covered traffic
and and
[1:00:50] wildlife
mitigation.
[1:00:54] » I might need a little bit more work on
that myself, but uh otherwise I I love
[1:00:59] the work that's been done here.
>> Great. Thank you. Appreciate the
[1:01:02] comments.
[1:01:08] » I'll just add a couple things. So to
echo just the major milestone and it is
[1:01:12] really neat to see the culmination of
all of our conversations over yeah a
[1:01:17] long while come together into one
document and so that's really neat to
[1:01:21] see and I do think it reflects where we
landed in the conversations we had. So I
[1:01:25] I appreciate that and then the one area
that surprised me was just seeing kind
[1:01:30] of the implementation phasing is like
that first column is like the five
[1:01:34] within five years and most of the boxes
are checked for first five years. So I
[1:01:39] immediately think of just yeah capacity
to explore those things and also just
[1:01:42] the challenges that like these some of
these things are really dependent on
[1:01:46] other partners and things like that. So
I'm just keeping that in mind but
[1:01:50] they're good goals to set. And
uh one thing on the comprehensive plan.
[1:01:56] So, I think yeah, those were great
updates and yeah, some of the older
[1:01:59] language uh kind of surprised me just
around the I think it mentioned like the
[1:02:05] need for just like one industrial type,
right? And and we've gone we've kind of
[1:02:10] swung the other way. So, it's just
interesting to see uh that change over
[1:02:13] time. And then a curiosity I had was
there's a section in here on economic
[1:02:19] development that looks like it was it
was added and then the the flow after
[1:02:23] that felt a little weird. some of the
paragraphs felt just a little redundant
[1:02:26] or
>> I I don't know if there could just be
[1:02:28] some cleaning up and that was on um the
packet page 167 and 168 just felt it
[1:02:36] felt a little disconnected and so if
there's opportunity u to just take a
[1:02:40] look at that and see if there's some
refinement that can happen there. I
[1:02:43] think that would be a lot clearer and
I think that's all the comments I had.
[1:02:48] » No, I appreciate that feedback. Thank
you.
[1:02:53] Thank you for your hard work that went
into this. Um, I'll answer some of the
[1:02:56] questions u about the draft materials. I
don't I didn't I think all the great
[1:03:01] questions have been asked by our
brilliant commissioners here.
[1:03:06] It's hard to follow but um I was curious
um
[1:03:13] with with the coming analysis in the
future for the infrastructure right for
[1:03:18] the utilities and and the capacity will
that include the
[1:03:23] a comparison of what this master plan um
how it feed feeds into the master plan
[1:03:29] for the entire city as well in terms of
that cap uh capacity uh because we have
[1:03:35] growth happening you know, planning here
and planning there and and how it all
[1:03:39] fits together and what that's going to
mean for the citizens of the city and
[1:03:43] how it will impact them and what is
being served now and what is forecasted
[1:03:48] to be served in the future and and what
kind of improvements the utilities will
[1:03:53] need to build out. Um like will all that
be included in the next work session?
[1:03:59] » So the the infrastructure analysis is
pretty specific to the Basalt Creek
[1:04:03] planning area itself. Um we haven't
looked uh beyond that for the master
[1:04:10] plan specifically. No.
Is that
[1:04:13] » that's what would be helpful for me to
see like the big impact when you put it
[1:04:17] all together. Um
>> well maybe I'm not understanding that
[1:04:21] question either. So, I mean, so the the
Basalt Creek master plan infrastructure
[1:04:27] analysis, we're we're looking at within
that area, within that 847 acre area,
[1:04:32] what infrastructure is needed for future
development,
[1:04:35] » right? Water, sewer.
>> Exactly. Storm water, sewer. Exactly. Uh
[1:04:39] roadway buildouts, roadway widths,
sidewalks, all the infrastructure
[1:04:42] necessary. And then, you know, what are
the um associated costs of that,
[1:04:47] » right? and then trying to do so in a
organized fashion, right? Um but it
[1:04:52] doesn't include say Frog Pond or So is
that kind of what you're asking?
[1:04:58] » Yeah. But there's going to be this also
additional demand coming from all these
[1:05:01] other developments, right?
>> And so I'm curious how that all fits
[1:05:06] together and whether the like the entire
system is going to be enough. How does
[1:05:11] that affect our our water master plan
and our sewer master plan? And
[1:05:18] » yeah, commissioners, we can make sure
that um engineering staff is planning to
[1:05:22] attend the next meeting alongside any of
the technical um uh the consultants that
[1:05:28] we're working with to do the technical
analysis. Um and so we can make sure
[1:05:31] they're prepared to discuss that. We
even though we're planning for what will
[1:05:36] this system in this area like look like
and be designed like it is taken into
[1:05:40] consideration how does that then fit
into the broader master plans for our
[1:05:44] water and sewer and trans even
transportation as I discussed earlier
[1:05:48] when we're looking at the modeling we
don't look at just the model in
[1:05:50] isolation of this area but then at the
same time we're only presenting here are
[1:05:54] the transportation projects for this
area because the rest of the tsp covers
[1:05:58] everything else if that makes sense so
it we will talk about there will
[1:06:03] probably some discussion about any
potential downstream impacts and then
[1:06:06] how this is uh sized in relationship to
the rest of the system. So sometimes
[1:06:10] you'll have like oversized pipes because
it's needed to serve the rest of the
[1:06:15] system.
>> So use of the word downstream
[1:06:21] » that would be really helpful for if we
could cover that in the next work
[1:06:24] session.
>> Absolutely. Like where I was leading to.
[1:06:27] » Yeah, we can definitely make sure uh
engineering is prepared to discuss that.
[1:06:30] » Y okay
>> 100%. Thank you. Um, and I do I do think
[1:06:34] it reflects the vision. I think it's
really fantastic work. Yeah. And I look
[1:06:38] forward to seeing it continue to grow
and develop.
[1:06:41] » Great. Excellent. Appreciate that.
>> I I did want to make a comment about
[1:06:44] roundabouts. Um, the
just something to consider. I know
[1:06:49] there's a way to build them to allow for
free traffic, but I just worry about
[1:06:55] just because I this is where I work the
PG yard and not getting them gridlocked
[1:06:59] in the roundabouts with pole trailers.
Uh and because that's something that
[1:07:03] they've experienced with cities in
development and putting a roundabout and
[1:07:07] all of a sudden you can't maneuver it
with pole trailers and you're trying to
[1:07:11] go restore outages or build things and
just, you know, something to consider.
[1:07:16] It's really big.
>> Yeah. Right.
[1:07:20] » Which I don't know. Um Yeah, it could be
difficult.
[1:07:24] » Excellent.
>> Uh we have some Yeah, go ahead.
[1:07:27] » Um so this may have been answered a
couple years ago. I like didn't see it
[1:07:33] in any of the um materials, but um the
the guiding principles,
[1:07:42] two of them mentioned housing,
>> but there's no housing here, although
[1:07:46] some of the area butts up to housing
from Tolatin.
[1:07:50] » Correct.
>> Is there a reason why we were just like,
[1:07:52] eh, for housing?
>> Can you clarify what you mean by eh?
[1:07:58] » Like, well, there's there's no there's
no house. There's no housing, right? But
[1:08:01] like there's no housing in in this
version of the plan.
[1:08:05] » Correct.
>> And I mean right now there's a few
[1:08:08] residential areas there. So it's not
like it's completely industrial right
[1:08:11] now. And the new Twitin development
really abuts or is adjacent butts up to
[1:08:17] I don't know the correct term either.
>> Um where we have I think you know like
[1:08:22] high-tech employment district off of
like Boone Ferry. So, I just wondered if
[1:08:27] there's a reason why there's no housing.
Yeah.
[1:08:29] » Suggested in any of this.
>> Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Candrian.
[1:08:32] So, uh, when the area was brought into
Metro's urban growth boundary, it was
[1:08:36] brought in for the purposes of
industrial development. During that
[1:08:39] time, there was a discussion by
representatives from the city of
[1:08:43] Toalatin
um wanting to have some additional
[1:08:47] residential at the northern portion of
the planning area in order to create a
[1:08:52] better buffer with the existing
residential neighborhood. So when it
[1:08:56] came into um the urban growth boundary,
the ordinance that passed it had a map
[1:09:01] attached which essentially uh stated
that there would be residential in the
[1:09:06] northern portion of the planning area
adjacent to the city of Toalatin, but
[1:09:09] the rest of the area was brought in for
the purposes of industrial and
[1:09:12] employment growth. throughout the entire
planning process with our city council.
[1:09:17] Uh the city council maintained their
desire for this area to be essentially
[1:09:23] solely and maybe I shouldn't use the
term solely but to be industrial and
[1:09:27] employment land as we've discussed like
with the craft industrial there might be
[1:09:32] appropriate times where you have either
a business um related dwelling unit or a
[1:09:38] um live work unit. those might be
feasible in the craft industrial area,
[1:09:43] but primarily the whole entire point for
us was this was an employment industrial
[1:09:48] area and we wanted to maintain that. It
really builds off of the Coffee Creek
[1:09:52] industrial area. We have that which is
going to front onto Day Road. Um we have
[1:09:56] the formbbased code there that's
creating this kind of business district
[1:10:00] and we wanted to the council wanted to
see that mirrored on the north side of
[1:10:04] Day to our boundary. It also didn't make
s much much sense to the council to like
[1:10:09] create an isolated neighborhood out
there in Wilsonville for us to serve in
[1:10:14] more of a residential manner um versus
adjacent to our existing residential
[1:10:20] areas.
>> You didn't want like Charbano North.
[1:10:25] » Okay, that's fair. I just wondered
because like it's called out as in the
[1:10:28] guiding principles, but then we don't
have anything addressed. So
[1:10:32] » it was primarily in those guiding
principles because of the city of
[1:10:35] Toalatin um and the fact that there
would be housing in their portion of the
[1:10:39] planning area.
>> I think it also if I could add to that
[1:10:43] is how if you look at the map how we've
got certain areas designated as certain
[1:10:48] industry classifications.
We kind of structured it such that the
[1:10:53] high-tech and the craft would be closer
to the homes.
[1:10:57] » Um and we did more of the industrial a
little bit off of that. And I think that
[1:11:00] was by design, but you're the guiding
principles or the the concept plan which
[1:11:07] includes the tool and the Wilsonville
area. So yeah.
[1:11:15] » Yeah. The the when Commissioner Car was
speaking it triggered a question in my
[1:11:19] head around um like lot when you were
talking about lot sizes. Um, I wonder if
[1:11:24] there's like a a sweet spot for the
different kinds of development that we
[1:11:27] want to see in each of these areas. And
is it different for the industrial area
[1:11:32] versus the craft area?
>> Um, and would that help us kind of
[1:11:36] inform any any action that we do take
proactively as a city to try to maybe
[1:11:42] maybe aggregate land or or facilitate
property owners um adjusting their lot
[1:11:47] sizes,
whether it's consolidating or splitting.
[1:11:52] That might be interesting to see.
>> Yeah.
[1:11:54] » Um and that that dovetailed with another
question that I had had when when we
[1:11:58] were talking about the natural resources
and the um the the Coffee Lake area is I
[1:12:04] think pretty high visibility. I think
most people that spend any time in the
[1:12:09] area are pretty aware of it, but the
Tapman Creek is pretty invisible to I
[1:12:13] think most people. Even if you're up on
day road and looking for it, it's pretty
[1:12:17] nondescript. It's
>> hard to find.
[1:12:19] » Yeah. is um has is that an area that
would need to be restored in order for
[1:12:24] it to be a functioning riparian area or
is it is it actively functioning that
[1:12:30] way right now? How much does and I guess
the the question beyond the question too
[1:12:34] is just trying to understand a little
bit of how that overlays with the craft
[1:12:38] zone because on the map it looks like
that Tapman Creek natural resources area
[1:12:42] overlays with almost all of the craft
zone. And so I'm kind of curious like
[1:12:46] how do how do how do we interpret the
craft zone with that Chapman Creek?
[1:12:50] » I'm happy to take this one uh because
I'm probably the only person in this
[1:12:54] room who's actually been down to the
creek.
[1:12:57] » Um so during the concept planning I was
invited by property owners in order to
[1:13:02] be able to go and to see Tapman Creek
and to experience what it's like at
[1:13:06] different seasons. Um and so it does
actually function as a thriving wetland.
[1:13:12] Um most of those property owners um
their property runs from um Boone's
[1:13:18] Ferry all the way across which is why
you see that craft designation. We don't
[1:13:23] really anticipate if you start
overlaying all the layers we have within
[1:13:26] the plan. We don't anticipate
development within that area. That area
[1:13:31] will end up being part of our
significant resource overlay zone. It
[1:13:34] will be protect that creek and the slope
will be protected. So the development
[1:13:38] really will only be on the front end
adjacent to Boon Ferry. But when you do
[1:13:42] zoning, you have to zone an entire
property a zoning designation even if
[1:13:47] you then have an SRZ overlay. So all of
that information is is within the plan
[1:13:52] itself. Um but I have been down there.
Most of those property owners can't even
[1:13:57] access the backside of their property.
Um, it has to be like the driest of a
[1:14:02] driest year for them to be able to kind
of cross or to use like a canoe or a
[1:14:06] kayak to cross. Um, and uh, it's a
pretty like if you get into that area,
[1:14:12] it turns into pure nature really quick.
Um, and they've seen lots of different
[1:14:17] wildlife out there. There's I think only
one property owner who has um, some kind
[1:14:22] of access to the backside of that
property, but that's it. So, um it is an
[1:14:26] area that will take and does take
significant uh storm water runoff as
[1:14:30] well. Um which is one of our um concerns
or or things we want to make sure we're
[1:14:36] managing uh properly.
>> Some of the some of the properties that
[1:14:40] basically the front half of it is
developable and then just kind of
[1:14:45] » plummets I guess drops off. Yeah.
