All right, the city council will now be an executive session for us one nine two six six zero two E to conduct deliberations with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions.

No decision maybe made in executive session at the end of the executive session.

Let's get it started.

All right.

So we are gonna call the meeting to order for tonight's council business meeting, and we will start with our roll call.

Um, why don't you start Council Franzoza?

Sure.

Uh Gina Franzosa she her.

Mario Mendez, here you know Mike Riley, he and Melanie Kiebler, she her.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Megan Norris, she her.

Skip.

All right.

So we are moving into go to the order, and we don't have any proclamations tonight, but we do have a statement recognizing Juneteenth, which is this week, which is on Friday.

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, marks the moment in US history on June 19th, 1865, when the remaining 250,000 enslaved African Americans in Confederate states were legally declared free.

Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

In the 160 years since, the Juneteenth holiday represents a time to gather with family and community, honor the present, and reflect on shared history and tradition.

Juneteenth is about more than recognizing a date.

It is a critical reminder that the work towards freedom and justice must continue.

After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, black people confronted a series of discriminatory practices that place limitations on their ability to own land, earn wages, and participate in the political process.

Racial disparities and discrimination persist across our society.

To offer one example, according to the U.S.

Department of the Treasury, the black white gap in home ownership rates was the same in 2020 as it was in 1970, just two years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which sought to end racial discrimination in the housing market.

At this moment, voter suppression activities such as pursuing restrictive voter ID requirements are happening at our highest political office.

Juneteenth serves as a call to action to stay informed and to stand up for justice.

There are many ways you can learn more about Juneteenth locally.

You can join the celebration happening at Open Space Event Studios on June 20th this weekend from 2 to 8 p.m.

Plan for an evening of delicious food, dancing, and opportunities support local artisans and organizers.

You can also visit the new Deschutes Public Library to access a staff curated list of recommended reading materials.

And if you're traveling to Portland this weekend, you can attend Portland's Juneteenth, 54th Annual Festival Parade on Saturday from 11 to 7.

The National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC is also a great place to visit to learn more on their website.

Um and you can also access many materials there.

Today we want to do more than commemorate because freedom is not a date, it is a duty.

And if you didn't see there's a couple little flyers about the libraries program out there for anyone that wants to check that out.

So thanks everybody for acknowledging Juneteenth.

All right, moving into um our council action and reports.

There aren't any letters, but we do have a series of appointments.

Thanks for everyone who helped with interviewing staff and um council liaisons for budget and economic development advisory body and one alternate reappointment for ECC.

So all European motion.

Okay, unanimous.

Thanks.

All right, we'll move into council reports.

Uh Councillor Franzoza.

Thanks.

Um, just one update.

Um Friday, June 12th.

I just want to thank uh Councilor Mendez and Councillor Play for um attending a meeting with a community renewables um renewable energy association.

Uh really cool ORS 190 quasi not quasi-governmental, it is a governmental entity uh composed of multiple different counties and cities that focus on um local development and local benefits of renewable energy.

So um yeah, I'm excited um about uh small opportunities to be involved with that group.

It was a nice initial meeting, and um maybe it would be nice to kind of talk with others about um be getting some more information from them and benefits of joining and um and other things like that.

So um and thanks to um Austin, so Meggie for presenting the Inconduit Hydro project that was um super interesting to all the folks from um around mostly eastern Oregon, but to hear about what the uh what the city band is doing.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Councillor Mendez.

Yeah, um so yes, the uh uh community renewable energy association meeting was really interesting, just to remind people of the magnitude of power that is potentially at stake here.

Uh within a couple of years, the site could be developing enough energy to power all of Central Oregon and then some, and several years after that, it could be sufficient to power all of the uh the state as a whole.

So there's a lot of power at stake, and uh it's fascinating to see there's some hurdles to be sure.

There's some hurdles to get over, but it's pretty fascinating to learn about the potential there.

Um on June 4th, the Transit Vision Work Group met with Council O'Reilly and I, and that work is ongoing, but I did want to take the opportunity to remind everyone that Ben LePine School District children get a free transit pass this summer.

You can sign up in person at Hawthorne Station, or you can do so online using your Ben Le Pine School District student email address.

My daughter did it earlier this week.

It was pretty easy, she's pretty excited.

Um so just wanted to share that uh that possibility.

And the Oregon Metropolitan Planning Organization consortium met on Friday, June, uh June 5th.

Um, and one of the biggest things that we heard was the effort to put together a transportation package.

The governor is taking a lot of initiative here, convening a series of very focused groups in uh I think at least six different areas, a half dozen different areas, um getting input from all different sides, and we need to address this.

We need to pass the our legislature needs to have something that is going to meet the needs of the state in terms of uh both capital and especially maintenance and safety.

Um so we'll be keeping a close eye on that.

And that's uh that's all I have to report.

All right, Council Riley.

Um I attended a couple different events um over the last couple weeks.

One was the uh kind of grand opening for the open arts center that's down in the central district.

Um, and I know that there's another organization that opened up recently down their way.

Um I think that's how you pronounce it, H U E.

Um, yeah.

Yeah, and um there are some things that are similar, but I it just was really exciting to see all the people from the community show up and see so many artists engaged and to have those kinds of activities going on in the central district.

I really appreciate all the effort folks are putting into that to kind of keeping that art stuff alive in the central district.

Um I attended Pride uh probably with Councilor Platt and I were there at the same time.

I imagine there was other counselors there as well.

Uh that event was also really well attended.

It was um I heard a lot of compliments from people.

They like the shorter time frame for the event and um just lots of interest and enthusiasm and the clear bags the city gives out when out off of like hot cakes, like in the first hour they were gone.

Um the mayor and I attended a housing summit last week.

Uh, you planning to mention that?

You can go ahead.

Yeah.

Well, just uh it was very well attended.

I think it was sold out.

There are people from all over the state really, and lots of people from central Oregon.

It was just great to see so many people show up and and talk and learn about what we can do to kind of deal with the various housing issues in the community.

I did uh ride the bus during Tri-Transit Week.

I went from my house on the west side to Hawthorne Station, and then I went to the new library in Southeast, and I actually was talking to somebody at Hawthorne Station and missed the first bus for myself.

I would have been there a lot faster.

It was fine.

But it was super efficient, really quick, um, took me where I needed to go, and I just I had a really positive experience with the bus.

So if you haven't tried it, I encourage everybody in the room to try transit sometime.

And then I wanted to call attention to some recent graduates.

Um I know this is graduation season.

Um we have kids from elementary school, middle school, high school, college graduating, and I want kudos to all the folks who graduated from schools recently.

But I wanted to highlight some folks that we don't hear about very often is that that is inmates at Deer Creek Correctional Institute in Madras.

Um COCC awarded the first ever associate degrees to nine um individuals who are currently incarcerated, and I just think it's really exciting to see folks investing in their future and the hope that that shows about what life is gonna hopefully be like for them after they leave the correctional institute.

So I really appreciate that.

Um and it also there's quite a bit of research that shows that people who engage in education during their time um in incarceration actually have very low recidivism rates and really have success um after that experience.

So kudos to all of them for uh making a difference in their lives.

All right, Council Perkins.

Um today with the mayor, attended uh the Ben Business Roundtable and had a series of uh presentations um on homelessness and sort of the lay of the land uh in our region and um with the idea of of you know how can the business community um become involved in um in assisting um in this effort, whether it's financially or or with other resources.

Land uh in our region and um with the idea of of you know how can the business community um become involved in um in assisting um in this effort whether it's financially or or with other resources um and then I think the other thing I wanted to highlight is uh the human rights and equity commission met um last week and um we first of all we welcomed three new commissioners um and really happy to have them there and um had a had a lengthy conversation about the role of the human rights and equity commission um and the impact uh of it and you know continue to have some really challenging conversations about um how that how that the human rights and equity commission you know wants to be wants to be a part of our city uh wants to be um in partnership with the council and you know I I um admire them and and and look forward to continuing those conversations I'll leave it at that okay council black oh I'll go oh sorry it's that's on my list no you go someone um the environment and climate committee met last Thursday um we discussed our EV readiness plan which was actually from November 2022 um and so there's a lot of interest um on the committee to update that and update some of the standards there's a statewide goal right now to meet 250,000 EVs by 2025 and so there's a lot of discussion um about updating that and then also about um utilities of course and you know load and if there's you know increased state stations is there enough and also something I found really interesting is that um it's really helpful when cities can actually with the with the partnership of the utility map out where there are easy connections that are affordable to site some of these um these stations so it'd be great to try to start working with some of our utility companies to figure that out um and then they also discussed um more on the theme of reduce reuse and recycle and what I thought was really interesting is there's three grants um for 2400 that are um being offered to some of our local food carts in town um and um you can take basically it's all dishware and there's a centralized station where um you could take all the dishes from these three carts and go watch them a centralized place and help uh reduce some of the trash from food carts and I think we have about three signed up so far and there's a lot of interest to sign up more so thanks Council Platt I just want to mention on the renewable energy forum that I went to with uh counselor uh Mendez and uh Councilor Franzosa one of the things that I don't think I'd emphasized was this inconduit hydro that's going to be doing I Gina talked about the brief but what that's going to provide for us is really incredible that's going to take that's gonna allow one of the highest use um items in terms of power in our system for the city city uh facilities off the grid it's gonna it's gonna offset all of that power usage right there and provide resilience in any kind of wire fire situation that we have add to that that leaves over about 350 house homes uh available to get power baseload power from that coming in through through the um the in conduit hydro so I'm really impressed with that I'm really excited what we're gonna see coming come forward on that um I was uh also with Pride Day with uh counselor and I also thought the put the t-shirts uh people were really admiring the t-shirts that we had those are really uh well done um I just want to provide one look forward here because we're not gonna see each other until after the fourth is that correct well we have one more in terms of where we get a count uh a comment right and so um uh I just want to remind us all that we won't have a chance for comment um and our nation's gonna have its 250th birthday and I want to commit myself with the rest of you on the board to continue to work towards a more perfect union together because I think that's where it happens here locally so I'm really honored to be on this diet with all of you.

That's it.

Thanks Steve Steve.

I'll just highlight one one thing per Mike's comment that it's graduation um season I was invited to give the commencement address for COIC's alternate high school um work in the graduates there that is a program that helps um students 16 to 21 who are referred by the local high schools that need to make up credits to either get back in and get their diploma or end up with a GI GED and really inspiring to talk to these students and congratulate them on hard work well done to get to that point and heard a couple of speeches from a couple of the students that were really inspiring about what they'd overcome and what they how they've sort of fallen off track and gotten themselves back on track to to finish this really important part of their education so was really honored to be able to do that.

Okay.

I think then we are going to move into visitors section.

So we have a lot of public hearings on our um agenda tonight so if you've signed up for one of those we will call you during that time so that's including the budget there's a land use hearing um if you are here for one of for a different topic that's not a public hearing then I'll have you speak now we only have a couple of people and then maybe one person online.

We're trying something new and moving this over here so you can really see it and you know that you have two of this two minutes to give your comments and um we'll start um with um Todd Torzin who's online and then go to in person.

Please address us as a body not individuals and please know language or behavior that disrupts the meeting.

All right, so Todd, you're gonna be forced up first up, and you can go ahead and unmute.

Hello, I'm Todd Torch.

And the resident in Southwestern Bend and Chairman of Southern Crossing.

And an engineer.

Agenda item eight, project B includes the Chamberlain crossing of Reed Market Road.

Last July, residents of Southern Crossing asked you to reject this project.

You postponed it and instructed the city engineers to work with the neighborhood.

They did not.

Today they present you with what looks like the exact same thing.

They held an open house with little advanced warning and at a park.

We were able to figure out which one by calling Ben Parks and Rec and not from emailing or texting the engineer.

They also gave us no advance warning of this being an agenda item today, even though they know we are keenly interested in this.

This location has speeding vehicles and poor visibility.

This ill-conceived project does not adequately address those issues.

Your engineers will tell you you have good compliance with the flashing lights.

But is that only when drivers can see pedestrians and bikes?

What about in poor visibility locations?

Pedestrians will have no warnings and vehicles are ignoring the flashing lights and speeding through the crosswalk because they can't see them.

We have offered a comprehensive solution to address the safe crossing using the traffic light.

Additionally, our solution deals with trouble making left out of the neighborhood onto a busy read market and emergency response access.

It's part of our efforts to enhance the last half mile of read market for US 97 for wildfire evacuation.

The Silver Lake Boulevard part also has problems.

Does it make sense that the city allowed low-income housing to be built without driveway parking?

And now wants to eliminate the street parking at that location.

Please use the taxpayers' money wisely and come out to understand what's really needed.

Let's work collaboratively to get the best solution.

Either reject item eight, project B or postpone it and meet with Southern Crossing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Todd.

All right, our other online folks are for a different item later on the agenda.

So we'll go to in person.

Um start with John Halen.

And please introduce yourself and whether you live in the city of Bend.

Hi, my name is John Halen.

I live in Bend.

I am a local troublemaker.

Um I am here because I felt compelled to talk about the fact that there was a housing report a year ago talking about how 10% of the homes in Bend are empty.

Vacation homes, second homes.

We have 50,000 homes in Bend.

That means we have 5,000 homes that are sitting empty in our community.

These are homes that are basically a black hole of economic activity on every block.

This is a home that could have a family that works here, whose kids go to school here, who buy groceries here, who float the river and rent paddle boards.

And I think there needs to be a move to maybe have a fee for empty homes in this town.

Because when it snows, you can see what neighborhoods are the most empty.

And it is a disservice to us, and it's a disservice to our economy here in Bend that we have such a deficit of housing, as well as 5,000 units that are sitting empty on our streets.

So I hope you guys can work with T's shoots County, maybe encourage them to do a certain fee or property tax, or maybe there's something we can do locally, but it's uh uncautionable that there are 5,000 empty homes in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Brian Adams.

But it's all on 2018.

Yeah, we're not, it's not a public hearing because it's just a second reading, so you can go ahead and give a comment now.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh okay.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

Um, my name is Brian Adams.

I'm a Venn resident.

I'm here tonight to express concern about the ambiguity that continues to exist between the city's stated intent and language and ordinance of 1820.

However, before I begin, I do want to thank the individuals and organizations that have consistently supported Ven's climate pollution fee, particularly energized bands.

While we may disagree on this policy's impacts, I respect the youth's dedication, passion, and courage to publicly stand for what you believe.

Our community is stronger when people from all perspectives participate in the public process and make their voices here heard.

Mayor and council.

It is a question of clarity, precision, and good governance.

I respectfully urge you to make the right choice, not simply the easy one.

Postpone tonight's vote and direct staff to revise the ordinance so it clearly reflects the intent discussed throughout this process.

Taking a little more time now to correct the language is preferable to face the confusion, unintended consequences, and potential legal challenges later.

The city has an opportunity tonight to ensure the ordinance matches the record, reflects the intended outcome, and provide certainty to the community.

I respectfully asks that you take that opportunity.

And then in reflection to kind of the council's um announcements and recognition earlier, I also want to recognize my daughter who graduated from Mountain View High School a couple weeks ago and is going to be attending Oregon State University.

So congrats.

Okay, so that will do it for the visitor comment that's outside of our public hearings.

So we'll move on.

Okay, yeah.

And to the consent agenda.

I move to approve a consent agenda.

Second.

All right, move by Council Norris, second by counselor Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

Great.

So that brings us into our budget section.

So we're gonna have a presentation on several items all at once, and then we'll open a couple of different public hearings on the different items as we move through these decisions.

Apologies always sneak up when uh consent agenda goes so quickly.

Apologies.

Okay.

There we go.

Okay, should we go?

Thank you for your patience.

We will speed through these.

Okay.

All right.

So we're back at it.

Uh these are the items that we presented to the budget committee on June 3rd.

Uh, so just for reference, most of these items are unchanged from that meeting.

I will highlight any changes that have occurred since that point.

Uh, as the mayor mentioned, we have several items to go through.

The first of which are our budget adjustments that are being proposed for the 2527 biennium.

Majority of these are uh year-end housekeeping, so this is uh interfund loans, interfund transfers, uh investment income, recognizing that and transferring it to the proper place, uh, as well as recognize some additional debt service.

Uh the uh debt service obligation.

We also, with the consolidation of uh the public works administration up at the new campus, we have to take some uh internal transfers to be able to pay for that new structure out of the proper funds.

Uh and then lastly, we have quite a few general fund one-time allocations uh that are going to different parts of the city.

These were those that were discussed with council back in February of 26, uh, including funding for uh streets projects, the extension of our shelter services, as well as the temporary safe stay area.

Uh there are also transfers for uh North Mirror Pond design contract as well as uh the health and safety compliance coordinator, uh which council uh discussed in November of last year.

Uh so that is that kind of sums up all the budget adjustments that we plan on that are being proposed this evening.

Our second item or year and loans and promissory notes.

Uh, year and loans are essentially it's an accounting mechanism.

We have a lot of grant funded funds and programs within our city.

A lot of those grants are reimbursement based, and so a lot of times our spending occurs in one fiscal year and the money doesn't come in until the next.

So these year-end loans function to keep our cash balances positive for that.

Those year-end loans will be repaid in July, so in just a couple weeks.

Promissory notes, that again is another accounting mechanism that allows our vendor and renewal agency areas to operate as well as the NPO, and those will be repaid by June 30th.

So those will be repaid this fiscal year.

Dan, a way to sort of explain that to folks is that we just can't end in the red, right?

Correct.

So that's that's all this is as an accounting.

Yep, so general fund loans the money, and then we pay it back July 1.

Give or date.

Next item is state shared revenues.

Uh the state requires us to uh let them know that we want the city's uh share of the state shared revenues.

We have to hold two public hearings.

The first public hearing was held with the budget committee on June 3rd.

This is the second public hearing for this purpose.

Uh the state shared revenues include liquor taxes, marijuana, cigarette, um, as well as our state highway apportionment.

Uh these funds are used primarily for general city services, police, streets maintenance, uh, long range planning, code enforcement, as well as uh a contribution to our city's transit.

And then the state highway apportionment is used primarily for state and uh for street uh preservation and maintenance.

Uh and so with public hearing, we'll be able to signal to the state that we want to receive this funding.

Our next item uh we require formal action to be able to levy the advalorum taxes for the city.

Uh we are taking the city's permanent tax rate, the 2.308 2.8035, as well as a local option levy that funds uh that helps fund our fire operations, and then we also have our general obligation bond levies that were passed in 2011 and 2020.

Those are specific dollar mounts because the amount that impacts uh each property owner will depend on what the citywide uh taxable assessed value is in the given year.

So that is the differentiation there.

Our next item uh fee the update to the fee resolution.

Um I have a couple slides here that just kind of show the the across the board changes to some of the larger broader categories.

Um in short, these are all presented to the budget committee on June 3rd.

Uh and with minor exception are within what was budgeted or included in the adopted budget.

Uh only exceptions, the building increase is lower than what was budgeted.

Uh the licensing fee, uh, we have a 4% increase across the board.

Uh we had not budgeted for an increase there, uh, but that those departments are seeing uh about 9% cost increases, and so we're trying to cover part of that increase uh in those departments.

We will also cover water sewer and SCC and transportation SCCs uh on a future slide.

The second slide just wanted to highlight the uh water services.

We have water, sewer, and storm water, uh 4.9, 1.8, and 8% increase are proposed there.

The across the board impact to the typical customer customer bill is about 4%.

Uh so in aggregate uh it's about 4%.

And then we again will cover solid waste hauling in a in the subsequent slide.

Moving on to the capital improvement program.

Uh each year we're required to hold a public hearing and adopt uh the next five years of the CIP.

So this is the 27 to uh 2027 to 2031 capital improvement program.

Uh it's proposed to be about 557 million dollars.

Uh the budget for the next fiscal year is 106 million dollars.

Uh, and engineering presented on these CIPs in the last month.

And if there are any questions, engineering is here and available to uh offer insights.

Our next item is the adoption of the staffing schedule.

Uh, this is one of those changes that I wanted to highlight.

On June 3rd, we had presented an increase of nine and a half FTE.

Uh since that point, we are now proposing to also add one FTE for a municipal court judge.

Uh currently the city operates its municipal court with a contracted judge due to increased uh administrative work, increased uh court sessions due to photo enforcement uh and the parking uh enforcement as well.

We are requesting that this position be transitioned from a contract to an FTE position.

Uh and that will happen sometime in the next fiscal year, working through some of the details there.

And if you have any questions about these specific uh other positions that we've already discussed, happy to go back when we get to the questions.

Next item is an update to our investment policies.

Uh again, this is a required by code that we update our investment policies each year.

Uh in consultation with our investment advisors, they recommended no changes.

So the only change to the investment policies is the date of adoption.

Uh so not too much exciting going on there.

For solid waste rates, uh, the city has two solid waste haulers that operate within city limits.

Code requires that the city council adopt any changes to their fees.

They have requested a four and a half percent increase to their fees, which is about 97 cents for a 32 gallon can.

And lastly, we have updates to the fee resolution for system development charges.

There are a couple changes going on with SCCs this year.

First off, we we always have an annual increase that is tied to the engineering news record construction cost inflation index.

Uh for May of 2026, which is the one that we typically use, it is 2.4%.

Uh just for reference, in the budget, we had budgeted 1.8% increase for this year.

So this is slightly higher.

We're seeing construction costs uh slightly higher than what was in the budget.

Another change is the third year of implementation for the transportation SECs, SEC methodology that was adopted a couple years ago.

