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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02/22/2011 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF .THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2011 - The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, . Springfield; Oregon, on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 6:02 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE . Mayor Lundberg called the Springfield City Council Work Session to order. Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors Pishioneri, VanGordon, Moore, Ralston, and Woodrow. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery; City Attorney Bill VanVactor; Assistant City Attorney Mary Bridget Smith, City Recorder Amy Sowa, and members of the staff. Councilor Wylie was absent (excused). Board Chair Stewart called the Lane County Board of Commissioner's Work Session to order. Present were Board Chair Stewart,: and Board Members Leiken, Sorenson, Handy, and Bozievich. 1. Springfield 2030 Refinement Plan and Urban Growth Boundary Step One: Proposed Amendments to the Eugene-Sprin~eld Metropolitan Area General Plan to Comply with HB3337 (ORS 197.304). Development Services Director Bill Grile introduced this item. ORS 197.304 required Springfield, Eugene and, Lane County to evaluate the sufficiency of their residential land supplies and to establish a discrete UGB for each City. Springfield had completed its analysis of housing needs (the Sprin~eld Residential Land and Housing Needs Analysis -Attachment 2 of the agenda packet). Springfield had also prepared a new residential land use and housing policy document in response to the findings of the analysis (the Sprin~eld 2030 Refinement Plan Residential Land and Housing Element - Attachment 1 of the agenda packet). Finally, Springfield had prepared a tax lot-specific map of the proposed Springfield UGB" (Attachment 5 of the agenda packet). HB3337 was enacted by the Oregon Legislature in 2007 and codified as ORS 197.304, requiring Springfield to "(d)emonstrate * * * that its comprehensive plan provided sufficient buildable lands within an urban growth boundary *** to accommodate estimated housing needs for 20 years" and to "separately from (Eugene)',***~~(e)stablish an urban growth boundary, consistent with the jurisdictional . area of responsibility specified in the (Metro Plan)." ~ For' Springfield, that jurisdictional area encompassed the. lands east of Interstate 5. At a February 7~' Joint Work Session, three "steps" were identified as necessary to implement HB3337 and consider an expansion for Springfield's UGB. Step 1 action items required co-adoption by Springfield and Lane County: ^ Adopt Sprin~eld 2030 Refinement Plan Residential Land and Housing Element and its Technical Supplement: Springfield Residential Land and Housing Needs Analysis (RLHNA); 1 and , ^ Adopt ,Springfield Urban Growth Boundary (a tax lot-specific map of the .acknowledged Metro Urban Growth Boundary east of I-5). A public hearing on these items was scheduled for Apri14, 2011. No UGB expansion was proposed in this first step. Step 2 action items entailed Metro Plan Chapter. 4 text amendments that would require City of Springfield . Council Work Session Minutes - February 22, 2011 Page 2 co-adoption by Springfield, Eugene and Lane County. Step 3 action items would address . commerciaUindustrial land needs and present a proposed expansion of Springfield's UGB. Approval of proposed Step 3 items~would require co-adoption by Springfield and Lane County. Ms. Pauly presented a-power point for this item. She reviewed the timeline for Steps 1 through 3 in this process. Ms. Pauly. gave a brief overview of HB3337. The Springfield housing element was the policy document that showed how Springfield would meet the need identified in the analysis.. Staff was asking the Council and Board to consider two ordinances. The first would adopt the Springfield. 2030 Refinement Plan Residential Land Use and Housing Element Pursuant to ORS 197.304. The second would amend the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Plan to Establish a Separate Springfield Urban Growth Boundary Pursuant to ORS 197.304. The City of Eugene would be writing a letter of concurrence of the UGB once that line has been completely established. There we're several areas that were being finalized by Springfield staff. Ms. Pauly said the policies in the housing element, Attachment 1 of the agenda packet, would be policies that applied only to Springfield's area of jurisdiction in the Metro Plan. The policies would be refinements. of supplements of the Metro Plan policies. These supplements would not replace current policies, but would provide a higher degree of specificity of Springfield's policies. The Springfield Residential Land and Housing Needs Analysis was Attachment 2 in the agenda packet.~This document was the technical supplement that provided all the evidence of how much land was in Springfield's inventory. Oregon Statewide Planning Goal 10 required all incorporated cities to complete an inventory of buildable residential lands and to encourage the availability of adequate numbers of ; housing units in price points commensurate with the City's population. The housing needs analysis went through all the detail of how that was done and the methodologies that were used. This study was started in 2005. There was documentation of the entire process in the agenda packet as Attachment 4. Ms. Pauly referred to a chart on the wall regarding Goal 10 and the detail needed for this type of study. . Work was based. on the coordinated population forecast that was approved by the County in 2009. The calculations for this study had been based on several populations .over the years since starting in 2005, and had~been refined over that period of time. She noted the estimated increase in population from 2010 to 2030. This estimate was very conservative and based on 1% growth. After looking