>> Yeah. There's just steep slope. There's
[1:14:48] a lot of areas where you can actually
openly see the basalt. Um, which is also
[1:14:53] really cool because I mean that sorry
that area was
[1:14:58] uh you know a part of like the Missoula
floods and there's a lot of really cool
[1:15:03] um just features in this whole kind of
area of the region where you can see
[1:15:08] like the results of that and in a lot of
areas our basalt is buried um but in
[1:15:12] this area the name reflects it. um you
will have some basalt that's 100 ft down
[1:15:17] and then literally 50 ft over it could
be like 5 to 10 ft down. Um so it al
[1:15:24] that will also create some interesting
development challenges. Um but it is
[1:15:29] something that we did look at when we
were doing the concept planning.
[1:15:32] » Yeah. And is that if I remember
correctly that that's that informs some
[1:15:36] of the reason maybe why the tonkan the
ice age trail goes maybe near those
[1:15:41] natural features.
>> Yeah.
[1:15:42] » Yeah. Very cool.
>> Yeah. and our consultant that's working
[1:15:44] on the storm water analysis. You'll see
we just met with them a couple times
[1:15:48] this week. You'll see some of their you
will see their work at work session 2
[1:15:51] Tapman Creek and and those flows and
where that's going is all part of that
[1:15:55] work. So you'll in the packet you'll get
to preview that and then they'll be here
[1:15:59] and available to talk a little bit more
about it too.
[1:16:01] » Cool. Yeah. And thank you for for all
that and and just emphasizing the first
[1:16:05] I I packed a lot into that, but I'd love
to see more information about like
[1:16:09] what's the sweet spot for for lot sizes
for the expected development maybe in
[1:16:13] the future work session as well.
>> Okay.
[1:16:15] » I've got a note for it.
[1:16:22] » All right. No other comments? We're
good. Questions? All right. Well, thank
[1:16:25] you so much.
>> Thank you. Appreciate it.
[1:16:27] » Yeah. Thank you for your time. We
appreciate it. We'll see you in a month.
[1:16:29] Thank you.
All right,
[1:16:33] » cheer sea. I just wanted to We were
conversing back and forth. We do not
[1:16:38] believe. Did we address the minutes?
>> No, I was thinking dinner afterwards.
[1:16:42] » Perfect.
>> Yes, I did. I do know that I went
[1:16:44] straight to business.
>> It's okay. That's okay. Thank you.
[1:16:49] » Yeah, but thank you.
>> Is that Is that all right?
[1:16:53] » Moving forward. It didn't even
>> didn't even phase it.
[1:16:56] » Didn't even face that. I could be slack
this time. you know, try to keep you
[1:17:01] guys on your toes.
>> We can just do that work session again,
[1:17:04] right? Yeah. Just start over.
>> All right. Um, our next
[1:17:11] » You want to switch back and do
>> Yeah. Why don't you take care of the
[1:17:15] minutes while I get the
>> Okay. All right. Sounds good. Um,
[1:17:19] consideration of the minutes.
Where's my script to make sure? Do we um
[1:17:27] the What was that date? May 13th, 2026.
Um, minutes were previously distributed.
[1:17:35] Are there any corrections to the
minutes?
[1:17:37] » No.
>> Can can I make an observation about the
[1:17:41] minutes? And I don't know that this
needs to be corrected, but I know that
[1:17:45] there were a lot of people in attendance
for that commented at during the citizen
[1:17:50] input about the later work session that
we did. But the the minutes I don't
[1:17:54] think really um capture how much we I
think made a really strong effort to
[1:18:00] directly address a lot of the comments
that we had heard in the in the citizen
[1:18:04] input. So I think it might be helpful to
maybe we need to revise the minutes
[1:18:08] here. I don't want to I don't want to be
prescriptive, but I think it would be
[1:18:11] helpful for the the citizens who maybe
didn't stick around to see the whole
[1:18:14] session to maybe have some record that
we did really we really did make an
[1:18:18] effort to address a lot of their
comments directly.
[1:18:22] » Um I'll just make a note because so uh
the way that our minutes are structured
[1:18:26] are based on some on um updates to the
Oregon public meetings law. All of our
[1:18:33] recordings are available for the public
to view and um you only have to do
[1:18:38] either or. We do both. So it is
available for um people to see the
[1:18:43] planning commission meeting online
>> as well.
[1:18:46] » Maybe that's sufficient then. Yeah.
Cool.
[1:18:50] » Thank you.
That's a really good observation.
[1:18:55] All right. So there's no corrections
that I needed otherwise. Okay.
[1:19:00] Uh here no corrections. The minutes are
approved as distributed.
[1:19:09] The next agenda topic uh is a work
session on the town center building
[1:19:14] height waiver.
The work session is a chance to put for
[1:19:19] the planning commission to gain
additional understanding of and provide
[1:19:22] guidance on ongoing legislative projects
prior to a public hearing.
[1:19:28] Um,
[1:19:32] well, we took public comment. I don't
think we need to do that again, right?
[1:19:36] We don't have any. But I can say as a
courtesy, the planning commission will
[1:19:41] as time permits allow for limited public
comment on this topic after staff have
[1:19:44] presented their report for the
commission's purpose for continuing to
[1:19:48] understand the project. However, it
should be noted that this is not a
[1:19:52] public hearing and any participants are
encouraged to participate in future
[1:19:55] public hearings for legal standing
purposes. So, at this time, I do call
[1:20:00] for city staff to uh present the
information they've prepared for the
[1:20:03] work session. Thank you, Chair Seanova,
Amanda Guy, Henman, city attorney. So,
[1:20:09] tonight we are continuing our discussion
around the uh town center building
[1:20:13] height waiver project. So, as an agenda
for tonight's work session, I'm going to
[1:20:18] start with a project update. basically
where have we been, where are we now? Um
[1:20:22] then I will provide a review of the
updated and new options for the waiver
[1:20:27] um for potential updates to the waiver
as reflected in your packet materials.
[1:20:32] Then we'll go over the task force
feedback and recommendations
[1:20:35] particularly around the preferred
alternative for the building height
[1:20:38] waiver um update the discussion around
elimination of the waiver to increase
[1:20:44] building height altogether versus that
preferred alternative and then the menu
[1:20:47] items that are reflected in the waiver
language and then we'll end with the
[1:20:51] questions for planning commission that
are reflected in the staff report.
[1:20:56] So, as a project update, uh, at
council's direction, staff, uh, formed a
[1:21:00] task force to look at updates to the,
um, town center building height waiver
[1:21:06] provision. Uh, we've had three task
force meetings. Um, that was all that
[1:21:10] was planned for the task force and, um,
absent additional direction from
[1:21:16] council, we don't believe there will be
another task force meeting. So, at this
[1:21:19] point, we're treating it as concluded.
Uh we had a planning commission work
[1:21:24] session last month on May 13th and then
a city council work session followed up
[1:21:28] on May 18th. From those two work
sessions was the last task force meeting
[1:21:32] on May 19th where the task force
discussed the options and um made its
[1:21:37] recommendation.
So where are we now? This is the second
[1:21:41] work session with planning commission
tonight and then we're having our second
[1:21:44] work session with council on Monday
where we are presenting um to each body
[1:21:49] the task force's recommendation.
One item I will just note as we go
[1:21:54] through the task force recommendations
uh just as the planning commission's
[1:21:58] role to city council the task force role
for the planning commission is to
[1:22:02] provide is to inform the decision that
you all are making which is your
[1:22:06] recommendation to city council. That
doesn't mean you necessarily have to
[1:22:09] accept exactly what the task force
decided. If you believe that there's
[1:22:13] reasons for revisions to it, that's
totally fine. Um, I think the most
[1:22:17] important thing is to the extent you
either are supportive of the task force
[1:22:21] recommendation or want to make changes,
it's clear to the council what is
[1:22:25] leading to that consideration
so it can um further weigh in on it on
[1:22:30] its decision-m.
So just again to orient you all and this
[1:22:34] is going to be helpful particularly as
we talk about the different options and
[1:22:38] as the task force discussed them is
really looking at the subdists that are
[1:22:42] at play in town center. So there's a
overall town center zone and within the
[1:22:46] town center zone there's the four subd
districts. CMU or commercial mixed use
[1:22:50] is the one that is closest to I5. It is
the area where there's the outright
[1:22:55] allowed building height of two to five
stories. MU or mixed use basically
[1:23:00] straddles the main street district um
and it allows for two to four stories.
[1:23:06] The main street district which runs
through kind of the middle of um town
[1:23:09] center allows also for two to four
stories. And then neighborhood mixed use
[1:23:13] which is essentially adjacent to the
current residential area only allows for
[1:23:17] two to three stories. The building
height waiver provision only applies to
[1:23:22] mixeduse and commercial mixeduse
subdists. So what's not at play are the
[1:23:27] main street district or the neighborhood
mixed use.
[1:23:32] So getting to the options that um that
the planning or that the task force
[1:23:37] looked at is basically there was of the
four initial options that they looked
[1:23:41] at. We brought back two of them option
two and three with refinement. And then
[1:23:46] we also added option five and option
six. where option five and option six
[1:23:50] came out of arose out of really was
option five um came from a discussion
[1:23:55] from one of the small groups of of the
task force and then option six was
[1:23:59] essentially a further refinement by
staff kind of taking inspiration from
[1:24:03] both option five and option um two uh
kind of combining them together. So uh
[1:24:11] we brought these four options together
for option two and option three. The
[1:24:15] main updates uh was to further um cl so
the way the building height waiver is
[1:24:22] written right now essentially what it
says is a waiver can be sought regarding
[1:24:26] floor excuse me building floor plate and
or building height is how it's phrased.
[1:24:32] And so one of the things that we wanted
to clarify um in particular for all the
[1:24:37] options but particularly for these
updated options is the expansion of the
[1:24:43] floor plate is really contemplated if
the building height is going down. So if
[1:24:48] you're going down to one story, you can
go wider. I don't think anybody was
[1:24:53] anticipating you could go both wider and
taller. So, um, we clarified kind of
[1:24:59] breaking those out that the wider
footprint really only applies if you're
[1:25:02] decreasing, not if you're increasing.
So, that was, um, that update was made
[1:25:07] to all the options essentially. And then
a second uh item that was added as kind
[1:25:13] of in brackets for both option two and
three was separating out and this is
[1:25:18] relevant also for option five and six is
separating out how the mixeduse area um
[1:25:24] closer to I5 is treated versus the
mixeduse area closer to the residential
[1:25:28] area is treated. So those are in
brackets for options two and three.
[1:25:34] What option five did is um I don't think
I put this on a graphic. So, what option
[1:25:40] five did is I'm going to go back to the
subdists as a reference is all the area
[1:25:45] the CMU and the MU that is closest to
I5. What option five does is it allows a
[1:25:50] building height to go up. It doesn't
allow it to go down. So, it can't go
[1:25:54] down to one story in the option five.
And then on the mixeduse area closer to
[1:25:59] the residential, it can only do go down.
It can't go up. So, it basically does
[1:26:04] the exact opposite on each side. One
goes down, one goes up. Um
[1:26:09] what option six does is it's the it
allows only a decrease in building
[1:26:14] height. It keeps that only allowing the
decrease in building height for the
[1:26:18] mixed use area closer to the main closer
to the residential area. But what it
[1:26:24] also does is it essentially caps the um
commercial mixeduse height increase. So
[1:26:30] essentially allowing only five stories
in commercial mixed use except in the
[1:26:34] case of a bonus floor for affordable
housing which isn't part of the waiver
[1:26:37] process. So um essentially option six is
kind of the most limiting of all of the
[1:26:44] options that were that were contemplated
at this point. So this is a chart this
[1:26:48] chart is basically taken out of the
staff report. So it's um a further
[1:26:52] reflection of of um what I just
described and the options as the as
[1:26:56] they're narrated in the um attachment.
So what we did that we'll come back to
[1:27:02] this um for discussion purposes when
when you all are talking about the
[1:27:05] options. So the task force feedback on
the preferred alternative for the waiver
[1:27:10] is first and foremost they eliminated
option three from consideration.
[1:27:15] um feeling like option three if if I go
back to this chart you can kind of see
[1:27:19] it has it has the most flexibility of
the remaining options in that there can
[1:27:24] be the potential for six stories. So
they ended up uh um for both potentially
[1:27:29] both for a waiver or or a bonus floor.
So they eliminated option three as a
[1:27:34] from consideration.
Then what we had them do is we had them
[1:27:38] do a dot exercise with the remaining
three options. So op option two, five
[1:27:42] and six. We gave them two dots. One is
their number one their number one option
[1:27:47] and the second dot was their number two
option. Um it's laid out in the staff
[1:27:51] report how those kind of played out. Um
for option two, two people put two of
[1:27:57] the task force members put it as their
number one option. Nobody put it as
[1:28:00] their second option. For option five, it
got the most number one options at five
[1:28:05] and got one as it at one dot as the
second um favorite for one of the task
[1:28:11] force members. And then option six got
one number one and seven number twos. So
[1:28:17] from that um discussion you know the
feedback that was
[1:28:22] portrayed from that was okay option five
seems to have the most is people it was
[1:28:27] people's most the number one. Um so
there was some discussion then around um
[1:28:33] people's number one options. The other
thing that we had them do in the dot
[1:28:36] exercise is put a dot next to your
number one and your number two. And if
[1:28:41] there's something that you would still
make changes to that option, write it
[1:28:45] next to your dot. So that way we can
document what change you want. So what's
[1:28:48] important is that for option five, one
of the people who put that as their
[1:28:52] number one, they wrote in that they
believe that the mixeduse area closest
[1:28:57] to the neighborhood um should not be
allowed to increase at all. It should
[1:29:01] only stay at four four stories. The two
people who put option two as their
[1:29:07] number one had that same comment. So of
the eight people who are having this
[1:29:11] discussion, three indicated that for the
mixeduse area closest to the
[1:29:16] neighborhood, they would want to see
that area just capped at four
[1:29:20] regardless. Now what that means is is
that actually goes a bit beyond the
[1:29:25] scope of this project because that then
talks about the affordable housing bonus
[1:29:28] floor. But we did in excuse me include
that information but in the planning
[1:29:33] commission packet um because if if that
is the ultimate recommendation that is
[1:29:39] information that we'd want to share with
council about whether or not they're
[1:29:42] interested in looking at um addressing
the bonus floor, the affordable housing
[1:29:46] bonus floor.