And then lastly, uh the Institute Institute for Transportation Engineers has released a new manual uh which details trip trip counts for different categories of development.

Uh the proposal in front of us today includes the decreases to trip counts.

Uh the manual included increases and decreases, but at this time we're only proposing to take the decreases to trip counts.

And those are the main changes to the system development charges.

Free to answer any questions on the 11 items.

All right, any questions?

And then we are going to go through public hearings as well.

Go ahead, Council Platt.

Um Dan on the uh the business licensing fees back there, several slides.

It was uh it's 10%.

That is in our original adopted budget.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

Yep.

The business licenses were were adopted to increase 10% each fiscal year.

All right, other questions, Councilor Francosa?

Yeah, a couple questions.

Um, on the capital on the CIP slide.

Um for facilities management, the the 33 million, that's a really big increase.

Well, that's only one year, I see, but still it's a big increase annually.

Um, does that have you know like an estimate for city hall in it that maybe isn't necessary anymore?

I'm just curious.

No, there's only in our biennial budget for this fiscal year was a million or for this biennium it was a million, I think that was set aside for city hall that helped pay for studies, etc.

I don't for future years, Dan, do you recall what's in there for this is this was a placeholder that was roughly 10 million dollars a year.

This was these were put together uh prior to uh staff presentation, recent staff presentations and discussions, uh but that the CI five-year COP did does include some city hall.

So we'll probably I think we'll address adjust this for the next biannual budget and take that down given our sort of prolonged that we just didn't have time between when we presented that last week and this week.

Okay.

Okay.

So that won't be it won't come back as like, oh, look, we have all this money that we didn't spend that we could spend it on something else.

All right, if these if you promise that, I'll I'll go along with that.

Um the FTEs, the FTE slide.

Um, I guess my question here is um, are there uh vacancies right now that um positions that could potentially be eliminated and filled with uh regular FTE positions that are being added here?

We've mostly so vacant positions we always look to see if we can repurpose, so that's always a constant part of our process.

Um these positions, like the overhigh majority of these are over hires within fire is to give us the authority to really reduce overtime, as you all probably talked about a few weeks ago.

Um, the others are really dependent upon sort of workload kind of issues that are occurring in each of these areas.

So um repurposing a vacant position.

We we kind of already go through that vetting process, and this is determined to be uh needed uh based on based on workload activity.

Is one of the last position listed there related to implementation of um Ben Duncan's recommendations too?

And the recommendation of the report, yeah.

Right.

Um, and then the limited term positions.

I mean, the way those had kind of been presented, it sounded like the intention was for those to actually be full term.

So I'm curious, kind of like why they're LTE and not FTE here.

The health and safety compliance coordinator is really connected to the TSSA, the temporary safe state area, which right now is time limited.

So we thought it was proven to uh have that be an LTE.

Um and then the warehouse technician uh position.

So we've just established that new public works campus, the warehouse is a new function.

It used to be a scatter uh process.

Now we've centralized it.

We want to make sure that that workload is solid and right now.

There's a justification, but we want to make sure before we convert that to an FTE that we have experience with the additional staffing, and then we'll determine at the next biannual budget if we want to convert that to an FTE.

And the police oh the police wellness was the other um LTE.

So that was uh that's a contracted position right now that we're converting to an FTE.

So again, we we kind of tend to before we just move right to a full-time equivalent position.

We want to make sure that the sort of workload needed is is uh sustainable, and before we would because we're in the middle of our biennial budget, we felt it was prudent to have that be an LTE, and then we'll look at the next biannual budget if we want to convert that to an FDE.

Okay, um, and then the um S transportation SDC is we got a letter today.

If we could address that during the chance to read it, we could address that during the public hearing.

I think that would be best.

That item does have a public hearing, and um and Joe Bessman is here to speak.

So I think if we want to address that during that public hearing, we can talk about those comments.

So then Dan will respond to those comments or say, yeah, we'll have we'll have a whole public hearing on that so we can have a response from staff as well.

Okay.

So two years.

Yeah, two two questions for you, Dan.

Um, if we wanted to exempt the mural fee for say three years citywide, that's uh supposed to be it's uh six hundred and seventy-six dollars and sixty cents each.

Do we have an idea of how much that would cost, like how much revenue we would need to cover from the general fund to accomplish that?

Sure.

So in the last couple years, last year we received two applications.

Sorry, current year we've received two applications, last year was three, previous year was seven.

So the the dollar amount is between one and three thousand dollars each year.

So if you wanted to put a three-year moratorium on it or something to that effect, it'd probably be somewhere between three and six thousand dollars.

Okay, thank you.

And then similarly, on I know Councillor Platt uh uh asked about the 10% increase on business registrations.

My understanding is from your comments last time that we're planning to revisit that methodology in January.

How much would it cost?

Uh in other words, how much would we have to cover from the general fund if we just wanted to pause that 10% increase until January?

Sure.

So the 10% increase brings in about it's projected to bring in about 45,000 a year.

So I guess if we were to pause that, we'd be out 22 and a half thousand dollars.

The restructuring was projected to bring in about 135,000.

So the restructuring uh, you know, it would make up for if we were to pass the restructuring, it would account for uh taking a six-month pause on a 10% increase.

Okay, thank you, Dan.

If that makes sense, sorry public math doing.

Great job.

I think you're right.

Council Riley.

Can you go to the system development charges slide?

And I don't know if this is necessarily a question for you, Dan, or maybe for Ryan, but the third bullet on there.

Can you walk through um the practical implications of that increasing?

Um, I mean, the comment that you made is that some went up, but we chose to waive that and sort of what that means practically and the why behind what that choice was made.

Can I ask also that we address that during the public hearing?

But just wanted to let you finish your question so Ryan could hear it and be ready.

But we'll we'll get into that.

I'm not sure I've seen the letter actually that people are referring to yet.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Great.

So we will move into a public hearing for some of these items.

Um, opening a public hearing on items 5A, C, F, and I now and I think Council members, did you have a question?

Yes, I just thought they do have a potential on 5.1F.

Um, this item could have a financial impact, but since the impact is unknown at this time, I'm permitted to deliberate and vote on this item.

Okay, so we're opening the public hearing on these items.

And Dan, was there additional presentation?

Or was incorporating what you've already presented?

Okay, I did not have anyone that signed up for public comment on these items.

They are the resolution approving the supplemental budget, the receiving state shares, state shared revenues, the CIP, and the solid waste collection rates.

That's what we're doing in this public hearing.

So unless there's anyone that's going to bring public comment on those items, I'm going to close the public hearing and we can have a motion.

I move to approve items 5A, C, F, and I.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Platt, second by Councillor Mendez.

All those in favor?

Aye, aye.

Any opposed.

Okay, unanimous.

Great.

That moves us to 5.2, which are the items that don't require a public hearing.

That is 5B, D, G, and H.

So we don't need to open a public hearing for those.

Just to go through that, it's the um the year-in loans that we talked about is item number B.

D is the levying of our property taxes, um, G is the staffing schedule, and H is um the investment policy.

So we'll take a motion on those.

Go ahead.

I move to approve items five B, like Bravo, D like Delta, G, and H.

Second.

All right, move by Councilor Mendes.

Second by Councilor Norris.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Hi.

Okay, great, unanimous.

All right.

Then I'm gonna open the next public hearing, which is to adopt a resolution establishing fees and charges for fiscal year 2025-2026.

This is item 5E, so I'm gonna open that hearing.

Counselor Norse.

Um, I am declaring an actual conflict for items 5, 3, and 5, 4.

My employer's Hayden Homes on this item that have a financial impact.

Um, therefore I will not be voting on this item.

I'm just gonna and also item 5.4, same thing, right?

Yes, I said 5, 3, and 5.4.

Yeah, great.

So we'll just step away.

All right, don't I have to go?

Well, we have a public comment on these next two, so you might as well take a seat.

Might be a little bit.

Okay.

So um this is our fee resolution, and we did have Vic.

I'm sorry, Veronica, who I think is here, Veronica Ramos.

Yeah.

Is this for the business license?

Yes, this is this is your time.

So you can go ahead and same rules as before, a two-minute timer on your comment, and feel free to tell us whatever you'd like on this on this particular topic.

Yes, thank you.

It sounded like the stepped fee schedule was taken off the table.

I think correct.

Okay, so that was my biggest concern today.

Yes.

Um, I'm a new business owner, redemption coffee company, and I seek to bring love and joy to Ben through coffee, community, and connection.

So I wanted to take people out of loneliness, get them together, and help them create community.

But it has been near impossible here in the city of Bend with the SDC fees related to the transportation tax.

Getting a brick and mortar.

So we started out in a coffee cart.

I got a notice last week on Tuesday at 5 p.m.

right before the Wednesday meeting.

No way I can make that kind of turnaround for a meeting to come and hear about that.

But these fees are are telling me that I shouldn't do business here in the city of Bend because I'm gonna be penalized for uh bringing jobs here to Bend so that people can come and work at my coffee shop because the more employees I have, the more I'm gonna have to pay to do a business tier.

And again, I'm already struggling to do a business here because of the change of use and those SDC transportation fees.

A hundred and thirty thousand dollars to change the use on a on this storefront that I thought would be beautiful to bring people to come and um get together over a cup of coffee.

So I just wanted to share that um kind of the impact that these decisions are having on new business owners.

I'm actually thinking of taking my business to Redmond because they're easier to work with, and that's sad to me because my community's here in Bend and I love Bend, so I don't want to do that.

So I just want to leave you with those words of help me bring my business here to Bend and keep it here.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here.

Okay, so we did not have other commenters on this item unless there's anyone else here to comment on the fee schedule.

I will close the public hearing.

There wasn't anyone online right there for the master plan, that's right.

Okay, so I'm closing the public hearing and we can uh move to deliberation and a motion.

So I I do have two small proposals, I think.

I mean I don't know.

I think they're small anyway.

Um is I want to know if others uh would be supportive of a mural fee exemption.

I feel like we have some phenomenal murals in our town, and it's always exciting to see them.

There's more of them coming up.

Um, but it it's it is a cost, and I know this cost is designed to cover the cost of staff time associated with it, but in the effort to beautify Bend, uh, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in joining me in uh supporting a three-year exemption on mural fees.

Can I ask a technical question?

We're just doing this next year's fees, so I'm not sure we can buy into future council or give it a lot of people.

Well, yeah, they know that direction and sort of control your preference and we can talk about it and involve next binding but yeah.

I'm just curious why do you have you done have you done some research on?

I'm just curious if that's is the fee the reason why we're not seeing applications, or is are there other things that may constrain this process?

I mean, I think that we've heard some of the challenges around um installing murals, and each mural is different, I'm sure.

But it strikes me that a 676 dollar fee could be a significant barrier for some.

And if if we want to incentivize beautifying Bend, I this strikes me as a relatively low cost way to do that, and that's that's really the main motivation.

So I thought, you know, two three years exemption.

Let's just see what happens.

If we get twice as many people applying for murals, then we know maybe that this was a bigger barrier than we thought.

If nobody applies or there's no change, then I think that informs us and gives us another indicator.

Sounds good to me.

We supportive of of that change.

Is that easy enough to do, Dan?

Okay, yep, seeing ahead nod from Council Françoza.

Um, I was uh with the downtown Bun Business Association this morning and brought this up and they were very supportive.

They are working on murals, and I think anything that just lowers that cost is helpful because they are they have to raise money to be able to get the murals going.

Okay, and then you had another thing.

I did.

So the 10% increase on business registration struck me because it is a significant increase um percentage-wise.

And considering that we are going to be revisiting this with a new methodology methodology in January.

I've I think that a $22,000 cost to pause this increase.

I feel like you know, we we know that small businesses especially are struggling right now, and uh this would be a one way to show support and say, okay, let's hold off on the fee increase for now.

It's gonna cost the city some money, but temporary.

Um maybe that's something we can do.

Okay, thoughts from anybody?

Dan, is it a is it a whole whole year?

Because it's it's July to July before that would end.

Fiscal year.

Yeah, so it's a whole fiscal year, right?

So it's it's really the 46 So 45,000 would be a full year of revenue.

So if we paused it for six months, that's 22,500 in that first six months.

In theory, the second six months there might be some change that occurs.

But the first six months the only difference would be that 22,000.

Well, but we would pause it starting one July.

Am I getting that wrong?

Or well, the idea is to kind of revisit the restructuring, right?

And have a base fee.

In January.

In January.

So as Dan said there might be some recovery of that.

Okay, yeah.

Just wanted to check the math.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm I'm supportive.

Any other thoughts, other comments?

Can I ask Cyrus?

Is that a can I yeah?

I'd love to hear from Cyrus.

That's okay.

Yeah, I think it's fine.

From Canadian Council Cyrus Mooney Business Development Manager.

Um, I think the intent is that we would take this topic to BDAB and talk about the restructuring and other methodology options that we could pursue.

I don't know if that would lead to BDAB necessarily recommending that it would be at the same rate of what was originally proposed.

So I just caveat that a bit that the recovery uh pausing for six months.

I don't know if that would be recommended by BDAB, but it would definitely be something that would we would explore with them to determine what they feel like would be the most effective approach for both the city and also mitigating impacts to businesses.

Okay, ask Paul.

So can you remind us?

And this is either for you, Cyrus, or maybe you, Eric with that.

Um it seems like there's some cost recovery and or um the these funds were gonna be directed to the business or the economic development department, right?

Because we currently that's all coming out of the general fund.

So the point of this was to try to the business activity is in some ways helping support of the work that um you know, including a mural grant program, at least for certain parts of town.

Um so can you just speak more to that?

Yeah, I think generally speaking, economic development and the business advocacy budget is intended to be more of an enterprise fund that is self-sustained through business registrations, and right now that isn't happening, and we're needing a pretty significant subsidy from the general fund.

And right now that isn't happening, and we're needing a pretty significant subsidy from the general fund.

So this is a way to write that ship a bit.

Um but I think the small business assistance grant program is another example of if we're able to generate more funds through business registrations, we can then reinvest more resources into that program, for example, and maybe other future ones that have similar intended outcomes.

Yeah.

I mean, the six months thing seems fine to me as long as there's it's clear that we're wanting to get that resolved in January.

That right it's not gonna, you know, we're not really an extended out the full year because I think there are some financial issues for the city that this is a small piece of trying to help solve.

Yeah, that's that's correct.

And I think the intent is at our July meeting for BDAP to dedicate some time to talking about this topic and laying out the milestones that we need to achieve to be ready to have a recommendation at council for January.

Yeah.

Okay, that's okay.

Motion for this.

Yeah, go ahead, Council Francisza.

Thank you.

I um I didn't want to interrupt.

Um, I appreciate Councilor Mendes bringing this up, and I because I think it's related to something that I've I've been asking for, which is a little bit more thoughtfulness in the budgeting process and a little bit more involvement with council, like so last you know, two years ago or a year and a half ago, we uh decided that we wanted to do more economic development, but we we didn't really allocate budget to it, we didn't take a hard look at the budget.

And I so I think January is an appropriate time for us to start doing that.

And I you know, and I think there's other issues that we should um kind of consider and and make sure that the budget is aligned with the council's priorities.

So I um I appreciate that this was brought up and I support that six-month um moratorium deeper discussion in January.

Thanks.

Okay, so it sounds like we have agreement on that change as well to the fee schedule.

Anything else, any other comments or deliberation before we do a motion.

And I think um, Ian, can maybe Ariel, if you want to do the motion and just append your two changes to that, would that work?

Okay, that'd be great.

Yeah, so I need um which quick point of clarification.

Sure.

So we have business license uh initial registration as well as renewal, or those are the only two fees that we're looking to.

Those are the only fees that we're impacted by 10 percent.

Yeah.

So those are the only two fees that we are looking to impact.

Okay.

And so should the amendment be for three years or for one year?

For mural for murals.

My recommendation for council would be to consider um an amendment on the mural fee that um waves exempt exempts doesn't apply that fee for the next fiscal year, and then as part of budget development for the next biennium, maybe when staff is doing that and coming to council, we can have some more information on how many can we gotten in, and that way council can sort of apply it for a year and then consider.

Okay.

Um I move to adopt the resolution establishing fees and charges for fiscal year 2026 and 2027 with the following amendments on 2.14.11 F mural signs.

I move to exempt the fee for the next year.

And for 4.1.09 business registrations, I move to pause the 10% increase until January 2027.

Second.

Second.

All right, move by Council Mendes, second by councillor Platt.

Any other discussion?

All those in favor.

Aye.

Okay, great.

All right, so that will bring us to our next public hearing 5.4 on the system development charges.

Yeah, sorry, no, we're not done.

Opening the public hearing on that item.

Um, and we had one person, Joe Bessman signed up for public comments.

Joe, if you want to come on up.

All right, good evening, Mayor, counselors, staff.

Uh my comments are limited to the transportation SDC fees and specifically to the recreation category.

So overall, there's a lot of different recreational uses in the in the trip manuals and everything else.

And these range from low intensity uses like your court sports, tennis courts pickleball, to higher intensity athletic clubs and and whatnot.

When the city did their 2024 update, they took all these 28 categories and said, we're going to assess every recreational use with just these two uses.

They picked the two most intense uses, and now that applies across the board to all these uses to kind of simplify the assessment of fees.

But when they did that, they said every single trip to an athletic facility during the PM peak hour.

So when you're driving home from school or work is brand new on the system.

If that recreational facility wasn't there, that car would never be on the road.

But we know that's not true.

So in coordination with BPRD, I conducted a number of surveys at Larksburg and Juniper Fitness Center over a course of a couple weeks, surveying over 370 patrons and found that 50% of all people are just as we expected, driving home from school or work and stopping at that facility to work out or whatnot.

We submitted that data to ITE.

It's now published in the 12th edition of the manual.

It's now part of the manual.

It's recent, it's local, it's specific to Ben's transportation system.

It's frankly the best data you're ever going to see for our own local information.

In discussions with staff, while we have these two different uses that are better calculating the fee.

Staff said, okay, well, that's good data, but we're only going to apply that to public uses.

And for private athletic facilities, we're going to assume that rate is still zero.

And what I'm asking is that the city instead apply this 50% reduction to public and private recreation facilities across the board, which is the same thing they've done for gas stations, for drive-in restaurants, for banks, for strip malls.

This is the only way to have an equitable solution across these categories as required by the ORS.

So that's that's my request.

All right.

Thank you, Joe.

And we got um your letters that was submitted as well.

Um we um had a question about staff responding to this.

So Ryan, or I don't know who would be appropriate if there was anyone that wanted to talk about what we're about to do.

And then um, and then Ryan, Mike's question to you as well.

I want to make sure we cover that.

So I think we might uh have be the right people to answer Riley's question as well.

But Elizabeth Boschal went to City Attorney's Office.

Uh Sarah had some of the city manager's office.

Um so in general, with um we kind of reviewed comments, I think they came in late last week, so we need time to go through kind of the technical details of it, but in general, kind of staff recommendation that it wouldn't be enough to hold up kind of the full adoption of the 12 ITE rates because a lot of um rates would be decreasing for a number of categories, so kind of the benefits um outweigh kind of kind of stopping the whole process, and staff could look more into the technical details of what was lined and possibly align it with um when we come back before council for the supplemental uh transportation SDC, if that's of interest.

When would that be that you could have for that?

This fall, so that'll be either September, maybe early October.

So you're saying because of the notice that we've given about these this methodology, we can't make a change tonight, or what is what does that mean?

So our um recommendation is just we haven't dug into the details of what was presented tonight to make that change tonight to support it one way or the other.

Um we don't know that we agree with the um assertions about the pass by rates in the other categories um that were mentioned.

So just to give staff time to dig in and see if there are additional updates related to that implementation of the 12th ITE data.

We recommend that the rest of the the uh as presented tonight is adopted.

Staff can continue to dig in, and if there are additional updates to bring back that are highlighted by the comment that relate to implementation of the 12th edition rates, we can bring that back in the fall.

But there are a number of other trip rate adjustments relating to um moving to the 12th edition that do are reducing SDCs in the transportation categories for a number of different uses.

So we do recommend that council go ahead um and adopt as presented, and staff can continue to dig in, and if there's additional modifications to be made based on the information submitted and other what what we find when we dig in with our consultants, we can come back with that.

You do that on the time frame when we're gonna talk about the transportate the supplemental transportation SDC for South.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Councilfriend Zosa.

Yeah, I mean, I I'm um I don't know.

I'm I'm I can I've been involved in you know conversations like this long enough to know.

Like I I feel actually uh pretty uh impressed that Joe like went and did this analysis and um I uh uh I am going for memory here, I don't have his memo pulled up, but I think he's been in conversation with the city for over a year on this.

Um I would personally support just moving ahead with a 50% reduction because I'm not hearing that it's something that needed to be noticed.

It sounds like it's just something staff would like to dig into more.

So I mean, why not do the 50% reduction now and then come back in September and say we didn't have to do it, let's make it what it was.

So staff did incorporate um as Joe said in the comments, and I think in the memo, staff did incorporate that local study into one of the recreation categories.

So that is included in what's presented tonight for one of those categories.

For the second category, that's not what's uh presented tonight.

Um, and so it's those additional pieces that were raised in this uh memo and the comments that we'd like more time to dig into those pass by rates for that um second recreation category.

I'd also like to know if there's a specific project that comes in in the interim, there is a project specific appeal process if the SDC's charge um don't aren't right for that project.

There's a there's a an administrative appeal process for any specific project.

Yeah, but how much does that cost and how much time does that take?

Uh we revised it with the last um code update.

