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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/04/2007 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, ruNE 4, 2007 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, June 4, 2007 at 6:04 p.m., with Council President Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Councilors Lundberg, Wylie, Ballew, Ralston, Woodrow and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Joe Leahy, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Mayor Leiken was absent (excused). 1. Concurrent Q Street Refinement Plan Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment Regarding Property Near the Corner of 18th and Q Street. City Planner David Reesor presented the staff report on this item. The applicant is requesting these amendments in order to pursue a future professional office building on the subject site. The applicant chose to apply for the GO Zone and Refinement Plan designation because the City's existing defmition of the GO Zone designates it as appropriate for areas which serve as a transition zone, providing a buffer between residential and more intensive commercial development. On May 15th, 2007, the Planning Commission held a work session and public hearing on the subject applications (LRP2007-000l2 & ZON2007-000ll). Other than the applicant, there was one additional testimonial at the public hearing. The testifying Springfield citizen noted that she did not oppose the applications, but had questions about how future traffic issues would be addressed. Staff responded by outlining the review procedures in the site plan review process, of which the applicant would be required to adhere to during Site Plan review of a new professional office building. During the Planning Commission deliberation, the Commissioners discussed the appropriateness of the site as a future GO site. Discussion ensued regarding the location of adjacent Community Commercial uses and how the existing high traffic volumes contributed to the sites undesirable characteristics of remaining as a residential zoning district. Planning Commission discussion also addressed the comparison of the site's characteristics in comparison to the definition of the GO zone, and concluded that the site seemed appropriate for GO designation. The Planning Commission voted unanimously (7-0) to recommend that both the Refinement Plan Amendment . and Zoning Map Amendment applications be sent to the City Council for consideration and approvaL Mr. Reesor gave a power point presentation showing the subject property and the adjacent properties. He said there was a provision in the Metro Plan that allowed approximately thirty- two auxiliary uses in a residentially designated property. The zone was currently medium density residential (MDR) and the applicant was requesting general office (GO) zone. There were ,a number of other areas in Springfield with this type of zone within residential areas. The rT City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 2 applicant's proposal included a taxed amendment, which created criteria for approval for future General Office zones that might go into this refinement area and created a policy. He said it was similar to the Gateway Refinement Plan policies and criteria for siting GO in the refinement area. Mr. Reesor noted that a couple of edits had been made to the ordinances that had been included in the agenda packet. He distributed the amended copies of the ordinances. Councilor Pishioneri asked about the transition of 18th Street between the back of the business and Q Street. It was currently used as a short cut. Mr. Reesor referred to one of the photos in the slide presentation which showed the area. Councilor Pishioneri referred to page 3-71 in the agenda packet which stated, "Some of this future development is in existing right-of-way that is proposed to be vacated in the future". Mr. Reesor said the applicant was in the process of gathering signatures to apply for a street vacation for that portion of 18th Street. Their ultimate goal would be to include that portion of the site in their site plan for a professional office building, if the proposed amendments were passed. That would help to clean up that corner. During the development issues meeting, staff from traffic was present and noted there would be no change regarding traffic. There would be compensation to the City and the action would be coming to Council for approval. Councilor Pishioneri referred to page 3-46 in the agenda packet, last sentence of the last paragraph, "The Springfield Drinking Water Protection Overlay Map indicates at least part of the site appears to be within the I-year Time of Travel Zone for the 16th and Q Street Wellfield". He asked what type of mitigation would be included in the plan to address that. Mr. Reesor said those types of requirements would be addressed during the Site Plan review. The applicant would have to apply for a drinking water protection application. There was certain criteria that needed to be met. Councilor Pishioneri asked if the developer would have to improve that street at their cost. , Mr. Reesor said that would also be addressed in Site Plan review. Any new development on that property would be required to have frontage brought up to current standards, either at that time or in an agreement that the improvements would be made in the future. Councilor Pishioneri said there was other development in surrounding areas and he asked if the, improvements would fmish off that street. Mr. Reesor explained circumstances that would involve the agreement for a future date. The property owner would be assessed for their share of that improvement at the time of improvement. Councilor Pishioneri said he liked the idea of the proposal. He asked if there was enough setback for the side of the building facing the traffic to be landscaped. Mr. Reesor said there were provisions in the site plan criteria that addressed screening. He hadn't seen the conceptual drawing of the building. Currently, the applicant was just looking at the zoning change. GO zoning was the strictest as far as what type of uses were allowed. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 3 Councilor Pishioneri asked if this would come back to Council later at the design stage. Mr. Reesor said whatever the zone was now, the applicant was still required to go through the site plan process, which would be coming back to Council and allow for public input. Mr. Grimaldi said this zone amendment was not tied to a specific project. There were protections in place and could ensure more review. Councilor Woodrow asked if this was an overlay district. Mr. Reesor said this was just a change in the refinement plan designation and the zoning. There were other overlay districts, such as drinking water protection. Councilor Woodrow asked if there could be a sunset date in case what was being proposed was not done. Mr. Reesor said the GO zone had specific lists of what were acceptable and allowable uses. Most allowable uses were compatible with residential areas. Councilor Woodrow asked about the residential properties currently on that land. He asked if they could remain residential and if there was a potential issue regarding future sale or refinancing of those residences. Mr. Reesor said there were a lot of properties in the City in this type of designation. He explained further. City Attorney Joe Leahy said there was the potential for a problem. The houses would be grandfathered in; however, if the developer didn't follow through with this project, and the property was sold, it could be a problem if one of the homeowners went to get a loan on the home. They could be denied from the bank due to the conflict in zoning. On the other hand, the value of the property may go up with the zone change, which could encourage the use the applicant was looking for. Councilor Woodrow asked if the developer owned all the property at this time. Yes. Councilor Ballew referred to page 3-13 in the agenda packet. She noted the chart listing the designations in the Metro Plan. She said the proposal was a trivial amount, but asked how it affected Springfield's overall buildable lands inventory. Mr. Reesor said the applicant was supporting their proposal by listing out actual numbers within the Refmement Plan area, calculating the number of acres of residential and commercial. The proposal was not to change the Metro Plan. He discussed further the Metro Plan and the number of acres considered for amendments to that plan. This parcel was smaller than the minimum amount that required a Metro Plan amendment. Mr. Reesor said the General Office was its own zone. It would show up on the City's records as GO, not residential. Discussion was held regarding the buildable land inventories and how these smaller parcels were included in the inventories. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 4 City Planner Mark Metzger gave further clarification on this subject. Councilor Lundberg asked if the City owned the easement or the property owner. She asked if the property owner paid taxes on the easement. Mr. Reesor said the easement was owned by the property owner and allowed certain uses. Right- of way was owned by the City or County and was not calculated into the property owner's parcel for tax purposes. Taxes were paid on easements. Councilor Lundberg said if this was changed to GO, there was a potential for more tax revenue. Mr. Reesor said it would most likely provide more taxes. Councilor Lundberg asked if there were houses that would have to agree to street improvements. Mr. Reesor said the street improvements were addressed in the site plan review. In a development like this, the developers only made improvements fronting their property. Improvement to the additional properties in the area were sometimes addressed through Local Improvement Districts with approval of a certain percentage. In this case, it would likely just be the portion along this property. Those would be issues that would be worked out through the Site Plan Review. The applicant couldn't get Site Plan approval until they met all of the Code requirements. Councilor Lundberg asked if it could be a situation where only a portion of, the block would have sidewalks. Mr. Reesor said that was correct. The City couldn't require sidewalks along the whole street. Councilor Pishioneri asked how much of the property near 18th and Q Street would be added to the project. He asked about egress and ingress and if it would be off of Q Street. Mr. Reesor said egress and ingress would be a Site Plan issue. The applicant would have to work through the City Code, Councilor Pishioneri said he was concerned about the number of trips and the curve in the road at that location. He said traffic mitigation might need to be part of that plan. Mr. Reesor said the traffic engineer looked at this and noted that at this level the proposal was not considered significant enough to change the Metro Plan's compliance with Goal 12. The City did look at access and traffic during the Site Plan review. If the developer wanted to propose an access on Q Street, they would have to submit a traffic impact analysis to support that. He referred to a past request to have access on Q Street by another applicant that was denied. Councilor Pishioneri said we didn't know what type of businesses would be going in or what type of traffic. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 5 Mr. Reesor said at this level, staff looked at regional worse case scenarios by looking at all the uses allowed. The traffic engineers felt the traffic trips were fine given the current infrastructure. He noted other zone changes that would have significant impacts on traffic. i Mr. Grimaldi said the first reading on these ordinances would occur during tonight's Regular Meeting. 2. Franklin Boulevard and GatewaylBeltline Project Funding. Transportation Manager Tom Boyatt presented the staff report on this item. This is an opportunity to provide Council with information regarding proposed work activities on both the Franklin and GatewaylBeltline projects. These work activities will require contract amendment and a new Architectural and Engineering Related Services contract. Cost, funding sources, and work effort rationale is included inthe attached Council Briefing Memo. The City currently has a Professional Services Contract with CH2M-Hill in the amount of $556,000 to: 1. Refine the GatewaylBeltline project to a point where it can move forward for Construction, and 2. Complete a Facility Plan for the Franklin Boulevard Corridor in Glenwood, including concept consideration for the PranklinlMcVay intersection. The attached Council Briefing Memo describes staff's proposed changes to the current contract and explains the need to enter into a second contract for work necessary to undertake a GatewaylBeltline roadway design; Project funds are currently available from STP-U, Lane Transit District and annexation agreement sources to cover increased cost. Mr. Boyatt noted an error in the contract figure