So um basically when we got into the
[1:29:52] discussion around option five um and
whether or not to do this limit on the
[1:29:59] mixed use um capping the mixed use area
to nearest the residential area um at
[1:30:05] all. Four of four of the task force
members wanted to keep option five as
[1:30:10] is. So not do that cap. um three wanted
it limited so to just the four stories
[1:30:16] and then one task force member was
supportive of option five had option
[1:30:20] five as their number one but was
undecided whether or not to limit the
[1:30:23] building height on the eastern um
mixeduse area. So I would say that so
[1:30:29] the outcome really was that option five
was the number one option but this
[1:30:33] discussion around what to do with the
mixeduse area closest to the
[1:30:37] neighborhood there's still I mean it's
very clear there's not there's not a
[1:30:41] majority consensus around that. Um,
[1:30:46] so then we got into a discussion around
whether or not this preferred
[1:30:50] alternative, this option five, whether
there was a preference for that versus
[1:30:55] getting rid of the ability to increase
building height at all under a waiver.
[1:31:00] And the vote was 6 to2 to keep to go to
recommend the option five as opposed to
[1:31:07] eliminating the increase to the building
height altogether. And really the
[1:31:12] conversation focused um around
flexibility and and basically not being
[1:31:17] able to, you know, this being a
long-term 40-year plan, not wanting to
[1:31:22] limit the options that might be
available um under the waiver process.
[1:31:26] But there was a really good discussion
around this um around this preferred
[1:31:33] alternative versus the elimination of
the waiver to increase building height
[1:31:37] altogether. So out of um the task force
basically the recommendations that are
[1:31:43] now before you is that option five was
the preferred alternative. It is also
[1:31:47] the preferred alternative even compared
to eliminating the waiver to increase
[1:31:51] building height altogether. There is
still an open question amongst the task
[1:31:56] force members around whether or not the
mixeduse area subdist um closest to the
[1:32:02] neighborhood should be kept at four
stories period.
[1:32:07] Okay. So then we get into the menu
items.
[1:32:11] And as a refresher, basically these menu
items, if some if a developer is seeking
[1:32:16] to obtain the waiver, they have to do
one item from each of two menus that are
[1:32:21] provided in um the code. One of the menu
uh one of the menus focuses on providing
[1:32:29] a community benefit and the other menu
focuses on mitigating building impacts.
[1:32:34] So, um there was a lot of discussion in
the prior task force meeting back in
[1:32:38] April about wanting to look at these
menu items feeling like they don't go
[1:32:42] far enough um to they don't go far
enough in requiring development to do
[1:32:47] something for the for the benefit of
getting this waiver. And so, uh you'll
[1:32:52] see in your packet we put forward the
same list of categories of menu items
[1:32:58] under those two broader um those two
broader concepts. And then I also added
[1:33:04] in the feedback that we had received
from if there was a particular menu item
[1:33:08] where there was feedback given um that's
provided in the staff report. But one of
[1:33:13] the interesting um conversations that we
had, so I would say the recommendation
[1:33:17] from the task force was definitely move
forward with updating the menu items and
[1:33:23] what they really focused on were menu
items where either there's permanence
[1:33:28] tied to it or um it really is furthering
the what the benefit for Town Center,
[1:33:35] not essentially a communitywide benefit.
They really wanted it to be you're
[1:33:39] making Town Center better. Um so for
example like the one of the examples was
[1:33:44] around um like local hiring like that
might be a good goal or a good thing to
[1:33:49] occur but that doesn't necessarily make
Town Center better um which the idea
[1:33:54] being that the waiver might um impact
how the feel of Town Center and so we
[1:34:00] want to make sure that they're doing
something in in relation to making that
[1:34:04] to mitigating that. Um so one of the
interesting concepts that came out to
[1:34:09] basically understand um
is development doing enough was you know
[1:34:17] some of these menu items one of one of
the task force members uh was talking
[1:34:21] about that basically some of these menu
items they don't sh they don't have
[1:34:25] equal costs and so what that drives
development to do is they're going to
[1:34:28] choose the items that are the least cost
the easiest to do and so are you really
[1:34:34] truly getting a community benefit and
are truly getting mitigation of building
[1:34:37] impacts if they're not somehow equal or
proportionate. And so they started
[1:34:46] talking about this idea of either
um developers paying a fee in lie of
[1:34:52] doing one of these um you know choosing
from these menu items and that fee in
[1:34:58] lie being tied to the value of the
development. So for example, when
[1:35:03] developers pull their building permits,
we do an assessment of the value of the
[1:35:08] development, it it ties into some of the
fees they pay. So we talked about as a
[1:35:13] concept, we could use that dollar figure
as a way to figure out like a fee in
[1:35:17] Lou. And that fee could also then be the
basis to say you either pay the fee or
[1:35:23] your value ads have to equal that cost.
So either way, essentially, you're
[1:35:29] getting at the same cost. whether it's
cash to the city or um doing these value
[1:35:36] ads. And one of the things we also
talked about is that cash then could be
[1:35:40] put into a fund for these projects that
are envisioned for town centers. So you
[1:35:46] think of something like a parking
structure that is one of the
[1:35:51] implementation or parking solutions
generally, but we've talked about a
[1:35:54] parking structure potentially as an
option. You know, if you put money into
[1:35:58] a fund, if development is putting money
into a fund that then the city can
[1:36:02] utilize to um find, you know,
consolidated parking solutions or work
[1:36:08] on some of the transport transportation
de uh improvements that um you know, we
[1:36:13] legally cannot require developers to
build. That might be a good way of
[1:36:18] making sure that we have like
developments also still paying for that
[1:36:23] that um those improvements. So it was an
interesting conversation again not
[1:36:27] something that we had um thought through
like that wasn't a concept that staff
[1:36:31] came up that was um generated from the
task force. So, it was a really
[1:36:35] interesting concept and one that I think
um also was good at least to talk about,
[1:36:41] you know, this sort of um proportionate
um making sure that costs are
[1:36:48] proportionate uh for the value that
people are that a developer might get if
[1:36:52] they're utilizing the waiver and making
sure that they're basically doing their
[1:36:56] part um in as a result of getting that
waiver. um that might you know impact
[1:37:02] the experience in town center.
So, uh, with that, um, a few questions
[1:37:09] for the planning commission is first, if
the, if planning commission has further
[1:37:13] questions or clarifications regarding
the, um, four waiver options, and
[1:37:18] really, I mean, unless a planning
commissioner feels like a burning desire
[1:37:22] for option three to be considered, I'd
maybe say at least of the remaining
[1:37:25] three. um whether the planning
commission is supportive of moving
[1:37:30] forward with a recommendation to city
council and if so which option um the
[1:37:35] planning commission is interest
interested in or if the planning
[1:37:39] commission you know is interested in
having council further consider getting
[1:37:44] rid of the building height waiver
despite that wasn't um for increasing
[1:37:49] building height despite that not being
the recommendation of the task force. Um
[1:37:54] and then um any any um thoughts about
the recommendations on updating the menu
[1:38:00] items and some of the concepts that the
task force particularly thought around
[1:38:04] that. And then what I'll just note as
next steps is while the task force has
[1:38:10] made its official recommendation, you
all aren't making your official
[1:38:13] recommendation tonight. This is really
just to get, you know, some feedback and
[1:38:18] um some indications maybe where planning
commissioners are are falling. So that
[1:38:22] way we can give that feedback to the
city council for its work sessions work
[1:38:26] session. But the ultimate um
recommendation
[1:38:30] decision won't happen until your public
hearing that we are currently planning
[1:38:34] to occur in August.
[1:38:41] where not this is beyond the scope of
this conversation but background
[1:38:45] information where did we come up with
the fivetory
[1:38:50] two to five in the CMU
>> Miranda do you want to
[1:38:54] » because there's not there's not a city
around us that goes up the five stories
[1:39:01] » I checked
>> okay um thanks commissioner car so there
[1:39:07] was a lot of discussion during the
original town center planning
[1:39:11] project about what kind of buildings do
we want and how tall do we want those
[1:39:15] buildings to be and I would say it was a
combination of a lot of feedback and a
[1:39:24] lot of discussions so we had some folks
who wanted 8 to 10 story buildings we
[1:39:30] had some folks who wanted to keep it to
like threetory buildings
[1:39:34] uh there was discussion about well if
we're going to have some taller
[1:39:38] buildings for some of the market
economics. We'd rather have those be
[1:39:43] closer to I5. Um there was discussion
about the types of projects because we
[1:39:50] did you know not just visioning and
discussions with people to understand
[1:39:55] what they wanted but we also did the
market analyses that helped inform some
[1:40:00] of the task force's input into those
decisions around building height as well
[1:40:04] in terms of the types of uses we want to
see and what they need in order to
[1:40:10] actually pencil out a building and
develop it like what is feasible for
[1:40:14] those types of uses. is to locate in our
town center and then um having that
[1:40:19] discussion about okay so is that still
what you want because this is what it
[1:40:23] would likely look like. So, it was a lot
of feedback of the visual preference
[1:40:27] surveys that we had both um online in
person. Um the design workshop where we
[1:40:33] had folks actually taking building
blocks and putting them on maps and
[1:40:39] saying here's where we want certain uses
and we're stacking the the blocks. I
[1:40:45] still have them back there.
Um I see a future use somewhere. Um but
[1:40:51] st being able to stack them to say you
know we might want twotory buildings
[1:40:54] here versus four or five story buildings
here. That exercise was done public
[1:40:59] design workshop that exercise was done
at uh various events in the city. We
[1:41:04] took those building blocks to all those
summer events where we did the visual
[1:41:08] survey results uh studies as well. Um we
also did that with the task force. a lot
[1:41:14] of sometimes the task force was the one
as as we're hearing now. It's like
[1:41:18] they're hearing input from the
community. They're participating in
[1:41:21] those and then they're kind of trying to
help
[1:41:25] compromise the different things that
they're hearing and ma and make space
[1:41:28] for the different uses and types of
buildings that people want to see. So
[1:41:32] the two to five in some ways was a
compromise of a lot of the different
[1:41:36] things that we heard. Um it was also
related to the uses people want to see
[1:41:41] and how that pencils out. um allowing
things potentially in the commercial
[1:41:46] mixed use that are more commercial in
nature who need like a fifth story in
[1:41:50] order to make their project work. So um
envisioning that if you have a hotel or
[1:41:55] if you have um a um office building, you
might need that fifth story in order to
[1:42:01] really make it pencil and to work for
what it is that you're trying to do. Um
[1:42:05] because if you have an office, you're
probably going to have to have some
[1:42:08] underground parking or surface parking
as opposed to sometimes when you have
[1:42:12] like an apartment building, you can do
like a donut where the parking's inside
[1:42:15] and tuck under. So there's different
economics for different types of
[1:42:19] buildings. And so that fed into the
discussion as well. um final
[1:42:23] recommendation as you well not even just
final recommendation but through that
[1:42:27] whole process things were going to the
planning commission and the city council
[1:42:30] too to ensure um support um that that
was the vision that was being met um and
[1:42:37] that that was the consensus that we
ended up with. Can we be
[1:42:47] can we
be specific in what building types can
[1:42:54] exceed or get a waiver? In other words,
can we say a hotel can go up to six
[1:42:59] stories, but an office building can only
go to four?
[1:43:04] Uh, you can make whatever recommendation
you want for a building height as far as
[1:43:09] the building height waiver goes. Um,
>> but does that make sense?
[1:43:13] » Well, and and I think what I would say
is not I mean
[1:43:19] the planning commission should make the
recommendation that it thinks is best
[1:43:22] for the community and for the
implementation of the vision of the town
[1:43:25] center plan. Um that being said, the
waiver really I mean it did come out of
[1:43:31] a discussion about making sure there's
flexibility for development but where it
[1:43:34] started was around anchor retail
tenants. Um
[1:43:39] so not to say that it I mean anybody can
apply for it currently. Um but what I
[1:43:45] would say is um if anything it's that's
what it was that's at least what
[1:43:51] initiated the discussion was around
anchor retail tenants versus versus say
[1:43:56] let's say office space as far as the
waivers concerned versus what Miranda is
[1:44:00] saying about the outright allowed
building heights
[1:44:03] » because I think if if I look around like
um like as we go westland can be
[1:44:09] Sherwood twatin
pretty much all three stories about the
[1:44:13] closest they have. We have one
group of four stories in Mentographic
[1:44:20] Seammens, right? Everything else is
lower. Everything else is threetory. And
[1:44:25] so now we're going
>> I would mention that the VUA project
[1:44:29] that was recently constructed is five
stories. And
[1:44:32] » what's the building height on that?
>> Do you know?
[1:44:35] » I off the top of my head, I don't know
the exact height. Um, I do know the
[1:44:40] ground floor has a higher ceiling height
to accommodate the commercial and ground
[1:44:43] floor uses um than the residential units
have. I could get you that information.
[1:44:49] Uh, but it is a five-story building. And
I would say that one of the things that
[1:44:54] we're looking at here is like a 40-year
plan in terms of providing capacity for
[1:44:59] 40 years. And so it is quite possible
that like the fivetory or even the
[1:45:04] commercial mixed use might not be
a short-term development
[1:45:10] um and that maybe your fivetory
buildings aren't the things that you see
[1:45:13] in years 1 through 15, but it's
providing that 40-year planning horizon
[1:45:20] um interest and capacity for what people
want to see. Well, then that gets to the
[1:45:24] point we made where it was, okay, do we
not give variances for the first 20
[1:45:29] years?
>> I Yeah. So, so a pause isn't an option.
[1:45:34] A pause is not an option in land use.
Um,
[1:45:38] » what just to interject real quick, like
you wouldn't be pausing building, you
[1:45:43] would be pausing the granting of
waivers, right? Which would be a
[1:45:45] different thing because a waiver is you
already want special treatment.