So it is uh what feels like a streamlined process.

I think there's 10 days, or there's a city manager meeting um which stretches it out a little bit farther, but it is designed to not take too much time.

And is there a fee for it?

I actually don't sure.

500 and then it has it's it sounds like 500.

And it's 500 feet of the city, and then like untold dollars to your consultants to do all the paperwork to submit to the city.

I mean it's it's a barrier.

Other thoughts on this subject?

I mean, I think the the general principle is we take these trip generation tables that are based on national data, and whenever possible, we use local data to inform them.

And here we have an ex an opportunity to implement really good local data that seems like it would be kind of the gold standard that would certainly be in the spirit of them.

Personally, I'm not a fan of using trip generation to charge these fees, and I think that most cities are actually well, not most, some cities significantly are moving away to either uh account for mode split or uh recognizing that not everybody is using a car to get to places.

Um so I I look forward to reviewing them.

I would be supportive of adopting um the exemption, the exception rate for 50% in the additional category, because it sounds like it's it's based on really good local data.

I I mean, what I'm hearing from staff is that the the date of this memo is not uh what's a week ago, week and a half ago.

Um yeah, it's last Friday, right?

So what you're basically saying we just haven't had a chance to really you've done it in the one category, but you haven't had a chance to do it across the whole that's correct, yeah.

The whole piece.

And and how often are we getting applications that include that are for projects like this that would fall into one of these SDC categories?

I mean, is this we're getting five a month, or we get two a year?

I believe it's even less than that.

No, it's genus here.

Yeah, yeah, for an isarina.

Maybe that'll be a good idea.

Yeah, that's what I figured just to confirm that.

Okay, so can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Um, good evening.

I'm Gina Dahl.

Um, I do administer the SDC program.

Um, and so can you ask the question?

Well, how often are we getting applications for these kinds of recreation facilities that fall into the second category that we're currently not planning to adjust?

Is it once a year or 10?

Um, I mean, it really de it really depends.

Um, there's just there is a there are so many different types of projects that are coming in.

Um, we don't get actual recreation facilities that often, it's more like small gyms and that sort of thing.

Which is where some of this would show up.

Would this apply to small these categories we're talking about supply to those gyms?

It would, yes.

Okay.

And it's not um, so it's not that we don't disagree necessarily, it's just more that we need we wanted to dig in so that it's consistent.

Um because some of the some of the items in the memo, um, I'm not sure like we need to dig into that a little bit further to see how accurate some of it is.

Um, and but we're not you know, we don't we don't disagree necessarily, we just want to be able to dig in.

And should the digging process identify we should have done that, and there's been a few applications since then.

Could they be adjusted in some way for those applications?

Or is that is that available as a choice to council in the future?

We have to look into that.

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Council Principals of you have a different question.

Yeah, yeah, no, same topic.

So I mean, can so Elizabeth, you mentioned it's that you did apply a reduction for one category, but not another.

What is the difference between those categories?

So I'll I'll look to Gina for this answer as well.

Um, so the two categories um involved um one now um is a 50% reduction, the other one is still a hundred percent.

So it's really just the two categories.

Um yeah, we're not what's the difference between the categories?

What do you mean?

Sorry.

Where do they apply?

What's the one?

Type of use.

Yeah, what takes the difference?

Well, one is the recreation and when is the indoor fitness?

So private public concept.

So like planet fitness versus Juniper Recenter.

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm pretty concerned about it.

Like, even based on the um the coffee shop owner whose name I forget right now, I'm so sorry.

Um, I mean, it's it's real, the change of use, you know, and the subtle differences in use, and then that result in these astronomical SDCs that really do kill businesses.

It's why the city put a um has waived SDCs for uh child care centers.

So um, and and we you know, we're really I think uh looking at some economic hardship printing app and the city's adopted this economic development plan and all this stuff.

So I think it's I think it's really critical to act on it very quickly.

And so I I would actually feel much more comfortable about moving ahead with the 50% now, and then having you guys dig into it and come back to us and say justifying why it should be 100% in September you come back with the supplemental SDCs.

Okay, thank you.

Other thoughts?

Well, here's why I'm comfortable with that, because basically what we're doing is you say, you know, we heard about Larksburg, we're all familiar with Larksburg.

We're trying, we would be going back in time, we're trying to guess how many people are going to drive to Larksburg and what is the impact on our transportation system that that has.

And we can't do that because there's no other, we don't have a crystal ball, and we don't have any other way of saying, well, what are the other larksburger centers in other cities look like?

So we we do some adjacent kind of estimating.

We say, well, there's other recreational facilities, and then we take that information and we apply it locally.

I feel like I'm I would be supportive of saying, okay, I think there's some good data here that sounds like there's a good reason to say this 50% exemption uh makes sense.

It it's it's ultimately kind of this effort to prognosticate on what people's future transportation behavior will be like that's very imprecise.

I don't think that it's a crystal ball.

So I I don't feel like it's we need to say, oh, there's some gold standard of you know crystal balling that exists.

It doesn't exist.

We're doing the best we can, and we can adjust in the future.

So I'm comfortable with it, but um that's my perspective.

I'm comfortable with it as well.

Um a lot of this is deja vu from when we were talking about SDCs with independent practices and it's the same thing as like if you go to the if you go to the hospital, are you are you just going to the hospital and going home?

Are you stopping you know at various places?

And and so um I think if there's something we can do about this now, and um I'm okay with it.

Steve I mean I appreciate the data.

Uh I would be interested in further data in September.

So I I guess I would be interested in a pause right now or that 50% being implemented with the understanding that we're gonna we're gonna take a more holistic look in September.

Okay.

Just to name a couple of things.

We have um and and Joe, I very much respect you.

We have one memo from one transportation engineer who does private consulting that's given us this information, and I'm sure it's all gonna vet out, and we're um gonna be able to see that it's all accurate.

But I do respect the staff for saying, hey, can we have a little more time to make sure that this all makes sense?

Um so I respect that very much.

Um I also want to indicate every time we are not collecting SECs, that's money that goes to capital projects, like the roads that people drive on to get to the fitness center.

So just something to think about that you know, when we don't collect those, then we don't are uh are less able to build those type of things.

But I'm hearing consensus at least from a majority.

Well, Mike, where are you at?

I I'm inclined to go with the staff recommendation.

I mean, I think with all the time and effort that we've put into the SDC methodology and just being respectful of not to in any way dismiss what we've heard, it may be very informative, and it's already been informative in one particular place.

So um, and then I'd encourage the council to look at like if we really reconclude that that's what we should have done, then we can go back and look at um those that we've um collected SDCs for and see if there is a mechanism where we can correct that fee and some kind of out that this is this is just with the 12th edition, so there isn't anything prior um to this where this is affected.

Yeah, but this is what would be adopted.

Right, but if we assume something in August and then we decide in October to do something differently that would be adjusted in some way to compensate for that.

It just I think it's being respectful of all the time and effort and complexity of SDCs, and that's I think what the staff are asking.

Could I ask for a compromise of this is one particular category in our fee schedule on a on a on an actual uh user who's pretty rare that we just heard Gina comment to.

How about in if in the next three to six months we do get one of these particular applications?

We waive the fee for somebody to challenge that, and we can have that more in-depth discussion in that one particular instance.

That allows us as staff time to come back in the fall further reviewing Joe's data, but it gives somebody the possibility to maybe offer a compromise in the meantime.

During this time frame, which we're about to do.

Okay, so that would mean um the decision tonight would be to go ahead and adopt the SDC resolution and then also give staff direction to come back to us in September after looking at Mr.

or whenever that next check point is, um, after looking at this data a little more and tell us either yes or no, we agree with the request, and then we can make a decision what we want to do.

In the meantime, anyone who comes in with this type of project under this category would not be charged if they wanted to get an individual appeal.

Am I allowed to say that, Elizabeth?

If council said it's that's what I'm saying is be on the table for us if we wanted to, if we wanted to direct that.

Yeah.

So and and to be clear, just the the proposal is I don't believe a 50% reduction in the SDC charge.

It's a 50% reduction of the trick.

That goes into setting that.

Thank you.

It wouldn't necessarily be a 50% reduction in charge.

Yeah, it's good clarification.

I guess I want to just dig in just a little bit.

I apologize.

But this would be no fee for the appeal.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes.

So I but recognizing Council Francosa's comment, uh, there is a preparation fee for that fee for that appeal from the the user, right?

Right, there's a time, but but but a consultant who and so I we are essentially putting that cost for the appeal on the person, even if we don't charge them the city fee for that.

So the appeal fee is for the city staff time that goes into reviewing that appeal, and then the appellate does have the opportunity to provide additional information.

They will have already provided information for their SDC application so that staff can make that initial determination of what category they're in.

They have the opportunity to provide additional materials, how much and who they hire to do that is up to them.

Okay, that's the case today.

That's the already before this material discussion.

Okay.

What I might suggest is if see if we have a majority to establish to adopt the resolution that staff has presented, and then take a moment if there's an additional motion on additional things that anyone wants to do, and see if we have a majority for that.

Does that make sense if someone's willing to make that first motion and then we'll I'll give space for a second motion.

So I move to adopt a resolution updating the system development charge fee schedule.

Second, okay.

So moved in uh by council Perkins, seconded by Council Riley to uh update the fee schedule as staff has presented.

Um all those in favor?

Aye, aye.

Aye.

Okay, any opposed?

No.

Okay, one opposed.

And then now if anyone wanted to make a motion on anything additional regarding direction to staff or changes that you make.

I move that we ask staff um to research um the rest of the categories and based on the local data provided and other research that um you come back to a recommendation on adjustment or not to the fee.

Um, and in the interim, but between now and when the council makes a final decision about that, we waive the appeal fees, both of the two appeal fees uh for any particular um applicant that falls into the category.

Yeah, into sorry, can I make ask a clarifying question?

Yes, into both recreation categories or just the one.

Just the one that not get produced.

Okay, does everyone understand that motion?

Yes, and I think I second it.

Okay.

Move by counselor, second by council Perkins.

So this would say, staff, please take a look at what Joe has provided, please look at that category, tell us yes, we agree with him.

Let's take the trip counts down or not at that next um touch point.

And in the meantime, if someone does come and say, Hey, I'm building a gym, I'm in this private category, I don't think you've got it right, they would not need to pay any appeal fees.

Okay.

All right, any further discussion on this motion.

Okay, all in favor of this motion.

Aye.

Aye.

And any opposed to this motion.

Okay, Councilor Francisco opposed.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Joe, for being here and providing your information.

Okay.

I'm not sure I've closed the public hearing, but I'm closing it now.

It's closed.

Um, all right.

That will move us into items um, yeah, she should be hopping back out here.

Item six and seven, actually.

I'm sorry, let's start with item six.

Just item six.

This is a quasi-judicial public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to amend the pen development code, chapter 2.7, special plan districts, refinement plans, area plans, and master plans to create the cabby master plan development and an approximately 43 acre major community master plan.

All right, so I'm gonna open the public hearing on item number six.

And we're gonna start with the quasi judicial questions from thanks, Mayor Kepler.

Thanks, Mayor Keebler.

I'm gonna ask Council a couple questions.

I'm gonna go down the line.

I'll start with Councillor Francosa after uh asking if anyone has any ex parte contacts or site visits they wish to declare.

Councillor Francosa.

Councillor Mendez.

Uh no ex parte contacts and no specific site visits, but I mean I'm pretty familiar with the site.

I think I think general familiarity with the site, we'll call that okay, doesn't need to be declared.

Thank you.

Um Councillor Riley.

No.

Mayor Keebler?

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Perkins?

No.

Uh Councillor Norris?

No.

Councilor Platt.

No.

Okay.

Next question.

I'm going to go down the line in the same way.

The question is Does anyone have any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that would interfere with the ability to serve as an impartial decision maker in this application?

Councillor Francosa.

Heard no.

Councillor Mendez?

No.

Councilor Riley.

No.

Mayor Keebler.

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Perkins?

No.

Councillor Norris?

No.

Counselor Platt.

No.

Is there anybody here in the room tonight or online that wants to present any challenges on the basis of bias, personal interest, or any of these declarations?

Looking around the room, seeing none, assuming no hands raised online.

Okay.

Tonight, all testimony, argument and evidence must be directed to the applicable criteria in the Venn Development Code and the comprehensive plan that the party believes are applicable.

The failure to raise an issue with sufficient specificity for the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude an appeal to the land use court of appeals on that issue.

The failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional issue or other issue regarding a condition of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude a claim for damages in circuit court related to that issue or condition.

And if prior to the end of the public hearing tonight, a party requests additional time to present testimony argument or evidence.

The decision maker may allow either a continuance or additional time in its discretion for parties to submit that additional testimony argument or evidence to the record.

That's it.

All right, so that will move us into our staff presentation.

All right.

Yeah, I did.

Sorry.

Yep.

Before I did the end thing.

Yeah.

So all right.

Um good evening, Mayor, Council, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for your time.

Uh my name is Nicholas and our associate planner with the City of Bend Planning Division and Community Development Department.

And I am here this evening to give a uh hopefully a brief staff presentation regarding the CAVI master plan.

It's project PLSBD 20250374 on approximately 45-acre uh major community master plan.

And like I said, the purpose of my presentation is to go over exhibit B to the ordinance, which is a staff recommendation to the city council regarding the findings for this master plan.

And highlight some details and hopefully um uh help in the deliberation process.

So just to declare where we're headed, uh the recommended motion in the issue summary um as outlined is for a motion to uh amend the Bend Development Code to establish a special section uh of code which is gonna codify the caviar master plan development with an amendment uh to a couple figures, and those figures establish the street layout to comply with title three, and I'll get into of course all the details of what that means and why that recommendation um says as such.

So to orient everyone, uh this is the subject property.

Um historically it has been referenced as the ward property, at least a portion of the ward property.

Uh it is bounded by Murphy Road to the south and Southeast 15th Street to the east.

Uh the Nottingham neighborhood is to the north.

I think that was a it's about a hundred units, and it was recorded around 1977, so a well-established neighborhood.

Those are private streets to the north as well.

Thank you.

And then the BNSF railroad is to the west.

So functionally this lot is landlocked.

Um only has access along those higher order arterial streets to the uh east and south.

Um Alpen Glow Community Park, a relatively new park that is just across Murphy to the south.

Um I think we're all pretty familiar with the site, but this property and the front end of the property was uh more or less recently improved with a capital improvement project.

I think it was completed in 2021, the Murphy Corridor project that included the above grade crossing of the railroad there on the southwest corner, uh, as well as improvements to 153.

Um the the roster house in 15th roundabout there was completed uh around 2020 to the north as well.

And we also have the uh the Ferguson roundabout at Southeast 15th and Ferguson just northeast of the frontage of the property that I think is just getting started on construction shortly.

So a little bit of background on how we got here.

This project initially went before the planning commission in November, and the application was placed on hold for for some time and then revisited with some minor modifications.

I believe we have uh Scott Winters here from the planning commission who I hope at some point is going to talk about what the planning commission uh deliberated on at that hearing all the way back if we can recall that from November, it's been a few months.

It's a little atypical.

Um so a little background there.

Um here is the layout of the master plan.

So with the major community master plan, you are allowed to reorient the zone of the property.

The zoning designations are as such RS, RM and RH are all residential zones, and then the purple on the uh kind of the corner near the roundabout is mixed employment.

That mixed employment zone allows a number of commercial and quasi-industrial type uses, manufacturing uh and employment uses as well.

Like I was saying that with the community master plan, you're allowed to kind of re-orient the zones.

So these are not exactly what is currently there, but they're permitted to rearrange them, provided they retain the original allocation of each zone within one percent, which they have done.

So this is just the general layout, and I have a better slide of the open space and trail plan that'll be a little more illustrative here further.

Um but I wanted to walk through the criteria just for the record.

Um, my report and recommendation talks about consistency with statewide planning goals.

We're all very familiar with those.

Um, following of a public process and notice requirements which we have, um, consistency with the Bend Comprehensive Plan, particularly chapter 11 and growth management.

This area was actually identified as an opportunity area in uh chapter 11.

So this master plan is in in direct response to uh an area of opportunity that the comprehensive plan found.

And number three, and by the way, these numbers are not in the code, this is just for my own discussion here.

Uh, the master plan review process here requires that the applicant demonstrate capacity with full build out of the site for all necessary utilities, sewer water.

We have those in the in the sewer water analysis submitted as well as the traffic impact analysis submitted, confirmed uh capacity for all uh necessary infrastructure in order to support the full build out of the use.

I talked about the reconfiguration of the zones within one percent.

Um this process does review whether or not subsequent because something back up.

The this master plan process is not we're not approving any physical development of this time.

We are approving a layout and and a and a structure that will be followed and and sort of implemented through future phases of it of a subdivision or site plan review.

So while we might be talking about the physical layout of the site, um this is really a special code that future development reviews will be subject to.

So that's what this process is talking about.

They are you are you are able to, under a major community master plan, propose slight deviations to titles two and three, uh Title II being the zoning districts, and then title three, the design standards, provided uh you demonstrate they can be met with these future reviews.

Um that's where these deviations, and I'll talk about what they are in a second.

Uh, there's a lot more to get into in that, but that's what this process is about establishing this special code.

Number six, uh, ensuring that the master plan has access to commercial goods and services.

That's measured by establishing that the entire perimeter of the property be within one half mile of land that is either planned, zoned, or developed with commercial uh the opportunity for commercial goods and services.

That two-acre area of mixed employment that I mentioned before is actually within a half mile of the entire site, so complying with that requirement.

Um I'll touch on uh a little bit of what was talked about the planning commission regarding the concerns about which have been you know a hot topic of late uh of recent memory about the development of commercial lands and master plans with affordable housing.

Number seven, multimodal connections be provided for the TSP comprehensive plan and bend parks and rec recommendation.

Um, this project, as detailed in the recommendation, complies with all necessary uh connections.

I'll show the slide, like I said, for the open space plan, but critically there is an undergrade crossing proposed underneath the uh Murphy Road, adjacent to the railroad to allow a lower stress connection to Alpen Glove Park, which I think is most critical to the layout.

But we currently have multi-use pass, um, separated pathways along 15th.

Uh those are gonna be connected to and improved as proposed.

Um, second to last here, uh housing density mix, the unique standards of the master plan require a minimum 70% of each zone uh density be met.

Uh they have demonstrated capacity for that minimum 70% to be met.

A total of 362 units is the minimum.

And of those 362, I think around 193 are required to be sort of middle housing, multi-unit townhomes, cottage cluster, etc.

And they've demonstrated capacity in those zones.

Lastly, master plans are required to allocate and dedicate 10% of the open space.

This open space can be comprised of, and that I cited the definition here in 1.2 property or area of land or water set aside, designed or reserved for the public or private use specifically for the purposes of recreation conservation or other open space.

Currently, the plan proposes a number of active and passive areas.

In particular of concern, I understand is the inclusion of the Central Oregon Canal to the northeast of the site.

The canal, which might help if I showed the slide again a real quick I'm just gonna sneak forward a little bit.

The canal there separates the northeast portion of the site from the southeast.

Proposed to be part of the total open space.

So 45 acres 10% is 4.5.

I dug into some of the specifics about similar master plan.

So regarding whether or not other projects have included passive canal spaces before in researching the relatively recent Petrosa master plan in the in the northeast of town, that property required just about a half an acre of canal easement space to be counted in order to comply with the minimum 10%.

Another similar master plan, the Wildflower Master Plan around 2022, required three point, I believe it was three point a little over three acres of open space on a 32-acre master plan.

They had uh their open space was complied with with uh rock outcroppings in the form of an area of special interest, and so there is some precedent for more passive open spaces to be counted towards open space, but interestingly enough, even if subtracting the area that the canal contains, if you count the space where there is a trail planned by Ben Parks and Recon, that's the blue, kind of darker blue along the northeast portion of the canal.

If you count those spaces as is usable spaces, they actually just hit the 4.53 uh minimum necessary to meet the 10% open space requirement.

So roundabout way to get their staff found that they do comply with the open space minimum requirement of 10%.

Let me just go back my slide, I'm sneaking around so I can jump around so much here.

But um, like I said, this was a point of concern with the planning commission, so felt it worth mentioning.

Regarding the deviations to titles two and three, um, the test that we test the the proposal the proposed deviation against this criteria.

So will the deviation is it necessary due to unique site constraints, uh, will it equally or better meet the purpose of the regulation proposed to be modified?

Um is there something unique about the property that needs that justifies this change?

And by and large, the the mitigations requested staff does support.

Um for the residential zone include pretty standard deviations to reduce lot sizes and dimensions, special setbacks, special flag lot standards, removal of floor area ratio standards, and these are necessary to provide a little more efficiency of use for the property and for the product intended by the development.

Um also some special standards for large track land divisions.

You may have questions about that.

Essentially, what it is is a way to piecemeal property, and I'm sure the applicant could probably answer this better than I can, but my understanding is that it's just a necessary process to ease in the phasing and the funding of each phase as the subdivision or as the master plan is developed, the ability to partition and sell off property without doing necessary improvements.

Staff supports this uh deviation, uh particularly because the city is not uh in any obligation to uh handle additional capacity without those improvements.

So as long as there is that protection for the city, um staff supports the deviation.

The one deviation that we uh that staff feels uh does not pass the test of equally or better is the block perimeter deviation.

So, in particular, the deviation is for the standard of 2,000 linear feet, and that's measured in the center line of all local streets surrounding a block, is the maximum allowed per Title III to for all residential zones to comprise new neighborhoods.

