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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/04/2012 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, JUNE 4, 2012 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, 2012 at 6:00 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors Pishioneri, VanGordon, Wylie, Moore, Ralston and Woodrow. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Matthew Cox, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Springfield Municipal Code Section 7 - Rentals. Development and Public Works Director Len Goodwin presented the staff report on this item. On May 21St, 2012 the City Council requested a review of the amended Springfield Municipal Code Section 7 — Rentals (7.340) to include triplex, duplex and single family rental units. Amendment to the code was adopted by Ordinance on July 5t'', 2011. Councilor Moore asked if Springfield had a code specific to rental properties. No. She asked if other cities had something like that. Mr. Goodwin said other cities did have a rental code. Springfield only responded to nuisances and other issues that affected the property. Ms. Murdoch said Springfield had a Housing Code to cover inspections, etc. Councilor Moore asked what a rental code would look like. She would like to see examples of what other cities had in place. She didn't feel like she had answers from a direct source to some of the questions she was asked. The City and Council knew what the funds from the fee were going for, but others didn't. She wanted to see what a rental properties code would look like. Mr. Goodwin said many of those types of codes related to the relationship between the landlord and tenant, such as treatment of the tenant, etc. That was under State law, but localities could impose local regulations as well, such as Eugene. Councilor Ralston said he served on the Housing Policy Board. When Eugene first implemented their rental code it was started as a way to protect tenants from landlords that didn't keep their property up to code. In order to fund a person to overlook that program, they needed to implement a fee. Eugene's fee was higher than the one implemented in Springfield. Mayor Lundberg asked about the ordinance Eugene just repealed regarding a fee. Ms. Murdoch said she thought it was related to the sunsetting of the ordinance. Mr. Goodwin said he believed it involved both the fee and the language about interaction in their code. Mr. Goodwin said it was more detailed and comprehensive. In Springfield's code, staff would inspect to see if tenants were responding to complaints of potential nuisances or absence of water or heat. There would not be a specific set of provisions detailing the limits of services that needed to be City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Page 2 provided. Our approach had been to respond to complaints that could violate existing codes rather than try to more thoroughly and comprehensively regulate the relationship between landlord and tenant. The extraordinary extreme of this type of code was regulating rents and how people paid. Councilor Pishioneri said he was supportive of Option 1 presented in the Council packet. There was State law that covered landlord/tenant issues. Because of the way the fee was received, he did not want to go forward with another code. He would prefer to repeal the ordinance adopted last July. For the amount of funding that came in, it was not worth the angst. There were many people that owned a duplex and lived in one half, and that was not a business. He was not willing to move it forward because it was not worth the payoff. Councilor Woodrow asked if we had an idea of how many complaints for rentals were received. Ms. Murdoch said that was not tracked separately. They did receive a fair number, but people weren't expecting the City to have a rental code so may not be calling. Councilor Woodrow said if the City did consider a rental code, she would like to see consideration for the landlord as well as the tenants. Landlords didn't have any recourse when property was destroyed. She was most supportive of getting rid of the fee entirely because she felt they needed to respond to the community. It could perhaps be revisited under a different idea or means. Councilor Wylie said she would like to repeal the fee. She would like to set up a landlord /tenant committee to rework the language and concept and try again after getting citizen input. Funds were needed to cover the costs so she would like to see how that could be done. Let people be part of the process. She didn't feel they should give up on the whole idea, but should back step, correct our mistakes and go forward. Councilor Ralston said it was ill received because it was hard to relate the funds to the service. He understood the point of those living in duplexes. There was a need and the intent was to assist with the need. They needed to repeal the ordinance as it was, but he agreed they needed input and should revisit it in another light. By doing that, they shouldn't have nearly as many objections. Councilor VanGordon said he agreed with Option 1. He asked how much it cost code enforcement to respond to duplexes and nuisance complaints. Ms. Murdoch said nuisance enforcement included a wide range of complaints. Mr. Goodwin said staff hadn't kept records broken out by type of issue. Councilor VanGordon said if they were going to revisit this in the future, they needed to have an understanding of the costs associated with this particular nuisance. If talking with the community about this, they needed to be able to link the costs and the service. He agreed they needed to repeal the ordinance and then start a discussion about this in the future. Councilor Pishioneri said