[1:45:50] So under Oregon land use law if you have
something in your code that people are
[1:45:54] allowed to do you have to let them have
the ability to do that. The only other
[1:45:57] option is either a moratorum which we
cannot I don't think we could legally
[1:46:01] justify here or you remove it and you
can remove it and say
[1:46:06] t 5 10 15 years we'll come back and
decide whether or not it's something we
[1:46:10] should add back in.
>> So in 20 years we could come back and
[1:46:13] have the same discussion and allow for
>> you could come back and have this
[1:46:16] discussion in a year. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Now, I would say that like it's not
[1:46:22] necessarily just in that horizon because
the first approval that we have is five
[1:46:27] stories. I understand.
>> So, um I would say that really the
[1:46:31] reason for that outright allowed us use
is because that's what we heard support
[1:46:34] for.
>> If we had heard support for like ending
[1:46:37] at three stories, that's the information
that would have moved forward. Well, but
[1:46:42] when you did all this public
discussion, did you add a sixth floor to
[1:46:48] those buildings and have them do the
stack ranking that way? Were you already
[1:46:53] considering the variance when you were
doing that or were you doing the two?
[1:46:56] » The variance as as we've previously
described, the variance came at the very
[1:47:00] end. It was not a part of the public
discussion. The public discussion was
[1:47:04] just about like what do you want to see
in Town Center and here are different
[1:47:07] buildings, here are different heights,
like what are you comfortable with? and
[1:47:11] the majority of people landed within
what you see ended up in the plan in
[1:47:15] terms of the range of heights that are
outright allowed in each of the
[1:47:19] subdists. Okay.
>> Um the waiver really was designed for
[1:47:23] shorter,
>> bigger footprint retail specifically.
[1:47:27] That is technically what it was the
discussion as we've shared with you came
[1:47:32] from. It was actually not
>> designed to go up. um that wasn't the
[1:47:38] initial intent of the discussion. How it
got written and especially as we were
[1:47:42] modifying things during public hearings,
which is never great. Um the language
[1:47:48] didn't end up being as specific to the
lowered building height.
[1:47:54] » Yeah.
>> And I do just want to note that I think
[1:47:58] I just to be clear is that when Miranda
says it wasn't part of the public
[1:48:03] discussion, she's talking about the
outreach. This absolutely was part of a
[1:48:06] public process.
>> Yes. Yeah.
[1:48:08] » Yes.
>> It wasn't part of like the workshop to
[1:48:11] talk about a waiver because at that
point we were not at that specific part
[1:48:15] of code, but all of the discussion did
happen during um public meetings.
[1:48:20] » Yeah. But and Miranda's right. If you
look back at those timestamps from the
[1:48:24] planning commission, it it started in
August of 2018 with a particular
[1:48:29] commissioner talking about um being
concerned about proh what we were
[1:48:35] talking about was it was actually about
floor plate and whether it should be
[1:48:39] 30,000 square feet or 40,000 square feet
or 50,000 square feet. And what the
[1:48:44] commissioner was concerned about is once
we put this number down, that's the
[1:48:48] number, right? What happens if we have
this great anchor retail tenant that
[1:48:52] wants to come in, but they only but
they're not going to do 30,000 square
[1:48:57] feet. They need 35,000 square feet. They
need 40,000 square feet. And so that's
[1:49:02] what started the conversation around the
waiver. And as Miranda pointed out,
[1:49:08] really the language the the technical
language was not was written at the kind
[1:49:15] of at the end. And I think that's what
that's why we're I mean that's why we're
[1:49:19] undertaking this process is we recognize
there's um it there's refinement that's
[1:49:25] needed there.
[1:49:29] » Commissioner Candy.
>> Okay. Um so uh I don't know why I
[1:49:35] decided to do this but I did watch the
the task force meeting. Um although I
[1:49:40] watched it after it was done so I could
watch it on one and a half times speed.
[1:49:44] Um,
so I was a little bit disappointed in
[1:49:47] watching it because I felt like some of
the things that we addressed were not
[1:49:52] accurately portrayed to the task force
during the meeting. Um, specifically the
[1:49:56] the discussions we had about maybe
changing the Sher subdist because that
[1:50:00] was explained to us as one of the
reasons why we had to allow for five is
[1:50:04] because we already did. Um, and that
seemed to be just very curs like had a
[1:50:08] cursory discussion but not much. The
second was on kind of this hiatus um
[1:50:15] moratorum piece which again it was kind
of like well you know we just can't do
[1:50:19] that. Um and then there wasn't also much
discussion um from what I saw again at
[1:50:25] one and a half times speed on um
what we talked about even with like
[1:50:31] building down um instead of up. So just
from my perspective I think um
[1:50:37] I think I mean I would recommend one or
two things. One is that um it seems that
[1:50:42] people are either very passionate about
not going up or they're ambivalent. Um I
[1:50:49] personally ambivalent. Like I don't care
if a building's taller. Um but I know a
[1:50:54] lot of people are passionate like they
do not want that at all. And it seems
[1:50:57] like everybody else is just kind of like
whatever. I haven't heard anyone who's
[1:51:01] like we need 10tory buildings or else
this plan's not going to work. So I
[1:51:06] would suggest again to kind of what
Commissioner Carr was saying then if if
[1:51:10] the cases that we either have to allow
waivers or don't allow waiverss then we
[1:51:15] start off without allowing waivers and
see if there is a push in five six seven
[1:51:22] years where there's some developer who's
like hey I really want to come here but
[1:51:25] I have to have that six story for some
reason. Um
[1:51:30] again that's just my thinking on it.
Alternatively, if we are going to allow
[1:51:35] for waiverss, um I think the menu items
are still very uh subjective and they
[1:51:41] need to be very objective so that you
know I mean not to be like
[1:51:48] too silly, but like one of the menu
items was I think um
[1:51:54] uh what was the one like um promoting
environmental stewardship. Like someone
[1:51:58] could be like, "Well, I put out some
pamphlets in the foyer that said like
[1:52:02] here's how you can be a good
environmental steward." And you're like,
[1:52:04] "Well, in theory, someone could say that
met the standard." So, I would like to
[1:52:08] see if we move forward with the
waiverss, um, that those are very
[1:52:12] specific as to what each category means
and what we'd like to see from them. Um,
[1:52:19] I think the fee idea is interesting. Um,
I wonder if
[1:52:27] that would cause some of the same
problems that we're running into with
[1:52:30] the discussion about urban renewal where
there is the discussion that, hey, we
[1:52:35] need to put this infrastructure in place
because the builders aren't going to
[1:52:38] want to pay for it, but we're like, but
if you want to build an extra floor, you
[1:52:43] can pay us more money that we'll put
into this pot. like that that almost
[1:52:46] seems to kind of defeat the purpose of
us saying you need urban renewal to do
[1:52:50] this because if you're going to pay all
this extra money like maybe you could
[1:52:54] use it for for for different things. So
while I think the fee idea is
[1:52:58] interesting I wonder if that would just
have the effect of either look it be
[1:53:04] looked upon by some people as like
paytoplay. So, if a very rich developer
[1:53:07] is like, "Oh, well, sure. I'll chip in a
million bucks." And then someone else
[1:53:11] who's like operating on more of a
shoestring, especially when it comes to
[1:53:14] something like affordable housing, and
they're like, "Well, we can't build up.
[1:53:17] We can't afford to chip in." Um, I think
that that could look problematic, even
[1:53:21] though I I like I don't want to say I
like fees. Um, but in in this instance,
[1:53:28] I I like, you know, the building the the
people who are developing contributing
[1:53:31] to what they're developing to. So those
would just be the couple things that
[1:53:34] that I saw is either we say because of
the passion from some people like let's
[1:53:41] just not do waivers for a while and see
if that works or if we are going to do
[1:53:44] the waivers um I definitely think we
need to have them better defined with
[1:53:48] the menu items. Um, and you know, I I
it's not a I don't it's not one of the
[1:53:55] five options, but again, per my
understanding from our meeting last
[1:53:59] time, the reason why the MU needed to go
up to five stories was because of
[1:54:03] sheries. I would like to see the sheries
moved over to the CMU and then the other
[1:54:08] ones could stay at four stories.
>> So, I'll Okay, I'll answer first off. I
[1:54:12] probably should have clarifi clarified
this with the menu items. The list there
[1:54:15] are categories. they are not what would
be described in code. Um, also though
[1:54:22] you do want to be careful about not
having what we call clear and objective
[1:54:25] standards in discretionary criteria
because then you basically negate the
[1:54:29] ability to have discretion. So while it
it won't say promote environmental
[1:54:34] stewardship, that is the concept of one
of the ideas because right now like one
[1:54:39] of the waiver um one of the menu items
talks about um getting lead certified or
[1:54:45] um earth advantage getting the earth
earth advantage certification and one of
[1:54:48] the things we talked about is basically
under Oregon energy code right now you
[1:54:52] can almost you can basically get it
without with just meeting code. So what
[1:54:56] that for example that category what we
would look at is if that's a category
[1:55:01] people are interested in is going and
finding what are the programs that
[1:55:05] actually require them to do more than
what our building code is and put that
[1:55:10] in as the language. So a certain level
of a certification something like that.
[1:55:16] Um and then I will just say so part of
this also is kind is informed somewhat
[1:55:22] from the task force discussion is
informed also by the council discussion
[1:55:26] that happened on the 18th the day
before. One of the things that we
[1:55:29] discussed with council is
so we are um the prompt from council is
[1:55:36] look at the waiver provision and in
discussing with council about the sherry
[1:55:42] site in particular that will require
other legislative processes that go
[1:55:50] beyond this and also what we talked with
council about is if you think the waiver
[1:55:55] is bad policy the way it's written it
doesn't matter matter that somebody has
[1:55:59] already gotten it then it should be it
should just be changed and council was
[1:56:04] um generally I think supportive of that
of like of and that's why what was
[1:56:09] brought forward to the task force was
should the waiver for building height
[1:56:14] increase just go away um a moratorum is
not a mechanism that can be used and if
[1:56:19] it is at least at this juncture bad you
know something that we don't think that
[1:56:25] the policy makers think is not in the
best interest of the community and for
[1:56:29] town center. Then the decision should be
get rid of the building height increase
[1:56:34] and then kind of like with our
industrial formbbased code have staff
[1:56:38] come back in five years and present on
whether or not it's something that
[1:56:43] should be reconsidered to bring back in.
>> I appreciate the clarification. I think
[1:56:48] that's good.
>> Yeah.
[1:56:51] » Which one would you win first?
>> I don't know. Did I Okay. Um, but I
[1:56:57] appreciate the questions from the the
fellow commissioners and the responses
[1:57:01] and clarifications. I think one of the
things that is
[1:57:05] um, one of the things that commonly
comes up is is whether Wilsonville is
[1:57:10] doing something that is abnormal for a
city like ours. You like when we when we
[1:57:15] when we have a plan that says we can
build buildings up to five stories, are
[1:57:18] we an outlier? Um, I don't think we are.
When I look around at cities like
[1:57:23] Toalatin, Happy Valley, I think Tiger
and Oregon City also these are the
[1:57:28] competi these are the cities that
developers are also looking at to build
[1:57:32] um developments right alongside
Wilsonville. So if Wilsonville is
[1:57:35] looking for a developer to come in and
build um in our town center, we're we're
[1:57:40] competing against other cities like
that. All of those cities have plans on
[1:57:44] the books, if I understand correctly,
that also allow for buildings up to five
[1:57:48] stories or or greater. Um, so I don't
think we're an outlier in this regard. I
[1:57:52] don't think that the core of the plan,
especially in the highest concentration
[1:57:58] zone that we have, is an outlier. Um, I
think we're we're in good company with
[1:58:03] the cities that are around us. It
doesn't mean that we mean mean
[1:58:07] » that I'd like that validated because my
research found that was not the case.
[1:58:11] Three stories was the highest and I
think like us, we had four.
[1:58:15] » Let's look into it. It'd be interesting
because it's just Chris research on my
[1:58:18] part.
>> That does make sense. um and and not
[1:58:20] what exists today. If you go around and
look today at at what what exists in a
[1:58:24] lot of these cities, you're going to see
three and four stories are are common or
[1:58:28] the maximum in some cases. And I think
that's that's where we're at right now.
[1:58:32] But we're looking 20, 30, 40 years in
the future. And I I think it'd be
[1:58:37] interesting to to for staff to help with
this narrative a little bit about is
[1:58:41] Wilsonville doing something that's
abnormal here or is this very much in
[1:58:45] line with how development is headed in
our region. Um and I I think we've heard
[1:58:50] a little bit of it. I think director
Bashel, you've you've um you've said
[1:58:55] this a couple times that where I've
heard that the sweet the sweet spot has
[1:59:00] changed. It used to be a a four over one
was the sweet spot and and it's shifted
[1:59:06] and it'd be interesting to understand
why has it shifted. Is it that those
[1:59:11] developers need to build they're
considering economies of scale and as
[1:59:15] costs go up they need to build bigger in
order for it to make to be worth their
[1:59:19] while? Is it something else? Is there a
different factor at play here? Um, I
[1:59:24] think that would help with with framing
the conversation so that we can
[1:59:28] understand we we as the commission but
also as uh we as the public can
[1:59:33] understand why the building heights were
recommended at the at the at at what
[1:59:37] they are and not just not not solely
based on u maybe the arbitrary public
[1:59:42] input of six or seven years ago. Um is
there something more concrete that we're
[1:59:46] using to to base these building height
targets at? Um, I think that would be
[1:59:52] helpful. Um, but then when it comes to
waiverss, one of the other things I
[1:59:55] think would be helpful for us to
remember is that this is a discretionary
[2:00:00] process. Um, we we're saying the target
is one to four or two to five. And
[2:00:06] that's that's what we're expecting
developers to build here. And if they
[2:00:10] can come to us with a good argument for
why there is exceptional circumstances
[2:00:14] for them to go above that, then we can
consider that and we can we we being the
[2:00:18] city or or um our planning director or
the city council or the ones that are
[2:00:23] making that discretionary call based on
qualitative
[2:00:27] um guidelines, right? So, this isn't
meant to be an objective standard. the
[2:00:32] objective standard is baked into the the
the non-waver process and it's only if
[2:00:37] somebody needs to um through through for
some exceptional circumstances to to to
[2:00:43] increase the height. I think that's
where the waiver process comes into
[2:00:46] play. Is am I understanding that
correctly?
