Bend City Council Work Session and Regular Meeting - July 17, 2024
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Bend City Council Meeting July 17, 2024
The Bend City Council held a work session from 11:00 AM to about 5:00 PM, followed by a regular business meeting at 7:00 PM. The work session focused on the Council Goals Quarterly Update, including updates on permitting process improvements, development activity, housing incentives, and a comprehensive growth strategy. The regular meeting covered consent agenda items, first readings of ordinances, approvals of contracts and resolutions, and a public hearing on the Greenwood Avenue quick-build project. Key decisions included adoption of tree code ordinances, authorization of a $2 million contract for a Collection System Master Plan update, and approval of a guaranteed maximum price amendment for the Midtown Multimodal Connections project.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: June 20, 2024, City Council meeting.
- OLCC Report: No discussion.
- Engineering & Infrastructure Planning Department Quarterly Project Status Report: For FY2024 Q4.
- Monthly Financial Report: For May 2024.
- Authorize Price Agreements: With DOWL, Flagline Engineering, Century West Engineering, and AKS Engineering for On-Call Construction Inspection Services, not to exceed $350,000 per agreement.
Public Comments & Testimony
- GTN Express Pipeline Expansion: Multiple speakers urged the city to oppose the pipeline expansion and transition to electrification. They cited safety risks, climate impacts, and potential rate increases for Cascade Natural Gas customers.
- Greenwood Avenue Project: Many residents and business owners (including representatives from Cascade Theatre, Old Town Pizza, and a hair salon) opposed the proposed reconfiguration from four lanes to three lanes with buffered bike lanes. Concerns included loss of parking, safety for elderly and disabled patrons, and lack of adequate notice. A few speakers supported the project for improved safety and pedestrian access.
Discussion Items
- Council Goals Quarterly Update: Staff reported 96% of 51 action items are on track. Highlights included progress on the tree code, language access policy, public works campus, and a $5 million HUD housing grant. The permitting dashboard showed improvements, with residential permit turnaround times averaging 23 days in June after a temporary operational adjustment. Development activity update noted a market slowdown due to interest rates and construction costs, but Bend remains a leader in housing production per capita in Oregon.
- Growth Strategy and Work Plan: Brian introduced a three-phase growth plan integrating housing needs analysis, transportation planning, climate resilience, and infrastructure. The plan will meet state deadlines (housing capacity analysis by 2027, transportation system plan by 2029). Council supported the integrated approach and agreed to pursue urban reserves as an optional task.
- Tree Code In-Lieu Fee Update: Staff recommended a $600 per tree fee for developers who choose not to preserve trees on-site. The fee is based on average cost of purchasing, planting, and establishing a tree. Council accepted the recommendation and will adopt the fee schedule at the next meeting.
- Parking Code Modernization: Staff proposed replacing the current 72-hour parking rule with a longer time limit (to be determined) and adding administrative tools for creating parking districts. Council directed staff to draft a code with public comment in September/October, with a separate work session on sheltering in vehicles.
- First Reading – Fire Code Ordinance: Amending Chapter 8.10 to align with state fire code and update inspection fees. Passed unanimously.
- First Reading – Tree Preservation and Erosion Control Ordinance: Amending Chapters 3.60 and Title 16 to require tree preservation on sites over one acre and new erosion control requirements for sites 5,000 sq ft or larger. Passed with an emergency clause.
- Authorize Agreement with Carollo Engineers: For the Collection System Master Plan Update, $2,023,702. Funded by a Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan. Passed unanimously.
- Adopt Resolution for Loan Amendment: Increasing the loan amount by $500,000 to $2,250,000 for the same project. Passed unanimously.
- Adopt Resolution for Eminent Domain: For the Olney Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Project, authorizing the city manager to acquire easements if negotiations fail. Passed unanimously.
- Authorize Guaranteed Maximum Price Amendment #1: For the Midtown Multimodal Connections and Streetscaping Project with K&E Excavating, Inc., adding $2,086,133.72 (total $4,529,562.08). The project includes a quick-build reconfiguration of Greenwood Avenue from four lanes to three lanes with buffered bike lanes, a chip seal, and waterline improvements on Second Street. Passed with a 6-0 vote.
- Appeal of Hearings Officer’s Denial: Council declined to review the appeal of the denial of a site plan review for a mixed-use development (Compass Corner). The motion passed with one abstention.
- Second Reading – Tree Code Ordinance: Adopting amendments to the Bend Development Code for tree preservation and street tree requirements. Passed by roll call vote (6-0, with one councilor who declared a conflict also voting yes).
Key Outcomes
- Council Goals: The integrated growth plan will proceed with an RFP for consulting services. Urban reserves will be included as an optional task.