if there was a good argument of why something was being done, it would be easier for him to support. He didn't feel there were strong enough reasons for questions he received about this fee. He was not convinced the fee went towards appropriate enforcement related to landlord/tenant issues. He would like to have staff break down their time by code to track these types of complaints. He felt time was being spent on an issue that was State regulated. He wanted to see the ordinance repealed and the money refunded. If it was justified, it could be looked at again, but if not City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Page 3 we shouldn't be looking for ways to get funding. If the City moved forward with looking at this again, he would suggest it was done with caution. Councilor Woodrow said many of the comments received regarding this fee stated that their duplex or rental was an investment and not a business. It was difficult to respond to citizens regarding this issue and the official definition. If this issue was revisited, she would like to make sure it was called something other than a business, such as a non - occupied housing fee. That might make people more comfortable. Councilor Wylie said she liked the idea of having something for the landlord as well. She remembered owning a rental in Eugene when their code came out. The mess left by the tenants far exceeded the deposit, and she was angry she was paying $10 for a rental fee. This was about justice and equity and should involve a discussion. There should be consequences for both landlords and tenants. Councilor Moore noted that only about 10% of those who had paid the fee to date expressed opposition. Her understanding was that the purpose of this fee was to not only help cover costs, but also to get a listing of rental properties in Springfield and determine ownership. As a tenant, people didn't always feel they had recourse when there were issues, and 65% of owners lived outside of Springfield. She felt there was a need other than the funding and that the City needed to have some type of rental property code. This was passed last summer and she apologized as a councilor to the public for not following through with information at that time. She was not in favor of returning the funds, but would accept Council's decision. Councilor VanGordon said if this was revisited in the future, it would be important to understand the costs specific for this group of people so they could explain it to the public. He would like to let it be for now and start over with more public discussion at a later date. Renters and owners needed to be involved in the process and they may end up coming up with a different solution. Councilor Pishioneri said Springfield prided ourselves for being open for business and he wanted to make sure we remained open for business. He wanted to send the message that Council did listen to people and were willing to change course if it was the right thing to do. Councilor Moore reiterated that there were other reasons that this was put into place besides the funding. Councilor Pishioneri understood the other reasons when this was brought forward, but he felt it should be repealed. Mayor Lundberg said when this was enacted, they were looking for a way to help fund code enforcement and this was an option. The good outcome was that they had a good list of rentals. She was not happy with where this was going now and she wanted to go forward with caution. This wasn't enacted because we had a lot of landlord/tenant issues and looking at landlord/tenant relations now could bring more of those issues to the forefront than the City wanted to be involved with. She asked if the City wanted to get involved in landlord/tenant issues when we were already short on funds and resources. It was a simple concept in the beginning. Council did sound ready to make a decision tonight. Mr. Goodwin asked for Council direction whether or not they would like future discussions about the property management code enforcement only, or the rental housing relationships brought forward by Councilor Moore. At some point before they came back, staff would like more Council direction on what they would like to discuss. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Page 4 Mayor Lundberg said they could move forward with a vote tonight. There were two or three layers for future discussion. If they looked at this again, staff could bring forward a couple of options. She would like more information on what other communities had done and why Eugene chose to relook at the sunsetting. Mr. Grimaldi suggested they bring this topic back later after giving this a good rest. 1. Sustainable City Year Program End of Year Summary. Management Analyst Courtney Griesel presented the staff report on this item. She introduced Bob Choquette who had worked with her on these projects. City Staff had been working with University of Oregon faculty and students over the last academic year to complete work on multiple City projects as part of the Sustainable City Year (SCY) partnership. Ms. Griesel noted that detailed reports would be coming from all of the projects that were done over the last year. Mr. Choquette said from the university's perspective, they were excited about the opportunity to continue to work with Springfield and get students out in the community to learn by doing hands -on work. Thirty -one different classes across ten different disciplines were involved in these projects. Thirty-nine faculty members and 435 students were involved putting in over 5 9, 100 hour of student effort focused on projects and issues that were identified by Springfield. They were very excited for the opportunity to continue this next year with additional projects. Jen