[2:00:47] » Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Um we have our
essentially our objective criteria which
[2:00:52] is the outright allowed building heights
and then the waiver is the discretion.
[2:00:57] And one of the things that um is not
necessarily unique to Wilsonville in its
[2:01:01] waiver process, but we have we have
what's called essentially a better meat
[2:01:05] standard that basically says if you're
asking for a waiver in our discretion,
[2:01:09] we have to determine that you better
meet the policy objectives of whatever
[2:01:14] that that outright allowed uses is
trying to get at that you better meet
[2:01:19] that through your waiver. Which is why
we also call out these menu items to
[2:01:22] say, okay, you not you need to better
meet and also what we want how we want
[2:01:27] you to better meet is by benefit to the
community and mitigating your building
[2:01:32] impact by getting a height waiver
essentially.
[2:01:35] » Yeah. So I I think there's a lot of
opportunity for us to use those menu
[2:01:39] items as as a higher bar for for making
sure that whatever the qualitative
[2:01:44] discretionary decision that goes into
granting or considering a waiver is
[2:01:50] guided by a very high bar for what those
menu items are. um rather than it being
[2:01:55] I I think the the task force I think uh
hit hit on something really valuable
[2:01:59] that if the if the menu items are cheap
then developers will see that as a as a
[2:02:04] loophole to go through if they if
they're trying to abuse the waiver
[2:02:07] process or game it. Um, so can we c can
we protect the waiver process to protect
[2:02:12] the qualitative and discretionary nature
of the waiver process by establishing
[2:02:17] menu items that are reflective of the
high bar that we expect developers to
[2:02:21] meet if they're going to even ask for an
exception.
[2:02:28] » Can I continue on with that? Yeah. And I
think that's why the fee and loo option
[2:02:32] was interesting to me at first and then
I think about that high bar of like,
[2:02:35] okay, what are specific things we want
to see? even if we just say, "Oh, you
[2:02:38] can pay a fee." I don't know if that
really gets at what we're trying to
[2:02:42] achieve. So, that's why, yeah, my my
first reaction was I'm not I'm not so
[2:02:46] sure about the fee and loop for this for
this case. I I I do think where the task
[2:02:52] force landed overall with the option
five seems appropriate. I think the one
[2:02:55] thing that I'm struggling with a little
bit is the there is a section in there
[2:03:00] with the CMU option of so six stories.
It's the waiver or a bonus floor. And
[2:03:06] I'm really struggling realistically with
like in what case would a developer
[2:03:11] choose a bonus floor? Like financially
when does that how are we going to
[2:03:15] incentivize them to choose in my mind is
like affordable housing or an extra
[2:03:22] story based on like meeting those menu
items. And so that part I think is where
[2:03:27] I kind of lean more towards I think
option six in the CMU. It just says only
[2:03:31] bonus floor. So you can only get that
six story, right?
[2:03:34] » Yes. if if it's affordable because if
you give them the option of the waiver
[2:03:40] or the bonus floor,
I don't I don't see why they would
[2:03:43] choose the bonus floor. Um, and maybe
that's a policy discussion for council
[2:03:48] is how much are we really wanting to
push affordable housing opportunities
[2:03:51] because if they really want that as an
opportunity, then I don't think you
[2:03:55] should give uh the the choice. Um, so
that's just something for for additional
[2:04:00] discussion. Um, but I I I'm supportive
overall of that option five. And then
[2:04:08] so just to get into specifics, so
attachment C for the code draft
[2:04:14] language. I'm I'm wondering if there
should be an asterisk. Is that how you
[2:04:19] say it? Asterric a little. Yeah, sure.
Sure. Not quite. Sorry. Um, so on the
[2:04:25] the building story height row, the
maximum, so for CMU it says five, but
[2:04:32] really should that little note say well
it could be six if you meet a certain
[2:04:38] just to note it in that table that's in
there um just for clarity because then
[2:04:42] you you'd have to go in and kind of read
through to understand that like oh
[2:04:46] actually it could be six in certain
situations. So there just might be
[2:04:50] opportunity depending on how
conversations go for clarity on that
[2:04:53] table.
>> Are are you talking specifically about
[2:04:55] the affordable housing bonus floor or
>> just generally for that table when I
[2:05:02] look at it I see like maximum story fee
for CMU says five but it could be six,
[2:05:08] right?
>> Yeah, we do have a note for it that
[2:05:12] » Oh, it just not on the same page. I see.
>> Yeah,
[2:05:16] » thank you. Yeah, I I missed that. So
that let me just read it really quick.
[2:05:21] Yep, that makes sense.
>> And that and that is one of the items
[2:05:24] that we talked I'm again talking about
scope of the project.
[2:05:30] Staff has tried to make it clear
throughout that talking about the bonus
[2:05:34] floor isn't within the waiver. But if
you're truly going to talk about what is
[2:05:40] an what is a building height that may
occur, you have to talk about both. You
[2:05:44] have to talk about the outright allowed
use. You have to talk about the bonus
[2:05:46] floor where it's allowed. and you have
to talk about the waiver. So, it's it
[2:05:51] » it's basically out of full transparency.
And what that did lead to is the task
[2:05:56] force having some discussion around
>> should there be places where it's only
[2:06:02] bonus floor or in places like um some of
the planning uh the staff task force
[2:06:07] members saying, you know, in the
mixeduse area closest to the
[2:06:11] neighborhood mixeduse, you shouldn't get
a bonus floor or the waiver to increase
[2:06:14] building height. Um that was all
discussion that was had around the bonus
[2:06:19] floor in particular.
>> Okay.
[2:06:21] » And I would say like I said that's kind
of an open question still.
[2:06:25] » Okay.
And then shifting kind of to the menu of
[2:06:30] options. So there were a lot of comments
in the task force conversation around
[2:06:36] kind of trying to maintain a small town
feel and the sense that you know the
[2:06:40] higher the buildings go we lose I the
sentiment I get is that the the higher
[2:06:44] the building the more of that small town
feel we we lose and so I'm wondering if
[2:06:49] there's a way in like the menu items to
get really specific about a bar set of
[2:06:54] are there certain design elements or
ways to encourage a small town feel um
[2:07:01] and require that or somehow kind of
incorporate that feedback into the menu
[2:07:05] of options. And I I'm I'm not Yeah, like
I don't know how that would look
[2:07:10] specifically, but
>> like maybe even a different set of menu
[2:07:12] options for the different zones maybe
too to kind of reinforce the the idea
[2:07:18] about like there being a slope.
>> Um if that's something that we we end up
[2:07:22] wanting to go with.
>> Could be. Yep.
[2:07:25] » Yeah. I'm having flashbacks to the
planning commission discussion where it
[2:07:28] was all around how do we make it feel
cozy?
[2:07:30] » Yeah.
>> I don't know how cozy works into a
[2:07:34] development code, but we'll try our
best.
[2:07:35] » Well, and yeah, I mean there are certain
ways like you think about like I don't
[2:07:40] know your little pocket parks or I think
there was conversations about just even
[2:07:44] outdoor seating or covered areas like
certain opportunities to run into people
[2:07:49] and have conversations and know each
other and that's what creates people
[2:07:53] create the small town feel, right? So
the cozy feel. Sorry. Okay, I'm done.
[2:07:58] Um, so yeah, that was just a thought.
And then
[2:08:04] so I guess I'm unclear then
for the conversation around
[2:08:11] the MU East, right? So closer to the
neighborhoods and the fourstory
[2:08:16] conversation. So that's something that's
not within the scope of the work that
[2:08:20] we're doing or is that something that we
can say, "Yeah, we want to talk about
[2:08:23] more later down the line." So we have
got so the the affordable housing bonus
[2:08:28] floor is not part of the waiver
provision that is directed for that
[2:08:32] council directed staff to look at okay
through this process. That being said,
[2:08:37] we staff in our last work session with
council did flag that this bonus floor
[2:08:42] is part of the conversation and um so
we've continued to talk about it. And
[2:08:50] so, um, we flagged for the task force
that it was outside the scope, but also
[2:08:54] wanted the task force feedback because
if the feedback really is, hey, we
[2:08:58] understand it's outside the scope, but
council, we really think you need to
[2:09:01] look at this in conjunction with the
waiver, then that's the feedback we're
[2:09:04] going to tell council. Um and so that's
where the discussion around maybe no inc
[2:09:10] no increases allowed either through a
bonus floor which would change the table
[2:09:16] » um note
>> or the waiver was something that was
[2:09:20] discussed within the task force and so
it's part of the planning commission
[2:09:24] discussion and will be part of the city
council discussion as well.
[2:09:27] » Okay.
[2:09:30] So if people have particular thoughts
about that, I'm happy to report those to
[2:09:34] the council.
>> So what's the what's the purpose or
[2:09:38] definition of a bonus floor?
>> So um
[2:09:45] if I remember right,
so the purpose I mean the purpose is it
[2:09:49] was to promote affordable housing. I
mean that's the purpose behind the bonus
[2:09:53] floor.
>> We're using those two as counterp
[2:09:56] proposals. You're saying you can have a
bonus floor but not or you can do
[2:10:01] variable or affordable housing but not a
bonus floor. So you can't we can't use
[2:10:05] affordable housing as a definition of a
bonus.
[2:10:08] » So in all of the in all of the options
that were presented to the task force,
[2:10:14] the bonus floor is not being removed
because it's not part of the waiver
[2:10:17] provision. What the task floors task and
the bonus floor is only tied to
[2:10:22] providing 25% of affordable housing for
the number of units that would equate to
[2:10:26] that bonus floor. So if the bonus if you
think about a com a residential complex
[2:10:32] that has 12 units on each floor and they
want a bonus floor they can put an
[2:10:36] additional 12 units but four units need
to be affordable housing and those four
[2:10:39] units could be spread they don't
necessarily have to be on the top floor
[2:10:42] they can be spread throughout.
>> So that's how that concept would work.
[2:10:47] Um that is part of the t that's part of
the table for what's outright allowed.
[2:10:53] Um, and then this waiver allows for, you
know, building heights to change um, up
[2:10:58] or down. And so what the t what some of
the task force members talked about was
[2:11:03] discomfort in um, you know, this idea of
if the taller buildings are supposed to
[2:11:08] be closer to I5 and it's supposed to
taper down as you get closer to the
[2:11:12] residential area. does a five-story
building that is five stories because of
[2:11:17] the bonus floor, not because of a
waiver, but is five stories because of a
[2:11:21] bonus floor, like even if we limit the
waiver and don't allow an increase of
[2:11:25] building height um because of the
waiver, there's still the opportunity
[2:11:29] for a five-story building. And is that
something that we want to see that close
[2:11:34] to the residential area? And it was
split. I mean, it was basically four
[2:11:38] were fine with option five leaving in
that bonus floor, three were not, and
[2:11:42] one was undecided. So we didn't have a
majority you know which would be five.
[2:11:47] We didn't have a majority consensus
coming out of the task force about what
[2:11:51] to do with I mean if you just think
about it in number of floors for the
[2:11:56] mixed use area on the eastern side
should it be four should it be or should
[2:12:02] it be five essentially
and four is what's outright allowed
[2:12:08] » and if we say four then we can't be
prescriptive that 25% has to be
[2:12:13] affordable housing.
>> Correct. That's what's outright allowed
[2:12:17] right now regardless of affordable
housing.
[2:12:19] » So the the two to four that's outright
allowed has nothing to do with afford
[2:12:22] has no clause for affordable housing.
Okay.
[2:12:24] » Correct.
>> And are we allowed to require more
[2:12:26] affordable housing to get the bonus
level?
[2:12:29] » If that is feedback that planning
commission would like me to take to
[2:12:32] council. I can take that.
>> I mean because it seems kind of I don't
[2:12:34] know. It seems almost like a cheap out
again if you're like well if there's 12
[2:12:38] 12 oh now on this one you get eight full
rent and you get four. I mean that's
[2:12:43] kind of
>> it. That doesn't really seem fair to me
[2:12:46] to be like I would say like the whole
floor would have to be like affordable
[2:12:50] and then you're like okay cool like you
can have an extra floor. I mean
[2:12:54] » maybe they wouldn't want to do the whole
floor but like
[2:12:56] » you I would see it should be more
>> 12 out of 48 units would be
[2:13:01] » as opposed to just four out of 48. When
again coming back to that idea of like
[2:13:06] let's let's make sure that the bar is
high for like for people that want to
[2:13:10] exceed what our vision is. Um they need
to be they need to meet a very high bar
[2:13:15] and it may and it is meant to discourage
people from just
[2:13:20] on a whim wanting to exceed the the the
vision that we set.
[2:13:24] » Yeah. I mean I guess that was my point
on the waiver items, right? Is if
[2:13:26] they're not more prescriptive, then that
can set the bar pretty low and people
[2:13:30] can try to find loopholes. Same thing
with the the housing affordable housing
[2:13:34] bonus floor is like if it's only four
units. I I would assume most developers
[2:13:39] would want to do it because they're
getting eight more. You get an extra
[2:13:42] floor, you get an extra, you know, you
get an extra 2/3 um to rent out, but so
[2:13:47] I would like to see that to be higher if
it's something we consider. Um
[2:13:52] and then yeah,
[2:14:00] » that's okay. I have all sorts of
thoughts running in my head.
[2:14:03] » Yeah.
>> Nothing I put words to you.
[2:14:05] » I mean, just in that the the phrasing of
the question of it's it's kind of a
[2:14:09] choice of four or five for the the east
area. In my mind, it's still the policy
[2:14:16] question of like how much do we want to
push affordable housing or not? Like
[2:14:20] that is kind of the direction I would
want from council is if you're really
[2:14:25] passionate about getting more affordable
housing, you would allow for this bonus
[2:14:30] floor. So the five story option. Um and
if you're not, then
[2:14:35] it's then it would be four. That that's
how my mind's working right now.