The central block here that I've outlined in red is about 3100 linear feet.

Um and again, the test is does it equally or better meet the purpose of the code?

Uh we didn't find a strong argument to why it would, and then uh conversely, um, you know, does this equally sorry doesn't um what was the other part?

Forgive me.

Is it necessary due to the unique site constraints?

So this is a pretty flat site.

Um there's no topographical variation along this area that would justify the need to reduce the block.

Um I'm sure the applicant will have more to um to present at their presentation, but that was the one deviation staff felt did not pass the test for uh for per the criteria, hence why the recommended motion is for an amendment to that figure to add that additional local street.

Going back, like I said, uh uh November 10 planning commission.

This project was actually recommended for a denial by the planning commission based on the lack of compliance with the open space criteria and usability of that open space, uh street connectivity, and the concerns about the commercial lands being developed with affordable housing.

That last item is slightly alleviated by uh House Bill 4037 uh passed this last legislative session, which requires a development to compensate for any commercial lands beyond 20% in the master plan developed with affordable housing.

After that first 20%, they're required to replace that commercial use elsewhere on site.

So that slightly alleviates the concerns presented during the planning commission deliberation.

And I welcome any questions and um I have a question, Nicholas.

So at the planning commission, um, you told us today that you think they are complying with our open space requirements at the planning commission.

Did staff also tell the planning commission that you thought they had required had met the open space requirement?

Correct, yeah.

The the the recommendation for finding it was met was the same at the planning commission.

Even without the canal um itself, the canal channel itself being well, as a matter of fact, the plans that went before the planning commission as I as I put in the preface of my report slightly different.

The original plan that went before planning commission was for four and a half acres of total open space.

So as a matter of fact, about an acre and a half less of what is is before us tonight.

Um the the revised plan has a little more open space around the exterior and interior of the master plan.

But yeah, the the plan was the recommendation still found that the canal space was counted based on the precedent and and based on the definition in 1.2 talking about specifically uh conservation uses and also it mentions the word water in the definition.

And I recognizing that there is a discrepancy about the openness to the public.

One of the criteria in a master plan, uh community major community master plan is that the open space be open to the public.

There was a lot of deliberation, and I'm sure Scott could get into more of that as well.

How open to the public a canal is so worth discussing.

However, on balance, staff found that the space was eligible to be counted.

Okay, got it.

Ask a question related to that.

So setting aside the question of the open canal, um you had mentioned that this the plan would still meet the requirement of 10% if we counted the BPRD trail easement on the north side of the canal.

But my recollection is you also said that trailasement was something like 20 feet wide, and I thought that open space wouldn't count unless it was over 20 feet wide.

20 or over has to be at least 20 feet in width to count.

Okay, uh, to be part of the calculation for the master plan open space.

And as a matter of fact, there is an area on the west side uh abutting the trail, the the BNSF railroad right-of-way and tracks.

It's less than 20 feet wide, so that area is actually not counted towards the six acres proposed, but I measured it at about a quarter of an acre.

It's a thin strip that's intended to be another trail connection.

But yeah, it does have to be at least 20 feet, not not more than 20 feet.

Okay.

Council Platt.

Nicholas, I think it's a while, you know, it's been a while since I I watched the uh planning commission development, but or discussion on this one.

I don't remember that trail being on the north side of the uh of the canal when it came to it was it was up for discussion.

I think that got added in this version.

Am I right on that?

I think the applicant can confirm, but I think that the design was a little more uh clear on this one.

Yeah, this easement is uh was existing before this master plan was proposed.

It's an easement benefiting Ben Parkson Rec.

It actually connects all the way to the railroad right away.

Yeah, um, but I I believe that it was placed there as to make more illustrative clear plan that this is a plan, part of the plan to trail B improved at some point.

Okay.

Council Franzoza, question?

Yeah, thanks.

This slide's perfect.

What um I maybe this is what Councilor Mendez was talking about, but that um kind of open space that looks like it sort of connects the neighborhood to the BNSF railway on the west side, yeah.

That right there, exactly.

What is that?

Exactly.

So it's hard to tell because this is a big PDF on a small slide, but there is a thin, uh very small pathway, uh a walkway proposed within that that narrow open space, and again, that open space isn't wide enough to be counted, so it's not part of the six acres.

But there is a pathway that goes north to south connecting with the northwest corner there of the master plan, and then ultimately would go all the way south into the purple pathway, which would be the undergrade crossing to Alpinclow Park.

Oh, so there is a path there, you just I just can't see it because the slide is it's yeah, it's there.

Okay, great.

And then did you say like that little green block is actually too narrow?

Is that it looks like it's larger than pass along the railroad.

It's hard to it's really hard to see.

If you can see it, just all the way along the west side.

That's not counting.

Yeah, that is not part of the six acres that is declared as part of the open space.

Um, okay, thanks.

I appreciate that.

And then um though with the respect to the um block perimeter, what is the my recollection of the perimeter block perimeter is basically for walkability.

Um not drivability.

Is am I thinking of that correctly?

The purpose of the the block perimeter is to just increase access, increase uh decrease out of direction travel.

In general, more opportunities for for straight uh connections is better for usability for everybody.

Um there is a deviation language in Title III that explicitly says you you can deviate from the block perimeter, and then that if the city finds reason to do so that there's a cohesive argument why the deviation should be granted, that the city can then ask for a multimodal pathway, a pathway such as this in lieu.

So staff does agree that it is mitigated to an extent uh a practical extent by that multimodal pathway in lieu of a street, but it staff felt it didn't pass that first test of being equal or better uh and in terms of uh compliance with access for all modes of transportation.

Multimodal does include cars to be clear, um, as well as all the other modes of transit.

Okay, and then my last question is um there were some you talked about some deviations that are supported by staff, like setbacks and things like that.

And I was kind of I was curious why those were supported and like what forms of housing that would enable.

I think some of those questions are best answered by the applicant, and I'm sure they'll get into that with that presentation.

Um but the to be more specific, there they ask for the ability to call certain front line uh certain property line front setbacks, even if they're technically off the front edge of a road, for example, if they front the canal, maybe we can call that the front setback, uh decreased distances and setbacks for a little more efficient uh use of space.

Uh but I prefer the applicant to kind of get into the details of of how their product uh needs those deviations, but in general, they were not excessive in terms of uh what the standards entitled to are currently for RSO and RM zone.

Okay, thanks.

Question Mike.

Um so just so I'm clear on the roads that are entering, especially.

I mean, obviously to the north of the canal there, we have a call de factually one way in and out if you're driving on street G, I think that is in that in the northeast corner?

Yeah, yeah, that's that's essentially like a landlocked portion of the master plan.

And then the same we have two other entrances, Street D and this other one that goes through the commercial and stuff um down there to connects to Murphy Road.

Both of those are full streets, full access in and out from the one of them limited in some way.

Yeah, one of Murphy's probably I yeah, I think they are there.

So these are arterial roadways, and that means that the accesses to them have to you know meet certain standards.

Um I believe the Murphy access may be right in right out.

Um maybe one of the engineers can confirm for me.

The 15th street access would be full turning movements.

Um I believe Joe Vesman is here who performed the transportation uh analysis.

He could probably talk far more uh particularly than I can about the performance of these intersections.

But they've our engineers review them and agreed with the assessment.

Okay, yeah, we can follow up with that too to get more detail on this.

Other questions for staff before we move on.

Okay, seeing them.

Staff is proposing that we push a road there from where it curves up where that um little narrow green line is, right?

That we push the road through that.

So to be clear, take those two pieces of the case.

A local street connecting streets A and E, which are those two streets where that where that uh thin line anywhere in that mid block area would comply with block perimeter and create two 2,000 feet or less blocks.

Uh where that is could be where specifically that is, could be worked out through a future subdivision review.

Um, but uh conceptually it would be need to be shown on the figures as adopted.

It's around that area, yeah.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Um, is Scott Winter here or online?

Oh Scott, just we're hiding back there.

Umrise some of the planning commission conversation from November.

Throw that back up.

Oh, we want to get back up there.

Uh here.

Yeah, you can you can sit there, that's fine.

And maybe Nicholas can put the map back up.

Awesome.

Yeah, so um just to reiterate, there was kind of three things the planning commission um had an issue with uh the big one, um, which is also kind of the hardest to nail down in terms of like stating specifically why uh it we felt it didn't meet the master planning requirements was the commercial, and so um so last planning commission we were able to implement the new development code that follows the new organ law so that only 20 percent uh commercial areas can be taken out in master plan.

So we're happy with that.

So that's kind of a non-issue.

So then the other two things was the open space and connectivity.

Um the connectivity, there was I would say there was internal and external connectivity um concerns that the planning commission had.

So the internal would be the block length perimeter, um, and that which I believe is not deviated from what the planning commission saw to what you guys see today.

Uh the other was the external.

So yeah, we talked about the Murphy access right in, right out, and um, there's this little concern that you can stay right in, right out, but are people gonna actually follow that?

Um the applicant had stated that they they would have preferred to have uh being able to turn left on a Murphy on that road, but that the city uh said that the city wouldn't allow it.

So that was something that you know just kind of thought that that might be a uh somewhat dangerous connection if people are going to uh take a left and maybe just an awkward left going around the median, which is the end of the median is right about where that drive aisle is.

Um and then open space.

So yeah, the plan uh I think you guys you guys probably remember there was a city council meeting right before our planning commission meeting that had to deal with open space and master plans, and it was the drainage swell that had a fence around it, and the intent was like this is not an open space, you know, even though it's outdoors, it's open.

If people couldn't use it, then didn't really meet the intent of what an open space is.

And so I think we're having a hard time trying to figure out how that would be different from a canal, which you're not supposed to go in.

Uh and tell the people that run their dogs in that canal right there.

Well, yeah, anyway.

So um but yeah, so this this uh master plan has more open space than what the planning commission saw.

So, for instance, along that north edge between the canal and the northwest corner, there's that green strip.

That's that was added since the planning commission, same thing with the uh open space in the northeast portion of the site along uh along 15th street, basically from the uh kind of the roundabout up to the northernmost part of the property, and then uh right at the end of D Street, so the entrance to the east where we can hit the T E intersection, that was just a little strip.

Um in terms of the planning commission, uh there are some issues with also the kind of meeting the bare minimum 20 foot, 20 foot width on the open space.

So, for instance, on the west side of the site between the blocks, it was kind of like what is that space?

It's not it doesn't look like it's uh part of a trail connection that meets up with other pedestrian circulation paths and things like that.

So with the with the skinny open spaces and uh at least in the planning commission, uh, or what came before the planning commission having the majority of the open space being the canal, which we didn't think met the definition.

Um yeah, that was that was one of the reasons why uh the majority of the planning commission and the recommending denying the master plan.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks for that background.

Yep.

Um all right, and then we'll have the applicants if you guys want to present.

You're up.

A short presentation to share here.

Okay, um, Mayor Council.

Um thank you for your your attention here this evening.

My name is Joey Sherman, planner with AKS Engineering Forestry here in Bend, uh, and we are consultant for the applicant and the developer Polish Homes.

Uh I've got about 15 slides to go through, um kind of touching on some of what um Nicholas summarized for you, but trying not to be redundant, and then we we're gonna trust that you'll ask us any questions uh that you have.

So the application that is before you this evening is uh the product of a team effort.

This team represents uh a collection of professionals with expertise and and decades of experience in master planning development, home building.

And as Nicholas mentioned, this property is right across 15th Street from the bridges, which is a PUD that that Paul started in in 2007 and finished up in about 2017.

Further south is is Easton, which is another master plant community that is currently under construction.

Um we have colleagues here.

Most of the folks on this um slide are are here and able to answer any questions, including Joe Bessman with TranSight and Adam Smith with Schwabi.

Uh and so before we get into the kind of the meat of my presentation, uh Anna Bosich with Paul Schelms.

I think I just want to do a short intro.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, Counselor.

Thank you, Joey.

Um I just want to say that um as a representative for Polish, um, we're really excited to present this to you guys today.

Um the cave represents kind of the completion of the 15th Street corridor, which Polish has been you know involved in a great amount of infrastructure for the past 20 years with the uh development of the bridges, Easton, Luterman, um, and partnership with Colorado High School and the partner of the uh school district.

Uh we're also honored to be working with the Ward family again for another community to vent that includes needed housing, along with um a trail system that we believe will connect the existing neighborhood, the school, the park, um, and as you'll see, it makes a large part of the master plan and the character of this community.

Um I'm gonna let Joey kind of speak to the details, but here to answer questions and look forward to hearing from you.

Okay, thanks, Ana.

So, kind of just zooming in again here, and and this is more of a slide if if there's uh additional questions about the site we can refer back to, but it's 45 acres.

Uh there's two separate tax lots.

You can see the the CUID canal that cuts through the northeast corner.

Um, and we can touch on this here, but it uh to I think Councillor Platt's question.

Uh the rendering showing that um easement, the BPRD easement, um, that was not shown as explicitly.

We didn't realize anticipate that that was going to be an issue at Planning Commission, so we didn't have a slide showing it, but we'll we've kind of corrected that here.

Um then obviously the railroad running along the west side of the site.

And so that that kind of creates again, as Nicholas kind of said, it's a landlocked site, and the access points that we'll talk about here are relatively fixed.

So this is a preliminary layup kind of overlay on the aerial primary access, would be provided by 15th Street, kind of at these two locations if you can see the cursor, and then uh southern access would be Murphy Road, and and that is planned to be a ride in ride out.

Uh, there is an existing median there that um would effectively block the other turning movements.

In putting this layout together, we very much intentionally uh located some of the lower density uh housing kind of to the north uh near the existing single family homes in Nottingham Square, and then you can see that the density kind of transitions to higher density, and we're trying to do that in a relatively gentle way, and then that we have the multifamily and the ME that are on the south side.

And then here is a closer look and uh to counselor Francosa's questions.

Some of the trail alignments are hard to see, but we've tried to highlight those here with the yellow dashed lines.

So the the kind of the pink lines are the arterial street improvements, the multi-use paths that need to be improved.

The blue line is kind of more clearly showing the existing BPRD easement, and then the yellow lines are showing kind of the internal but off street PED paths that we have planned throughout this community.

So as Nicholas mentioned, and I think is a key benefit of this project, something that we've coordinated closely with BPRD is and again, so we've rotated the screen, so page right is actually south.

The kind of pink line there at the south along Murphy is that under crossing that connects people from Murphy Road under that overpass to Alpenglow Park.

Um and that saves any users coming from the north from having to cross another arterial street.

I I also want to acknowledge that we've made a few other changes to this this layout relative to what we presented to the planning commission.

And then you know what we're looking at here is based on uh some of those comments that we heard, and so just to summarize those, we we have increased the amount of open space by about an acre and a half.

We've added uh specifically a small part kind of at the entry of um off of 15th street, and then we have enhanced this off-street path network that we're showing in yellow, um, and that's that's actually uh more than a mile of kind of uh a circular pathway system through the community, which is a nice amenity, but also again provides uh multimodal connections through the community and and out to the surrounding streets.

Joey, that multi-use path along 15th Street.

There's an arrow there that's going south over the bridge.

It looks like the arrow is kind of going into the road, but there's no sidewalk or path facilities on that bridge.

Are there improvements planned for the bridge?

Um no, so it's just getting people to the crossings there across 15th, and then the bridge that is on the west side of 15th.

Okay.

And there, the I think like the pathway there along that whole stretch of uh 15 is relatively new, but the city updated standard, so technically I think it has to be a foot or two wider than it is.

Um so we'll be ripping it up and replacing it to make sure that it complies with current standards.

You want to stay in?

Yes, yeah, to loop through.

Okay, so this is kind of the numbers summary of the master plan.

Uh the donating acreage is stayed the same.

The the residential homes are slightly slightly different counts than what was presented to planning commission.

So 362 homes, 169 of those would be for future detached single-family homes.

Uh, about 50 of those would be for uh future town homes, and planning for the multifamily site to accommodate um roughly 143 uh homes.

As I mentioned, the open space was increased, so uh previously we're showing 4.6 acres, that's been increased to six acres, again, more than a mile of off-street paths throughout the community, and some of the areas that we that will function as open space that do contain um like this this pathway system, presumably kind of most specifically along the railroad, that path is 15 feet wide.

So it does not count, it's not 20 feet wide, so we're not counting it as open space, but it is going to function and benefit uh the residents and users similarly as a 20-foot wide corridor would.

And then uh kind of just to acknowledge this, this is this is showing a net decrease of four lots, and again, this is an attempt to respond to some of the comments that we heard at Planning Commission.

So block length, um, and this is this is the one part of the application where we we have a disagreement between city staff and applicant, and even though it's a disagreement, I'd say that we are agreeable.

You know, the vast majority of times I have been before you presenting on on these master plan applications, we have found a way to be generally in alignment.

I this is maybe one or two times that I can think of where we've had a uh disagreement, and I I think we're we're continuing to present this because we think it's quite clear that we can meet the criteria.

So I have about five slides to walk through, kind of showing how we meet we meet the criteria to allow for the deviation for the block length.

So again, you know, I think it's important to recognize that the layout that we're looking at here is a product of many, many iterations, including some changes that um have occurred after the planning commission.

And and the idea here is that we need to look at this kind of holistically.

When we make these trade-offs around block design, street location, right?

It's it's very easy to focus on one piece, but really the implication is like how this ripples throughout the entire community, and we're trying to design a community that has these amenities that provide real benefits to future residents and and the users of these amenities.

Um, and we we kind of have to look at I would encourage you or ask you to please look at these things holistically.

So this property is very much self-contained, there are no other neighborhoods that will send traffic through the community, and consequently, there's just not a lot of vehicle trips passing through, especially the middle parts of this community.

And as Nicholas mentioned, in these residential zones, there's a maximum block length of 660 feet and a maximum perimeter of 2000 measured center line to center line.

And so master plans explicitly allow for deviations to these code standards if the purpose of the underlying regulation can equally can be equally or better met with the deviations.

That's kind of the case that we're trying to make here.

The challenge is where this gets a little complicated in this case is that the Venn Development Code does not explicitly state a purpose for the block standards.

Okay, some of the language around that section of code does talk about promoting efficient multimodal use.

And again, multimodal, we like to think that sometimes it's just bike pad, but multimodal also includes vehicles.

We have to acknowledge that.

And so that that language around promoting efficient multimodal circulation is what we understand reflects the purpose, and and we can show that this plan meets meets that purpose.

So, what is efficient mean?

Efficient is also not defined in the code, but you know, that that just has us look to the dictionary.

Um, Miriam Webster defines efficient as capable of producing desired results with little or no waste as of timer or materials.

So, consequently, when we look at efficient multimodal circulation, we think that that can be viewed through terms of kind of movement, so how people are moving through this community, time distance, length of travel, but also costs.

Um that is a key part of this efficiency.

So, materials land and opportunity costs.

So, when you look at this street and block plan from a pedestrian or a cyclist perspective, um you see that it is very different.

This is why I would ask for you to look at this holistically.

The plan mid-block bike and pet quarters create much smaller blocks that help people travel through the neighborhood comfortably and efficiently.

So when you look at this broken down from the pedestrian perspective, all of these mid-block crossings create block parameters and block lengths that that are generally far less than the maximums permitted in the code.

And so, to get back to that standard, that standard of do we do is this deviation justified because it equally or better meets the purpose of the regulation.

You know, for bike and ped, it reduces opportunities for vehicle and bike ped conflicts.

It's safer and more comfortable pedestrian bicycle travel, uh, more options for for PED and bike users.

For vehicles, again, this is very low volume community, and as Joe can speak to, the traffic study confirms that all of these intersections function well.

Uh the reduced kind of additional street that affects infrastructure, right?

So fewer street intersections, reduced impervious surface, which which frankly is a benefit to the developer, but it's also reduced ongoing maintenance costs for the city.

And then this getting back to this this idea of efficient promote efficient multimodal circulation.

What we're trying to do with this layout is really kind of prioritize performance rather than these very kind of specific dimensional standards.

There's to my knowledge, there's nothing magical about 2,000 foot maximum block perimeter.

So does this plan this deviation equally or better meet the purpose of the regulation to promote this efficient multimodal circulation?

And this this slide summarizes that.

So the plan creates a street block pattern where the average block perimeter is a little bit longer.

But because we have all of these pet connections through the blocks, you would you're looking at a block program that's um almost 40% shorter for pedestrians and cyclists.

So maybe it's a little worse for drivers.

The amount of housing that is saved or not through this is not decision criteria, but the reality is that pushing a new local street and it's true that the exact alignment would be decided later, but because of other city standards trying to reduce offset intersections, it would effectively have to go and align with the street there to the east.

Putting it kind of at a location that's going to have the highest kind of trip counts, eyes on uh commercial site.

We've made sure that it also had streets, uh, local streets around it to the um degree practical to kind of again facilitate its success, make sure there was good as good access as could be had on this relatively access constrained sites.

We have a variety of housing types that meet the density and housing mix requirements.

Um we're going over uh the minimum requirements for open space, uh, six acres exceeding the 10% minimum by providing 13.2%.

We have the the well-connected multimodal network, which I've just described, including more than a mile of internal off-street paths, which don't the vast majority of those paths don't even kind of factor into the block length requirement, especially around the perimeter, but they are a benefit.

And then with the uh improvements to the bike and pet facilities along 15th and Murphy and the under crossing under Murphy Road, um, we're providing very good connections to recreational opportunities.

