HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/17/2007 Work Session
City of Springfield
Work Session Meeting
MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF
THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17,2007
The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225
Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, September 17, 2007 at 6:00 p.m., with Mayor
Leiken presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Present were Mayor Leiken and Councilors Lundberg (6:07pm), Wylie, Ballew, Ralston,
Woodrow and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, City Attorney Joe
Leahy, City Attorney Matt Cox, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff.
1. Downtown Urban Renewal: Progress Report.
Community Development Manager John Tamulonis presented the staff report on this item. On
July 23rd, Council approved a ballot title and description for the November 6 ballot that would
authorize the Council to allocate taxes to a downtown urban renewal district. Council directed
staff to develop the initial draft of the urban renewal plan and report based on a boundary that
would extend east to 23rd street along the Main Street/South A corridor.
The DRAFT Downtown Urban Renewal Plan and Plan Report provide the information and
analysis required by ORS 457 to establish an urban renewal district. The DRAFT plan seeks to
balance the cost of potential projects that are envisioned for the urban renewal district with the
potential revenues that would be generated to pay for those projects over the life of the renewal
district.
Staff is working on various tasks that must be completed to establish an urban renewal district
for downtown Springfield. Attachment 2 summarizes milestones and key events related to the
public presentation/discussion of DRAFT Downtown Urban Renewal Plan and its formal review
by the Planning Commission and Council, as required by state law.
A ''town hall" event kicking off the public discussion of renewal district formation was held on
August 7th and was well attended. An additional town hall event is scheduled for September 20.
That meeting has been advertised as an event open to the general public, but a mailed notice of
the event was also sent to residents and property owners within the DRAFT plan's renewal
district boundary. Staff has also scheduled presentations to community organizations such as the
Chamber of Commerce and civic groups. Additional media releases/events are planned.
Presentations and discussion with the elected officials for affected taxing bodies including Lane
County, School District 19, Lane ESD, Willamalane and Lane Community College are also
being scheduled. These agencies have been contacted at the staff level and Lane County and
Willamalane have already submitted comments. '
Attachment 3 includes tables showing urban renewal project costs and anticipated revenues that
would accrue to the district from increased property values and new development over the
duration ofthe DRAFT plan. These tables are based on the work of Charles Kupper, a
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Council Work Session Minutes
September 17, 2007
Page 2
consultant hired to complete the complex calculations related to projections of cost, inflation of
costs and the reasonable estimate of new development/redevelopment in the district. The tables
compare three different levels of project cost and the projected district duration required to pay
for the projects. Please keep in mind that these computations are largely a planning exercise.
Ultimately SEDA selects the projects and would not appropriate funds to proceed if a project
could not be supported by tangible revenues. Staff will seek direction on final figures and time
frames for the district when the DRAFT plan and report are brought before the Council for
formal approval in November.
Attachment 4 is the Citizen Involvement Plan that was reviewed and approved by the Planning
Commission in its role as the Committee for Citizen Involvement.
Mr. Tamulonis reviewed the plan report. He acknowledged the number of staff that had worked
on this plan. He reminded Council that the Downtown plan and the Glenwood plan would remain
separate, although there would be just one urban renewal agency. A number of people had been
involved in providing input on this plan, including stakeholders from downtown, civic leaders,
citizens and others. The plan related directly to other plans for the downtown area, such as the
Downtown Refinement Plan and Metro Plan. Most of the development projects envisioned were
projects that came from earlier studies and categorized. He discussed the investment
contemplated in the plan.
Mr. Tamulonis said the City did not anticipate acquiring any properties through eminent domain,
but if that changed, there would need to be approval by the City Council. Any change up to one
percent in the boundary of the urban renewal district plan would be a minor adjustment and
would not require voter approval. The plan going forward at this time did require voter approval
and was scheduled to be on the November 6, 2007 ballot. He said relocation was not anticipated.
He referred to Table 6 in the plan which showed the different projects in the plan and Table 7
showing the cash flow. (Mr. Tamulonis distributed Table 7 to the Mayor, Council and other
interested parties in the audience.) Mr. Tamulonis noted a reference in the report that listed the
wrong table. He explained the correction. He referred to page 21, which showed the funds that
other agencies would give up if redevelopment did occur in the downtown urban renewal district.
Mr. Tamulonis discussed the process for adoption of this plan. He referred to a chart on the wall
with a schedule of meetings and projects for this process. Until it was adopted, the plan could be
changed according to Council's desire. The plan would go to the SEDA Board in late October.