[2:14:38] » But then would you make it 25% of the
total building? Well, and this this goes
[2:14:42] back to the question earlier that I
mentioned of like if they have options,
[2:14:46] I I feel like and I I don't know all of
the
[2:14:51] financials around this, but I imagine
the reason that we would offer the
[2:14:55] option of a waiver or bonus floor for
the other area is because like the
[2:14:59] affordable housing probably doesn't make
a lot of sense financially for these
[2:15:01] folks. So if it's a smaller barrier just
to get at least four more affordable
[2:15:07] housing, I would rather have that than
none, right? So but I don't know I don't
[2:15:13] know what the demand or I I guess I'd
need more information on like what that
[2:15:19] looks like. Um
>> yeah, I mean I think they would still be
[2:15:23] able to qualify for like some of the tax
incentives even if they were going up to
[2:15:27] going up to four stories, right? like
just
[2:15:30] » or I meant like four units or whatever
we were talking about for the Yeah.
[2:15:34] » But if you know we said there were just
no bonus if we suggested that there were
[2:15:37] no bonus floors like that doesn't mean
that there wouldn't be affordable
[2:15:41] housing. Um if right because there's
still a lot of tax incentives for
[2:15:46] affordable housing to be built. It would
just mean that it wouldn't go above
[2:15:50] » four levels in certain areas. Um,
>> yeah. I just I question how much
[2:15:57] incentive there is generally.
>> Yeah.
[2:16:03] » Yeah. And I and I think balancing that
against the the like the apparent will
[2:16:08] of the the people of Wilville, too. Like
there's the the incentive for the
[2:16:13] developers to come in and build and
there and and we want to get affordable
[2:16:16] housing, but we also have a very loud
group of of of the population. um a
[2:16:22] substantial group of the population that
seems to be really
[2:16:26] uh strongly opinionated as councelor
Gandrian said that's that's like a lot
[2:16:31] of people seem to be kind of like me
ambivalent
[2:16:33] » either ambivalent or passionate about
not going too high right like I don't I
[2:16:37] mean I I could be wrong but I don't
think anyone is like super passionate
[2:16:41] about like we have to go higher um so
that's kind of like I said
[2:16:45] » you know to me if if someone wanted to
come build like the Burj Khalifa
[2:16:49] Wilsonville
and it and they were going to finance
[2:16:53] it, I'd be like, I mean, cool, I guess.
Um, but I'm probably in the minority on
[2:16:58] that opinion. Um, it just seems to me
most people are like either ambivalent
[2:17:02] or against going too high. So, if that's
the case, like we have a lot of options
[2:17:06] to make most people somewhat happy,
right? Because the ambivalent people are
[2:17:11] just be like, "Oh, whatever." Like, but
the people who are very passionate are
[2:17:14] going to be like, "Oh,
thank you." like we get that extra like
[2:17:18] you know 10 minutes of sunshine because
of how the rays will hit or something.
[2:17:24] » Yeah. And I and I would say um
if anything at least um from some of the
[2:17:31] task force members how they talked about
it was not necessarily that about height
[2:17:35] but around flexibility.
That being said, I go back to the point
[2:17:39] about where this arose where this whole
language even arose from from the prior
[2:17:44] planning commission was around um
flexibility for anchor retail tenants
[2:17:51] was how that discussion started back
then. That's not to say it can't be
[2:17:55] different than that. Um but that's
really where I mean if you think about
[2:17:59] where this originated from was from that
flexibility discussion around anchor
[2:18:02] retail tenants. And then I would suggest
if that was kind of the genesis of this
[2:18:06] is to have the flexibility to have a
larger footprint
[2:18:11] if needed, right, for a specific waiver
for specific reasons as opposed to going
[2:18:15] up. like if you want to go out, if that
was the genesis, then that seems like
[2:18:20] that makes more people happy or less
upset than well, if you're going to go
[2:18:25] out, you have to also be able to let
them go up. Like
[2:18:34] I I
want to make sure we're clear because I
[2:18:38] think I heard Amanda earlier say we
wouldn't allow
[2:18:43] out and up together.
Um, so that is not a consideration. I
[2:18:49] think that that probably the discussion
point we're talking about is that when
[2:18:53] we put in um building footprint or
height could you could get a waiver for
[2:19:00] that. The idea was to be able to go out
shorter and wider. We just failed at
[2:19:05] saying you could get a height waiver to
reduce because I we didn't really
[2:19:11] anticipate the situation of somebody
asking for a height waiver to go taller
[2:19:17] at the time that it was written.
>> But you but the what's proposed is not
[2:19:24] out and up together. Correct.
>> I just want to make sure that was clear.
[2:19:29] » Yeah. No, I just meant that like if the
original genesis of this was that people
[2:19:32] could go out and then because of how it
was written, you could go out or up, but
[2:19:38] really the point was that you could go
out. Then maybe
[2:19:42] » we allow
>> not having up waiverss.
[2:19:45] » We allow out but not up.
>> Yeah. We would allow out but not up and
[2:19:49] then it can be revisited if in five,
six, seven years, you know,
[2:19:54] » and allowed down then.
>> Yeah.
[2:19:56] » Yes.
>> Yeah.
[2:19:59] So option seven
is option six but limit the CM to five
[2:20:07] limit the MU.
>> I feel like I I don't know if everyone
[2:20:10] has expressed what their thoughts are in
terms of
[2:20:15] » I was just stating another option.
>> Yeah. So what what you're saying is
[2:20:18] option seven is essentially the
conversation that was had around
[2:20:23] eliminating building. So the discussion
that once the task force got to its
[2:20:27] preferred alternative they then
discussed eliminate the building height
[2:20:30] waiver to increase height not eliminate
it alto together. Your option seven is
[2:20:35] » yes that's my option seven. Yes.
>> Yes.
[2:20:37] » And this was their vote.
>> Yes. It was it was 62. But again that's
[2:20:42] that's to inform the planning commission
you know about
[2:20:46] about how you want to then inform
council. So,
[2:20:51] » does everybody want to kind of state
what their recommendation is?
[2:20:56] » Well, and just for clarification, just
to be super clear, that vote was saying
[2:21:00] that of the task force participants,
six, it was a 6 to2 vote in favor of
[2:21:04] keeping a waiver for increasing. Okay.
>> Correct. That where there was not a
[2:21:11] clear consensus. So, option five was the
consensus. Um
[2:21:16] what was not a consensus was whether or
not in mixed use east should there be no
[2:21:25] ability to increase building height. Um
but option five was the preferred over
[2:21:31] eliminating the the ability to increase
building height altogether.
[2:21:35] » Yeah. Thank you.
>> Which option seven would be option five
[2:21:39] but limit the ability to up. Yes. Yes.
[2:21:50] If if it helps maybe where we start is
kind of how we started with the task
[2:21:54] force of do people have a preference if
you had to choose between we'll save
[2:22:00] option seven if you had to choose
between two five and six is there a
[2:22:05] consensus around preference on that or
and it doesn't even have to be a
[2:22:10] consensus I can literally report to
council one person like this one, one
[2:22:14] person like this one, so on and so
forth.
[2:22:18] » Yeah, I don't know if we're going to
have consensus,
[2:22:21] » but that's okay.
>> But that's what I was saying. I was
[2:22:23] maybe we do, you know, kind of I'll
state what
[2:22:27] » I I recommend.
>> I do I like option five of these four
[2:22:31] options presented. I like option five.
>> Yeah, I agree.
[2:22:35] » But I like option seven better.
>> We'll get to that one.
[2:22:39] » We'll get there. Um yeah, I guess I
think
[2:22:44] well I guess actually I would prefer
option six
[2:22:48] um just because I don't think the waiver
uh up to six stories. Um I I think if
[2:22:55] we're going to have it larger, there
should be some community benefit and I
[2:22:57] think that the the um affordable housing
would be um something that would be a
[2:23:03] good community benefit. Um, so I guess I
would go with option six, but I'm also
[2:23:09] with Commissioner Carr in that I feel
the community is more pushing towards an
[2:23:14] option seven. Um, and so I guess I would
lean towards that.
[2:23:21] Yeah. I mean, the only reason I lean
more toward five because I I see what
[2:23:24] you mean and I I really agree with the
sentiment there. The the only reason I
[2:23:27] tend to lean more toward five is um
well, I guess there's two. one is that
[2:23:32] they seem to be the one that was a
little bit more favored in the task
[2:23:34] force. But the main main one personally
why I'd lean more toward that is just
[2:23:38] the flexibility that it affords. Um be
because we don't know what's going to
[2:23:42] come down the pipe five or 10 or 15
years from now. Um allowing for that
[2:23:47] waiver in in the CMU gives us a little
bit more flexibility and it's still a
[2:23:53] discretionary process. So we have to we
have to trust that the bar is high
[2:23:56] enough and and and will be respected.
Um, but I think that flexibility gives
[2:24:01] us it leaves the door open for us to be
able to accept more options when it
[2:24:06] comes to developers.
[2:24:09] » I would agree. I would agree with that.
And then I'm also thinking almost
[2:24:13] reversely of we can start with these
option option five, the waiver or the
[2:24:17] bonus floor, but if it's really if the
waiver is not panning out the way that
[2:24:22] we had intended it to, then it's like,
well, maybe we need to re reevaluate if
[2:24:26] we need to remove the waiver or not,
right? And I think yours was kind of the
[2:24:30] the opposite of like don't start with
the waiver um and then we can evaluate
[2:24:34] and see if we need it later, right? Is
that what you were suggesting?
[2:24:36] » Well, yeah, because I think right if
like using kind of Sherry's almost as an
[2:24:40] example,
>> one of the reasons we said we have to go
[2:24:43] to five now is because we already kind
of like let a building go to five. And
[2:24:46] so if we're saying so, you know, so say
someone comes in, they build a six-story
[2:24:50] building and for whatever reason like
there's like pitchforks in the streets
[2:24:55] and like riots because that was like the
worst thing ever. But now we've already
[2:24:59] allowed a six floor sixf flooror
sixstory building to be built, right? So
[2:25:05] then it's hard to put the genie kind of
back in the box there. I see what you're
[2:25:08] saying
>> where
[2:25:10] I'm kind of saying okay it sound again
my personal opinion aside on how tall
[2:25:15] the building should be. Um, if we say,
well, let's see what happens over the
[2:25:20] next five, six, seven years. Is four
stories, maybe a fifth working for
[2:25:26] people, are we getting development?
Like, are we having people come in?
[2:25:29] Like, we have all these projects lined
up. Then maybe it's almost like a moot
[2:25:32] point, right? But if like people are
like, hey, it just does not work at all
[2:25:36] unless I have six floors, you know, then
maybe we can revisit that. But I think
[2:25:41] if we allow it to start, then you're
kind of setting the precedent that like,
[2:25:45] hey, you know, we already let people do
it at this height. So then you're going
[2:25:49] to kind of have a harder time saying
>> we're not going to let anyone else. And
[2:25:52] then you have like this one albatross
building, you know, the white whale of
[2:25:56] Wilsonville.
>> Well, except for to to the point earlier
[2:26:01] from Amanda, I think we can always take
the waiver away. Just because there is a
[2:26:05] building that that has met some previous
standard doesn't mean we always have to
[2:26:09] have that standard. Um I think that
where I where I would agree with you
[2:26:14] though is that once a building is built,
it's built and it's there. And so um it
[2:26:18] might disrupt the if we do decide in the
future to say actually we want our
[2:26:22] building heights to be lower and we've
already got a six-story building, then
[2:26:25] now we've got a unicorn and it's it
changes the feel of the whole area. So
[2:26:31] um yeah, we we we commit to it once we
get a building built. That's cement in
[2:26:35] the ground that's not going to go away
for a long time.
[2:26:37] » But that also gets to your point is what
are the surrounding city what are what's
[2:26:41] our competition allowing
>> so to speak.
[2:26:44] » Yeah.
>> Right. What are the what are the cities
[2:26:46] around us allowing as far as because if
you drive down the I5 corridor, right?
[2:26:51] The tallest buildings you're going to
see is four.
[2:26:54] » I don't see any five story until you
start getting into downtown. Right. But
[2:26:58] all along the corridor there's there's
nothing. I mean, I I work in a building
[2:27:03] that's right by I5. It's a four-story
building. It's in Lake Lake Grove, Lake
[2:27:07] Asiggo.
>> Mhm. For Yeah.
[2:27:10] » Looks just like Metroraphics building or
CEO's building.
[2:27:13] » And Yeah. And I think um I think that's
where
[2:27:18] I think it's good to be aware of kind of
what what what are the surrounding
[2:27:22] cities like us? Um what are what do they
have planned? What are they doing? what
[2:27:28] is the what does the landscape look like
if we're trying to attract development?
[2:27:31] How what are we competing against um so
to speak? That's probably not quite the
[2:27:35] right language to use in planning
circles. But um but then also there's we
[2:27:41] also don't want to go too far down that
road. Like we don't want to compromise
[2:27:45] we we don't want to compromise our
values as a city in order to win
[2:27:48] development at at all cost. So there is
a there is a threshold that we need to
[2:27:52] establish and respect as far as and I
think that's kind of the what's
[2:27:56] communicated a lot of times in the
sentiment of like the the Wilsonville
[2:27:59] feel or the the feel of the city. Um
there's a balance between the two
[2:28:04] because we we we we need to anticipate
growth. We need to attract the kind of
[2:28:10] growth that we want. We also need to
kind of the whole purpose of a plan is
[2:28:14] to put shape around it so that we can
guide what kind of development comes in.