Self, a graduate student from the University of Oregon pursuing concurrent masters in community regional planning and historic preservation, presented information on the Citywide Wayfinding Plan. She distributed a handout outlining some of the goals and outcomes from this project. The team for this project included three graduate students and one undergraduate student, all from the fields of Landscape Architecture and Historic Preservation. Two faculty advisors were also involved from Planning and Spatial Mapping. This project was identified from a report that came out in 2011 that identified that the City needed a comprehensive wayfinding plan. Ms. Self discussed the concept of wayfinding to help visitors and residents navigate around the city. A conceptual plan would include a variety of tools such as signage, printed media, environmental features such as streetscapes or well defined districts, interactive mapping and internet resources. The primary purpose of the project was to provide the City with recommendations and tools that could be used for a city -wide system which could improve the orientation, navigation and experience of visitors and residents. The project supported economic development revitalization, enhanced public safety and improved infrastructure all while preserving the home town feel of Springfield and emphasizing the livability of the community. A large component of this project was to determine the logic of Springfield and coherency of pattern that was recognizable to residents, but could also be translated to visitors in an understandable way. Ms. Self said throughout the project, the team consulted with City staff, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), public interest groups and a stakeholder group that was assembled by the City to help determine the wants and needs of the community as well as the barriers for creating this plan. They had also gathered best practices from around the country and had inventoried existing destinations within the City. To date they had inventoried over 500 signs and over 200 destinations. The inventory had allowed them to analyze the gaps and weaknesses that were within the City and move forward with recommendations. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Paae 5 Ms. Self referred to the handout that listed some of the goals and the areas of improvement that had been identified. As part of their recommendations for the City, the team had created a lot of maps that had been refined by members of the community, and a list of destinations to highlight. The logic map was intended to be used for pedestrian kiosk visitor brochures, but also to help identify the sense of place within the zones and to highlight the amenities. Identifying the destinations to highlight would help determine the proper treatment and saturation for wayfinding elements needed for each location. The team was creating the wayfinding plan, and the City would look for opportunities for students in the fall to carry this on and create design and implementation of this plan. She referred to a map that showed the potential of what could be done and where wayfinding elements could go, what should be included on them, and what they might look like. The team was honored to be able to work on this project; they had a lot of fun seeing the many amenities in Springfield. Mr. Choquette said this was one project that would be continued next year. Ms. Griesel said they not only inventoried the signs, but created an entire GIS layer that could be incorporated into the City's system which was a huge help for the City. Ms. Self said the team wanted to provide the City with usable documents and usable map layers that could by used with existing layers. Development and Public Works Department Director Len Goodwin spoke regarding a project he was involved with through the Sustainable City Year program. Mr. Goodwin said the City asked the law school students from the local government law class to look at how the City might change the transportation system development charge (SDC) methodology to provide incentives that would reduce SDCs for development that would be multi -modal and provide additional alternative accesses for people. The City was going through scenario planning and this could be a way for the City to reduce SDCs by increasing the capacity for non - vehicular traffic. The students were very creative coming up with two basic concepts. The first was how the City might develop funding mechanisms that might make it possible to create cash incentives. They also came up with a couple of different ways to look at the capacity of the transportation system and using that analysis to come up with a way that an SDC could be less if the development were located, designed or built in a certain way. It was a novel concept and had not been tried in many places before, if any. One of the continuation projects for next year would be to take the concepts the students came up with and try to create something that looked like an SDC methodology. Staff was currently working on the Springfield Transportation Plan which would produce a project list that would trigger an update of our transportation SDCs so this was very timely for the City. They hoped they could come back to Council next year with some ideas of how to keep SDCs from growing any larger and perhaps a way to reduce them. Ms. Griesel said the next project was regarding the greenhouse gas inventory. Staff was equally interested in learning how to do this as the students. The greenhouse gas inventory for local government operations meant for city facility functions. Shelley Deadmond, a graduate student in a program called Oregon Leadership and Sustainability, presented information on the Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GGI). She introduced Steven Richter who would also be presenting information on this topic. She noted the time spent by City staff gathering the information on this topic and that the outcome was a result of the two groups partnering together. A GGI included six gases that were identified with global warming/climate change potential. Those gases were identified by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collection of 4000 climate scientists. A GGI was a place most cities started when wanting to learn about their climate City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Page 6 impacts. It created the foundation for what would become a roadmap if the City chose to go towards carbon neutrality (carbon emissions and equivalent). Ms. Griesel noted that this could be a lengthy presentation which she would like to present to the Council at a later date. There were a lot of scientific things that couldn't be discussed during the time constraints this evening. Ms. Deadmond said when creating a GGI, the global warming potentials of each of the greenhouse gases was determined. They gathered all of the different scopes of where emissions came from and converted that to metric tons of carbon dioxide emission equivalents. Data was collected on three scopes: 1) direct emissions (fuel combustion or power generation on site and on vehicles); 2) indirect (such as purchasing electricity); and 3) indirect (everything else). Scope three was much higher because the fuel that went into the trucks to go to the forest to cut down the trees to make the paper added up to a large amount of emissions. Ms. Griesel referred to a slide showing the City's inventory summarized by those three scopes. She explained the summary. This information positioned the City when going for grant dollars and with strategic planning. There were many reasons for doing the GGI. Ms. Deadmond said this information was the product of hundreds of hours of data gathering and analyzing. Steven Richter said there were a number of different components of analysis that were performed. An example included a commute survey which asked how many miles away employees were driving, carpooling, riding the bus, or riding their bike to work. That provided data to develop a model of costs and benefits of certain policies such as building bike lockers or buying employee bus passes. Data was collected on the city's fleet, including the age and type of vehicles and how much gas was bought for those vehicles. The City had a number of vehicles that were 10 years old that were getting close to replacement age and this information identified recommendations for replacements. Some recommendations included buying alternative vehicles (hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles), paying for employee parking for people carpooling, and bus subsidies. They wanted to determine the impact and cost of some of these policies. A number of the policies could be expensive, but grants were available to assist. Combining grant funds with other benefits could actually reduce future operations costs. The team also inventoried the GGI for buildings and looked at how much effort was needed to implement the policies compared to the impact. They focused on the low effort/high impact area, such as heat pumps. He noted that this was just a small sample of the analysis they had done and the recommendations for the City. .Ms. Griesel said there was so much more to this and the amount of information that was gathered. There were future steps associated with the GGI to keep it current for those grant fund opportunities. The next presentation was on a future school. Jeff Materresse said his team had compiled different designs for a proposed elementary school in the Jasper Natron area. They were thankful for the opportunity to work on this project. Some of the challenges for this site included the fact that it was to be designed for students from kindergarten through 8th grade, for up to 650 students, and the property was slightly smaller than other elementary school sites. Also, there was not a lot of development in the Jasper Natron area. The property was steeply sloped and included a lot of wetlands, so the team came up with some very creative designs. There was a lot of discussion on how to deal with the road just south of the site resulting in some creative solutions. The focus of their design started with how education should work and designing a classroom and then a school from that point. He referred to drawings in the power point showing City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4, 2012 Page 7 several different designs for the classrooms and the school. He explained each. The team tried to find ways to separate the school into separate areas for the different ages, and also to give it a feeling of having several smaller schools within one larger school. Ms. Griesel displayed other pictures of other projects that were done through the Sustainable City Year program. All of the images and projects would be in a detailed report. Having these images when talking with citizens was a great asset. She thanked the Council for the opportunity to be part of this project as it had been a great learning experience for them. The students had done a superb job and delivered quality products that the City could use. Mayor Lundberg thanked them all for attending a presenting because she understood it was near the end of the term. Their presentation was greatly appreciated and she looked forward to the work they would be doing in the coming year. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:00 p.m. Minutes Recorder — Amy Sowa Christine L. Lundberg ' Mayor Attest: Amy So a City Recorder