Obviously, 37-acre Alpenglow park is an amazing park, and that's in addition to the open space within the community.

So that's the conclusion of our formal presentation.

Uh, and as you typically do, we're expecting uh very good questions.

Thank you.

Um we've been going for two hours and sitting.

I'm wondering if we can take a five-minute break and then come back for questions, and then we'll do public comment after that.

So we'll take a quick quick stretch break and do that.

Alright, so we're still in the public hearing for item number six, and if you want to come back up, we'll have the chance to ask you some questions.

So reminder to council, we're not deliberating, but we can ask the applicant questions and get responses at this point, and then we're gonna have public comment after this.

And then the applicant can respond to the public comment if they want to, and then we'll do our deliberation after that.

So questions for the applicants.

Okay, so start with you, Councilor McDess.

Okay, so um question about the multi-use paths of the yellow dashed lines.

Looking at this from a person walking or biking or wheeling is it feels very discontinuous.

And I'm wondering what you think about I think that the the concern about block length really is at heart about people walking.

And I think that we could meet the intent of block length code by providing a more intentional um flow for people walking and biking.

Um because I think that the needs of drivers are different than the needs of people walking and biking.

Um my question is would you be able to accommodate a more continuous path that goes east and west?

So imagine you're at that under crossing under Murphy Road, and you want to know if you can get to that bridge crossing over the canal.

What is the most direct route that you could take that maybe goes up north along the railroad track and then moves east in a continuous fashion?

So that you're not doing little jogs and uh maybe goes by, you know, some some open space along the way, but it is really more of a direct route.

So I think one way to achieve that would be to take this open space and if that were simply aligned here with that deal with the.

And that's certainly possible.

I mean, I think there's flexibility from the applicant's perspective on exactly where that's aligned.

We were trying to make it a little bit more middle of that block.

But if the trade-off was kind of more continuous corridor, um city council felt that that was uh advantageous.

I think that's a relatively easy change that could be made.

Okay.

It would be a total of four units that would be lost.

Correct four thousand units.

Okay.

Okay.

The road to Murphy sounds like a novel or something.

Did you look at a different location for that?

And and if you did not, why not?

Is because of the raise, the grade change going up to the bridge?

Correct.

So as you move west, page down on Murphy, right?

The grades really change there.

And so our our access points are relatively thick.

There's just not much room to shift those along those two streets.

And so that's we we tried to create some alignment there with the parking lot.

There is the median that's kind of in between the two that forces the ride in right out, but um that that was about the best location.

Okay.

Um what's happening just north of the roundabout at Murphy and 15.

There's kind of a weird little wedge there that is not part of this development.

Is that just somebody else owns that?

The city.

Yeah, these are just there's a stormwater stormwater for those of the water facility.

Okay, thank you.

So then um along the lines of sort of ideas, if you will, that councillor Mendez presented one.

Um I'll be just really direct with you.

I I don't agree with County, the the canal channel itself is open space, it doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't think it meets the definitions and stuff.

And that you all, as I understand it, have made an effort to respond to the planning commission by providing more open space overall in the development.

And if you if you removed, I'm just talking talking hypothetically here.

You removed the canal after doing some discussion with staff today, you still would meet the minimum requirement, but like just barely by like one point one tenth of a percent or something like that.

Or the in terms of the acreages, sorry, the number of acres.

So the reason I'm bringing that up is just I I'd like to see a little bit more usable open space in here.

I think this place is kind of a cul-de-sac development, is very isolated because of the barriers that are on the east with the road, south with the road, the railroad tracks, and there's no connectivity to the north.

And I know it has access to Alpingro Park, but that's a long way.

A place that a mom could send her kids out to play for half an hour while she's cooking dinner or dad if he's cooking dinner, that um and they just they know they don't have to go all the way down and crop go underneath Murphy Road.

I'd like to see a little bit more open space in here that's usable for the community where people could play.

So I'm wondering about something that's the equivalent.

You know, what I was thinking about is in the location that the staff is proposing the road instead of a road, putting um essentially a park there, keeping the multi-use path there, and that's a little counter to what we just talked about, but or maybe a way of figure that out.

But just basically getting a little bit more open space in here.

I you know, it just it just seems needed to me in in this development, particularly because of the geographic kind of obstacles and barriers around it.

Um in my brain, that's like you know, two two housing units, it's not four.

And we did when we went through after planning commission and we've looked at this uh layout in a number of different ways.

We did expand kind of this uh this area here at the entry.

Um, you can see uh four programmable space.

This is this is quite a large area where we do see something that's more programmable.

We put it there so that when you enter the community, it's the first thing you see and can kind of give that that really community feel to it.

Um and and our justification in that is yes, we want something for the community, but um we also recognize that Alban Glow is not far.

I walked from the corner of this roundabout from this location of where you would uh get on this sidewalk to the playground, and it was less than a four-minute walk with my three children.

Um so it's not it's not far, um, and we think that it's still even with it without the under passenger Murphy, which would maybe kind of give you a more roundabout way to the playground, you can get there in you know a very safe, manageable way along 15th.

Okay, so the answer to my question is no.

Well, I think it's up for discussion.

I think we can look at that.

I think yes, we would rather see a wider open space there that we could program than at then a full ride-of-way if we can do something narrower.

Um, but we did address that with that kind of open space right when we enter the community because we thought that that was more of a monument type ability to put there.

I mean, to me, it's a lot more valuable to the neighborhood as a whole.

Let's save some for deliberation, just make sure we're asking questions.

Yeah, we don't know what those look like yet.

I mean, we'll get there when they're closer into the tenure subdivision and kind of programming, you know, there's I think a lot of opportunities for pocket parks for small playgrounds, natural features.

You can see those kind of corners and and they though they don't look like much, they are good opportunities for gathering space that are kind of scattered throughout the community along the trail network.

Um, and and to really make those spaces more robust are just not addressed in this application.

And Councilor Riley, I mean I think your point uh is well taken.

Um I would also I'm kind of prompting on here.

I mean, what uh Polished has also experienced is trying to create um in some of these communities maybe more open space, it would have to be smaller just for the sake of efficiency, but giving folks who live in these houses more visual access to open space that's different, it's a different benefit than what you're talking about as far as usability.

Um you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I that that's some of the the conversation we've had, what they've hearing from their from their buyers, especially when there's a very large um park facility recreation facility nearby.

So it's it's not saying that that's better or worse, but that it is intentional.

It's trying to give folks more kind of visual access to two pockets of open space and landscaping.

Councilor Prinzaza, question?

Thank you.

Yes.

Um sorry, can you hear me?

There was like a open the video there.

Okay, thanks.

Um I am wondering um, I under I heard your response on Murphy Road and the grade increasing, but I'm looking at the two um the mixed employment and the high density residential parcels, and the odd shape of those parcels makes me concerned that they're not really usable.

So, like you might be meeting the number of acres, but um they're not as easily developed.

So I'm I don't know that um I think I I mean I I think it's pretty important that the council kind of consider this in this application um because you know this this is this would be the nearest commercial to quite a bit of um of residential development.

Um and I don't think it's uh uh that unreasonable to say that you know you have to build up the road so that you can meet the grade.

Um so in addition to those that those um parcel uh shapes that is unusual and um having a right in right out onto Murphy.

Um to my mind is uh I don't know, not um I understand that you're right in right out to the parking lot of the park because there's a roundabout right there, but there's not a right, but the right and right out of this development would mean that people have to go all the way over the bridge to the roundabout at Murphy if they wanted to turn around, or they have to drive through the neighborhood.

Um so to me that seems really inefficient.

Um, do you have a question for the applicant?

We'll we'll be deliberating, but what's the question?

Yeah, like why why didn't you consider just building up?

Are you just looking to find the most inexpensive way, or did the city engineers tell you no, you can't move the entrance further up Murphy Road?

Um do you have development plans for those two parcels that show that they work for mixed employment and high density residential?

Yeah, so I can I can try to take uh a shot answering some of these questions.

I may need to rely on Joe for some of the details about this, the alignment of the access to Murphy Road.

Um but when we look at the ME and the RH sites, uh, we don't see these as constrained.

I mean, the geometry of this overall property is a little bit unique, especially when you consider kind of the access, the fixed access points in the canal and the railroad.

Uh, but it's a relatively flat site.

Um the the site, the ME and the RH are rectangular enough where we wouldn't anticipate that this would be constrained.

And um we've we've done a number of projects on uh much more irregularly shaped uh properties within the city of Bend.

So I we we just that we weren't even I wasn't even considering um getting that question.

We just haven't seen these sites constrained through this process.

And and to further answer your question, we have done site plans for both the ME and the RH to vet out these layouts and the acreages.

Um for the RH we vetted out you know, 143 units being laid out on the site efficiently with the amount of parking that we would require for our community.

Um and there's uh more than enough, I think, flexibility in that site uh layout for for there to be flexibility and for it to be a marketable uh parcel to be sold to a um to a high density residential developer for the ME.

For the ME, we've we have done several site plans to vet out that uh to vet out the kind of geometries of that site and access points and what that would look like, um, and then also kind of just scalability of uses and what that could look like at full build out, and it's it's uh more than efficient enough, and we've gotten good feedback from commercial developers on it.

We need to be more specific, like what kind of what kind of development would go there on the MD.

Uh we've looked at uh kind of a kind of there's broken up into four different parcels.

Two of the parcels would be probably a multi, you know, one to two story building, maybe an office on one.

Um we've looked at kind of fitness and a like daycare or day use, maybe an insurance company, um, and then kind of on the Murphy side looking at um kind of like a uh tap house style building that has access to food carts and an open space for uh to kind of use as an amenity for the entire neighborhood with a playground and fire pits and kind of just an outdoor space, and so that all fits with enough parking to some you know support the three different uses that would be on a shared kind of lot.

But again, it's neighborhood scale commercial, it's not it's not a large site, it's um this is probably not the location for something that's beyond neighborhood scale commercial.

Okay, yeah, absolutely.

And then how about the road alignment?

Joe is standing up here to answer that question.

Oh, great, okay, I can see them.

Thanks.

For the record, Joe Bestman Transite Consulting.

So great, great question, uh Counselor Francosa.

So we had looked at this road alignment a few different ways trying to figure out could we get a full access there.

We really saw the value, especially serving the higher density residential and the mixed employment uh zoning.

And what we found was if we if we shift it to the east closer towards the roundabout, it was too close to the roundabout.

And if we shift it further west, we're starting to go up the grade.

The real problem is whenever you have an act have an access here that has full movements, and you're coming down a steep grade, we really need that dedicated left turn lane for that traffic to pull out, especially as we think about winter conditions and sliding down the downgrade.

You start chasing your tail going up that grade, and there's just there was no way we could catch ourselves and catch the slope with how steep that is.

It's about a 25-foot grade difference.

So that's that's why we settled on the right end right now.

And our thought was with the roundabouts at either end of this corridor.

Well, it's not ideal.

You you could make that work, or you could use the full access 15th Street entrance, which will have those left turn lanes.

And moving that access point kind of upslope in addition to the problems that Joe mentioned on Murphy.

I mean, just realistically how you build that, you're probably gonna lose less, you're gonna lose more land and M E N R H because of slopes from kind of the more elevated access up to Murphy.

So we vetted this location with both emergency services and city private development engineering staff.

Um and that is kind of where we are today.

All right.

And then last question, I have one more question about the um the trails shown around the property are pretty narrow, and a lot of times homes in these developments have fences around them.

So are these really narrow trails basically gonna be kind of like walled in with fences?

So that would certainly not be uh an attractive uh amenity for the community, and I think the goal is to make this an amenity.

I think again we're we're trying to react to comments that we heard from planning commission, and then kind of show that or implement that in a way that is uh uh community benefit and not just checking uh a box.

And so, especially here along the railroad, and may have mentioned I think this is uh the corridor is 15 feet, not 20 feet.

Um you know, this pathway network is not required, right?

This is nothing in the code that requires this, but we we think it's an amenity and and um you on it.

You can probably speak to other projects where you've kind of had this kind of scenario with a core uh a corridor trail and trying to create some transparency or trying to do different things with with fencing to kind of make that feel more inviting.

Yeah, what we've really tried to do here is replicate what kind of that perimeter trail system that we have around the bridges, um, and then what we'll have around Easton when Easton is full fully built out so that there is kind of this large continuous trail.

This trail will probably react more with the bridges.

Um, and if you walked the bridges perimeter trail, it does, you know, your fence to fence with the buddy neighborhood.

In some cases, you are down to 15 feet, which is why we felt comfortable with a 15-foot trail there.

Um, you know, you have the we're not going to have a cedar fence on one side, you know, kind of how that gets built out will have to be dependent on grade and and what that looks like back there, but obviously we're we're using this as an amenity for the neighborhood.

We want it to be attractive, we want it to be safe, we want those homeowners that about that trail to feel like that is an amenity for them and not a liability.

Um so I think what we'll see is a very nicely landscaped area that is really a connection point to get from the north side of you know the master plan to the south where you can make connections to out and below in the rest of the neighborhood.

Even though it is narrower than 20 feet, it's it would be uh in a tract owned and maintained by the HOA, right?

So there's it's not like you're counting on each individual property owner to kind of police it or or maintain it, it would be the HOA across the entire community managing that space.

Okay, thank you.

Steve question join on it.

Um you're at 362 lots, right?

And uh the minimum you need to hit is 348.

Am I right?

It depends a little bit with the with the um that's what I thought it in the city pack, it was like around 348.

Yeah, so it does depend on how the open space is treated.

So the the math here would indicate the absolute minimum density with this current program, this current amount of open space uh would be 347.

Which probably round out, right?

Yeah, revoid it.

Okay, so just to getting back to counselor Mendez's Riley's comment, you have about 14 sites to play with, right?

Above if we if we start cutting out some more in uh open space, right?

I mean, I know that's to meet the code requirements, but at some point that becomes a challenge for totally uh the viability of the economics of the totally get it.

Yeah, I'm gonna understand.

I'm just trying to see what kind of trade space we have here on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Other questions for the applicant before we go to public comment.

Okay.

Um so we'll have thank you very much for answering all those questions, and we're gonna have a few folks who signed up for public comment.

Um, so Karen Johnson, I see you here.

We'll start with you.

You want to come on up?

And then we'll go to a couple of online commenters next.

Same rules, two minutes.

Yes.

Okay.

Good evening.

Uh, Karen Johnson appearing.

Uh, my husband and I live on the Central Oregon Canal.

We're about a hundred yards up from Ferguson.

When we bought the place, I was standing on the bank of the canal with my realtor looking at the water flowing by.

I said, This is so cool.

I'd be able to put my kayak in here.

She grabbed my arm and shook me, and she said, You'll die.

And she was serious about it.

Uh, this is presented as a union master plan.

The problem is whether or not the space over a canal satisfies the definition of one point two, chapter 1.2.

And that is to say the space has to be for recreation, conservation, uh, or quote, other open space uses.

The problem is you cannot use the canal.

Uh with water in it, you will die.

Without water, even cannot cross the bottom.

The applicant is using still using part of the canal as its open space.

They needed a 4.53 acres of open space, and that means the 10%.

That the canal itself is 1.89 acres, and even though they've increased the open space to six acres, they're still using 4.2.42 acres of open space.

I think that as another policy, all the canals post-processing them should not be counted as open space under chapter 1.2 because it is not usable for any particular purpose.

Uh, and that's why I think that they need to find another 4.2 acres of open space in the canals, not the canal, but the the trails of the little parks that they've set up.

Thank you, Karen.

All right, and then online we had two people.

So let's start with Michelle Martin.

All right, Michelle, you can go ahead.

Good evening.

Uh, Michelle Martin Bend.

I support mixed use, so we live across the street on this one, actually.

The applicant is not meeting the open space definition and requirement without including the canal, which does not seem to meet the letter nor intent of the usable, usable open space law.

We need more usable open space added.

And I did hear the developer say earlier that reducing four lots to meet that other requirement was not part of the decision criteria.

That's great.

That means there's plenty of opportunity to do the right thing here.

It seems the developer is telling us today that rather than truly meeting the open space requirement for usable open space, increasing from 4.5 to 6 is a crumb to be grateful for while still not meeting the requirement.

I read all the public require uh comments in the file, all of them.

And the vast majority were about open space requirement not being met without the canal.

Basically, the developer is ditchy the real usable open space by counting a ditch, a canal.

I would hope that the city would require the developer to please resubmit this plan and have more open space that's legitimately open space and truly meet the requirement, especially if this project overall has mixed use and we really appreciate that affordable housing component.

We're looking forward to this development bottom line.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle.

And then next will be Patty McCormick.

So Patty, you can go ahead.

Okay.

I think I think you can hear me.

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Um so my name is Patty McCormick.

I do want to be clear that while I am the land use chair for Aubrey Butte Neighborhood District.

I am not speaking on behalf of the board or its members on this topic, but individually as a citizen of Bend.

Um I intended initially to really focus my comments on expressing a concern about the fact that the KV master plan came directly to City Council for approval without going back through the planning commission for reconsideration, given that the planning commission had voted against recommending this master plan as it had been originally submitted.

Now, my concerns were mitigated a bit as I listened tonight by the fact that Scott did speak to provide some background on the planning commission's concerns.

But in reality, as the two other folks have already also mentioned, this updated plan has not addressed those underlying open space concerns.

The planning commission did not really fundamentally agree with the staff's interpretation of the definition of open space.

And I do not believe that the precedents that were being referred to are necessarily accurate or should be the basis for making more poor decisions going forward.

As has been stated, an irrigation canal is not for conservation purposes, and it's certainly not usable given its extremely dangerous nature during certain seasons of the year.

I asked that the city council consider the true intent of what should be considered open space, reject this proposal as submitted, and clarify the coding to prevent this ambiguity going forward.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Patty.

Alright, that was it for the folks who had signed up for public comment.

So we'll end the public comment period.

Joanne Anna, is there anything that you wanted to respond to that came up in the public comments?

Sure.

So this was again the open space question was the planning commission.

And this is one item where staff and the applicant are in total agreement.

And I can take a moment to address this.

And we did we did address this in a supplemental narrative.

Kind of introducing some of these changes to the layout coming out of the planning commission.

But in on the screen before you here are the two sections of code that deal with the open space requirement.

And so this the development code in chapter 1.2 lists all the different definitions that will apply to the other provisions of the code that defines open space and again open space being common, active or passive, as any property or area of land or water set aside, designed or reserved for the public or private use, specifically for the purpose of providing places for recreation, conservation, or other open space uses.

And in both of these cases, I think the plain language of the definition is actually quite broad.

So other open space uses, that's that's kind of illustrative rather than exhaustive.

And if it is space and it is open, uh it would seem to fall under that specific part of chapter 1.2.

If you go to the master plan provisions, kind of how chapter 4.5 kind of applies this or requires something different regarding open space, uh 45, 200 sub E sub 4 implements that open space requirement for master plans and requires that minimum 10% of the gross area as public or private open space, and then gives examples.

Again, it's it's illustrative, not exhaustive, such as parks, pavilions, squares, and plazas, multi-use paths within that 20-foot wide corridor, areas of special interest, tree preservation areas, or public and private recreational facilities.

So again, uh a broad kind of set of categories for this open space that again uh the specific examples provided, like ASI or tree preservation areas are not areas that are easily accessible.

Those those might be areas where it would be unsafe for some uh member of the public to access.

And so the the argument that because you cannot physically access the canal or it would be unsafe to do so, it doesn't hold up to these other examples.

And beyond just the the definitions here in this code, the way we are asking the city to apply the standard, the way I think that staff is also talking about the open space, is consistent with previous past city council approvals, uh, and we list some of them here.

Um, and and in a lot of these cases, the open space that is acknowledged as as helping to satisfy these requ these requirements for these other projects, is open space that um is not is not accessible, has access limitations, uh, and is either um limit or really doesn't have any capacity to accommodate kind of this this physical recreation, which we hear from a lot of the comments, which we heard from the planning commission, um, and is I think a reading into this two sections of code that is not there actually in the in the plan language.

Um we would certainly invite council to kind of ask us about this explicitly uh before you close um the hearing for any sort of deliberations.

If there are specific provisions about in these definitions that you have questions about, please give us a chance to address that specifically.

So, council, this is the standard that we are deliberating to tonight.

This is what's in our code currently.

There may be some desire on this dice to change this definition, but that's not what we have in front of us tonight, and that's not what the applicant's being held to.

So if there are any other further questions about how the applicant is meeting this definition, let's ask them now.

Go ahead.

Is that uh a central Oregon irrigation district canal there?

Correct.

And do you consider that a public or private entity?

Um I don't know the statute or the laws around the irrigation districts.

I think they're probably some sort of semi-public agency.

Okay.

And do you consider the purpose of the district to be providing places for recreation conservation or other open space uses?

Or is it something else?

Uh I don't know the purpose of the district.

The purpose of well, the purpose of the district would be for irrigation, but I don't know that that prohibits the kind of a dual benefit of the land that they own.

Okay.

Council Francesa, question?

Yeah, can you pull up the map again?

With showing open space.

Um I'm curious about the it.

So is that area along the canal, but outside of the canal right-of-way being counted as open space?

In your open space.

Correct.

So along that canal corridor, the area shown as green and the area that we tried to make more transparent to show the blue of the water, that entire area is being counted towards the open space because it is wider than 20 feet.

Okay, and then is there any have you considered an open space?

Is there are there trees, significant trees?

That meet the city's development code definitions are that are planned to be preserved.