at the population, the study looked at how much buildable :land Springfield currently had in our residential buildable lands inventory. They found the City had 2485 acres in tax lots designated for residential uses. Of those, approximately 1447 were vacant and buildable. Chart S2 in the power point showed the vacant residential lands in three plan designations; low, medium, and high. There were only 18 .buildable acres in high density, meaning we would have a shortage soon. Councilor Ralston asked if one of the strategies would be to take some of the low-density property and change it to high-density. Ms. Pauly said that was not one of their strategies. unless Council directed. There were different needs .for different types of land. Most of the City's low-density residential acreage was in the hillside area and not very close to the center of town. Mr. Grile said the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) Goal 10 required cities to provide a variety of housing types at a variety of densities and a variety of price ranges. It was a matter of aligning those various things and .figuring out how to satisfy the requirements. City of Springfield `~ ~ . Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 Page 3 Councilor Woodrow said there would be a higher population with a lower acreage. in high-density, and the opposite in the low-density. She asked if they had an idea of population per acre of each type of density. Ms. Pauly said the Housing Needs Analysis did that type of analysis of our population, types of households, house sizes, and incomes. All of those factors were taken into. consideration when they came up with the projection of how many units of each category were required, and how that translated into acreage and buildable land needed. Councilor Woodrow referred to the figures of 1301, 128 and 18 and asked if there was any way to correlate the differences in population of the figures, such as how many people 1300 acres would -- accommodate. Mr. Grile said staff could get an estimate of that information from some assumptions. Ms. Pauly said there were two master plan areas in Springf eid: The RiverBend Hospital and Marcola Meadows. Both had medium. density residential included that would eventually be built, providing Springfield with an adequate supply in that category. She referred to Map 3-2, which was Attachment 2, page 25 :of the agenda packet, and identified the vacant residential lands. Ms. Pauly said the next step was determining how much housing the City of Springfield needed for the . planned period. ECONorthwest identified just under 6000 new dwelling units to accommodate projected growth, plus 291 group quarters, for a total of 6211 dwelling units. Of that, 60% would be single family dwelling types, and 40% would be multi-family. She referred to Table S-4 which showed the capacity for needed dwelling units by the plan designation category. Ms. Pauly said the last step, was to figure out the public 'and semi-public land needs that were ' associated with the residential development. The study also showed a deficit. in the parks and open space category. That didn't mean that the City needed to expand the.UGB to accommodate that as some of that could be provided outside the UGB. Since Springfield didn't have an excess amount of land in high density, but rather a deficit, we needed to make sure we provided enough~~public and semi- public land needs for that deficit. That was in the proposal. Ms. Pauly said the bottom line was that Springfield had enough low density residential; a surplus of 378 gross acres, and a surplus of medium density residential of 76 gross acres. Springfield also had a deficit in the high density category of 28 gross acres, which also included the public and semi-public lands needs. That would allow Springfield to meet the deficit of 411 dwelling units. The City was . proposing to meet that deficit through re-designating land in the Glenwood Riverfront area. Commissioner Leiken asked about the average lot size of low and medium density residential. Mr. Grile said low density was about 6000 square feet.. Ms. Pauly said for medium density residential it was difficult to say because of other factors. High density would be condos or apartments. Medium density would be similar to townhouses or attached housing. Commissioner Leiken was thinking about affordability for young families with .children that wanted a home. That would always be a challenge. The last demographics showed Springfield's median age ' City of Springfield - Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 Page 4 around 32, and Eugene's was around 37. He didn't want to lock out young families, but instead encourage them to settle here. _ Ms. Pauly discussed some of the proposed policies and sufficiency measures. Council weighed in on . those in 2008 and prioritized those measures. One of them was to make the lots more affordable. Commissioner Leiken asked if staff had an idea of when they would, do the next periodic review. As communities were establisliing their goals, they needed to remain as flexible as possible. It made sense to have a look at where the city was in terms of the economy and demographics., Mr. Grile~ said staff recommended keeping a rolling stock so the market worked. The City now had a database that could better identify that information at any given time. Commissioner Bozievich said most of the low density vacant lands existed at extremely high elevations, which may not currently be served by the SUB Board. He asked if the master plan for Potato Hill included parks and open space, and if that was included in the analysis. Ms. Pauly said it had been counted. There were several more phases of Mountaingate that would include parks and residential. There were also platted lots in Willamette Heights and Jasper Meadows that could also be parks. Commissioner Stewart asked if the 3000 square foot lots were included iri the inventory. Ms. Pauly said these were