HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/12/2005 Work Session
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City of Springfield
Work Session Meeting
MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF
THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2005
The City of Springfield Council met in a joint work session with the Springfield Planning
Commission in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday,
September 12,2005 at 5:35 p.m., with Mayor Leiken presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Present were Mayor Leiken, Councilors Ballew, Ralston, Lundberg, Woodrow, Fitch (5:40 p.m.),
and Pishioneri.
For the Planning Commission, present were Chair Moe and Commissioners Carpenter, Decker,
Beyer, Cross, and Shaver.
Also present were Assistant City Manager Cynthia Pappas, City Attorney Meg Kieran, City
Recorder Amy Sowa and members of ~he staff.
1. Region 2050 - Next Steps Towards Regional Consensus of Preferred Growth Scenario.
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Planning Manager Greg Mott presented the staff report on this item. For the past three years,
Springfield staff and elected officials have participated in the evaluation of several "potential"
growth scenarios for the Eugene-Springfield commute-shed region (Oakridge, West Fir, Lowell,
Cottage Grove, Creswell, Coburg, Junction City and Veneta). Community meetings and regional
surveys are being prepared to formulate a preferred growth scenario. Within the next several
months each governing body will be presented with a "go, no-go" prospectus for a collaborative
regional growth scenario or a status-quo future based on existing acknowledged comprehensive
plans.
The work on this project to date has included identifying the quality of life factors each
jurisdiction agreed were important; developing three potential growth scenarios; projecting
impacts to quality of life factors presented by the growth scenarios; and, associating cost of
services to each growth scenario. In addition, community meetings and individual surveys have
been conducted to gauge public acceptance or rejection of the growth scenarios. Springfield will
conduct its community work shop on September 20,2005. In the event that all the participating
jurisdictions can agree on a preferred growth scenario, and that scenario casts a future different
from projections in existing comprehensive plans, those comprehensive plans will require
amendment and approval by the state for application of "collaborative regional problem solving"
provisions of Oregon Revised Statutes.
Mr. Mott noted that the actual date for the community meeting will be September 21 rather than
September 20 (listed above), from 5:30-8:30pm in the Springfield Library Meeting Room.
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Mr. Mott said the Planning Commission had not been as engaged in this process as the City
Council, other than periodic reports and brief presentations. He said tonight would be a good
opportunity to give the Planning Commission more information. He noted that all Planning
Commission and City Council members were invited to the Community Meeting on September
21.
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September 12, 2005
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Mr. Mott said the remainder of September and October would be used to gather input from
stakeholders and others who submitted responses to the online survey. Much of the information
and input already gathered were included in Attachments 3 and 5 in the agenda packet. The City
Council and the policy advisory board would take the input into consideration and try to arrive at
a consensus about the preferred scenario for the region. If there was not consensus regarding a
single scenario, scenarios would be based on the individual communities own vision and goals
for their community as it related to their participation in what this region would be like in 2050.
In 2050 there could be approximately 500,000 in this region. The Region 2050 process was to
determine if the region could maintain its current qualities while absorbing that many people. If
all participants in the Region 2050 process agreed that the outcome for the community could be
improved through cooperative agreements with each other, that proposal would go to the state.
He said he could not answer how the aggregate affect of such an agreement would be received by
the state, as there was no historical basis to draw upon. To implement the provisions of such an
agreement, changes would have to be proposed to the Comp Plan to the state. That would be
different to what was done now. Currently, if changes were to be made to the Comp Plan, the
jurisdictions processed that and informed the state of the changes, rather than asking them. The
state could appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) if they had issues. Region 2050
could offer safety in numbers, but it shouldn't be overlooked that there would be a new process
in the changes made to land use planning.
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Mr. Mott said questions had been posed about the benefit of the process. The road ahead may
have bumps and obstacles. He said he hoped the Planning Commission and City Council would
weigh the benefits to the city of this process. The decision to either continue participation with
intergovernmental agreements resulting from Region 2050 or not would be made by the City
Council. If the city chose to enter into an intergovernmental agreement, the city's position
would need to be specifically articulated in the agreement.
Councilor Ralston asked if all the cities had to agree on the same strategy.
Mr. Mott said each city could have their own strategy. If each community chose its own
strategy, and everyone agreed that was the best path to take, the state would still have to be
convinced that path was responsive to the regional problems in a way that was consistent. An
opportunity was being offered to approach problems and provide solutions in a manner that was
slightly different than what was currently available through the traditional compliance with
statewide land use.
Commissioner Beyer asked what the advantage would be to the city. He asked if there would be
funding from the state.
Mr. Mott said the city had relationships with partnering cities that required agreement. He
discussed possible financial opportunities. He discussed restraints regarding infrastructure and
services the city must provide to accommodate growth. If accommodation for those services
could be made through this process, that would be the advantage. Proceeding alone the city may
not have the option to consider one area over another for expansion.
Councilor Ralston asked how this affected the Metro Plan and TransPlan.