So you can so I want to be clear there's nothing about tree protection or preservation that is criteria for the master plan, but when you look at the transparency here on the green, it may be hard to see because we're not necessarily trying to show this, but you can see that there are from this aerial photo there are trees within that that open space corridor.

Okay.

Other questions?

Joey, just to be clear, if you took away the canal space, you're still meeting the open space requirement.

Um so we have not done that analysis, but that's what that's what's uh staff has put in the record.

Uh our our position is that the um the water area, the the the canal is part of that open space.

Okay.

Any other questions before we wrap up here and go to deliberation?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Appreciate that.

Um, I'm gonna close the public hearing at this point and move to deliver to deliberation.

Um, questions first, staff questions.

No, we should have the hearing open for that, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm gonna reopen the public hearing and we can ask some staff questions.

So my understanding is that in the role that we're acting in right now, we get to interpret the definitions of open space, right?

Yes, right.

So I mean that we have the words up there and people may perceive them differently.

Um, but I mean this group gets to be different.

Yeah, but I think the discussion presentation tonight shows there are multiple ways to look at this, and that goes for council too.

Right.

Um, because my reading of that is that there's white, I mean, there's it's relatively gray, and so it's open to interpretation.

I don't think it's a black and white set of criteria on how to meet this.

Um, I guess my other question is the acreage related to open space.

You and I had some back and forth today about this particular issue, and my concern was about including the canal channel itself as part of the open space and what um bay it maybe wasn't as exact as it might be, but my understanding is if we just remove the canal channel based on your look, um, it did get them very close to the minimum requirements for open space, but they still were slightly above it.

Just for illustrative purposes, I just wouldn't just very rough estimation, aerial in the dream measuring the area that comprises the water of the canal is about an acre.

So of the six acres that'll bring it back down to five if you're just counting kind of the dry areas of the canal, if you will, um, which is over the 4.5, roughly four and a half acres in the total amount of the entire like, I guess it would be the right of way, it's like right for a hundred.

There's like twice on each side.

Correct.

It's a so well, actually it's a tw- it's a hundred foot wide total easement that travels through the site.

So I think for a distance of around a hundred or so feet, but it's it's a total of a hundred feet wide within that hundred feet though, is that 20 foot bend parks and rec trail easement?

Um but yeah, so that the total width, and again, this is all just estimation, but without an acre of water area.

Any other questions for staff?

Sorry.

Oh, that's okay.

All right, now we close the public hearing.

Commissioner point.

Oh, sorry.

Open again.

Sorry, that was premature.

Any final rebuttal based on what was just said.

I just wanted to reiterate from Polish.

I think in terms of this application, and we understand the the need for open space, and if the basis of any sort of denial or or question of denial would come from just the open space calculation, we would rather be conditioned to achieve the open space within, you know, without using the canal than be denied today.

So I mean, we hear you guys, we hear the city, we hear uh the public comments that um not utilizing the canal, though this is something we believe has you know is how the code could be interpreted today.

Um we would rather take that and be able to incorporate that through our subdivision application and accommodate the open space within the master plan rather than be tonight today.

Got it.

Thank you.

Okay, now it's actually closing the hearing.

That was open for all that stuff, so that all that is in the right.

I know.

Um so counselors, now is the time to deliberate again.

Reminder of the um standards that Nicholas showed us, that's what we're deliberating to here tonight.

Um and so if if anyone is advocating for denying this application, please make sure you're telling us why.

Um but otherwise open to discussion around what we want to do here and how we think this meets the code or doesn't.

Councilman Dis.

So I think in light of councilor Riley's uh earlier questions and the the thrust of providing more open space, um, I want to be really clear.

I think it's I I don't think it's that gray, actually.

I think that a canal is not open space, and I think that the previous precedent was incorrect on that.

Uh even whether it's public or private, it is used specifically for the purpose of providing places for recreation, conservation, or other open space uses.

Well, a canal is definitely not for recreation.

The canal is not for conservation, so the question is whether it would be for other open space uses.

When you consider what the central organ irrigation district's purpose is, it's not other open space uses.

I don't see how you can stretch that to say, well, their purpose is because the code says uh reserved for the public or private use specifically for the purpose of a canal for irrigation is not specifically for the purpose of other open space uses.

So I don't think it should be used at all.

The question then is whether or not the open space requirement can be met in another way without the canal.

I think it's really close.

I think it's basically razor thin, and it's like if we had gerrymandering for open space, this would probably be it.

So what I'd love to do is I I support Councillor Riley's idea of having more open space, but usable open space.

So I don't like the idea of meandering paths that cut across crisscrossing and making that space less useful for things like recreation.

I think if we look at uh Petrosa, another development where we've we have seen open space place of streets, it's about a hundred foot wide.

And talking to residents in Petrosa, they love it.

It's um I think it's called what is it, Eagle Creek?

No, I can't remember the name of it.

But there's at least two instances of that in Petrosa where a long linear park takes the place of a street, and I love that idea.

I think neighbors neighbors love it, residents love it.

Um I'd like to see that here.

Specifically, I think it makes sense to incorporate it into a linear trail segment that connects the western trail to the bridge over the canal.

And one section of that should be a hundred foot wide open space between the um the second of the easternmost blocks, which is uh get the name of the um streets here, correct.

That is between street A and Street E.

B.

It's an A and an E, right?

It's very hard to read also reading.

Okay, and so basically asking for an east-west um contiguous path instead of how it's it's jogged along the block there.

Okay again, this is a master plan and not a site plan, so there would be more refinement in the future, but that would be that okay.

All right, other thoughts.

So I mean I agree with Councilor Mendes on the definition of open station canal, not counting.

I think consist, you know, it looked to me like it just was barely needed even if we remove the canal channel, but consistent with Polish's effort to be responsive to the concerns about more, I think usable open space.

Um I would like to see you know some additional space added, sort of along the lines.

And my original thought was that instead of the road that staff is proposing that we put that open space there.

If it has to move a little bit and maybe even move the one that Which road?

That would be a good idea.

It curves around, right?

And dead ends.

The staff is proposing the best solution would be to continue that road through to the other curving road.

So I was suggesting keeping the multi-use path there and just adding taking two of those lots and turning them into open space.

So if you have to do something a little different than that, that's fine.

And I think it would get the result of having um more usable space.

I think it's better for the development as a whole.

I think the people who live there will like it more.

Um it takes less, potentially a little less units than it would be for the road.

Um so I overall think it would add a lot, and it would be consistent with you all trying to increase the overall open space and development, be responsive to comments.

I I also the other comment I would make is that I'm comfortable with not doing worrying at the block length and giving the exception on that in the circumstance because I really view this as a cul-de-sac kind of development, and I don't think we're gonna have the same sort of through traffic that we would get in other places that lends itself more to a lot of speeding, um, you know, a variety of things that come with that.

But I'm okay with that exception in this setting.

Um, but I would like to see more open space.

Can I ask both of you a question about how you're interpreting open space?

If that canal was filled with a big rock outcropping, that wouldn't be safe for people to be climbing.

Is that open space?

Well, my understanding from many of those locations is that it's I mean it all depends on the geography, but there's a lot of places where some attempt is made to access some portion of that.

Let's say it's inaccessible inaccessible rock cliff but you can walk in Mayor I agree with Counselor Mendes and Councillor's comments and I'm asking them to respond and then I'm happy to come to you so hold on just so I guess I still wouldn't want to know a little bit more about this specific specific circumstances but to me it could just that's not what this canal is about.

It's not here for those purposes.

And the ASI may have been protected for those purposes but that's not what this canal is about.

And I think in my experience with developments when I've heard them talk about those kinds of settings were wildflowers the first one that comes to mind.

I remember some discussion that at least portions of that were going to be accessible.

They saw it as an amenity with sort of natural trails in it.

Yeah so I I think yes oftentimes it it will end up being accessible in some way.

It sounds like we're kind of focusing on the intent of this canal versus potentially yes because maybe that falls under conservation specifically for the purpose of recreation conservation or other open space uses so an inaccessible rock cliff I think you know it it depends we have this we have to see but it could be okay and that is why an ASI was developed in the first place to us to conserve some of those places for the community benefit.

That's not why this canal is creating okay yeah council presosa.

I was just gonna say yeah conservation that's why that's why the rock outcrapping and that's covered in the development of um of open space I think there's value um in conservation land but the reason why there's value in conservation land is because um or uh it the value is there when you can at least see it and I'm I I I guess I just want to emphasize I'm just kind of concerned in in this um you know in this application maybe it does warrant some uh look at our code about um open space being uh willing accessible if then if it's kind of fenced off from everyone's view um and there it's only accessible you know by a couple places then it's sort of open space that's just I don't know really um delivering kind of the benefit that we hope that we hope for um we have it in the code I also just want to agree with um what counselor Riley said that I'm not too worried about the block length because of the connecting trails um so for pedestrians and cyclists there are those connecting trails through the site um I I like the idea of um having uh making those connecting trails kind of wider um and higher kind of higher value open space and meeting the criteria that way um and then I mean I still just want to say I really am concerned about that right in right out I'm being I'm an advocate for bicycling and walking but um I I do feel that it's gonna make that um commercial area kind of inaccessible by cars and with high density residential there we're gonna be forcing all um what was it 200 almost 200 better part of 200 high density residential units plus the 300 and however many housing units using that one road in and one road out doesn't seem responsible but um there's two access points to the neighborhood just to be clear so is the other one wide in right out on the left turn there okay counselor perkins um I I disagree that that the canal is fenced off and unusable I mean I grew up in Boston and I walked along the Charles River you couldn't pay me enough to swim in the Charles River um but I definitely enjoyed walking along it and that's what I see here um and so I think that's it's possible to still enjoy something um and not actively use it um and in addition I I really like this sort of urban style of of bringing small pockets of green space throughout the whole community and I I think there is something to the fact you know if you have a central park and and and it takes you you can't see it from your house and it it's a it's far away um it you're really not impacting everybody in the community so I actually really like the way this is designed with with little pockets of green all over and um the fact that there is a there is a major park um four minutes away by you know by walking I to me that that that is fine and um so I I don't know if I necessarily agree that that um they're not meeting the criteria here yeah um so that's what counselor Perkins just said I think it's um I like the little small intimate green spaces I think it offers a lot of opportunity to for the community come together in small little pockets that in the neighborhood little you know within smaller neighborhoods um I appreciate too the loss of the four units to to add additional um space in the northeast um corner um and I do agree that I think that that pad bike connection is sufficient for uh meeting you know the block length requirements um it also in some you know instances can also be safer because it is not vehicular um I don't agree with a right in right out I think we have other instances like that in the city that work just fine um and I would be concerned if we did something else just with the grade of that and I also think that the ME and the multifamily spaces are fine I've been very complicated

Um and I do agree that I think that that pad bike connection is sufficient for uh meeting you know the block length requirements.

Um it also in some you know instances can also be safer because it is not vehicular.

Um I don't agree with the right in, right out.

I think we have other instances like that in the city that work just fine.

Um and I would be concerned if we did something else just with the grade of that.

And I also think that the ME and the multifamily spaces are fine.

I'm very confident you can make something work in those the way that those are designed.

Okay, thanks, Council Platt.

I'd like to see the trail uh between avenues A and E move move south to make just move a linear uh line.

I think that that feels better for me for the community overall.

Um, but I think I agree with the latter three comments that have been made.

How do you feel about the open space requirement?

Do you think they've met that definition?

I would prefer to have the remaining open space be what they are counting and as they're as their their catalog here, that they are just made barely meeting that, and I would like to exclude the uh the canal from the computation and acknowledge that they've met that requirement even with the canal to water space uh removed.

Okay.

All right.

Um I I'm a little torn, but I do think I do think just because I I live in this corner of town and I've been recreating alongside the canal forever, that you can recreate beside it, even though the canal itself is not purpose for recreating upon it.

Um so I I do see how that um can count towards the open space.

I think if we do the math um and you take that water away, I think they've still met the requirement.

So that's why I'm feeling comfortable today.

But maybe we could make that very clear somehow that we sort of do a little bit more measurement of the actual canal, and then um maybe you just give us a few more feet of open space to to mitigate that um and to make sure that we are meeting that requirement under um under our code.

So that's kind of how I would think about it.

Um not that I necessarily agree with how you all are defining it, but that maybe we could ask them to just add a little bit more to make sure we're mitigating in case that like you said, Steve, like even without it, they're still meeting it.

Um I'm fine with um the as others have said, not allowing a deviation on the block length as long as we have that bike pad path through.

I agree I would love to see it aligned up so that that's just easier to get through there.

Um I do want to say, as someone who lives in the site side of town and has seen these neighborhoods go up and has lived in these type of neighborhoods, um, it's hard to picture from this map.

It's lovely to have these these paths that go all the way around the neighborhood and these little in in-between paths.

Um the under crossing under Murphy to Alpenglow is going to be amazing.

Yeah, it's gonna be amazing.

And you don't even have to interact with that roundabout.

You can you can send the kids down that path.

Um, and I think that's gonna be really incredible.

Um and so I think the other thing I want to say here is that we spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things, except for all the people that are gonna live in this neighborhood, which is pretty important.

Um, and this is an opportunity zone in our comprehensive plan, and these are hundreds of homes, families, workers, seniors, kids that are gonna be living in our neighborhood in a great neighborhood that's developing in Southeast Bend.

And I just want to remind folks that that's a lot of why we're here and why this is important to do this kind of infill um and help get this built out.

So that's kind of where I'm at.

Welcome any other comments or questions.

I don't think anybody here is wanting to oppose this moving forward.

I think what we're trying to do is shape it to get a better plan for the reasons you said, yeah, you know, this is a prime opportunity for redevelopment.

Um there's good opportunities for neighborhood serving commercial as well.

I mean, that's all very exciting, and I think generally this is a good place.

I I just would like to see a little bit more usable open space, really, is what it boils down to.

And I think getting to that place where they're closer to that.

If it's not the six acres, we're very close to that number.

And I you know, I don't know if tonight what we're asking for is continuation of this and letting them come back and respond.

Yeah, I'm gonna ask you how we can deal with this.

I mean, that wouldn't be for roughly four weeks because we have some breaks coming up here, but yeah.

Okay, let me get Council Friends' comment and then maybe we can talk about that.

Thanks.

Yeah, I just wanted to say, like, our I mean, I think all of our comments are about creating this housing in a neighborhood that is really desirable and has lots of great amenities for people to live in.

So I mean, it's not about restricting housing, it's about making sure that our community develops in an orderly way and in a high quality way.

So great.

So Ian, if um it sounds like that we are okay with all the deviations, so that that's fine.

And so I don't know what that does to our motion language.

Yeah, so I I think I'm hearing that at least a majority of councillors platforms, the mayor and mayor pro town are okay with approval and okay with granting the request of deviation to the block perimeter standards with maybe a relocation of that connection between A and B a little further south to better align with the other east-west connections.

Is that right?

Yes.

Okay.

Because I think just to preface this, if the if the answer might be yes, if it's we need more time, we could consider um council could consider just continuing the deliberation to the next business meeting where staff could come back with post and come back with some slightly revised findings to support where I think a majority is, but that's question.

Uh so I did prepare an alternative staff recommendation that more or less accounted for an approval of the deviation.

Um I have a version that has track changes that uh would be could be ready this evening if also wish.

Um to the degree that the the east-west multimodal connection.

Um I think in talking with Ian and please correct me if I'm mistaken, but that I think that the location of that pathway could be a little bit flexible in the execution of those subsequent subdivisions.

I'm not sure if we need to be as explicit to uh put that in a motion this evening, for example.

Um, even if the figure adopted is a slightly um alternative to what is uh you know finally approved a subdivision.

I think there's a way we can work with the applicant on finalizing that location in accordance with the wishes of the council.

Um but yeah, I think the question then comes down to do we want to scramble and then maybe come back and tonight to present some of these findings, alternate findings supporting this, or do we want to continue it to the next business meeting where we can post them and get a chance to get them finalized and have let council and others um give them an opportunity to see them and read them before the next meeting.

Thoughts?

Um if we did continue, does that provide the applicant an opportunity to sort of think through some of this and work through staff with coming up with a different thing here?

I mean, in tonight and previously in theory, we're talking about continuing council deliberation, not reopening the public hearing, although that's something council could do.

If it is continue, the the just continue the deliberation so staff can work on updating the findings.

Staff can work with an applicant, and that's not ex parte.

That's that's fine.

Okay.

I would like to add something.

Colin Stevens community development director.

Um we actually anticipated a situation like this within the crafting of the master plan chapter of the code, um, but I just want to make everybody aware of it, maybe helpful.

There is a step within the master planning process.

It says upon approval of the major community master plan and prior to the commencement of step three, which would be a future subdivision.

The applicant must submit a final major community master plan to the city in electronic four minutes format.

The final major community master plan must depict the proposed or proposal as approved and must incorporate all conditions of approval contained in the decision.

So you potentially just put these as a condition within your um motion, and then and then that final master plan will reflect those changes, and we can just work on that with the with the staff and applicant.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Colin.

That's helpful.

Between in the next two hours, and you'll come back to us.

No, no, no, it's just July.

It would just be after the post approval.

Yeah, post-approval we work on.

They turn the major master plan into the city.

Um because the master plan then goes into the development code, what we need to make sure that it is you know reflects all the conditions of approval.

So we can work on that and make sure that the conditions are then implemented within that final master plan, but there's a condition approval then for tonight would be well, we would choose to have four P conditions.

Yeah, I was gonna try to go over that.

So kind of discussed right now and to see if we have support for is to grant all the deviations, including the block length deviation, so they're gonna have to build the extra road that staff was recommending.

Um, and then to find that they have met the open space definition and to ask um to align that multimodal path to be straight and contiguous through the center of the um the development.

And I think if there we could just straw poll who's in support of that, I think we do have four, but again, open to more five.

What happens to the status of your it's not part of it?

It's not included.

Yeah, but this would be a yeah, this would be a finding that um that the open space requirement had been met as of this plan.

Um I I wonder if there is a way to talk about when aligning that multimodal multimodal path.

I'm not making that a condition of approval tonight, so therefore it doesn't have to be done.

No.

I I would make it a condition of approval.

To do what?

To add extra open space similar to what was done in the Petrosa, instead of building a road, we can make it make it open space.

Okay, but so are you like how much?

I guess we'll need to.

Well, I mean, it's a hundred feet.

Petrosa is a hundred feet.

That's more than two house wide, though.

Um I would say two house you know, blocks in here wide, including multi use now.

I get I guess I want to be careful here because they have a ten percent open space requirement, right?

So if I'm looking at the code, I I feel like I have to be careful about trying to ask the applicant to go above that based on the desire.

Um so for me, and and just to be very clear about that.

I don't think they're going for six acres.

I think they're going for four and a half because it's a 45 acre unit.

So I understand uh uh that a desire here, but I I really want to sit myself right at that 10% minimum, even though it might be happier with more.

So I'm so I'm yeah, I'm at the 4.5.

Okay, councillor Franzosa.

I thought we had a majority who did not want the canal to be counted towards the open space.

I thought I heard Councilor Platt say that.

That that's true, and they meet according to the staff calculations the 4.5 still, right?

Without count counting that I just think it's important for that to be in the motion.

I think I think what we're saying is that per our definition of open space, we think they've met the requirements.

But I think counselor Prancosa's point is that four of the council can agree with that.

That there's a minority to the agree they've met by including the canal channel, they've met um that qualifies as open space.

So what's being asked is to remove that essentially from the calculation.

So their calculation of open space is whatever it is for point five six or something.

Um is there an easy way to include that?

If if I'm if I was tracking and Nick can correct me, but as I understood it, removing the canal from itself from the math is basically bang on meeting the 10%.

Yeah, yeah.

Or pretty darn close.

I thought a little bit sure.

So this is again this is very rough, very rough estimation, but based on my calculations in the area comprising the open space outside the 100-foot easement.

If then including the 20-foot easement that is actually within the canal to be a Ben Parkson Rec trail and the crossing across it, you pretty much hit exactly the minimum 10% to do it.

Okay.

And and so to clarify, Councilor Francis and Council Riley.

I am saying I'm with the mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilor Norris, that they meet their criteria for main space, and it doesn't really matter to me that we're not counting because I because I think they meet it no matter how you slice it in this case.

Except for the fact that every time we make a decision like this where we include a canal channel as meeting the definition of open space, we're beginning to set a precedent.

So from my opinion, it would be better to remove that portion.

Understanding it's still you know, if you interpret the code that it meets that.

So can I offer a suggestion?

So um if there's still a majority of four that are in favor of approval in favor of granting all the deviation requests, including the block perimeter, um, and finding that the open space requirement is met without counting, I'll call it the water.

So council is not necessarily interpreting, doesn't need to interpret that tonight.

Um if that's the direction, if that's where there's gravity of at least four of you.

Um I I really prefer giving staff time to bring back findings that reflects all of that at a subsequent meeting, so we can post them and you can read them and and those findings can reflect this discussion, including I think providing some certainty to folks who are concerned about an expansive definition of open space because the council can kind of dodge that if it chooses.

Um so my recommendation would be to seriously consider continuing the hearing so staff can take all of this input.

We I don't think we need a motion if it's clear there's four of you and we track the discussion, and we can work on revised findings to bring back that reflect all of this, and that might obviate the need for a potentially complicated motion tonight.

I support that.

Is there any opposition to that?

No.

Okay, I think that is a good decision.

So I think we're gonna do we need a motion to continue the deliberations.

I'm assuming planning staff have what they need to work on.