Councilor Ralston referred to page 21. He asked about the money the City would be foregoing if
this district was in place. He asked if Willamalane and the School District were o.k. with this as
it would also affect them.
Mr. Tamulonis said City staff would be meeting with folks from Willamalane, Lane Community
College (LCC) and the School District.
Mr. Metzger explained the process used to disburse taxes to the school district, and noted that the
urban renewal district would not have a significant impact on the school district.
Councilor Ralston referred to Table 9 on page 23. He asked for clarification on the figures.
Mr. Tamulonis explained. He discussed other sources of funding.
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September 17, 2007
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Mr. Metzger said another funding source for some of the projects could be Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds.
Councilor Ballew said she didn't see blight in a public park and she felt it was inappropriate to
include it in the urban renewal district. She noted that good information was included on the
census tract, but she would like to see a map showing the location of the census tracts. Mr.
Metzger said he could provide that map. Councilor Ballew discussed debt financing referred to
in the report in Attachment 3. She said it was confusing and there was no total.
Mr. Tamulonis said in July staff brought forward different boundaries for the district. The chart
in Attachment 3 showed other ways to address the project list for different boundaries. He
explained the different project lists for the different boundaries.
Councilor Ballew asked about SEDA's project cost share and maximum debt.
Mr. Tamulonis explained.
Councilor Ballew again referred to blighted areas in parks and open space.
Mr. Tamulonis explained how open space and parks could be part of the urban renewal plan to
make the area better and safer.
Mr. Metzger added that some of the projects included in the proposed plan included downtown
amenities, such as pedestrian level lighting, etc. The purpose of including parks was for upgrades
and other improvements that could make the parks better.
Councilor Ballew said she felt improvements to the parks should be the park district's job.
Mr. Tamulonis noted that a consideration when creating an urban renewal plan was the amount
of revenue the other agencies were foregoing and including projects to offset some of that loss
and leverage their investments.
Councilor Wylie said the park on Willamette Heights had no amenities. She asked if the urban
renewal district would affect the resale value of her home because she lived in the area.
Mr. Grimaldi said if improvements were made to the surrounding streets, it could improve the
resale value.
Mr. Tamulonis further explained how additional improvements in the area would benefit the
existing homes and businesses.
Councilor Wylie said her neighbors were her constituents and would have questions.
Mayor Leiken suggested Councilor Wylie ask a long time Springfield realtor for information on
the affect of the district on home values.
Councilor Ralston asked if Meadow Park was included in the proposed plan.
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September 17,2007
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Mr. Metzger said it was not included inthis boundary.
Councilor Ralston asked if that park would be considered in the future.
Mr. Grimaldi said it could be considered in the future.
Mr. Tamulonis said if it were not included in the area, the SEDA Board would not be able to use,
tax increment funds to make improvements in that park. If Council wanted staff to include it,
they could.
Councilor Ralston said going all the way out to 23rd Street was too far in his opinion. He
considered downtown only went out to about 16th Street. Council had to balance public interest
with benefit and losing that tax revenue was too much. He agreed with the urban renewal district
concept.
Councilor Ballew said the urban renewal district was not a cure all. She asked if SEDA would
continue to include the two County Commissioners as SEDA board members.
Mr. Tamulonis said they would still be on the board and would ~e making decisions. There could
only be one urban renewal agency for Springfield and one urban renewal agency board. Council
could decide whether or not to change the board members. '
Councilor Ballew asked if another board could be formed. She didn't understand why the County
would be interested in downtown.
Mr. Leahy said this had been discussed with Harvey Rogers, counsel in Portland. The City had
one urban renewal agency, and couldn't have multiple boards. The County representatives may
be interested in downtown because of the interconnection between downtown and Glenwood.
Mayor Leiken noted that all decisions were by a majority vote.
Councilor Lundberg referred to the chart showing the advisory committee members. She would
like to see someone from the Police Planning Task Force (PPTF)on this list and also a
representative from one of the Hispanic businesses downtown. She said downtown had been
made a priority and the urban renewal district would set aside funds to help make investments.
All of the taxing agencies had properties and interests in the downtown. She said the plan was
very useful and included practical information.
Councilor Pishioneri asked about including Lane Council of Governments (LCOG)
representation to communicate how the district was working to surrounding smaller
communities.
