7.02 p.m.

My name is David Anderson.

I am filling in.

We have a vacancy right now in the chair position.

So I've been asked to preside over this meeting until such a time as we've elected a new chair.

Let's begin with the roll call, please.

Commissioner Bergdal.

Present Commissioner Colbertson.

Commissioner Ellis.

Here.

Commissioner Farrell.

Here.

Commissioner Thomas.

Tonight it's Anderson.

Present.

Apologies, thank you.

And Commissioner Riviera.

Here.

Thank you very much.

This is an opportunity for taking public comment if there is anyone who wishes to offer.

I don't see anybody in the room.

Is there anybody on Zoom that has expressed an interest in making public comment for items not on the agenda?

I don't see anybody on Zoom.

And we'll move on.

Our first order of business is to elect new officers for the planning commission.

So I'd like to open the floor to nominations for chairperson to serve planning commission.

Are there any nominations that anyone would like to make or a chairperson?

May also nominate yourselves.

We're going to need a chair license.

I was gonna say you're doing a great job.

But I'm just a freshman.

Maybe on the planning commission, you are, but yeah.

Are you willing to accept the nomination, Nicole?

Sure.

Any other nominations?

I would like to apply for co chair.

That's still available.

Vice Chair.

Absolutely.

Very good.

That's great.

So we have a nomination for both chair and one for vice chair.

And you can do them separately as a vote.

Uh make a motion for both, or you can do them one at a time.

It's up to you.

I think we we do a motion for both.

I have a motion to vote for both.

Any seconds.

I'll second.

Motion seconded.

Any discussion about that?

Hearing none.

Let's go ahead and vote on both.

All in favor of the two persons.

So we have Nicole as commission chair, and sorry as the vice chair.

Please uh say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

None.

Yay.

Welcome to our new chair and vice chair.

I would now turn the time over to our new chair.

You will do fantastic.

There is a script right there.

Thank you.

David.

You're very welcome, Nicole.

And Chair Ellis, this is a great night to get started.

This is a very easy sort of pitchforks and torches out.

So any any help you need along the way, just let us know.

We can count you through it.

But the the script should be pretty self-explanatory.

Okay.

So we don't have, let's see, we're at public hearing.

We did the public comment, so now we need to open the public hearing.

Okay.

I will now open the public hearing on the update to the Washington County Forest Grove Urban Planning Area Agreement approved by the Washington County Board of Commissioners.

The planning commission is being asked to make a recommendation to city council to accept the updated agreement and to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign the agreement on the city's behalf.

And then staff will now present their staff report.

Thank you, Chair Ellis.

Congratulations.

For the record, I'm Dan Rodin, Senior Planner with the planning division, and I have a PowerPoint presentation for you this evening.

Uh to provide a little bit of background on what the urban planning agreement is and why it's important.

Just a second for Susie to load the presentation.

I think everyone on the commission saw Commissioner Anderson's email this morning.

I think everyone on the commission saw Commissioner Anderson's email this morning, and so I added some slides to the presentation that was provided in advance to respond directly to those uh points that were made in Commissioner Anderson's email and so that everybody has the same information.

So the agenda for this evening is to go over the issue statement of purpose of tonight's public hearing, provide a little bit of background to the commission, go over the map amendments overview, this part of the agreement update, text amendments overview, brief conclusion, and then the staff recommendation.

So tonight's public hearing provides an opportunity for public comment and planning commission review of the update of the Washington County Forest Grove Urban Planning Area Agreement.

The urban planning area agreement, also referred to as the UPAA, is basically an intergovernmental agreement allowed by state law to identify roles and responsibilities around issues such as land use planning.

As part of the public hearing, the planning commission is being asked to adopt a motion that recommending the city council accept the updated UPA.

Next slide, please.

So terminology, uh Commissioner Anderson asked for a little bit of background on specific terms that are in the agreement, and so I'll hit those uh important key terms.

Next slide.

So urban reserve area.

Urban reserves are required by state law.

These are areas that are prioritized for addition to the urban growth fund.

And the map that's up on the screen shows the David Hill Urban Reserve area.

It's the only urban reserve area that the city has.

The orange line is the urban growth boundary, and the red line is the city limits boundary.

So the David Hill Urban Reserve Area, which is up on David Hill Road, west of the four scale drive area, um, was added, was I designated by the Oregon legislature about 10 years ago for future urban development.

It's um is intended to provide uh long term land for urbanization over a long term period, basically 20 to 50 years, although they could can be brought into the urban growth boundary sooner.

If Metro determines that the urban growth boundary should be expanded.

