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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/08/2007 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2007 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, January 8, 2007 at 5:38 p.m., with Mayor Leiken presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Leiken and Councilors Lundberg, Wylie, Ballew, Ralston, Woodrow, and Pishioneri. Also present were' City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Interim Assistant City Manager Mike Harman, City Attorney Joe Leahy, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. 1. Planning Commission Interview. Planning Manager Greg Mott presented the staff report on this item. There is one candidate for this position. The incumbent, Mr. Greg Shaver completed a 4 year term on December 2, 2006 and informed the Development Services Director that he would not seek re-appointment. The City received one application for this vacancy during a two month recruitment process. Mr. Kirschenmann resides at 1159 South 68th Street and is employed by Rexius Sustainable Solutions, 5610 Main Street, Springfield. The Council decision on appointment is scheduled for the first regular meeting of 2007 ; January 16th. Councilor Ballew noted her concern that only one applicant had applied. It was noted that this position had been advertised for some time. Council members had recruited the current applicant. Councilor Ralston said the quality of the applicants was more important than the quantity. The Mayor and Council each chose the question they would ask of the candidate. The Mayor and Council introduced themselves and interviewed Mr. Kirschenmann. Mr. Kirschenmann said he was willing to take the time to devote to learning what he needed for this position. Mayor Leiken thanked Mr. Kirschenmann for applying for this position. The Mayor and Council discussed the candidate. The Council agreed to appoint Mr.. Kirschenmann to the Planning Commission during the January 16 Council meeting. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 2 1. Discussion of Options Included in the Commercial and Industrial Lands Data Report. Planning Manager Greg Mott presented the staff report on this item. State law requires each. city's comprehensive plan to include an inventory of industrial and other employment land suitable, available and necessary for economic development opportunities for a 20 year period. The Metro Plan satisfied this inventory at acknowledgment in 1982, but the lack of a contemporary database of conditions and status led the Metro area elected officials and Lane Metro Partnership to'co-sponsor an evaluation of the metro area supply. The commissioned report includes a newly developed database of current conditions and offers an array of data sets that are useful for government and the private sector in considering appropriate development sites for a particular use. It is important to note that ECONorthwest's report is not the complete inventory required by law, nor is it a policy document. The requirements for commercial and industrial buildable lands inventories include the supply, a demand analysis (not included in this report) and provisions to match projected demand with an adequate supply. This report makes no assertions or assumptions that the supply included in this database is adequate. The report includes two sets of options; one regarding follow-up to the work performed on the database and one regarding the work that could be performed on the land use inventory. Evaluation of these options is contained in the attached Council Briefing Memorandum. Costs not withstanding, staff supports Option #2 for the database and Option #4 for the inventory. Hard costs (consultation services) are not currently budgeted. Staff recommends any Council preferred option( s) other than # 1 be incorporated into the budget process this spring as an issue paper for Budget Committee and Council consideration. Mr. Mott said staff brought this information to Council in November of2006. Council wanted more details regarding staff time commitments and hard costs associated with pursuing the options outlined in the agenda packet. He referred to the Council Briefing Memorandum included in the agenda packet which outlined the advantages, disadvantages and gross costs of each option. He discussed the two sets of work that were being considered. Mr. Mott asked Brandt Melick, GIS Program Supervisor from the City's Public Works Department, to explain Option 2. Councilor Ballew asked Mr. Melick to explain if the GIS systems for Springfield, Eugene and Lane County were the same or different. Mr. Melick said ECONorthwest compiled information from shared databases maintained by the City of Springfield, the City of Eugene, Lane County and Lane Council of Governments (LCOG). From that, they pulled information out into a set of tools to help decision makers deal with land issues and determining how much available land currently existed. The shared databases weren't fit to support that type of reporting. The primary problem was in the area of land use information. The land use information was stored on a central machine at LCOG. As building permits were processed by the cities, the shared file was updated. For land use, each entity provided the information to LCOG who made the updates. Councilor Ballew asked if LCOG did the data entry, or if that information was already inputted by the individual entity. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 3 Mr. Melick said LCOG did the data entry. In the past, extensive auditing of the land use information was conducted periodically as needed. Since that time, the land use information had not been receiving the attention, care and auditing that it needed to support this type of analysis. When ECONorthwest did their report, they cautioned the City to be careful in using the information they had compiled for decision making or policy purposes. There was a lot of other information that was centrally maintained, with upd~tes inputted by the individual agencies and other databases maintained solely by the independent agency. In the long run, the movement may be towards each member agency maintaining their own datasets. That has worked to the City's advantage. Councilor Ballew asked if it also included wastewater and storm water drainage systems. Mr. Melick said currently the City of Springfield and the City of Eugene maintained their own sanitary sewer and drainage systems and shared the information to a regional site. At this time, the land use information was not fit for this type of analysis. We would either not use the report or look at what it would take to bring the land use information to a place it could be used. Councilor Ralston said it was clear that Option 2 was the only option regarding the database. The only option regarding land use options that accomplished Goal 9 was Option 4. He said the City needed to do what was necessary. Councilor Ballew asked specifically what was wrong with the database information. Mr. Melick said there was a different answer for each data set. Most of the data sets maintained by the City were accurate and current. Regional data sets, such as land use, had issues for several reasons, including change of staff at LCOG, changing of the process of how it was maintained, more data to maintain and the need to find other inputs to keep it more current. Councilor Ballew said we should continue to make the databases as accurate as possible. She said it was important to identify what was done with the information. Mr. Melick said they were looking at just that. They were looking at the needs for the information and how they could restructure those needs and remain sustainable over time. Mr. Mott said it wasn't only the accuracy of data, but the definitions assigned to the data. He gave several examples. ECONorthwest brought maps to staff to check for accuracy on the information they had received from the system before they submitted the report. Almost every map was full of inaccuracies. Councilor Ballew asked if they received input from the assessor's office. Mr. Melick said yes, that information was considered in the past audits. Councilor Ralston said from a practical perspective, the City needed to defme what the land was before knowing what type of land was needed. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 4 Mr. Mott said part of the suggestion of ECONorthwest was to agree to the definitions of the land. That would be a decision for the City Council. They would also need to know what type of businesses were on the land. Again, that would be a Council decision. Councilor Ralston asked if a business license program would assist in maintaining the database. Mr. Mott said it would be a component and source of data. Councilor Lundberg said the City needed something that had good data that remained good data in the future. She would support the ability to have the most accurate information for studies. She referred to the cost and asked if Springfield would be conducting this study separate from Eugene and Lane County. Mr. Melick said they were looking at increased agency involvement. Because this and other information was shared regionally, there would continue to be shared information on regional area land use. Springfield's surveyors accurately delineated the tax lots and entered that information into database. Councilor Lundberg discussed the costs involved and asked about the total. Mr. Mott said the cost would be developed in an issue paper format for more clarification. The land use inventory work would be just for Springfield by ECONorthwest. ECONorthwest was not doing Option 4 with us at this time. If it was found that the demand was too high for the land available, a decision would need to be made in how to accommodate the demand. Option 4 would include those recommendations by ECONorthwest for commercial and industrial. The same recommendation was made to Eugene. Springfield was responding to that recommendation, but Eugene was not or responding to it differently. The question was whether or not Springfield wanted to pursue the same information for Commercial and Industrial land as we were for Residential. Staff estimated the cost if Springfield were to proceed on their own. The amount of time could be the same whether Eugene was included or not. Councilor Lundberg said she was concerned that after spending the money we would have a system that continued to be useful. She asked how it would affect our data if Eugene didn't update their information in the system. Mr. Mott said we would have all the data regarding supply and demand and staff could identify the correct data for that set time. The information would change as soon as any activity took place on a piece of property. To make sure the database was always contemporary would involve work done by ECONorthwest. Eugene and Lane County agreed accurate data was important for everyone. There was not currently a good storage and retrieval process to guarantee the information would be updated regularly and timely. We could improve that, but it would be hard to do independently. It would be more cost efficient to do it jointly. Mr. Grimaldi asked if Councilor Lundberg was asking if the information could be useful if only Springfield put it together. Councilor Lundberg said yes. She would like to know everyone was in agreement. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 5 Councilor Ballew said it would be valuable for everyone to keep the database accurate and audited. She asked if that could be separate from the land use part and if we could get cooperation from Eugene and Lane County for just that part. Mr. Melick said everyone in the region was concerned about having accurate information. Mr. Mott said it was based on resources. There were no political issues on the database issue. Councilor Ballew said it was important to put resources toward getting accurate information. Mr. Mott said the other element was political. He said the same inventory had been maintained over time. He discussed the last two UGB expansions over the last 30 years, which were very small and irrelevant and for special circumstances. The City hadn't evaluated whether or not to expand the urban growth boundary (UGB) over the last twenty years. All plans around the state were outdated and the consultants had said as much. Councilor Wylie referred to the definitions and the importance of knowing what was available for development. She said a rating system would be beneficial to determine if property was prime property or restrained in some way. She asked if a staff task force should be set up to create the definitions. Mr. Mott said Council needed to agree on the defmitions and rating system. The State had expectations that sites qualify for listing on a state survey as development ready if they contained certain attributes. The consultants would make recommendations regarding what companies would be attracted to our community. We may not be able to know accurately which businesses were attracted to our community, but we could have an idea to help with planning. Councilor Woodrow confirmed that if Council approved of going forward with Option 2 and Option 4, there would be a white paper for the Budget Committee with more accurate costs. He said he was in favor of moving forward and didn't want to wait for Eugene or Lane County to decide they wanted to go forward. Council needed to take steps to manage the land. Springfield had taken other safe risks such as this. This information was needed and Springfield needed to start the process. He was in favor of moving forward with staff's recommendation providing that the framework was established for Option 2 so we had an accurate database in place to move forward. Mr. Grile referred to Councilor Wylie's question on definitions. He said the reason for this data exercise was to have a solid factual base to make land use policy choices against those criteria that were established by Oregon law. Ideally, each metro partner would agree on what those policy choices would be, but they may not. Springfield had the legal right to a comprehensive plan and if there was disagreement from one or two of the metro partners, it needed to go through the process. There needed to be a solid factual basis to move forward and make decisions. Councilor Pishioneri asked if Options 2 and 4 were most efficient and fiduciary responsible. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 6 Mr. Mott said with respect to Option 2, if nothing was done, each time that information was needed, it would need to be done by hand. Mr. Mott said Option 4 was the only way to get what the Council wanted. Mayor Leiken said Measures 47, 50 and 37 had affected how cities did business. The Measure 37 question would not be resolved for years. Council needed to do what was right for Springfield. He asked who created the definitions, and if definitions would be created by other jurisdictions because ofthe MetroPlan. He said that option would not be acceptable to him. He said Springfield needed to create definitions and determine how to move forward. He referred to a company that was very interested in the Springfield area, but needed 25 acres of shovel ready property and he questioned where that could be found in this area. Springfield neede~ at least a twenty-year supply of commercial and industrial property. He suggested looking further into the future, past the twenty-year supply. Staff was doing good work. Springfield needed to be prepared for the future or watch opportunities go on by. If Springfield didn't take the lead, someone else would. Councilor Ralston said Springfield citizens expected leadership from the Council and it was time to step up to the plate. If Springfield created the definitions, others would look to us. Councilor Ballew agreed with Options 2 and 4, but she woutd like to see this as part of the budget process with more defined figures. She said it could be shown as a two year or four year process. She asked to see the value of the offset in Option 4 and where money would be saved. Councilor Lundberg asked if we would have to go to court if the jurisdictions didn't cooperate and agree on the definitions. That was correct. She asked for information on what the pitfalls and challenges would be with Springfield going forward on our own. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:39 pm. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa Attest: ~~ Amy Sow; City Recorder