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Mr. Mott said if the city entered into an agreement'that challenged goal compliance, it would
cause a need to revise the Metro Plan. This would not change the partners of the Metro Plan
(Springfield, Eugene and Lane County), but it would require amendments. Development
scenarios were presupposing the city would make a commitment to do something that would
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September 12, 2005
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require an amendment to our Comp Plan. Council could initiate an amendment to the Metro
Plan on a motion, it would be processed, public hearings would be held, the ordinance would be
adopted and the amendment would be good twenty-one days later. Under the new model if
council wanted to make an amendment, council would initiate the amendment, going forward
with the public hearing and taking action, and then submitting it to the Land Conservation and
Development Commission (LCDC) for approval or denial. The commission would approve or
deny based on their understanding of what the strategies ofthe Region 2050 were supposed to
do.
Commissioner Beyer said he was very skeptical of this process. He said he had been a strong
advocate of the Metro Plan, but he had seen the difficulties of coming to consensus with three
jurisdictions, let alone eleven. He said he didn't want the state to put them in the same position
as the Portland Metro Area. He discussed other issues. He said he was concerned about the
constrained land in Springfield. He said he would not want to get into a process that would
constrain that even more and affect residential properties. He said it would also affect industrial
and commercial land.
Councilor Pishioneri said it seemed parallel to the Metro Plan. He had not seen value in the
Metro Plan, but rather something that added another level of scrutiny, causing many delays. He
said this seemed to be adding another level of someone else stepping in to make decisions.
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Mr. Mott said it did have similarities to the Metro Plan. He explained. One possible outcome of
this process was to look at the comparison of each city. Some of the growth scenarios had costs
associated with them regarding infrastructure, which could cause some other cities to stop
growth in their community. Finance was a reality to development. He recognized that the
current Springfield Council did not want any land use decision further encumbered by additional
participation. If this process came to a point where that was the decision that would have to be
made, he felt this council would not support that. If the other communities agreed to a strategy
that was out of the box and the state bought off on it, the jurisdictions got to a point where they
wanted to implement this action to respond to the strategy, an additional level of approval would
be imposed because it would have to go to LCDC.
Commissioner Shaver asked if this was optional.
Mr. Mott said council agreed to pursue this effort to come up with alternative strategies to
address land use demands. They did not agree to any outcome. Participation was an advantage,
because the community could gain some benefit by pursuing a land use planning action in this
nature and while the discussions were going on, Springfield was making their position known. If
the outcome of this was a commitment that Springfield was not interested in, they could say they
did not want to be involved.
Commissioner Shaver asked if the city could leave this now.
Mr. Mott said the outcome would be dependent on the state and he could not say what the state
would do. He said the state was expecting the next phase to be developed and submitted for their
consideration. He explained.
Mayor Leiken asked if the second item on the agenda could be postponed to another evening.
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Mr. Mott said that would be fine. He said the other item was just a precursor for a future work
session on that topic.
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Mayor Leiken noted that Councilor Lundberg had been the council representative to the Region
2050.
Councilor Lundberg said at the beginning she had pictured the project similar to Rivers to
Ridges. It would have a plan they could agree upon, giving direction as to what each jurisdiction
might want to do. She said now it appeared it could heavily influence how decisions were made.
She asked if it could go back to the simpler version with certain scenarios. She said it would not
involve an intergovernmental agreement (IGA), but just a blessing from each jurisdiction. She
referred to the questions on page 1-2 of Attachment A in the agenda packet. She asked if those
questions with the corresponding answers could be put in a memorandum to council.
Mr. Mott said the point of having Lane Shetterly address the Policy Advisory Board, was to have
a response about collaborative regional problem solving, what expectation the state had for these
communities and what that would mean from the state's perspective about how they would
regard what was being proposed and the breadth of discretion the commission would have with
respect to the strategies. He said there was no extensive track record to refer to for something
like this. Nothing like this had ever been presented to the LCDC and they didn't have experience
with this either. He referred to the surveys and said total participation had not even been 1000
and there were 290,000 people in this region. Many groups may have issues with these strategies
and would need to be included in the process.
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Ms. Heinkle said when this was originally begun, it was to endorse something that would be
guidelines for each jurisdiction. She said regional problem solving was a tool. She explained.
She said the strategies were not mutually conclusive. For Springfield to continue with this
process would not preclude the city from getting something from the process.
Councilor Lundberg said originally, she thought it would be complete by this November and
questioned that it may go two more years.
Ms. Heinkle said a regional strategy should be ready by June 2006.
Commissioner Decker said it made sense to look forward to the growth in this area, but if any
jurisdiction lost autonomy, the city should back away. Looking at the growth problems in a
regional way was valuable, but the city needed to move forward carefully. She said in the past,
U;::DC guidelines had become solidified in a short amount of time. She said gathering data was
useful.
Commissioner Beyer said it made a lot of sense for the eleven communities to talk to each other
and look at joint projects together. His concern was not the planning activity, but the
commitment at the end of the process. He said he would want to be careful not to infringe on
any jurisdiction's authority. He was supportive of getting together with other jurisdictions in the
region. He said this sounded like regional planning.
Councilor Pishioneri said he agreed with reaching out to the satellite communities. He asked
Ms. Heinkle a question about how this strategy would be put into place.