Metro oversees the Portland Regional Urban Growth Foundry, of which Forest Grove is a part of question.

Do you want to take questions now?

Yeah, sure.

Sure.

Um, how do we determine how much area to put into the urban reserve?

So when Metro does a determination, they do an analysis of all of the urban reserve areas in the region.

And the images up on the on the screen now shows the other urban reserve areas in Washington County specifically.

And so Metro goes through a process basically every four to five years to look at if there's enough land within the urban growth boundary for all development purposes.

Residential, um, industrial, institutional.

Um, they do a forecast of population and housing, and then they look at the inventory of land that's buildable within the urban growth fund.

And if that inventory is sufficient, if it can meet 20-year planning needs for urban development, the urban growth boundary isn't expensive.

Metro determines that there's a deficiency, then look at to one of the urban reserve areas.

And the way the process works currently is individual jurisdictions can nominate areas for inclusion into the urban growth fund.

And Sherwood did just that.

And so the area that's west of Sherwood, the brown area that's urban reserve, is approved for inclusion into the urban growth boundary.

There's specific criteria that needs to be addressed for a nomination that metro review.

Um, but uh that's the process.

Basically, individual individual jurisdictions can nominate areas to include urban reserve areas.

If we want to create an additional urban reserve area, can we do that as the city, or do we have to get Metro to do that?

So that's an excellent question.

It's a a very involved process that involves Metro, um, Washington County, and the state legislation.

The urban reserve rural reserve process was part of a bill that the legislature adopted about 10 years ago.

And so uh the regional counties, Multnomah, Clackmas, and Washington with Metro had to go through a process to identify areas for urban reserves.

And Forest Grove is part of it as well as the other jurisdiction.

And so basically to identify new or additional urban reserve areas, it would mean redesignating the rural reserve area or looking at the undate undesignated area.

And there's one just south of Forest Grove and Cornelius.

Uh that would have the priority for being becoming an potential urban reserve if there is a deficiency.

There's a trigger, a threshold.

If a certain amount of development within the designated urban reserve areas has taken place, then the undesignated areas can be looking.

That was my question.

So like like the white area south of Forest Grove and Cornelius would be the next urban reserve.

Potentially, um if yeah, if the if the city were to uh uh agree to provide services to that area, um for urban any areas for urban development have to be brought into a city now, so we don't create another ALOA or Bethany area specifically that was through a process back in 2019 and the in Washington County specifically.

Oh, interesting.

So, yeah, so the urban the undesignated areas would have priority, and there would be a process.

Uh Washington County would have and Metro would have to agree that whichever undesignated area should become urban reserve.

That's the simplest process.

If there was interest in taking a portion of the rural reserve area and designated that designating that urban reserve, that would require a legislative Hillsborough is going through that process.

So I don't know if that's very increasing highway 26 and does that's what we hear a lot of commenting about these days, I guess.

Legislation.

Okay, so that's yeah, so there's quite a bit of process involved either.

Thank you.

Looking at undesignated areas.

So urban planning area.

Um, the urban planning area specifically is the area that's subject to the urban planning area agreement that's before the planning commission this evening.

And the urban planning area includes all of the area within the current city limits, which is shown in the brown shaded area on the map, as well as the unincorporated areas within the urban growth boundary.

Um some of that area has been annexed recently, but there are three pretty significant sections that are still unincorporated within the urban growth boundary, um, all of which are north of David Hill.

So in order for urban development to occur, those areas would have to be city so that the city can provide a public utility.

So that's what the the slide please.

So comprehensive planning.

Comprehensive planning is actually defined by state law, and it's planning for areas within the urban growth boundary as required by the Oregon statewide land use planning goals.

There are 19 statewide land use planning goals, the majority of which apply to urban areas.

There are several related to one related to the Willamette Greenway, several related to coastal issues, estuary, waterfront areas.

Of course, that's something that the city of Forest Grove has to has to deal with.

But the comprehensive plan is basically a legal document that shows that local jurisdictions comply with the Oregon statewide land use plan.

There's one for public involvement, there's one for general land use, um, which deals with a variety of issues related to development.

There's one specifically for housing, there's one for economic development, there's one for public infrastructure, so water, sanitary storage or so the comprehensive plan establishes goals and policies for each one of those topics.

It also provides the basis for making land use decisions.

So with respect to the housing goal and the housing elements, there's a buildable land inventory that's done that the city does and a housing needs analysis now called housing capacity analysis, um, which provides a lot of information on how much land is available for different development, residential industrial extensions, and it's that information that provides the basis for the planning commission and ultimately the city council to make decisions on whether the zoning map should be comprehensive plan maps, taking the industrial zone property, change it to residential, the housing capacity analysis and the buildable land or by the basis for if decisions are made based on other information that's possible, but it does open up possibility for potential comprehensive planning by that question about the planning before we move on.