- Tree Code In-Lieu Fee: Set at $600 per tree; fee schedule to be adopted at the August 7 meeting.
- Parking Code: Staff will draft a modernized code based on council direction, with a target adoption in winter 2024.
- Fire Code Ordinance: First reading passed; second reading scheduled for next meeting.
- Tree Preservation/Erosion Control Ordinance: First reading passed with emergency clause; effective date aligned with development code changes.
- Collection System Master Plan: Contract awarded to Carollo Engineers; completion expected winter 2025.
- Olney Project: Eminent domain resolution adopted; construction expected early 2025.
- Midtown Project: GMP amendment approved; Greenwood construction to begin in August 2024 with a two-week closure; one-year evaluation period.
- Appeal of Compass Corner: Council declined to review, finalizing the hearings officer’s denial.
- Tree Code Development Code Amendments: Adopted with roll call vote; exemptions for residential sites under one acre included.
Meeting Transcript
Let's get started with our work session. Um with our capable update. Oh, there it is. This is often my favorite time, these quarterly goal updates, because it really is a chance to just take a beat and reflect on what we've accomplished over the last couple of months, look ahead to the next quarter, calibrate with our boards, committees, commissions. We have some folks here today to do that. And just to make sure that we're headed in the right direction. I think it's pretty easy as a fast-growing city to be in a reactive mode, and you know, we also face other issues that are just you know in real time we have fire threats and other things going on, and those are really important, and we need to be ready to respond, but we also can't afford not to focus on kind of the big picture going back to those goals that you set now, which are over a year. It's we're midway through this biennium. So one year in, we'll we'll share some of the numbers. Um we actually move to the next slide. We'll talk about the agenda here. We've got about an hour and 45 minutes worth of content. Our intent is to take a break, about a 15-minute break or so in between this quarterly update, and then we have our formal work session starting around five o'clock. But for this update, I'll give a few over a few highlights and um summary action items from the last quarter and kind of what's ahead. I'm gonna have Jesse Thomas talk about the some updates to the council dashboard that I think they're all already live and walk you through. I think we're continually trying to evolve and improve that as a communication tool. Um then we're gonna flow into some background information from Russ around Colin around the pro the permitting process, which we've been very focused on, improving our permit process, not just turnaround times, but just our own internal processes, improved customer service. We'll give you an update there. That will flow into some context setting from Russ around the development activity that we're seeing or not seeing some projects have paused. And I think it's important to recognize we are in a bit of uh some a lot of uncertainty right now, some slowdown and what kind of impact that's having. And that'll flow into a discussion and potentially some and also some direction, I should say, from council on housing incentives and strategies that I'll be seeking. And then the main focus of this update is going to be really hearing about our growth plan. So we talk about our growth plan, we've got some short, medium, and long-term strategies that cover us all the way to the year 2080. How are we growing as a city? So we're gonna really put that all together for you. Uh, and then we, as we always do, have opportunities for you to ask questions of our boards, committees, commissions, for them to maybe share their reflection. We'd like to keep it focused on the topic at hand, which is really our growth plan and kind of all things development related today. Um then, as I said, we'll we'll make sure to have some room for a break. So just kind of by the numbers, as I said, we're halfway through 50 action items, 51 actions. Um we're on target, so you can see the in-progress versus complete, 96% kind of in the realm of things are moving fine. There's a couple of projects, mainly as a result of state legislation that's not clear because it's tied up in the courts that projects haven't started or needed need attention. Um we have uh detailed action status on our website, so you can go there and really if you want to are concerned about one something you we don't have time to go through it in detail today. It's it's all on the website. Um, but I do want to just offer a few highlights. Uh, since our last uh quarterly update in April, uh we're almost there. I would say we're 90% there with the tree code. So the tree code was approved at the June 20th council meeting, but we have that piece that we have to talk about today, which is on around uh our standards and specs and kind of our right-of-way um right-of-way issues landscaping the erosion control, Title 16. The uh language access policy work that's part of council goals. That work is uh really quite far along. We're at the point of completing our needs assessment, and we've presented all of our those results to our internal DEI group. Um all departments have uh conducted what's called a four-factor analysis to derive the frequency, urgency, and then scale of the language inclusion moving forward. Um our public works campus is uh going vertical. I was just out there yesterday or the day before, and buildings are up. It's pretty exciting. We just did a video to our employees. So our what's called our operations building or all of our the warm storage vehicle uh location, that's that's vertical. The headquarters is starting to go vertical, and our fleet building is not that far behind. So it's on track on schedule, on budget. Uh we are intending to move into that facility the end of 2025, which is not that far away. So that's really exciting.
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