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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/12/2005 Work Session . 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. . 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. . 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. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12, 2005 Page 2 . 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. . 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. . 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 City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12, 2005 Page 3 . 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. . 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. . Mr. Mott said that would be fine. He said the other item was just a precursor for a future work session on that topic. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12,2005 Page 4 . 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. . 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. . 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 City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12,2005 Page 5 . 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. . 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. . 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 City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12, 2005 Page 6 . 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. . 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 ( . City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 12, 2005 Page 7 . Mayor Attest: . .