Slide please.

So concept planning, uh concept planning deals specifically with the urban reserve area, and again the city has one, the David Hill Urban Reserve Area, and under the Metro Urban Growth Management Functional Plan, um, and under the county comprehensive plan, um, cities that are interested in bringing the urban reserve area into the urban growth boundary have to do a concept.

And the con there's criteria in the metro urban growth management functional plan for prioritizing those areas that are brought into the urban growth boundary.

So the ability to provide public service is efficient one considering to provide those is another state law also comes into play with respect to the statewide land use planning goals for urbanization.

That's poll 14 that's another one that looks at annexation changes to the urban growth fund.

Again it looks at whether it's cost effective to provide urban services for potential development and whether these areas would yield enough say if it's residential enough housing units for the so unlike comprehensive planning which is much broader the concept planning is specific to the I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but what is the red versus the orange the orange is the urban is is our current growth boundary right?

Yeah the the orange is the urban growth boundary and the red line is what's in the city limits that's already in the city.

So the difference is what are those white areas that could be annexed on the previous slide.

Correct so that area north of the red line north of Palm Hill there's that parcel.

Yeah that area would have to be annexed and take the city before it could be understood.

Okay thanks so that's that's what a what a what a concept plan is and that's something the city would have to do as part of the nomination process if the city wanted to make the case to bring the David Hill urban reserve area.

I do have a question um topographically what is the feasibility of actually developing any of this reserve area so that's an excellent question.

It's got to be so expensive right for that's the question electrical and everything like it's so hilly.

Treed there it's heavily treated in many areas I look at the current road system I'm thinking of water and like everything crosses my mind.

Even though there a lot of it is flat there of course it's it's expensive to provide the area just north of David Hill and in the flat one too.

The uh yeah because of the the area along David Hill Road um there's tributary it's actually part of part of council creek that's there's some topography issues that affect how sanitary sewer is provided and how deep it has to be or maybe above ground even for cost crossing council creek north of David Hill Road at Thatcher possibility where the the road would have to be elevated and the sewer line would have to be elevated to that area there's been a fair amount of interest in development there and development community having a hard time with making things work I was going to say this doesn't sound like affordable housing with respect to the urban reserve area up kind of north of David where the curve is on David Hill Road you can kind of see an area that's not as doesn't have as much many trees it's not as vegetated relatively flat there you could concentrate development potentially there question is does it make sense to do high density housing there on the periphery's a lot of view property there'd probably be more interest in lower density development the value of the homes there and so a lot of it would be held in reserve for protection of natural resources which is in fact one of the benefits of bringing that area into the urban growth boundary because there are more regulations for protecting natural areas inside the city inside the urban growth boundary than there is in the agricultural rural that's fascinating so one more question um that kind of seems to be bouncing around in my mind here is does it seem unfair to us as force pro to have this as our reserve area and also give us parameters that we have to build so much of a certain kind of high density and residential etc from legislature does that seem kind of unfair well it's in it does to to be honest um the other the other issue we've been dealing with is in order to get funding to do the concept planning there are grants available but there are strings attached to those grants and one is looking at how to make areas pedestrian friendly and transit oriented topography in that area both of those going to be very in the density that's going to be different yeah I mean you guys are you guys are all hitting on things that we've been talking about for a long time as staff honestly you know I mean it I think what's important is to lend some context here is

Um the other the other issue we've been dealing with is in order to get funding to do the CASA planning, there are grants available, but there are strings attached to those grants.

And one is looking at how to make areas pedestrian friendly and transit oriented.

Yeah, I mean, you guys are you guys are all hitting on things that we've been talking about for a long time as staff, honestly.

You know, I mean it I think what's important is to lend some context here is you know, this was all brought in in the grand bargain in 2014.

You know, I bought a house, you know, within a uh, you know, a half mile of the beach in Manzanita for twenty for two hundred fifteen thousand dollars in in twenty fourteen.

That same house now is eight hundred thousand dollars.

Things have changed a lot in that in the in that time, you know.

Um and it it I don't I want to stop start you know, stop myself just short of calling it unfair.

I think that there is recognition widely in Forest Grove at least that that if you were to do this same exercise today, that you probably wouldn't be looking up that hill for our housing supply, particularly not in the context of the sort of housing crisis we've had and then the housing affordability issues and all that.