additional things the City would do to encourage more density to meet the other housing needs. Commissioner Stewart said Cottage Grove had set a limit of 4500 square. feet for a minimum lot size. He asked if 3000 square feet was sufficient for ahome. -- -. Ms. Pauly said cottage clusters had been successful and City Planner Steve Hopkins had done some research on those. Staff was not proposing to adopt that code amendment at this time. Mr. Grile said some communities had done 0 lot line development. With small lots; there was concern about people buying two lots so they could build a larger house. That would be a policy decision. Commissioner Stewart asked if that would have an impact on buildable lands. Mr. Grile said they would have fewer dwellings if combined lots, which would create some supply and demand issues. Ms. Pauly discussed options for small lot sizes and shared open space. Ms. Pauly said the City had three goals for the residential land and housing element: 1) Plan for growth and needed housing; 2) Foster housing choice and affordability; and 3) Encourage housing diversity and quality neighborhoods. The most important thing was how to address the deficit for high- density residential development. Proposed policy Housing (H) 1.2, Implementation Action 2.1 stated that to meet identified highs=density multi-family housing needs, the City shall re-designate at least 28 additional gross buildable acres in Glenwood Refinement Area, Subarea 6 and 8, by 2012. Staff would bring a proposal in September or October with an amendment to the Glenwood Refinement Plan. She City of Springf e1d Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 Page 5 spoke regarding the minimum number of dwelling units and said they hoped to leave the. policy flexible. A Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) was working on this now and understood the policy. Once that plan amendment;was done, Springfield would have done their job to provide housing needs without expanding. She referred to slides explaining why this was the best .area to meet the housing needs. Commissioner Stewart asked what would happen if a developer came in and bought the property for another use and it was already zoned high-density residential. Mr. Grile said a developer could always apply for anything. Any proposal to alter that designation would need to show that Springfield could meet the 28 acre shortfall without expanding. Ms. Pauly said Glenwood was a good place for high-density because of the proximity of the EmX line and retail as it developed. It was also walking distance to downtown Springfield. Staff asked that the elected; officials note any concerns or questions tonight or anytime before the April 4 public hearing. '' Councilor Pishioneri asked if this plan would make it difficult for people to develop. Mr. Grile said planning in Oregon, especially residential, was very much a numbers analysis. Springfield was pretty development friendly regarding land. divisions. The Springfield Chamber and several others felt the City should consider expanding the UGB for residential, but the analysis had supported staff s recommendation and no other figures had been presented to show a different conclusion. ~~ _ Ms. Pauly said the land left for single housing was on hillside property and were large lots. Commissioner Stewart asked about land banking. . Ms. Pauly said that was an idea that came up when the City was applying for the TIGER Grant of Franklin Boulevard. The application included a proposal for a Land Bank establishment for Glenwood through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Eugene had a Land Bank program which Springfield could use as a model. In such a program, the City would purchase and control properties that could be sold for affordable housing: That would be a positive thing to do in Glenwood if grant funding was available.. Commissioner Handy said.some of the policies presented'had a number of implementation actions with them, and other policies had no implementation actions. He provided some examples. He asked if there was a .distinction or parallel in the policies and why some had implementation actions and other did not. Ms. Pauly said some of the implementation actions implemented multiple policies.. She chose not to repeat them for each policy. . Commissioner Handy said since the Commissioners had looked at this last Fall, it had come a long way. Their questions on the data had been reconciled and he was very impressed with what staff had' done. He Liked how 'the process had been broken into manageable pieces. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 ` Page 6 Mr. Grile said one of the reasons it had taken so long to get to this point was because of the work staff had done in response to those questions and comments. . Commissioner Bozievich asked if making the change in Glenwood would lock the City in if something like a large convention center wanted to build in that area. Mr. Grile said there was a large area that would meet that need and would accommodate such a development. '~ Mr. Bozievich said the type of development he was describing was very large and included retail, restaurants, etc. and could take up a large portion of Glenwood. Mr. Grile said they did the best they could to meet the parameters required in Oregon. If something came in that was good for the community, which would be determined by the elected officials, staff t would work with the developer or consultants through Oregon land use laws. The burden would be on the developer to help the City understand how their proposal could be accommodated. That would require a land use change on that property and other properties as well. Commissioner Leiken said .the Gateway Refinement Plan was originally all medium-density residential and. now had a hospital located there. He had always felt it was important to be flexible, particularly in the Glenwood area. He compared the Portland Riverfront to Glenwood and