I'm saying you nodded ahead, so motion to continue deliberations, and I think we'll be okay.

I move that we continue deliberations on this.

Do we need a date certain?

That'd be great to our next business meeting in July 15th.

Okay.

Counselor I move to continue deliberations to July 15th, second by councillor Perkins.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you.

Applicants.

Thank you, everyone who commented.

We appreciate you.

I think everyone is still here.

Everyone who's still here, we're gonna keep going.

On to item number seven, which is another quasi judicial public hearing.

This is a quasi-judicial public hearing in first reunited ordinance.

All right, I'm gonna open this public hearing.

And Councilor Norris, do you want to declare?

I am declaring an actual conflict on this item.

Um this annexation would have a financial impact on my employer getting home, so I will not be voting or deliberating on this item.

Okay, and then now Ian's gonna do the questions.

Yep, we're back.

Uh does anyone have any ex party contacts or site visits they wish to declare?

Start with councillor Francoso.

Uh no.

Councillor Mendez.

No.

Councilor Riley, no.

Mayor Kepler.

No.

Mayor Pro Temperance.

No.

Councilor Platt.

No.

None.

Okay, next question is does anyone have any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that could interfere with the ability to serve as an impartial decision maker in this matter?

Counselor Francosa.

No.

Councillor Mendez.

No.

Councilor Riley.

No.

Mayor Keebler.

No.

Mayor Pro Tim Perkins.

No.

Councillor Platt.

No.

Is anyone present in person or online wish to challenge these declarations on bias or pre-judgment?

Looking around and seeing none.

Actually, seeing a shake of the head by Nate Wyatt, whose name is now on the record.

I'll now read a statement explaining the requirements of state law.

All testimony, argument, and evidence must be directed to the applicable criteria in the Federal Element Code and comprehensive plan.

The party believes are applicable to this matter.

The failure raised the issue with sufficient specificity of the decision maker or other to respond to the issue will include an appeal to the Land East Court of Appeals on that issue.

Failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional issue or other issue regarding a condition of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will include a claim for damages and related to that condition.

If prior to the end of the public hearing, a party requests additional time to present testimony argument or evidence, the decision maker may allow either a continuance or additional time in its discretion for parties to submit that additional testimony argument or evidence.

That's it.

Nice.

Okay, great.

All right.

Presentation.

Hello.

Good evening, counselors.

I'm Michelle Patrick.

I'm an associate planner in the community development department, and the item before you tonight is the cabin lane estates annexation.

Come on.

Slowing down too.

There we go.

Thank you.

Everything.

So more specifically, the purpose tonight is a positive judicial public hearing and for shooting of an ordinance to annex 10 acres of land in the Southeast Urban Growth Boundary.

Staff is ultimately recommending that you move to approve this annexation and the uh assigning signed district.

So as you are aware, the Southeast Urban Growth Boundary or the Southeast Expansion Area was adopted as part of the 2016 UGB expansion, previously referred to as the elbow.

And you know, with the Southeast Area Plan, that is a master, or it was an area plan.

Um this particular property is 10 acres in size, so it is not required to meet the master plan criteria because it is under 20 acres.

Uh the development is still required to provide a development proposal showing how they comply with our subdivision criteria.

That will be reviewed for compliance once the annexation is effective.

So this is a little bit of more detail of the property.

You can see it here highlighted in red.

So at this time uh we've annexed approximately 130 acres in the Southeast area plan.

It's about 30% of the total area.

Um you can see here the previous uh annexations.

So this is number five.

Previously we've annexed the Ferguson, Magnolia Meadows, and Lagore, which abut this property to the east and south, and then of course Copperwood Crossing, which you've just heard recently.

So the comprehensive plan designation for this property is RS, that's standard density residential.

And so upon annexation, the zoning will change from urbanizable area to RS.

And there are no changes proposed to the to the uh implementing that comp plan designation.

So uh uniquely this property abuts city limits to um all sides, north, south, east, and west.

So it's kind of a little donut hole in the southeast area.

And um uh the only other item here of note is that Cabin Lane is actually a private street.

So upon annexation, the uh western half of Cabin Lane will be annexed with the property.

The eastern half of Cabin Lane was annexed with the Magnolia Meadows subdivision that occurred a few years ago.

Um so this is a simplified version of the development proposal submitted by the applicant.

Um as we said, this is not under review currently.

This will be reviewed administratively uh once the annexation is effective to make sure we meet all the subdivision criteria and criteria of the Southeast Area Plan.

Um again, there's no master plan required with this, which is why you're not seeing any open space.

Um and there's also no deviations proposed, and again, no uh changes to the comp plan designation.

Um this is gonna be a 42 lot subdivision, and uh the intended development type will be primarily single unit detached with ADUs, although they could develop any kind of middle housing on this property.

And this will be done over eight phases.

So um staff found the uh proposal to comply with the annexation criteria.

So I'm just gonna review these briefly.

Um again, no comp plan changes are proposed.

We found this consistent with the Southeast Area Plan.

Uh the applicant provided coordination letters from Parks and Rack, school district, avion water, and Arkham Irrigation District.

So it's capable of being served by all the needed public facilities.

Uh given the scale of this proposal, uh, there are no off-site improvements required.

So the um improvements are going to be frontage improvements and on-site for the development.

Uh Arnold irrigation district confirmed there's no water rights, assets, facilities, or easements on the property.

And the applicant is going to be required to comply with the TPR transportation plan rule per the Southeast Area Plan requirements.

And all proposed rights of way are going to need to meet city standards.

Uh as part of an annexation, we've worked closely with the applicant to prepare an annexation agreement that both parties can support.

And it's fairly straightforward for utilities.

They are going to need to uh comply with the requirements of Avion Water because it's in the Avion Water District, and they will be required to connect to sewer in Cabin Lane and send that to the Southeast Regional Pump Station.

Uh for transportation, they will be required to provide payment to ODAP for the TPR compliance and infrastructure.

Again, there's no off-street improvements.

They will be required to dedicate 30 feet of Cabin Lane and construct at to a three-quarter street.

Um, and then they will be required to dedicate 60 feet of right away for all the streets proposed with the subdivision, and including extending a north-south street to connect to the street proposed with the Lagore subdivision, which is just to the south.

So that is all I prepared at this time.

Um, welcome any questions or comments.

Any questions?

Okay.

Um, did the applicant want to make any commentation?

Uh yes.

This is fairly straightforward.

So just a short presentation here, if I could thank you for allowing me.

Okay, show me another group.

Um Mayor Cuber and Counselors, thank you, Jerry Jones with Locker Development here.

Um 1051 Northwest Bond Street, located downtown beautiful bend here.

Uh thank you for the consideration of this today.

As uh I've said this is a team effort.

We we think of uh land development most most of us in the community as well as our consultant team.

So this is just shares with everybody that we've been working with on our project, and I have most of them here with me if there's any questions with regards to utilities or access or transportation.

Um thanking staff uh and all of the hard work they put together, specifically for Michelle and her report and her presentation today and recommendation for approval.

It is uh 10 acres, a small portion of the Southeast Area plan, which we've been involved with for many years as this has been coming forward.

It's within UGB, contiguous to city limits, and um RS, uh giving the lot size type that was uh put forth within the area plan and consensus consistent of all the comprehensive plans working closely with Avion for all the different services, and it meets all of the application criteria.

Couple highlights and uh I'll be here for any questions.

That's 42 lots.

Um, our infrastructure plans have been submitted and our land use have been submitted, waiting for review upon this annexation.

The right way dedication, we have a pre-placed with our neighbors, uh hidden homes to the east of us, and much coordination has gone in there with the infrastructure that will need to be put in place.

So we're we're uh appreciative of that collaboration, and then um, like Michelle said, all the transportation is that we based with um ODOT fees as well as um the work that we've been doing with sitting on several committees with other developers in the area to work on the trans uh supplemental transportation uh system development charge.

Quick and easy.

I just want to make sure I'm here as well to see if there's any questions that you might have about what we might be presenting.

All right, any further questions, council.

Okay, no, that's it.

Thank you.

Um there was no one signed up for public comment for this hearing, checking that no one wants to comment on this particular item.

Hearing none, I'm gonna close the public hearing.

We've got a deliberation and motion.

I move for the first reading of the ordinance annexing 10 acres in the in the southeast urban growth boundary expansion area and assigning sign district five.

Second.

All right, move by councilor Mendez, second by councillor Platt.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Moving on uh to item number eight.

Council asked to authorize two construction contracts of state any excavating AP construction of the 2026 neighborhood street safety program packages A and B.

All right, good evening, Council.

As Christian's pulling this up, I'll get us started right after engineer engineering director with Christian Williams project engineer.

And some of this may look a little bit familiar to you.

We have some projects from the 2025 NSSP that we brought forward.

You heard some information about it earlier this evening, not necessarily all accurate.

Uh, but we the main reason we're back is because we have revised the crossing channel and we no longer have the century crossing as a part of this package, which was a reason why it got voted down in 2025.

And we've also got a different contracting method this time, where should there still be a need to deliberate or separate these projects?

We have two different construction packages that does allow council that flexibility that you asked to have compared to when we were here last year.

So kick it over to Christian.

Well, I have to be here, Council.

Happy to be here.

Uh 2026 neighborhood street safety program.

I'm Christian Rowan's uh project manager for this project.

Um so we're here tonight to authorize two construction contracts for PE for the construction of package A and package B for the 2026 NSSP.

Um here are recommended motions, and we'll get back to these at the end.

Um but yeah, two different packages here.

So a little project background, Ryan touched on this before, but we split uh NSSP this year into two separate construction contracts, package A and package B.

We'll have construction completed by the end of this year, and uh you have seen a few of this before.

Um projects specifically, package A includes five and other locations, um, Archie Briggs, Northeast for the year, 2nd Street uh and attack and 2nd Street at Roosevelt and then Roosevelt as well.

Um sidewalking hill, speed homes, uh street lights, pretty simple.

Um, and then package B is of course our enhanced crossing green market road and our enhancements at so like boulevard as well.

Um the enhancements of reading market road will also include a rapid rectangular rapid cloud and beacon, uh, which is one of the changes we made last year.

Um there are two speed homes along Changeland as well, one is one as a part of each of these packages, as well as some purple buttons at uh intersections chamber and sort of floor.

Uh here's our project project for this year, so we have 3.1 million dollars allocated by uh the G another 200,000 um from T and D for the two intersections readings along 2nd Street at Tap and Roosevelt for a total project of 3.3 million um contracts tonight, first of which for package A is 1,278,000, under 35 dollars.

Package B is $979,609.

So we are well under budget.

And of course that budget is rolled over into future NSSP packages throughout the project throughout the program lifespans.

Okay.

Thank you.

So a bunch of street safety projects here, Council.

We have two different motions and any questions for staff.

Councilor Franzo.

Yeah, I uh can you bring up like the um project designs so we can see what is actually proposed?

Uh sure for all projects, but a few.

And in yeah.

They are provided.

And I've just been really busy this week, so I didn't have a chance to ask for them ahead of time.

Sure.

Okay, is what's going on on revere?

Um and can you also talk about the um outreach that you've done with all the neighbors and provides on this projects?

Um so we had a pre-construction open house this year for everyone.

Uh we had uh a targeted open house specifically or Southern Crossing Neighbor Association.

Uh we sent out postcards.

Uh we had uh a few design open houses as well in the course of the last year.

Um at the bulk of our public garbage, we've always been individually with homeowners along all the project sites as well.

Um really effective tool you're looking at right now.

So why don't you show we'll drag this slide or this is on the project website that's been accessible to everybody?

So you can see here's kind of the before picture.

Here's what that weird curve in Roosevelt looks like, and then as Christian moves it over, it highlights exactly where the race crossings are going, where the street improvements are gonna be, where the missing sidewalk gaps are gonna go.

So this is a great visualization for those who might not have been able to attend one of the open house meetings, uh, and you can scroll down each each one of these projects, and it really kind of gives you a good before and after of what the improvements are gonna be.

This review 13th, right?

This is yeah, you said you're you said a different word, but it's review.

Oh yeah, sorry, a lot of hard, yeah.

Yeah.

Can you go down to the to the chamberlain one, please?

Yeah.

This is chamberling it.

So like are you wanting to see Chamberlain at uh readmarket as well?

Well, this is this actually is the the part that I wanted to look at.

And and what I want to talk about here is you know, with Council Pan Sosa, I walked this site um last year and we looked at this kind of kind of thing, and there were concerns as you were in coming into serval lake here.

Um when I looked at this updated design, I really felt as though staff had responded to the to the concerns of the community members there.

Um and so I I give you hard marks for the for the changes that were made because standing on that corner on that right corner there, right there it was.

It was it was a lot of traffic going by there, and and I really think this is going to slow down.

So I think this is quite an improvement.

So I just want to say I think you've done a nice job here.

Can you hear something about locations of speed bumps and taking away parking?

Can you talk a little bit about that and whether that's you know true from your perspective or yeah, yeah.

So what we were moving parking on one side of the road here is showing them before on the north side of Silver Lake, you can see it's basically just no curve, gravel.

So people just clear in the median, park out there kind of randomly.

Um so yeah, there's so that gray that's on the screen right now is actually showing travel lane.

That's the asphalt restoration, right?

Yeah, I mean there's there's still like you can see there's still parking available on the south side, and there's going to be a sidewalk established because there's no sidewalk there.

Right.

And there's there's not going to be anything saying no parking on the north side, but it will create a tight environment forcing people to slow down if some of the things on the north side.

So you could park people can make a choice to park there and they're not violating there's not no parking signs or not on the sidewalks.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

If you look at the intersection.

Yeah, as you're coming, as you're going to the to the west, you can see the sidewalk is going to kind of do a little bit of an S curve.

So it again there's a little bit of room in there.

And I mean, we we can always, if that's a concern, we can always also pave more closer to the sidewalk to accommodate some of that.

But that increase costs of the project.

Oh yeah, increased costs, it's gonna allow for higher speeds and the whole point of this and the whole point of the race crossing is to slow people down.

Yeah, yeah.

So they're still parking on one side of the street.

Um but yeah, some people don't like the uh the fact that they can't they won't be able to park generally anymore on the north side like they do today.

And where are the speed bumps coming in?

So we have two well, three speed homes at this particular location.

So one up here on Chamberlain, other uh north on Chamberlain.

And then we have one here, uh just uh sort of southwest of the intersection.

Uh the one to the north east ish is up closer to Chucker and is not shown on this map, it's just a little outside the image of this.

Oh, and silver lake two.

So there will be two on silver lake, yeah.

Two on something, okay.

And where's the other one?

One by chakra and where's the other one?

It's not shown on this uh aerial image.

Uh it's where's the one that's shown on this name?

Sorry, I just I didn't see where you're it says rock hole too.

Yeah, different texture.

Thank you.

No, does the project map go all the way to read market?

Not no, it doesn't go all the way in this particular case.

This is really a focus of the intersection of chambering and silver lake.

But the project does include paving Chamberlain.

Yes.

Yes.

Yep, it's the removal of that type three barrier that's walking the right of way today and full paving, including uh a shared use path all the way up to remark on chamber.

Yeah, right in right now, intersecting right now.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's where I have trouble.

I mean do we have a history of there's there's a lot of gravel roads in like midtown, you know, that could really be paved and help housing development and all that kind of stuff, but this is a neighborhood street safety program.

I think it's pretty clearly defined that it's for bike and pet imprisonments and safety improvements and aren't roads for cars.

So unfortunately I can't support this project for that reason.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Uh there we think a uh a comment about um accessing the the memory care center and public safety.

Just any thoughts on that?

Um how would that speed bump it would be just I'll speed bump, I guess the power.

Well, well, there will be two coming southbound on Silver Lake from Re Market.

Um, none coming from Brookswood through the new Bronze Willing Zion Wood, I believe is the name of the So it does depend on the route that buyer and EMS choose to take.

And that's a valid concern, right?

We have these conversations with them constantly.

And you know, our old policy was typically, you know, we're gonna avoid doing anything like this in our tutorials and collectors, but we have allowed them on local streets and in special circumstances.

So this is one of those cases where this is a key route, and this is part of the NSSP, and we are wanting to slow people down.

And one of these concerns about maybe this is gonna add additional traffic is well, we're gonna keep them going slow then.

It's a public street, it's public right away, anybody can access it.

But yeah, speed up, you know, and it does add a second or two as they have to slow down and go over those things, and if they have a patient in an ambulatory in the back, you know, that's another thing that does have to be factoring.

And the improvements that channel in the remarket are going to be what are the improvements being used.

Is it just the rapid flashback?

It's it's an enhancement to the existing crossing that's been there for a long time.

So yeah, push button RRFB uh with some precursors.

So one of the other concerns is if you're coming out of the rent bond and we round it out, this is kind of up at a peak, which is actually where it's supposed to be, so you can see that there we're gonna have a preemptive sign.

So if somebody pushes the button at that crossing, it's gonna light up halfway down to the to the roundabout as well as at the crossing itself.

So the RFB is is the main enhancement.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay.

I move I move to authorize a contract of canning excavating incorporated and substantially the form presented to council for the construction of the 2026 neighborhood street safety program package A and the amount not to exceed 1,278,135.

So I said, Councilor Norris with the motion, Council Platte with the second, all those in favor?

All right.

I think unanimous.

All right, motion number two.

I move to authorize a contract with any excavating ink and substantially a form presented to council for the construction of the 2026 neighborhood street safety program package B and the mount not to exceed 979,609 dollars.

Can't help but Councilor Norris with the motion to Council Mendes with the second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, Council Princess Oppos.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, Council, I didn't plan on doing this, but given the hour we're out and I have a little child care pressure.

I'm actually gonna take off and hand the uh rings to Councilor Perkins here, and then later Burra, you will be doing that.

So I'm I'm sure you will be able to manage without me.

Thank you for doing this.

I have never done this in my life.

So it's the first time ever.

Good.

Yeah.

So take care of your kid.

But we've got a leave that time to hit.

So thanks everybody.

All right.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution, rescinding resolutions 2423, 2428, and 2502 regarding incentives for affordable housing and replacing with an administrative policy.

There's no presentation for this.

Oh, there's a presentation.

Hi.

Hi, how you are?

Good evening, Council.

Mayor Chatham.

I'm Caribbean, the Housing Production Incentives Coordinator from City of Benn presenting on the expedited review and permitting for affordable housing.

Staff is asking council to adopt a resolution to rescind these three resolutions regarding incentives for affordable housing, replacing them with an administrative policy.

I'm not going to read through the issue summary, but I will highlight some key points that bring us here today.

Expedited review and permitting originated in the first resolution back in 2003.

And this was included just two other incentives, one being fee exemptions and another the SDC programs.

Over the years, these incentives have uh the other resolutions have been modified to rescind the fee exemptions, and then as you know, SDC programs, SDC exemptions and loans, all of that was moved into the SDC methodology and the code.

And so this leaves us with the expedited review and permitting and its current policy, which has also needed some updating over the years.

For example, back in 2003 to 2005, when the current policy was created, we did not have a local affordable housing fund.

So the policy simply called out qualifications as projects for um receding state and federal funds.

The primary qualification items was just that that they that you had been uh awarded state and federal funds.

But since the creation of our local affordable housing fee fund in 2006, and certainly with the extreme shifts in the availability of state and federal funding most recently, it's been our practice to expedite affordable housing regardless of funding source or incentives being used for deed restricted affordable housing.

Our primary goal in bringing you this long-needed revision of policy was to be sure that we brought you something that was vetted from all angles.

So this is a cross-departmental teamwork here.

Housing, city manager's office, CED, and OPM.

Shout out to the Office of Performance Management.

You rarely get to see them, and they are behind the scenes doing the magic, uh, pulling the data that supports strong policy decisions.

So first our team took a look at all this data from permits pertaining to how much time was spent on these reviews, uh, both affordable housing permits versus typical housing permits, building permits, infrastructure, land use, all of it.

We um wanted to have a clear understanding of whether or not this incentive had any significant impact to our general review and permitting turnarounds.

So what we found is that the data alone did not present any obvious need for limiting or expanding this incentive further than what the current practice has been.

But we have reviewed some instances where we could really benefit from providing clarity on the clarification aspect of qualifications for this incentive.

And we feel that moving this to an administrative policy will help us manage and create transparency in this incentive program.

This is not only helpful for staff, but using the administrative policy tool to outline more detailed expectations will provide more robust fair guidance and support to our development community.

So I'll wrap up by summarizing some key differences in the proposed new policy, and then happy to answer any questions that you may have.

First, the incentive would no longer limit only to be limited only to state or federally funded projects, but rather deed restrictive projects.

Both the AMI range and duration of the affordability period will now be clearly defined instead of relying on just what the state or federal program parameters might be for a specific program.

And the required ratio of affordable units of affordable units to market rate units is a new requirement.

This is just to be sure that we are aligned to our best practice while still supporting mixed-use development.

And finally, moving the administrative policy helps us manage and create that needed transparency in this program.

Any questions for Carrie?

Final.

I move ahead.

I moved to resume resolution numbers 2423, 2428, and 2502 regarding incentives for affordable housing and direct the city manager's office to adopt a policy to continue expedited review and permit processing for affordable housing, determining the relevant qualification in terms of other administrative criteria.

Second.

All right, moved by Councillor Mendez and seconded by Councillor Riley.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, thanks.

Council is asked to approve visit Ben's business plan and budget of fiscal year 2026 through 2027.

We always do this to Visit Ben.