Mr. Tamulonis said they could do outreachJo the smaller outlying communities. He distributed a
draft letter that would be sent to the different taxing bodies for the Mayor's signature regarding
the urban renewal district. Staff would be gathering input from those agencies regarding the
impact to them.
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Council Work Session Minutes
September 17, 2007
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Mayor Leiken said in 2011 or 2012, Enterprise Zone businesses such as Symantec, Royal
Caribbean and Franz Bakery would be back on the tax roles. That could provide additional
revenue to the City at that time.
Mr. Tamulonis said Mr. Duey had already calculated those figures. He noted that Councilor
Hatfield had envisioned this when the first companies were allowed under the Enterprise Zone.
2. Proposed Amendment and Reformat of the Springfield Development Code.
City Planner Gary Karp presented the staff report on this item. The SDC was adopted in May,
1986. In the 21 years since its adoption, the City has made piecemeal amendments to the SDC to
implement both State and local planning mandates and local planning priorities. Over time, these
SDC amendments have resulted in a document that has become cumbersome and difficult to
understand for both staff and potential developers.
In order to address these issues, the City contracted with Eaton Planning Services to perform an
audit of the SDC in early 2005. That project was funded by the Oregon Department of Land
Conservation and Development (DLCD) with a Technical Assistance Grant. The results of the
audit were reviewed by the Planning Commission and Council in Spring 2005. Staff was
authorized to proceed with the SDC Edit and Reformat Project in order to make the SDC more
contemporary and user-friendly. Staff established a technical advisory committee to assist with
the project.
The proposed reformatted SDC is generally based on a layout used for the "Model Development
Code for Small Cities" and converts the current 44 articles into 6 chapters. The proposed
reformatted SDC also places current text describing various standards into tables, combines .
Subdivision and Partition regulations into one Section and reduces redundant language, for
example, "consistency with the Metro Plan" is placed in one location and deleted from each
individual zoning district description.
The proposed reformatted SDC does hot include any "policy" changes, such as additions to use
lists or new development standards. These issues will be addressed later this year or early next
year, in work sessions with the Planning Commission and Council.
On June 5, 2007, the Planning Commission held a work session and public hearing on this
matter. There was no public testimony. The Planning CQmmission voted 5-0, with 2 absent to
advise the Council to approve the proposed SDC amended and reformatted Ordinance.
In July, due to the size of the document, staff provided the Council an opportunity to become
familiar with the reformatted SDC in advance of this scheduled public hearing. Staff is
requesting the adopting Ordinance include an emergency clause for this reason and in order to .
meet the time line for Lane County adoption, which is scheduled in October. Lane County must
adopt amendments to the SDC as specified in the Intergovernmental Agreement which gives the
City zoning authority between the city limits and"the urban growth boundary.
Mr. Karp noted one additional item that was added. There was an issue raised recently of a
development proposal where someone wanted to put apartments above an existing commercial
use. Currently, that change would require a site plan review process which was very expensive.
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Council Work Session Minutes
September 17, 2007
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Staff wanted to add another exception in the Code under the site plan review process to address
this issue. He read the new exception that should have been on page 370 of the Development
Code. He explained the change and how it would make the process for this case more efficient.
There was also a legislative action that would affect the Code. With the dissolution of the Lane
County Boundary Commission (LCBC), there would need to be amendments to the SDC for the
annexation process.
Councilor Ballew said it would be nice to have headers or footers for each page listing the
appropriate section.
Mr. Karp said they would include those in the final version.
Mayor Leiken asked about the hillside development issue. He said it was good to insure safety,
but he was hopeful that it wouldn't carry over into the extreme on areas already developed. He
referred to Ambleside Development and issues he had been made aware of in that development.
The City would continue to do hillside development until the urban growth boundary (UGB) was
able to be expanded. He said he hoped the issues in Mountaingate wouldn't carry over into areas
that were seasoned. Safety was certainly important and needed to be a priority. He thanked staff
for all their work on this revision. Staff should be commended for keeping up with the new
regulations that come from the Federal and State government.
Councilor Wylie referred to restaurants being oriented to a view. She suggested that
consideration be made to have parking areas face a view. She noted the number of disabled or
elderly people that often just wanted to park their cars and watch the view.
Councilor Ballew recalled the SDC getting rewritten during her tenure as Councilor.
Mr. Karp said updates had often been made. He explained how the SDC had been previously set
up and why it had reached a point that needed total reformatting.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 6:56 pm.
Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa
Attest:
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