the changes that had occurred in Portland that could happen here. The Mathew Knight, Arena would become a - destination point and was very close to Glenwood and the EmX line. He hoped the Council remained ' extremely excited about the Glenwood area. He appreciated the fact that they allowed flexibility. . Councilor Moore asked about RiverBend and the zoning of the master plan at that site. She asked if it was amixed-use development. Yes. Mr. Grile said staff would provide information on how the boundary-was established. Mayor Lundberg asked if they had looked at tax lots specifically, so they could determine how they would deal with those that were affected. She would like to hear how that would be handled. It would also be useful to have examples of the different housing types. When. looking at the population, she would like to look at how the City would accommodate citizens in their 30's. There were many ways to accommodate housing that might not seem restrictive. They needed the ability to grow the way that best fit the community. She would like a good concise look at the population along with housing types for the next decision point.. . Councilor Pishioneri asked how much property was on the outside of the UGB for properties that were split by the boundary. It would seem logical that property that was outside the boundary on those split properties would be brought inside the boundary. Mr. Grile said the' key was that there would be no expansion at this time.' They had a methodology that went through tax lot .by tax ;,lot to determine the line without expanding it by a square foot. . Ms. Pauly said many lots were very large along that line. Mr. Grile said this offered land owners' certainty of their line rather than an interpretation of where the line was located. That had been accomplished with GIS and computers. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 Page 7 Councilor Pishioneri said if there was a property owner with a little bit that was over the line, it seemed that it would be a disadvantage to the property owner to be so inflexible with that line if they only had a small portion outside the boundary. Mr. Grile said they could show tax lot specific where the line was located. There would need to be justification if it was to be moved one way or another. City Planner Steve Hopkins said the UGB was several hundred feet wide in part because when the line was originally drawn in -1980 it was done by hand. If a property owner wanted to know where the .UGB was located in relation to their property, it was difficult with the old drawing. The Metro Plan was not intended to be tax lot specific, but did give broad policies on how to interpret the UGB on a tax lot. Mr. Hopkins had gone through the tax lots that comprised the UGB and applied the broad policies to each tax lot to come up with. the tax lot specific line. He was in the process of getting information regarding properties split by the UGB, and how much property was inside or outside the line. In 1982 the UGB was defined by the adopted map. The original Metro Plan adopted a printed map as the official document that defined the UGB. The tax lot specific UGB would not be defined by a map, but by the list of tax lots, and the GIS shape file. For this purpose, the printed map was only a general representation of the UGB. Mayor Lundberg said they could use more information on how this was determined. It affected people's property so further discussion was needed. Mr. Hopkins explained how the UGB was coincident with the tax lot line. The remainder was defined b ri t-of-wa cit limits ~ or the most a ro riate eo hic feature. Y ~ Y~ Y ~ PP P g ~P Mr. Grile said staff had spent hours on this to ensure they had justification for the line. He suggested they convene earliern Apri14 to allow Mr. Hopkins to explain this in detail. Staff would also provide the information ahead of time to allow the elected officials time to review it before the meeting. This was one of the most important pieces of work done by the City in a long time. It eliminated uncertainty. Mayor Lundberg asked if the affected property owners had been notified. They could be at the public hearing, so the elected officials needed a clear understanding of the issues. . Councilor Moore asked if the Metro Plan would, also be the UGB line. Mr. Grile said it would not. The Metro Plan boundary was outside the UGB, and was established just as a policy decision. It didn't need to exist. Councilor Moore asked if zoning issues would be cleared up by making the Tine lot specific. Yes. Mr.~ Grile said if he were a property owner with property split by the UGB, he would be appreciative of the work by the City as it saved the property owner the cost of finding out where the line was located. Mr. Hopkins had talked with the affected property owners. Mr. Hopkins said notice was sent out last year and staff conducted two sessions with the public. There was no negative comment during those meetings. Another notice would be sent out prior to the public hearing on April 4 to anyone with property adjacent to this line or within.300 feet of the line. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes February 22, 2011 Page 8 Councilor Pishioneri wanted to be certain that property owners were aware and understood that their line was being identified. It could be interpreted as a negative impact: Mayor Lundberg confirmed that the next step was the Apri14 public hearing. Mr. Grile said staff would be willing to speak or meet one on one with the elected officials to provide more explanation. Mayor Lundberg thanked the Board for attending and for their time. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Lundberg adjourned the Springfield City Council Work Session. Board Chair Stewart adjourned the Lane County Work Session. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:07 p.m. Minutes Recorder --.Amy Sowa 'i ~~ G Christine L: Lundberg ~ Mayor Attest: Amy So ~ ~. City Rec der r J