We put you with the end of the meeting in June every time.

Thank you for being here.

Well, thank you for being here.

Your services a lot.

So let me figure my share.

TSO.

You go ahead and do that.

And have the pleasure of being the liaison to the visit Bend organization and board of directors.

As you're aware, Visit Bend is a contractor of the city that provides all of our destination management organization type of services.

And as a part of the contract that we have with Visit Bend, it is required that they get their annual business plan and budget approved by both our economic development advisory board and by the city council.

And the presentation to VDAB earlier this one was recommended that council move forward in approving both of the materials that are before you tonight.

And we are here for that contractual arrangement that we have.

With that, I will pass it over to Jeff.

Mayor Pro Tem Perkins, Councils, City Staff, thanks for having me here this evening.

And hopefully be able to navigate that successfully.

I will say that while you're doing that, that um BDB actually took two meetings to go over this.

So they they did a real deep dive this year.

So yeah, I think the questions were very critically thought out, um, especially in the monetary components, knowing that Visit Bend's budget, because our tourism industry thrives the way that it does, has a really sizable budget, making sure that we're being good stewards of those resources.

So I thought it was a good conversation.

Well, I'm not a master at this, so I think I'm gonna I don't know how to get the full screen, so we'll just kick off from here.

So uh I'm Jeff Knapp, President CEO of the privilege of serving as president CEO of Visit Bend.

Uh my intention tonight is to go over some highlights uh as quickly as possible, but um give you some highlights of this past year uh and look uh looking forward our plans for the next year and hopefully uh ask for approval of our annual fiscal year 27 budgeting plan.

So this is a graphic that you are familiar with.

Um we are funded through transient room tax, people spending over 30 or more days or under 30 days uh in our uh local hotels uh and vacation rentals as much fund our work.

The majority of those resources go to fund essential services with the city, and uh 35.4% go to fund our work.

Our work is twofold.

We're an economic engine that drives hesitation.

Uh people visit our community, spend resources, and then we put a portion of those resources back into the community.

Everything we do is around this balanced spend model, uh, focus on economy, people, and place.

Uh, this is our guiding principle or grading model.

Uh, it's our regenerative process where uh we are building and priming the engine of the economy and putting it back into uh community.

Some highlights, things to know about our work and tourism here at visit Bend.

Um visitor spending remains a critical piece of our our overall economy here in Benn.

Um for the first time ever, the tourism industry at Benn this year exceeded uh 400 million dollars in local economic impact, so a record year for us as a community beyond subsidizing the tax base, they supported small businesses, keep workers employed, and even contributed significantly to secondary sectors like education health services, financial activities, manufacturing, and more.

We saw growth, uh significant growth in tourism jobs this past year with a 3.2% increase in volume and even more significant increase in earnings.

Uh so direct travel generated earnings reached 134 million in 2025, which is up eight percent over the prior year.

Um so citywide visitor spending was up nine percent, but we did see local spending uh dip.

So our local residents spending a tightening up their pocketbooks, but our visitors still carrying a significant weight supporting our local businesses.

So we continue to invest significant tax dollars back into the community.

And just for awareness, we receive a lot of recognition through national publications on our approach to accessible accessible community-based tourism publications like Conde Nash Traveler, Outside Magazine, and I'm happy to report that we're going to be holding a first ever conference next month.

We're welcoming other groups from around the world to have a little summit here and see what the magic is that how we are partnering with the city to do the type of work that we do.

So another positive note residents and tracking over the last five years has uh increased significantly.

Uh we have reached, we've seen a 29% increase in towards the positivity where right now our data shows that 70% of local residents either have a positive or neutral view on the impact of tourism.

Um again, this is a slide.

I just wanted to let you know that currently we're tracking about 4.4% over last year's budget as far as revenue goes, um, which is exciting.

Uh we see again these increases in almost every category, but we are very cautious about looking ahead at the next year ahead of us.

We do have some headwinds, uh, and that's wanted to spend a little bit of time about on this looking ahead prior to jumping into the budget.

So we know that we are sitting at about 8% of our normal water table as a community.

There's a drought threat, significant uh threats around fire and smoke, uh, an unclear picture of the economy, clearly gas prices, all of those things being at war, uh impact consumer behavior.

Um so our plan has been designed to be remain nimble and very responsible to that potential volatile landscape looking ahead.

Um we're gonna continue to invest and explore opportunities uh in the next year to diversify our visitor base, continuing uh investments, expanding investments in group travel and working collaboratively with the city and private sector to explore the feasibility of potentially constructing uh public assembly venue.

So, what are ways in which we could continue to grow the engine and make us more resilient year-round exploring those opportunities.

Um speaking of resilience, we're launching a collaborative wild fire messaging effort with regional partners, including League League Leadership Bend, regional land managers, fire management, fire districts, and others to help ensure visitors have a more accurate and timely wildfire messaging and suggested alternate activities when they're visiting.

Um, this will be deployed both digitally and in um print, uh both to local property owners of vacation rentals, engaging um our hospitality partners and lodging uh and uh we're really excited about the creation of an agentic um sort of using AI to have daily alerts for weather conditions that'll go out to those key partners.

We continue to look at opportunities to diversify revenue streams beyond just transient room tax to support the work that we're doing and the growth in the community.

Um we are actively performing supplier surveys with our industry kicking off this month ahead of uh the conversations we've had with council around potential extra support for business resilience grants as such to really um measure the community need and adjust our strategy to meet that.

So one other critical thing we'll be working on uh this year is it's looking into uh the impact, measuring impact around our grant programs.

Over the last 10 years, we've invested nearly $7 million of transient tax back into community uh projects.

Uh we have the Ben Cultural Tourism Fund and the Bend Sustainability Fund.

Over the last six months, we've engaged contractors to help us take a step back, um, engage uh deeply with uh community members to assess what that need could be.

Uh and over the next year we'll be um looking at uh how those programs may change and adapt to meet the current needs and how we can measure an impact over time.

Finally, it's an important to note this is the final year of our current contract with you.

I think we talked about that recently, and we'll be working uh closely as always with the City of Ben, the economic development team here, uh taking the learnings from that community engagement from our preparing programs, and hopefully um back next year to help secure that future contract.

Really quickly, Jeff, that second to last bullet.

I just wanted to clarify for council that I think it's referring to creating some intentionality in alignment with the supplier diversity efforts that we have here at the city of trying to procure goods and services that are gonna remain in our local economy, remain in Oregon-based small companies to the best of our ability.

So I just want to make sure that that was abundantly clear for you all.

Yes, so it means both of those things.

We will be doing that as well.

Thank you for covering that.

Absolutely.

Jeff, can I ask you a question for this this this ties in here and it also probably ties into the budget?

Because we are largely a drive market.

Yes.

Um, and uh how do you with gas prices are what they are?

How do you determine how much that is going to impact behavior this summer with with our tourists?

Um well, I think people still we see people still drive, right?

It just appecs it impacts a type of visitor that we may have.

Okay.

So we diversify our marketing efforts in sort of a trifricated manner that Nate likes to say.

So um we see that people at a certain demographic are still spending, in fact, they're spending more.

Um so uh we we have different um strategies within each of our demographics to uh entice folks to make a decision to travel, and maybe um as far as tactically, I'd be happy to have Nate speak to that.

Um if you'd like, you can give you an answer right now.

Um we do know is that we are in a better position than many other destinations because of that drive market, the folks that may be deciding to not travel to the East Coast or to Hawaii are much more likely to still continue to travel.

Um so our concern is more about smoke, I would say, than around people's significantly setting up to make that trip.

Um it still holds weight, but I think we're really the weather has much more impact on consumer spending.

Any other questions?

So we've uh put a lot of time and energy into coming up with this budget, including working uh closely with the city's finance department.

We are anticipating uh 2% or budgeting for a 2% increase above this year's um numbers, uh above above excuse me, above last year's um budgeted numbers.

Um so we are also normally as an organization we budget to spend down to an even amount each year.

This year we are um with the uncertainty of next year.

We are our intention is to continue to market uh aggressively.

Uh and so we're anticipating uh we're we're budgeting for uh a deficit moving next year, but we know that we are moving into next year with some um extra funds due to the um the banner year that we've had, much in part to the prior last summer being smokeless.

Um so we are uh this is um that they all could be Jeff.

Well, we're working on that right now.

So Nate's got some AI stuff and in the works to prevent smoke.

We're working on the next item on the agenda, sir.

So I also want to point out that um per hour by laws and contract with the city, we keep a reserve.

Um right now our reserve is uh roughly six hundred and forty thousand dollars uh to be used for potential windows if we need to uh wind down as an organization or for a rainy day um type situations.

So uh our proposed budget is before you.

Um and I you've received our business plan ahead of time, so I didn't get into super detail, but I'm definitely hoping to answer any questions about the business plan or um budgetary questions that you may have.

Okay, any questions?

I know that's a benefit.

Uh a new motion.

I need to approve visit the business plan and budget for fiscal year 2026, 2027.

Second.

All right, moved by councillor Mendes and seconded by Councillor Platt.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Uh I note that we've maybe working on that AI.

Yeah, the laser dome.

Yeah, it's not climate stuff that we help this.

Yeah.

This is the second reading of an ordinance creating bend municipal code chapter 18.20 climate pollution fee.

Oh, I'd I'd really like to do this one if we're going to be able to do that.

Well, it's a roll call vote.

Yes, yes.

That is.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and then hold on.

And I have to declare an actual just like I did on the body meeting since my employer's hidden homes.

I have to recuse on site.

All right.

So Steve, go ahead.

So as Council Norris Norris is leaving, I just want to before we do this for I want to acknowledge the folks who have stayed with us here all night.

And uh and I'm I'm um this is this is government, it's slow.

We get things done and we we continue to iterate on the process.

So I'm gonna read the motion for you.

I move to the second reading and adoption by roll call vote for the governments creating band municipal code chapter 18.20, climate pollution fee.

Second.

All right.

Moved by council clock, seconded by councillor Riley, and we'll call vote.

Actually, I'd like to just make a comment before we do the vote.

Um I believe sorry, deliberation is late, is allowed after uh on second readings.

And so I just wanna um just telegraph to the community that while I support this because of my experience um in developing that zero homes, and I do believe this is the right uh way to go for our community, um, and it's in all of our residents' best interests.

I want to recognize again the burden that this is putting on our home building community.

Um permit timelines are long, and earlier today we approved increases to fees and to SDCs, and we even heard some public testimony about how um how challenging that can be.

So I think um it it was uh it just was weighing heavily on me that conversation earlier, and I and I needed to kind of bring it up again now.

So thank you.

Okay.

Okay, counselor Franzosa.

Yes.

Um Councillor Mendez.

Aye, Councillor Riley, yes, counselor Platt.

Yes.

And Mayor Purton Perkins.

No.

All right.

Motion motion passes.

Sorry, my brain just stopped for a second.

Motion passes.

Uh now we have the city managers report.

That'll be uh quick because we it's uh it's late, but I just wanted to follow up from the June 3rd meeting.

I was not there.

I know there was a couple of council spent a request, one around uh roundabout safety and whether the city's approach should be considered for future uh projects.

Um so just wanted to follow up with a little bit more of a detailed plan.

Uh the city does use a the roundabout design guideline that meets industry standards for safety and accessibilities uh accessibility.

These are evolving issues nationwide, and staff will continue to monitor new tools and practices to stay current on the leading edge.

Our current process involves in-depth project by project analysis.

Uh in response to council's direction, staff are committing to strengthening how we apply that work by using the AIM equity tool to add on to the roundabout design guide intersection control form to more clearly evaluate equity vulnerable users and safety trade-offs.

These safety and equity considerations will be spotlighted more in the future presentations and will come forward explicitly for council review and decision making on proposed double or hybrid roundabouts.

I think that's the the commitment is for any time there's uh hybrid or bold event that there will always be the four council with equity considerations as part of that.

Uh the next anticipated example is the bond and read market roundabout uh where staff will use that project to walk through that in-depth safety and equity evaluation.

That's it.

Eric will Eric will that also be part of the discussion about eighth and only, which I believe is coming back in July when we're that one's already included.

So I beyond that one, it's the bond and read.

We're already coming back on the eighth and re year with that same consideration.

So just wanted to highlight the other one that you wouldn't talk about a couple weeks ago, which is the bond and read.

All right.

Then if there's nothing else, then I will adjourn the city council meeting and pass the gavel to my colleague here for the I'm gonna call the order of the meeting uh Ben Urban Renewal Agency for what is today, June.

Barely, yes, believe it or not.

And um the first um order of businesses to approve the minutes from A6 to motion.

I move to approve the May 6 2026 borough meeting that's second.

So I moved by counselor mends um seconded by councillor Morris.

All those in favor, aye.

Motion passes.

Okay.

All right, and then we're moving to the year-end budget items and adoption of the budget.

Dan is back with us.

Still here.

Yeah, so we have uh four items to discuss today.

Two of them have public hearings, uh item A and C Well public hearings, but we will go through this quickly.

Um, as again, all these things were presented to the budget committee on June 3rd.

Uh first offway budget adjustments.

Uh this is creating supplemental budgets, creating the four new tax uh four new TIFF area funds, uh created construction and a debt service fund for each of those, and then a budget adjustment to uh create the funding for a second uh for the urban renewal manager position as was discussed in city council meeting.

Year end loans and promissory notes uh as discussed previously.

Uh this is just how Borough uh urban renewal agencies work, uh, urban renewal areas work, pardon me.

Um the city loans the money uh and then the uh urban renewal aid area pays it back in the same fiscal year.

So we will have these promissory notes repaid before the end of the fiscal year.

We also have to, so this is one of the public hearings, uh just presenting the uh BERA CIP 1.69 million dollars uh for both five-year and just next fiscal year is the plan right now.

And lastly, uh the ad form taxes, we need formal action to approve these for Juniper Ridge Merchant Crossing and Core Area.

We intend to uh levy the full revision tax for the four new TIFF areas.

Uh we've been coordinating with the county assessor uh to make sure we are uh operating those properly as this is kind of a new area uh in Deschutes County where we were will not be levying any uh amounts this year uh in future years as the projects uh are built, then we will work with county assessors with those amounts levied.

Those are the four items.

Any questions for Dan?

Okay, I'm gonna open the public hearing for Borough Items requirement of public hearing items 3A and 3C, which are the supplemental budget and the um CIP.

Open public hearing.

Is there anybody here for public comment?

Going once, twice, seeing none.

I'm gonna close the public hearing.

Any further discussion or a motion?

I move to approve borough items 3A and C.

Second.

Moved by Councilor Amendez and seconded by Councilor Platt.

Further discussion.

All those in favor, aye.

Anybody opposed?

Um motion passes unanimously, and then I would be open to um second motion for items three B and D.

I moved through group borough items three B and D.

Second.

Seconded by Councilor Norris and further discussion.

Yes.

Um can this be broken into two that this is presented to us differently than I was presented to the budget committee, so the site-specific TIFF areas are incorporated with the already approved urban renewal areas, the Junior Burridge Murphy Crossing and Core Area.

Um I guess since there's no levy this year, that's fine.

I'll vote for it.

I just like to be consistent in my objection to using TIFF on individual parcels versus planned thoughtful urban renewal areas.

So the that the budget committee, this is how we discussed it.

It was not how the slide looked.

Apologies for that.

The item attached to the budget committee time is the same item as here, but uh understand your commentary.

Thank you.

Any further can just go forward.

Okay, all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

No posed.

The motion passes.

And then Jonathan, are you commuting with the presentation?

Okay.

So um I'm moving quick tonight.

Um tonight you're gonna see a few uh programs and policies that staff along with CAT and our community have been developing over the last four months.

This is part of our development assistance program.

The purpose tonight is to get general feedback and consensus on the proposed program framework for the commercial cyber monetization, tenor improvement, core area mural grant, micro loan, small business loan, and pre-development loan.

Staff will return in August with policies for a final review of an anticipated adoption in September.

This targets are 2030 investment returns from our strategic investment plan at me six of the eight.

We have done a lot of public outreach.

We met with Central Oregon Community College Small Business Development Center.

We met with CO COIC on June 28th, we're partnering with the Chamber of Commerce for a lender round table, and at some point in July, we'll be partnering with COVA, Central Oregon Builders Association for site specific stuff.

This means plenty of tenants of our strategic investment plan.

A little bit of background summary.

All of 2025 staff went through and met with many business owners, and they said make programs accessible in all urban or rural districts, not just the BCD.

That's adaptive reuse.

Provided in May, the small business credit survey that showed that 77 businesses are experiencing rising costs, primarily associated with taxes and tariffs.

And then 59% sought less than $100,000 in funding.

I was able to find some local data, 13% increase in loan demand from 2023 to 2024.

That highlights our entrepreneurial community, and this is from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

And then June 28th, 2026.

I do have a lot of that though.

Reduction in loans and financing for restaurants and retail and food truck pods have been reduced in our local area, so that's something that our retails and restaurants are already experiencing.

CAV has experienced at some best practices from Asheville, Boise, and Denver, and then this is where we'll get into it.

So we're proposing a large commercial site revitalization grant program.

This is primarily from the Murphy Crossing area, but we intend to also apply it to the core area.

We're proposing some pro uh funding ranges between 50 and 500,000.

The program concept is scale based on tiered and building sizes.

We will model it after the care program, which uh private match 50%, and then CAD is also determining should we emphasize locations that catalyze the broader corridor like the BCB.

The program framework considerations is to support high quality and visible facades, and this will be an annual competitive program.

I like what you do with the before and after the most photos.

Image produced with AI that we're supposed to use that.

Okay.

The Gene Improvement Grant Program, this is something that we've heard a lot from our business community.

Uh, tenant improvement, there's a growing gap need between what is offered by landlords and what is required for project cost.

In 2023, we had our original facade and interior improvement grant program, and one of the things that we noticed in that original grant uh application was a lot of tenant improvements were used.

But CAV and BURRA in 2024 made the determination that visible facades were more important.

Now we're bringing back the secondary application of this of not only frontage but also interiors.

This is made uh modeled after many other programs in the state.

Typical funding range will be between 10 and 75,000.

We want to activate, so basically prioritize vacant underutilized parcels, proposed match grant, uh, support businesses across business lifecycles.

So this will assist new businesses entering a space.

Cyrus and I have been meeting with a lot of businesses, and that's the number one concern that we've heard.

But it will also meet our other economic development strategic plan goals of existing businesses expanding their operations and also establish businesses reinvesting.

And then this is something that is actually growing in popularity among the BCDA and then also the core area.

We would uh they are proposing to establish a core area mural grant program.

This will be a visible identity for the core area and the BCD to establish and support existing arts, culture, and maker businesses.

This is an opportunity to create an early signal of change that will go in tandem with the uh Franklin improvements, Greenwood Improvements and the Hawthorn Bridge.

And it's also a relatively low cost investment for high impact for public views.

There will be two framework considerations that CAB will be looking at.

Will we incorporate this into an existing facade improvement program or will Burra establish a commission-lit process?

There are pros and cons that were identified in your staff packet, but we'll be flushing those out with uh both CAD and BURA in the future.

So the next steps for this will be the core area will continue to develop program parameters, research some framework implementation options, but also if we do go down the path of a BRORA commission process, how do we partner with our third-party partnerships like you already do with City Council?

Another nice image too.

And then the three things that I will not belabor on because we've already heard this the last two meetings of Borough, but just a little bit more structure.

We would like to establish a micro loan program with a small scale loan up to 25,000, short repayment terms of about five years, and in our meetings with COCC, we actually are going to help them participate in some education programs to graduate them to traditional credit uh credit utilization.

Some of the cool things about this is the eligible activities.

This could be used for Burr's grant matching capabilities, uh also fixtures and uh furniture and equipment, but it's gonna exclude payroll and carrying cost.

Small business loans.

This will be between 25 and 250.

This will be fixed rate financing up to 10 years.

This will be a blended collateral approach based on our values that we noted in March and also in May.

We do not want to compete with our local lending institutions, so we're only going to allow a target gap of 75%.

So basically, if a business needs an additional 25% of funding, they can come to us.

We are exploring partnerships with our community partners in addition to that window round table.

We would like this to be third party administered and also underwritten.

And then lastly, this is something that we've heard from our pre-development community that could actually be a game changer for some of our developments.

This is a pre-development loan.

Traditional lending institutions do not do pre-development, uh they only do construction and hard costs.

So Burra could come in and step in as a bridge loan structure up to 36 months.

The loan sizes would will be 250 and 750, and this will cover feasibility studies, environmental assessments, conceptual designs, and survey, and entitlement.

So the idea is you know, are we giving Jonathan blessing to move forward with this and bring back the formal proposals to us to establish these programs by September?

Yes, Chair.

I love the way these have developed.

So it's just awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there's been a lot of good community input, and there's going to be more.

And it seems like it's pretty, you know, it's targeted on kind of the various strategies we've been we've developed in the street uh initiatives for each of the urban rural areas.

I love the fact you've gone to our local colleges too.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So why administer it with third party?

One staff capacity, but we have also heard through the site-specific implementation that third-party review is important to Borough.

And so we're incorporating that into the large scale type of loans.

We're anticipating both the micro and the predevelopment to be in-house, but these larger loans will be uh third-party administered.

Okay.

Just to have a second pair of eyes.

Yeah.

It's public funds.

Yeah.

So I think you have thumbs up looking forward to moving forward on the final proposals.

Yeah, yes.

Thanks, Jonathan.

And with that, I'm gonna adjourn Burrow.

Thank you, once.