[2:28:18] Um but if we put too much shape around
it then the developers will go somewhere
[2:28:22] easier. Um if we say you can't build two
stories or you can't build above two or
[2:28:27] three or four stories but it's not
economically viable to build anything
[2:28:31] lower than five then we get no
developers unless we change our our
[2:28:35] format drastically
um as I understand it. So I think just
[2:28:40] the that I think the idea of option five
and option six that both of them are
[2:28:45] appealing to me even if I'm leaning a
little bit more toward option five or
[2:28:48] option seven maybe eventually um is just
the flexibility it gives us a little it
[2:28:54] leaves the door a little bit more open
for us to be able to navigate what may
[2:28:58] be a really shifting environment over
the next decade or more
[2:29:05] » since it's come up uh quite a bit I
would like to address for the commission
[2:29:10] that
Wilsonville's plan was really guided by
[2:29:14] Wilsonville. And so I think it is
important to some degree to acknowledge
[2:29:19] that to acknowledge our neighbors, but
maybe also not put too much weight on
[2:29:24] our neighbors because Wilsonville is
Wilsonville. And if there's one thing
[2:29:27] I've learned being here, Wilsonville is
Wilsonville and we don't compromise our
[2:29:30] way related to what our neighbors are
necessarily doing. That being said, we
[2:29:35] do want to be cognizant of it and
understand it for the very reasons that
[2:29:40] you all are talking about it. I can
offer a few things. You know, I haven't
[2:29:44] been um studying up on my neighbors
exclusively. I've been pretty busy here.
[2:29:49] Uh but I can say like I'm pretty sure
the Tiger Triangle um has and maybe
[2:29:56] somebody else in the room can help me,
but um I believe the height limit there
[2:30:00] is like 75 ft. um so allows six and
sevenstory buildings and is planning for
[2:30:06] that. Um I know that Beaverton I believe
that down in there like the round in
[2:30:12] downtown also allows fivetory buildings.
Um I can't remember if the building
[2:30:17] that's in the round is four or five but
it's around the same height as the
[2:30:21] buildings that we're talking about in
our town center. Um, you know, Lake
[2:30:24] Owiggo, I don't know the limit, but I
know that the buildings right now that
[2:30:28] were redeveloped were four stories, but
I think it's also four stories over a
[2:30:32] parking garage. So, the height there
might be a little bit taller um than a
[2:30:36] standard fourstory. So, I think from my
perspective, a lot of what we're doing
[2:30:41] and planning for is consistent with the
types of plans that we're think seeing
[2:30:45] throughout the region. Um, Hillsboro uh
definitely allows fivetory buildings.
[2:30:50] They may even allow taller um in certain
areas including their downtown and I
[2:30:56] believe Amber Glenn might even allow up
to seven or eight um which is another
[2:31:01] town center area of theirs. So um
Gresham I don't remember but it probably
[2:31:07] also is around five stories. So kind of
what we're doing here in terms of our
[2:31:11] town center is comparable to other town
centers in the region. Um but also a lot
[2:31:16] of what's in the plan is unique to what
we heard from this community which I
[2:31:20] also think is valuable. The other thing
too that I would note um and um I think
[2:31:25] this is I think this is understood is
there there's a difference between what
[2:31:29] is already been built and may have been
built many years ago when the economics
[2:31:34] were different versus what is allowed or
what has been I mean we
[2:31:38] » if you look at I mean like if you drove
around town center right now you'd think
[2:31:42] we don't allow anything over two story
maybe three stories right
[2:31:45] » but we do and so it's that built
environment versus what is on the books
[2:31:51] And the other thing that um what was the
other thing that I was going to note,
[2:31:57] if I remember it, I'll say it.
>> It's it's already 8:30, so my brain's a
[2:32:02] little fried. So,
[2:32:06] » okay.
>> Did you want to say something else?
[2:32:09] Okay.
>> Well, I So, okay. I have three
[2:32:12] commissioners at least on the option.
And Commissioner Hendricks, you
[2:32:15] previously you went back and forth
between five and six. So I'm wondering
[2:32:18] if you
>> I'm still I'm still in the middle there.
[2:32:21] » Okay. Middle of five and six,
>> which is not helpful. I um
[2:32:26] » is maybe this is helpful. Uh Chair
Seanova, are you a firm option two
[2:32:31] person?
>> Can I at least tell council we've
[2:32:35] narrowed it down to maybe five and six
or are you a
[2:32:38] » You can say that. I would um I I I don't
have a strong preference between five
[2:32:43] and six, but a part of me does want to
keep the waiver for going down, but stop
[2:32:49] the waiver from going up until we get
more defined criteria on what that
[2:32:55] waiver criteria is that needs to be met
to set those high standards. I think
[2:33:00] everybody's in like the renderings
showed you know two three story
[2:33:04] buildings the coziness and then
everybody with the with these waiverss
[2:33:09] are envisioning all these sixstory
buildings popping up everywhere and and
[2:33:13] where do you you know draw that line and
then on on the mixeduse east like in
[2:33:19] Vibal we already have I think some
fourstory buildings going up right now
[2:33:23] and it I drove by it today just to
specifically see how that feels and and
[2:33:27] it's a lot that little area all of a
sudden becomes comes really closed in
[2:33:31] and like one more story and you like the
sky falls out of your peripheral vision.
[2:33:38] Um, so that's that ambiance that feeling
really gets impacted if you're
[2:33:43] surrounded by anything above four
stories.
[2:33:47] » So
>> I would note Oh, go ahead. just um for
[2:33:50] folks to know that with the waiver,
I can't remember if it's with the waiver
[2:33:55] or if it's four stories and above um
there's a required step back. Um and
[2:34:00] that's an important design aspect from
an urban design element in order to help
[2:34:06] that light and air to still be able to
perminate permeate an area. So, for
[2:34:10] example, the um Sherry's building would
have required a step back. I think it
[2:34:15] was either between floors three and four
or between four and five. Um, they ended
[2:34:20] up opting to do it lower on the first
between the first and second floor,
[2:34:24] which actually is even better. Um, and
so I just wanted to kind of provide that
[2:34:29] information that where we do even call
for some of our taller buildings, there
[2:34:34] is a requirement for a step back in
order to help offset some of that
[2:34:39] height.
>> So, can you go through
[2:34:46] examples maybe of the difference between
five and six.
[2:34:49] » So the main the main difference between
five and six is on the CMU. So on the um
[2:34:55] in the CMU for option five, it can go up
to six stories either through a waiver
[2:35:00] or through that bonus floor that's
allowed for affordable housing. In
[2:35:03] option six, it can CMU can only go to
six stories can get that additional
[2:35:08] floor through for affordable housing. It
can't get the waiver to go up
[2:35:14] » and the waiver you
>> for the CMU.
[2:35:16] » So the waiver would apply the items
>> the menu item.
[2:35:20] » Correct.
>> The menu items.
[2:35:21] » Correct.
>> Yes.
[2:35:22] » The option six would not allow for any
of the menu items. It would only allow
[2:35:27] it for affordable housing
>> for for CMU.
[2:35:31] » Right. And then the other uh MU West and
MU East are the same for option five.
[2:35:36] » Between option five and six, they're the
same. So the the main discussion or the
[2:35:40] main so option six was developed by
staff after we developed option five. So
[2:35:45] option five arose out of the task force
discussion and then as we were talking
[2:35:49] about the this discussion okay we what
was coming out of it is option five
[2:35:54] allows for six stories potentially in
CMU that's the area closest to I5 either
[2:35:59] through a waiver or bonus floor. And so
one of the things that we talked about
[2:36:02] as an additional because you know we
just love providing options as an
[2:36:06] additional consideration is well
everywhere else the max is five stories.
[2:36:12] So then um what we talked about was
maybe what we offer is essentially the
[2:36:18] max will be everywhere
five stories and the only exception
[2:36:23] would be if you're providing affordable
housing
[2:36:25] » in CMU
>> in CMU where it could go up to six. So
[2:36:30] that's option six is a more is more
restrictive than option five because of
[2:36:35] the CMU. Otherwise it's all the same. Um
yeah that's
[2:36:42] » and even then even within CMU you can't
do that right next to I5 if I understand
[2:36:48] correctly. Right. I thought it had to be
I thought it had to be right next to I5.
[2:36:51] » It's on the close side of I5. Correct.
>> But that was something I think needs to
[2:36:55] be defined, right? Is what because it
says adjacent to I5 and I think adjacent
[2:36:59] was never defined as to what we were
describing as there.
[2:37:02] » Yeah.
>> Yeah.
[2:37:04] » It's a pretty narrow strip that allows
that they would ever allow for a sixth
[2:37:09] floor even even with all these
restrictions. So that definition I'm
[2:37:13] probably more on option six than five
>> but more so option seven.
[2:37:20] » Okay. So I think I have good enough
notes to talk about the options with
[2:37:25] council. So may from planning commission
and um to be respectful of time let's
[2:37:30] get to the option seven eliminating the
waiver to increase. Um again you're not
[2:37:37] making a your recommendation now. This
is feedback and generally I think what I
[2:37:42] would say is if you think that this is a
worthwhile discussion um about
[2:37:47] eliminating the waiver to increase if
you think that's a worthwhile discussion
[2:37:51] that should go to council that is
feedback that we can give them is that
[2:37:56] however many of either a consensus or
however many of the planning commission
[2:38:00] at least felt like this is this option
of looking at eliminating the waiver to
[2:38:05] increase building height altogether um
should be further explored.
[2:38:09] My dot number one is seven. My dot
number two is six.
[2:38:14] » Okay.
>> And I'll concur from from the standpoint
[2:38:19] of I think that's the most likely option
to get the public support needed
[2:38:24] » to get it funded. Um again because I I
just feel like the passions on the lower
[2:38:29] side outweigh
I haven't seen any passion for the high
[2:38:34] side
>> for the high. Yeah. We we have
[2:38:38] » so I would go same seven and then six.
>> I I think there's a there is a lot of
[2:38:42] passion for for lower building heights.
I I do think there is passion in the
[2:38:46] community for higher building heights
but they're rather quiet lately and for
[2:38:50] whatever reason. So um but I think
regardless I think that it's worth
[2:38:56] respecting where the people who are
being very vocal right now and and the
[2:39:01] sentiment that seems to be pervasive in
the community. I think it's very
[2:39:04] important to recognize that and respect
it. And so for that reason, I I would
[2:39:08] totally agree with you. Um
>> yeah, just
[2:39:13] » does that mean you would prefer
>> Sorry. Does that mean you would I just
[2:39:17] want to make sure we're clear for our
recommendation. Are you preferring um
[2:39:21] that the height be removed altogether?
That would be your first choice and then
[2:39:26] option five would be your second choice
or the reverse?
[2:39:32] I guess I'm a little bit confused about
what the task force is saying on this
[2:39:37] slide still because it feels like what
this slide is saying is that when you
[2:39:41] ask the task force if they want to
remove the ability to increase,
[2:39:45] » they said no. Correct.
>> There's a 6 to2 vote saying we should
[2:39:48] keep the ability to increase.
>> So I would not I wouldn't go against the
[2:39:52] task force on that. I think that that
and so that would that would be more in
[2:39:55] support of five, right?
>> Correct.
[2:39:57] » If I'm understanding that correctly. So
I'm I' I'd remain more aligned with
[2:40:00] five.
So, and and I don't want to put words in
[2:40:04] your mouth, so I want to make sure that
I'm being accurate in how I talked to
[2:40:07] council on Monday. Is um more supportive
of option five
[2:40:13] open to consideration of the option
seven that we're talking about?
[2:40:17] » Yeah. Recognizing that maybe option
seven wasn't uh offered as a as um as an
[2:40:24] explicit option to task force, but it
seemed to be reflected in their notes,
[2:40:28] right? Is that what I'm hearing? This
item was specifically discussed.
[2:40:32] » That was specifically discussed.
>> We didn't call it an option.
[2:40:35] » We didn't call it option seven, but we
specifically asked, do you want
[2:40:40] » if if there was an option cuz that
wasn't the option that we were given
[2:40:44] really from council, the direction
originally given to council, but we
[2:40:47] heard some people saying, I don't want
any height increase. So essentially we
[2:40:52] specifically asked them to go through
that the option voting but then after
[2:40:57] that said would you rather have an
option where there's we eliminate the
[2:41:04] waiver altogether to increase building
height or stick with the option you
[2:41:09] voted for essentially options one
through six
[2:41:13] » and they said we would six of them said
I would stick to my top choice in the
[2:41:19] options one through
and two of them said, "I would rather
[2:41:23] have us get rid of the waiver to
increase."
[2:41:26] » Yeah.
>> They didn't call it option seven, but
[2:41:30] Commissioner Carr has kind of coined it
option seven. I mean, it wouldn't be
[2:41:34] forever. words until we define the
waiver criteria like we like and maybe
[2:41:41] do what what is the I don't know if I'm
assuming there's going to be a study for
[2:41:45] each of these buildings that get get
approved as to what the impact is to the
[2:41:48] community services you know all the
things that are the citizens are
[2:41:52] concerned about like is it going to put
a strain on the police the fire the
[2:41:56] school whatever and and how is that
going to be mitigated like like putting
[2:42:01] more um defined criteria on on the
waiver and the study of of the approval
[2:42:05] of each building.
>> I mean, my understanding is that um we
[2:42:09] would be updating the waiver menu during
this process,
[2:42:13] » not at a later date.
>> Yeah. So, the direction So, two items
[2:42:18] that really weren't contemplated, well,
several items weren't really
[2:42:21] contemplated when we started all of
this. one was looking at the menu items
[2:42:25] that that I mean it's part of the waiver
language but originally when we were
[2:42:29] talking with council about this the wa
the menu items weren't something we were
[2:42:33] discussing that arose out of the task
force planning commission said yes we
[2:42:38] want that looked at council said yes we
want that looked at so that has now been
[2:42:42] incorporated into this project even
though it initially wasn't and refined
[2:42:46] language would come before you um if the
waiver I mean we're well the waiver will
[2:42:51] stay in place it I mean the waiver is
going to stay in place in some capacity
[2:42:54] at least to go down and out. So those
menu items will be refined
[2:42:59] » as part of this process.
>> And then the bonus floor also got
[2:43:03] incorporated. And then this discussion
about eliminating the increase
[2:43:07] altogether came out of the council work
session on May 18th that they wanted the
[2:43:14] um task force to weigh in on that
question. What we did do, what we talked
[2:43:18] with council about and this is why we
did the process of choose your preferred
[2:43:22] alternative and then do the elimination
discussion is because if ultimately the
[2:43:29] decision is eliminate the building
height increase and then 3 years, 5
[2:43:34] years staff comes back and says actually
this waiver is needed then we have a
[2:43:40] preferred alternative already documented
as a recommendation from the task force.