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Ms. Heinkle said the regional problem solving statute was not well defmed and there were no
administrative rules around it. She said it was a new process. She said the state was looking at
the local governments to see if this was a tool that worked better than periodic review. Everyone
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September 12,2005
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was trying to find a new and better way of doing this, but the IGA and strategy were both being
formulated. If all agreed, everyone could just sign off.
Councilor Pishioneri asked if it would cause more appeal.
Ms. Heinkle said it was meant to lessen the process.
Mr. Carpenter said Region 2050 was like a super Metro Plan. He said it must first be decided
whether or not there was a positive feeling from the Metro Plan since it was created. He said if
the answer was no, it was unlikely there would be a good feeling with a super Metro Plan
involving eleven jurisdictions rather than three. He recalled that Ms. Heinkle had said this would
be less bureaucratic and Mr. Mott had said there would be an extra level of review at LUBA and
it would be somewhat discretionary at LUBA whether they would accept these changes or not in
the review process. He said he didn't see the value to the city. He agreed that the city could
gather the information and then take their own position.
Mr. Mott said he may have misstated. He said if the state accepted the strategies proposed and
techniques, then LUBA would be out of the loop. The amendments would be sent to LCDC for
approval. If someone didn't like the decision by LCDC, it would go to the Court of Appeals. He
said LUBA was not there to approve land use decisions made by jurisdictions, but to hear
appeals ofland use decisions. LCDC, in the periodic review, was there to approve.
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Ms. Kieran said sometimes even when it appeared clear through the statutes that LUBA did not
get to weigh in, adverse parties insisted thatLUBA could make the decision and turned that
question over to LUBA. The results had been mixed. The city mayor may not have LUBA out
of the loop on this but may have to prove it.
Councilor Fitch asked if the legislature would eliminate all periodic review update requirements
and other planning documents to be replaced by this process.
Ms. Heinkle referred that question to Marguerite Nabeta from DLCD.
Ms. Nabeta said the intent for regional problem solving in the statute was not for replacement,
but to give another tool. She explained the intent of the bill was to address the frustration by
local jurisdictions over DLCD's administrative rules. She discussed one pilot in LaPine in
Deschutes County where seventeen jurisdictions were involved. She explained their strategies.
She said the Region 2050 project in this area addressed multiple issues on multiple layers. She
said no matter what the population, the intent was how to sustain the quality of life in the region.
She said the three alternatives listed came out of the discussions from all the communities. She
said it was important for the City Councils and Planning Commissions to meet regularly to share
information in a big project like this. She agreed it was difficult and took a lot of dialogue. She
said they were right to demand that each jurisdiction got something out of it. She said she hoped
it would not result in talking only when problems occurred. She said it should not be the goal to
bring all jurisdictions together for every decision. She discussed traffic and the urban growth
boundary expansion. The goal was to get to where everyone wanted to go efficiently and with
less money.
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Commissioner Shaver said he felt it was time to pull out. He said it was not up to Springfield
how Lane County grew. Land prices and other pressures would have more impact on the growth
of Lane County than Springfield would have. He discussed the future in regards to gas prices
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and land. He said dialogue was great, and Springfield has had working agreements for many
other services throughout the years. Springfield would be well served to pull out now.
Mayor Leiken discussed the Measure 37 issue and that it was not addressed in this process. He
asked how LaPine could be justified as an example. It was much smaller, and could not be
compared.
Councilor Ralston said communication between communities was important. Every community
could come up with a strategy. He said it wouldn't work unless they got rid of the Metro Plan.
There was a need to get rid of a layer. He said he didn't want the city to be caught in the middle.
Councilor Woodrow asked staff to provide the answers Councilor Lundberg had asked for in a
memorandum to council.
Ms. Heinkle discussed the earlier plan Councilor Lundberg had mentioned. Regional planning
came later as a tool the communities came up with. They were trying to get answers to the
questions.
Councilor.Ballew said she went to many of the meetings initially. She said autonomy was
important. Fifty years was a long time. She said good improved projecting information had
come out of this study. She discussed the difficulty with the Metro Plan. It was a worthwhile
goal, but she did not think there was a lot of hope for its success. Each jurisdiction would have
to look at their budget to determine where to spend money. She suggested Lane Council of
Governments (LCOG) continue their study on the future.
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Commissioner Decker said it might be worth pursuing to find ways to meet state goals, but if it
didn't bring an easier way to do land use, she was not in favor. She said it would be valuable to
find out what those across the county value. If we can end up with a better way to do something,
that would be fine.
Mr. Mott said it was difficult to be precise regarding the amendments. The question would be
whether or not the proposed amendments were consistent with the strategy. The strategy should
be in line with the intent of the goal. He said he would not be able to say that political decisions
five years from now might be acceptable if LCDC did not feel it was consistent with goals. They
must meet the goals.
Councilor Lundberg thanked those that had attended and answered questions of the council and
commission.
Councilor Ballew said maybe it was just too grand scale.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 pm.
Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa
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September 12, 2005
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Mayor
Attest:
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