noted on the agenda item summary. The correct amount was $566,000. He reviewed the discussion points in the Council Briefmg Memo included in the agenda packet, starting with Item 4. The first task in the contract for Franklin Boulevard was to access the work program. This task would bring more of a public involvement process that would have more iteration with the stakeholders and also a compressed time frame of design and meeting with the Citizen Advisory CommIttee. Discussion was held regarding charts for this type of item, and why it would have been difficult to use them for this item due to the complexity of some of the issues. Mr. Boyatt discussed Item 3. These were dollars that the City would have to spend in the design process anyway to acquire the design base model. Staff was proposing to bring this into the existing contract so the City could get the survey design model as soon as possible. The survey design model would show specifically what was on the ground. This cost would be absorbed by the project and would help to rush it through. Mr. Boyatt discussed Item 2. This item was a cost the project would absorb after the work of the current contract was done. Bringing it into this contract would enable the project to move forward more quickly. He described the costs and the true increase to the project. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 6 Mr. Boyatt said the true increase was in Item 1. Staff was working with information that the City had learned when developing the couplet project. They learned that the Environmental Assessment (EA) addressed traffic that was forecast at that time, but development in Gateway had accelerated the traffic in that area beyond estimates. The types of businesses going in were better businesses, but generated more trips. In the EA, the cost identified for the couplet project was between $20M-$22M in 2002 before construction costs increased dramatically. With current prices, it was more likely that $22M was now on the low end of the estimate and that was why staff was proposing to do some optimization now. Optimizing the EA was a basic process of taking the current estimated volumes of 2008 and growing those on a trend line that agreed with the EA trendline, and then looking to see where the system broke down first and what the least cost, least impact, most beneficial solution would be for that problem. It would allow the City to look at the elements within and outside the EA. Council's consideration of those elements would determine other things. The City was still on the path of delivering the EA. Focus meetings were taking place with property and business owners to discuss driveway locations and crossover easements. The City could continue to pursue that path, but to fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of the business decision by Council, this would bring out the alternatives. Optimizing would also buy the City enough time to look at the future of Gateway as it continued to evolve and grow. It was an increase of $l76,000, about a forty percent increase to the GatewaylBeltline contract, but it alone represented less than one percent of the total project. Staff felt it was prudent to investigate it now. Councilor Ballew asked about the Surface Transportation Program - Urban (STPU) funding. Mr. Boyatt said the City did have it. He explained the amounts received by the City for different projects. Councilor Ballew asked about the meaning of photo gram me try. Mr. Grile said it was mapping. He explained how they were created. Councilor Lundberg said a lot of money had been spent on modeling and getting to the EA couplet. She talked about the cost to get those access and rights of way. She felt the planning horizons were too long and the couplet may end up getting thrown away and create something that was more practical, longer term and more responsive to development. It was a better idea to" change it ahead of time rather than going down a path that didn't work. It was a disappointment to continue to spend extra dollars on these things. She would support the amendments. 3. Council Procedures Regarding Support Requests. City Recorder Amy Sowa presented the staff report on this item. On April 2, Council discussed a letter that had been received asking a Council member to write a letter of support for a particular issue. It was determined that Council did not have an official process for handling these types of requests. Council asked staff to prepare a process that could be used in these types of situations and bring it back to Council for discussion. Attached was a draft process for Council's consideration. Ms. Sowa said if Council wanted to go forward with this as written or with any changes, it could be incorporated in the Council Operating Policies and Procedures or as a separate policy. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2007 Page 7 Councilor Pishioneri commented on #4. Everything else Council did was by Roberts Rules and by votes which were recorded. He said endorsements were quite personal and he would like to see the acceptance of these types of requests under the same guidelines as Roberts Rules. He would not want his name attached to something that he was strongly opposed to. He asked that only those that wanted to be associated with the letter have a line for their signature. Councilor Ballew asked if the letter could just include the count of votes for and against, rather than everyone that supported something signing the letter. Discussion was held regarding the perception if a letter was sent out as being endorsed by the Council, yet one or more Councilors were adamantly opposed to the subject matter. Ms. Sowa suggested that if it was not unanimously supported, those Councilors that did support the issue could send out their own letter. Councilor Lundberg agreed. City Attorney Joe Leahy suggested including a notation on the bottom of the letter stating the names of the Councilors that voted "yay", "nay" and "abstained". Council agreed with that suggestion. Discussion was held regarding the types of requests Council received. Councilor Lundberg said if it was unanimous, the letter could go out as such, and if not the letter would list the votes. Ms. Sowa asked if Council would like this included in the Council Operating Policies and Procedures. Yes. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:59 pm. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa Sidney-W:-f.,-eiken Chris ~r Council Presi Lundberg Attest: (]\ull:t WU~ -Atuy 50wa City Recorder