[2:43:45] » Yeah. Um and so that was the impetus
behind behind why we had them go through
[2:43:50] the exercise of the 2356 and then say
okay now that we have that how does that
[2:43:55] compare to an elimination of the
increase altogether.
[2:44:00] And essentially that's what we're doing
with you all now too is is is that same
[2:44:04] discussion because then we have that
documented for the record
[2:44:08] » if ultimately the decision is to get rid
of the increase that we have that for
[2:44:12] the record if we ever come back to it.
So my my obser I guess what I'm trying
[2:44:18] to reconcile is the notes on the dots
for option five and six were
[2:44:23] specifically saying that they that they
would want to remove any any increase
[2:44:27] allowances for east for MU East.
>> Yeah.
[2:44:30] » But then later they were asked would you
would you be in favor of removing the
[2:44:34] waiver altogether across the board or
having a preferred alternative
[2:44:38] » and so they weren't really given like an
am I correct in understanding
[2:44:42] » 78?
>> Yeah. Is there seven and a half or eight
[2:44:46] » or would seven just be like let's let's
acknowledge the the notes that we heard
[2:44:51] and say like let let's remove the
building waiver alto together and the
[2:44:54] building and and in the building
allowances altogether for MU East but
[2:44:59] keep them for
>> well the waiver up.
[2:45:01] » Yeah.
>> Yeah. The waiver up. Yeah.
[2:45:03] » So that was um to your Yes, you are
absolutely correct that there was not a
[2:45:08] consensus one way or another around
around that discussion from the task
[2:45:12] force. they did not um come to a
consensus around that. Um so that is
[2:45:19] what so the um so of the three people
who made that note two of the three are
[2:45:24] the no are the are the two in the six
to2.
[2:45:28] » So one of the people um voted for option
five over the elimination of the waiver.
[2:45:34] That is also the same person who put
option five as their number one but with
[2:45:38] the note. So, the two people who voted
no were the two people who put option
[2:45:42] two as their number one.
>> So,
[2:45:44] » gotcha.
>> Um,
[2:45:46] » were those the task force people that
were in the public for our discussion?
[2:45:51] Because I believe there were either two
or three task force people here that
[2:45:55] spoke on the topic and told us they only
want four floors.
[2:46:00] » Yes.
[2:46:04] » Do you have recommendations from
everybody?
[2:46:07] » I think I have Well, okay. So, the only
thing is about option seven. I think I
[2:46:10] still need to hear I I think I still
need to hear Well, Chair Seanova, I
[2:46:15] think you're I'd like to hear from both
Chair Seanova and Commissioner Hendricks
[2:46:20] where you two land between
>> eliminating the waiver to increase
[2:46:24] altogether versus
option five, option six.
[2:46:30] » First, go ahead. I I think where I'm
leaning is towards where the the task
[2:46:36] force votes kind of landed, which is
would which would not be option seven,
[2:46:42] right? So because that would eliminate
the waiver. Sorry, my brain's getting
[2:46:45] foggy now because it's getting a little
later. Um so so yeah, I I would prefer
[2:46:51] to kind of lean where the the task force
landed. How however I think it's worth
[2:46:57] the council disc like what I'm hearing
here. That's I think it's worth for
[2:47:01] council to discuss. I think that makes
sense. Um
[2:47:04] » yeah, obviously it's not clear, right?
Like there's no consensus. Like
[2:47:08] everyone's kind of like
>> So that's where that's why council makes
[2:47:11] the big bucks,
>> right?
[2:47:16] » Those dinners at the council meeting
[2:47:21] » and chair, where where are you?
>> I'm leaning more towards
[2:47:26] option seven.
for reasons stated, but if it the goal
[2:47:32] is more affordable h is like what are
the priorities? If it is more affordable
[2:47:36] housing for the council, then that's
going to have higher weight. So, you're
[2:47:40] going to have to go through, you know,
value mapping in a way. uh they should
[2:47:46] as to like what is the higher priority,
but I I do worry about having these
[2:47:50] waiverss and then having a town that
doesn't feel like Wilsonville and being
[2:47:55] different from what we see in renderings
versus what ends up being built and
[2:48:09] » cozy.
>> Okay,
[2:48:10] » cozy. I was on the cozy. Um, I feel like
I have good guidance for our discussion
[2:48:17] with council on Monday. Um, and I'm also
very aware we are well beyond the time
[2:48:23] that was allocated for this discussion
item. Um, but I'm happy if there's any
[2:48:27] other feedback that um, planning
commission wants to make sure is
[2:48:30] conveyed to city council. I'm happy to
take any final I think we got I think we
[2:48:35] got through all the questions that were
the prompts. So,
[2:48:39] » I think the the menu items I'm a little
still a little
[2:48:43] » so concerned with going with Rob about
the
[2:48:48] » they're not prescriptive enough, but
they're designed not to be prescriptive.
[2:48:52] So, that's a little hard for me to say
these are valid menu items when I don't
[2:48:58] know what the menu items really mean.
It's like
[2:49:00] » here's a big bucket.
>> Do you like this? Do you like the red
[2:49:03] bucket or the yellow bucket? Well, I
don't know what's in them, right? So
[2:49:06] » yeah, that's
>> more clarity around that.
[2:49:08] » Um, so depending, so we do need to draft
language around the menu items. And I
[2:49:15] think, um, unless anybody, so I'll I'll
just run through them really quick. So
[2:49:21] these are the categories that we would
use to inform how we write the code
[2:49:26] language is that what we heard from the
task force. So this is basically tell me
[2:49:30] if you disagree is don't do a menu
option for local hiring for development.
[2:49:36] Do include an option for a plaza with
some programmed improvements. So it's
[2:49:42] basically active space that can be
utilized. I like that.
[2:49:45] » Uh they were not in favor of a public
rooftop amenity mainly because they felt
[2:49:49] like um that would be exorbitantly
expensive and highly unlikely to occur.
[2:49:54] So essentially
>> agree
[2:49:56] » why include it. um they currently public
art is something identified at the time
[2:50:01] that the um menu items were written. Our
um arts, culture and heritage commission
[2:50:06] did not exist. So what we um put as an
option is to further refine that to say
[2:50:11] that the public art would run be
approved through our public our arts,
[2:50:16] culture and heritage commission.
Um, we talked about inclusive design and
[2:50:20] in particular this was um, this was
motivated by what we're seeing our parks
[2:50:26] department do in that they don't just
make a park meet ADA standards, they
[2:50:31] make inclusive design for all abilities
and ages to engage in our parks. And so
[2:50:37] what we talked about there was looking
at some design some design elements that
[2:50:42] would be inclusive beyond what is
required by ADA. Um so they were
[2:50:46] generally supportive of that
particularly if it was paired with you
[2:50:50] know an active open space.
Um so where the supporting existing
[2:50:55] local business and town center came from
is so one of the items that we hear all
[2:50:59] the time is that people want
restaurants. Well tenant space needs to
[2:51:03] be built a certain way to be able to
support food preparation and cooking.
[2:51:07] And so one of the items that we put here
was um that the development would either
[2:51:12] have to make tenant construct their
tenant improvements to allow for those
[2:51:15] types of uses or that they would provide
a subsidy for tenant improvements to
[2:51:19] occur because that is a very high cost
barrier for tenants to go into um
[2:51:24] commercial space.
>> Was that the same for like child care
[2:51:27] establishments or is that a
>> consideration? That's our next
[2:51:32] » category. Um so the next bullet point
was eliminated because uh the task force
[2:51:37] didn't move forward with option three.
So on m mitigating bu building impact
[2:51:42] um we talked about best practices for
ground floor design for pedestrian
[2:51:47] experience. Um best practices on
building form to create more air light
[2:51:53] and air. Um so those would be again
getting to design standards. Those are
[2:51:57] more design standard type of elements.
um creating a community gathering space
[2:52:02] internal to the building. One of the
things that we particularly talked about
[2:52:06] was that would need to be structured in
a way to make sure that that stays in
[2:52:10] place and is available to the whole
community. So essentially it's like
[2:52:13] don't have a community room that only
the people in the building can use
[2:52:17] » like an atrium that's accessible by
everyone.
[2:52:20] » Yeah. um promoting environmental
stewardship by already highlighted this
[2:52:24] is basically change the language that
talks about have a lead a lead
[2:52:28] certification or earth advantage look at
the actual categories and get to like
[2:52:33] list out the high probably you know the
highest category that you can achieve
[2:52:38] and put that in as the standard and then
to your point um commissioner car is
[2:52:42] building tenant ready spaces for desired
businesses particularly restaurants um
[2:52:46] smaller spaces for local businesses that
don't that can't afford you know a
[2:52:50] larger footprint and then child care
facilities. So I think everyone was
[2:52:56] supportive of the things that we talked
about in the mitigating the building
[2:52:59] impact. There was just some things that
got eliminated from the community
[2:53:02] benefit one. Um so that is where we
would write code language around. Now to
[2:53:09] your point um we don't have another work
session currently planned for the
[2:53:14] planning commission. So it may be, you
know, if it makes sense that what we may
[2:53:18] do is instead of having a public hearing
on at your August meeting is that
[2:53:23] depending on the direction from council,
it may be that um that turns into a work
[2:53:28] session to talk about the menu item
language and then the public hearing
[2:53:31] gets pushed to September.
>> And I don't mean to restart any debate.
[2:53:37] » Um just putting that out there, but a
comment maybe for council and or maybe
[2:53:42] it doesn't work. But the first one that
was eliminated was like hiring um local
[2:53:47] local
>> people which would probably be pretty
[2:53:49] hard to enforce, right? Because you know
if you can't hire somebody like you know
[2:53:54] you're just you're going to go out of
business. On the flip side, could there
[2:53:58] be a requirement or a waiver for renting
apartments, not lowinccome, but to like
[2:54:06] people who are teaching at the high
school, people who are on the police
[2:54:09] force here, people who are on the fire
department here, so that it makes them
[2:54:13] more part of our community as opposed to
having to live farther away and commute
[2:54:16] in. And then that also solves some of
the congestion problem. like is there
[2:54:20] something where they could put in like
preferential leasing to people who are
[2:54:24] employed in Wilsonville in the public
sector?
[2:54:28] » Um I'd probably have to look into that
because that might run a foul with um
[2:54:32] the Fair Housing Act, but but it's
something we can look at. Mhm.
[2:54:38] » talking to a lawyer.
[2:54:42] » I think um one of the one thing I'd like
to throw out there around the rooftop
[2:54:47] bar, I while I agree that that's
probably pretty unlikely to be selected
[2:54:52] as an option because it's prohibitively
expensive. I I would suggest that we
[2:54:57] should be looking at raising the bar for
the minimum of our menu options and not
[2:55:02] negotiating against ourselves for the
maximums. So, like I I wouldn't remove
[2:55:07] that from a menu option. If a developer
comes along and they just really like
[2:55:10] rooftop bars and they want to build one,
even if it's exorbitantly more expensive
[2:55:14] than the other options, awesome. Like,
cool. Why would we why would we remove
[2:55:18] that from a menu option? Um, unless we
don't want rooftop bars in Wilsonville.
[2:55:24] Like, I I think that that's I don't
think I would recommend removing menu
[2:55:27] items on the basis of us speculating
that a developer wouldn't want to choose
[2:55:31] it because it's too expensive. I think
we should be looking the other direction
[2:55:34] and elevating our menu options that are
maybe a loophole for a developer to
[2:55:39] exploit.
[2:55:43] So, and just to be clear, so we would
talk more about menu of options and like
[2:55:48] this kind of discussion
if only if
[2:55:54] I'm trying to figure out like so
>> cancel.
[2:55:57] » Yeah. So, but but if like if we move
forward with option seven, then we
[2:56:01] wouldn't need to have that conversation.
>> I think that if council's if if the
[2:56:07] direction coming out of council is um
what they want to advance is language
[2:56:13] that eliminates the increase for
building height. I the other question
[2:56:17] would be
>> do you want us to still
[2:56:19] » okay
>> adjust the menu items or do or not?
[2:56:24] Because I think a lot of these a lot of
these items really do contemplate a
[2:56:28] taller building.
>> Yes, that's what Yeah.
[2:56:30] » So,
>> rooftop bar on a two
[2:56:36] » looking looking into the windows of the
neighboring building.
[2:56:42] So, so it would be a question for for
council if and and I guess um I'm trying
[2:56:48] not to repeat the mistakes of the past
and then give the planning commission
[2:56:53] the language on you language that may
need some adjustments during a public
[2:57:00] hearing that we're trying to address on
the fly. So that's where I say if if we
[2:57:05] need to further refine menu item
language that we may need to push back
[2:57:10] some of the actual public hearing so
there can be dialogue around that.
[2:57:13] » Yes. Thank you.
>> I don't want that addendum as we're
[2:57:17] doing a public.
>> It is very challenging to write code in
[2:57:22] the middle of a public hearing.
>> It's been done before.
[2:57:28] » Sounds good. So look, sounds like we've
had our discussion and
[2:57:32] » can I do
>> I think so. There's one one little like
[2:57:37] clerical recommendation I'd make is sure
between options five and six if the MU
[2:57:42] West
>> uh like ver if the verbiage is different
[2:57:46] but the meaning is the same. So if if
they're meant to be the same, can we
[2:57:50] make sure that the verbiage actually
matches between the two?
[2:57:53] » We'll do definitely.
[2:57:58] Any other comments or questions?
Okay. All right. Uh hearing no further
[2:58:04] discussion. Thank you so much. That
concludes our work session. Thank you.
[2:58:09] Okay.
[2:58:12] Next we haveformational
item
[2:58:17] our agenda and that's city council
action meetings.
[2:58:21] Uh there's no staff presentation on this
one. Um,
[2:58:26] did anybody have any questions or
discussion about the council meeting?
[2:58:30] No. No. Okay. All right. In the 2026 PC
work program, planning commission work
[2:58:37] program. Things are good.
>> Yep.
[2:58:40] » Yeah. Looks good to me.
>> All right.
[2:58:43] Then I motion to adjourn our meeting.
Thank you.