Um at the time, I mean, I think uh in a lot of ways it was just kind of lines on a map.

It wasn't really, you know, there's a there wasn't a whole lot of ground truthing to it.

Not I wasn't here, so that's just my editorializing saying that that's what I think was the case.

Um, but if you look at it without the topography and without the local knowledge, oh yeah, go that way and there's there's land there.

You know, the reality is there's a lot of steep slopes, there's limited chances for density, and certainly with limited chances for density, affordability.

You start having to do cuts in the the hills and stuff like that.

You start having to, you know, reduce density and use more land for each house to you know for the carrying capacity of the land, that all just drives up development costs, you know.

And so I mean, it's just a different conversation now than it was.

I think one thing is that there's a sort of saving grace here, if you will, is that you know, the what's now called the housing capacity analysis used to be called the housing needs analysis.

Um of the sort of criteria in there by which developable land is judged is sort of like this idea of development ready land and not just sort of lines on a map, but you know, not just land that is there, but also can that land be served with you know with with infrastructure.

Uh what is the feasibility of that land as far as slopes and topography and stuff like that.

Um also since 2014, we've we've had a huge and and and and Chair Ellis probably knows better than any of us, uh, you know, the the the h housing insurance has gotten so expensive and so insane that uh when you start building these urban wild land interfaces up near all the trees, um the the cost of insurance on on homes in those areas becomes if you can get insurance uh becomes uh much much heavier uh and and maybe not even possible to get insurance.

And so, you know, I I think it's a little bit of a relic of the past in some ways, even though it feels like very recent past.

Um, but these conversations I think will start happening in the context of development ready lands under the housing capacity.

So if I understand what Dan explained earlier correctly, if Forest Grove said, you know, that undesignated area uh shown on the map would be much better for our urban reserve than the stuff up on the hill.

It would have to take a lot of parties, including the legislature involved to agree to that, correct?

That's my understanding, yes.

Um with that said, I mean, we have a we have a pretty active legislature, you know, and so it it's not unfathomable that something might happen.

Um, but I think we're gonna have to do our homework first to to really show the story of whether that land's developable or not, to really have that conversation with legislature and say, hey, this is this is what we're facing right now.

Just pointing up the hill and say, you gonna build on that, like that that's not gonna work right now, you know.

You gotta have to get a little more analysis to it than sort of what we all know to be true, uh that that's land's hard to build on.

We need to put some numbers and some and some work into it first, I think.

There are some other challenges with an undesignated area floodplain.

I thought it might be so the development area wouldn't be connected to the existing developed area.

So yeah, they're whole yeah, different issues, issues but different this part of the reason why I was undesignated.

But back in 2014 when the grand bargain was done, um it really does look unfair looking at the David Hill area in isolation, but the urban during the urban reserve process, the city proposal was going was originally going north of Council Creek out towards reports, but that was fly with the state.

So that was pulled back.

Then we looked at going north of the parks development north of David Hill Road across Council Creek to Burton Road.

So that area up west of Highway 47 to Thatcher was identified.

Yeah, that area right there was the urban reserve area proposal.

During the grand bargain, the legislature pulled that area back for growth to Council Creek where the urban growth boundaries now that orange curved orange council creek and brought that area south of Council Creek, but north of David Hill Road into the urban growth boundaries.

So it wasn't designated urban reserve, it was actually brought into UGB.

A lot of that area is being developed now.

The Davis Estates Project, Bailey Meadows, Farmstead, crossing north of Davidville Road, that was all in that area that the legislature wanted for the UG 2014.

So that left us with the David Hill Road area only as the urban reserve.

So we've used some of our reserve.

We essentially did use some of our reserve.

And there was also an area south on the far south end of town on Elm Street in the industrial area that was brought into the Urban Growth Foundry.

Is and Saki One that so but yeah, something we've been discussing for for some time now about what is the viability of this area and does it make a lot of sense to put a lot of resources into it.

Some of this urban reserve is actually on the west side of the hills of David Hill and is back down in the valley, right?

As it gets up close to the Gales Creek, is it?

So the area on Gales Creek?

Yeah.

Yeah, further to the south.

Wouldn't that potentially be far easier than the hilly lands to go?

It is there are some floodplain issues there, a lot of it's on the floodplain.

Um so that was a considered consideration, but how where the nurseries are kind of that.

Um but yeah, people believe, but that was designated a rural reserve because high value farm land as well, and so there was this push pull about preserving high value agricultural land, and that was really the the the basis behind the urban rural reserve process was providing certainty to the agricultural community about what areas would be urbanized and what would be protected for agricultural use.

