The Bend City Council met on September 4, 2024, for a work session at 5:00 PM and a regular meeting at 7:00 PM. The work session focused on development code updates, including potential prohibitions on auto-dependent uses in convenience commercial zones and restrictions on short-term rentals in neighborhood commercial zones. The regular meeting included a public hearing on airport fee amendments, approval of a $5 million PRO Housing grant, initiation of a right-of-way vacation, and adoption of water/sewer connection standards for middle housing land divisions. Public comments addressed homelessness, transient fires, e-bike safety, and parking.
Development Code Updates (Work Session)
Airport Fee Resolution (Public Hearing)
PRO Housing Grant
Vacation of Excess Right-of-Way (Country Club Drive and Woodside Court)
Water and Sewer Connection Standards for Middle Housing Land Divisions
Historic Sites Inventory Amendment (Second Reading)
Zone and the andor the commercial neighborhood zones. And then after that, uh we'll kind of transition into several other scheduled development code updates that we have that we wanted you to be aware of that we're working on and we'll be working on for the next six or eight months. So the first part of this work session is implementing a part of a current city council environment and climate goal, and that is to develop new policies to support sustainable development in a variety of ways. One of which is to look at autodependent uses in commercial zones. So that's that part of the policy we'll be talking about today. That does uh generally relate to some longer term work that the growth plan um growth management divisions working on and for our complete community strategy. So as part of updating the city's growth plan over the next couple of years, that team will be looking at community-wide strategies to create new key destinations to reduce vehicle miles traveled. As part of that, they'll be looking at our residential areas and how we can facilitate uh the right size and right type of commercial nodes within those residential areas that can support pedestrian compact friendly mixed-use development patterns. So, just so the council knows this longer term, like holistic look at small commercial nodes within residential districts will occur over the next few years. So we're approaching this current work effort to be pretty narrow to look at um reconsidering allowance of auto-dependent uses in the convenience commercial zone. And with that, I'll hand it off to Beth. Okay. So the convenience commercial zone, it right now it conditionally allows auto-dependent and auto-oriented uses. Auto dependent uses are means automobiles and or other motor vehicles that are served by the use, and the use would not exist without them, such as vehicle repair, gas station, car wash, and auto and truck sales. Auto-oriented is more focused on um where the motor vehicles are an integral part of the use, uh, like drive-ups, drive-ins, and drive-through facilities. Um, both of these require conditional use permit in the convenience commercial zone, which is a type two process with public notice, and there are specific um physical orientation standards and whatnot that um that would apply to these auto-dependent and auto-oriented uses. And so the auto-dependent uses, um, gas stations, car washes, truck sales, mechanics, um, are um they're found in about we have about 28 locations of CC zoning throughout the city, and um we tried to throw them all up in one map so you can see that they're pretty dispersed uh throughout the within with throughout the city limits. Um there are approximately um 87 acres of CC zoning, and about 37 acres are vacant or underdeveloped. So that would mean about 50 are um are developed with um convenience commercial uses. So the question here is um in support of the council goals, does council want to prohibit auto-dependent uses in the CC zone moving forward? Great. And did you all want to pause here and just have us discuss that? What would be the easiest before we go forward? Okay, so council this um was part of our goals. We also had the um hearing with the appeal on the gas station that the community was very interested in that was in one of these zones. So um does anyone have comments or suggestions or desire to um to do this prohibition at this point? Do we still think that that's what we want to do? Floor is open. Could you go back to the map? Certainly, thanks. And I will say um if council does want us to make any changes to allowed uses in the commercial convenience zone, we can add language as we've done and other amendments to the land use tables that would specifically say that if there's any existing auto-dependent uses in the CC zone, they can continue to exist and operate, they wouldn't be non-conforming uses. So if there's any concern about how this might impact existing CC zone developed properties, your decision would then primarily affect those 15 or so properties that are vacant or underdeveloped. That's fine. Right. So for those that are existing today, that would come up if the property sold or somebody proposed some kind of redevelopment. I mean, we can't just because we change the use, we're not gonna go in and shut somebody down, right? That's not a to start with, right? This is so what would trigger something where it would be quote non-conforming if we didn't do that? What kind of action would get us to a place where you could sort of challenge it or somebody would not put in the code language that explicitly said existing autodependent uses in the CC zone may continue to operate and are not considered non-conforming. If we didn't do that, then they would become non-conforming, and there's limitations on how much they can add to the building and how much they can intensify the nonconforming use on the site. So it does put more parameters on a non-conforming use. Would it cause do we even know if it would cause business problems for them if they went out for a loan or they went I think they might know? Yeah, sometimes I can. So if there is that kind of if it's a non-conforming, it could affect financing and other business decisions. So it's it is a risk. Um this was mentioned. Um I just wanted to make the point that we have talked about and are going to be engaging on a large growth plan that's going to include comprehensive plan amendments that's going to include a lot of things the state is telling us, but that we also want to do to create complete neighborhoods, walkable neighborhoods that serve the folks who live across our city. So to me, this is sort of a very short term. Do we want to just pause on these properties on this map for now? Understanding we're going to be coming back to what do our zones look like where in the city is as it um comes to complete communities, and that you know, this this designation may be updated or changed as part of that work as well.