What is the little red rectangle?

Like, why is that one little oh it's just uh how annexations occurred over time, property owner interest and in annexation.

Uh so that area north of Plum Hill Lane, there was an annexation process back in about 2006 where a lot of those properties were brought into the city, but that yeah, rectangular area, the property owner didn't want to.

Oh, so it's up to the the property owner they want usually the the only forcible annexation is if a property is totally surrounded by the city limits, then the city council couldn't annex it without the property.

There were a number of those so-called islands back in about 2010, 2012, that area where the city council did just that and unincorporated island.

So we don't have many pockets any longer city surrounding purpose.

Next slide.

So development, uh that was another one.

Uh broadly, our development code broadly defines it to basically include any man-made change to land, including including the construction of building and other buildings and other structures.

Development also includes dividing land for sales, so drawing lines on a map considered to be developed.

So if you're doing a partition or a subdivision or a lot of category, reason being this it's setting things for basically any change to land inside city limits, anything that requires.

So one question was what are the areas within the city that have county land use designations?

Uh there are fewer now.

Uh the map shows the areas that are within the city limits with county land use designations, primarily along Council Creek, where the urban growth boundary follows the floodplain, 100-year floodplain elevation.

So historically, going back 20 years or so, um entire parcels were brought into the city when NF, even though might be bisected by the urban growth.

Areas that are outside the urban growth boundaries aren't helpable, so they've retained their county land use testing wouldn't apply city urban because it's crazy trained by new.

I want to say about 10 years ago, the state law change where the county can divide parcels that are subject to annexation to create smaller parcels than would otherwise be required within that zoning district.

So as an example, if a property is zoned under the county, agriculture and forestry with a 20-acre minimum lot size.

If there's a property that's 20 acres subject to annexation, and the urban growth boundary divides it in half, county the property owner can go through a process with the county, divide the land in two 10-acre 10 acres inside the UGB 10 acres.

Typically, that would be considered a substandard parcel because it doesn't meet the minimum acreage requirement.

But if the property specifically subject to the annexation, county can approve grading substandard wise, so that only that area within the so over time currently we don't really do that.

Large tracts of property still partially aggregate, still retained.

Okay, so it has to be outside the UGB in order for it to retain its county land use does it.

Not necessarily.

So north of David Hill Road, um, there's some, it's called future, it's FD future development.

They have two zones, FD 10 and FD20.

Um acre minimum parcel size 20 acre.

Basically a holding zone so that urban development doesn't occur inside the UGB outside the city.

So you can do certain types of things, you can put in agricultural buildings, that's so there.

There is some county zoning inside the UGB property that someday will be in the slide, please.

So getting into the UPAA itself.

So in January 2026, a couple months ago now, the Washington County Board of Commissioners approved changes to the Washington County Forest Grove Urban Planning Area Agreement to reflect changes since the last update 2018.

And this is related to Oregon land use planning goal two for land use, which requires coordination of comprehensive plans preferred by cities, counties, and regional government.

So the Metro Urban Growth Management Functional Plan, Washington County Comprehensive Plan, and City Comprehensive Plan UPAA really intended to spell out the process of how this coordinates.

So the UP UPAA filled both.

So this shows the uh the current UPAA map as of 2018.

Um shows the David Hill Urban Reserve areas, the unincorporated area inside the urban growth boundary, that darker gray area adjacent to the city limits.

Also shows the area with the hatching, which are the areas within the city limits that had the uh county land use designations.

You'll notice that it was a larger area back in 2018.

Um there's a I have another map to show an area that was actually de-annexed from the city several years ago because it was by so this shows the the revised UPA UPAA map that Washington County approved, shows the uh areas that have been annexed since 2018, shows those areas as being within the city limits, lighter gray area, shows an area north of Council Creek that's outside of the U UGB that was actually in the city's planning area, and not going to be city planting that area.

Shows an area north of Council Creek that's outside of the UGB that was actually in the city's planning area, and not going to be city planning to that area.

There's an area that's proposed for being removed from the forest growth planning area and being added to the Cornelius planning area.

Get into that second section, and then there's the area on the far southwest part of the community that was the annex, the property owner request, probably except.

Um, so that the area outside the UGB that had the county designation wasn't subject to subject city's slide.

So the Cornelius addition area is shown here, it's on the four far north end of the the city limit of the city limits.

It's designated for industrial portion that's in the forest growth planning area is part of a much larger tax lot, much larger parcel, most of which is in the Cornelius planning area already, shown in yellow, has a Cornelius address portion of the tax lot also extends north of Council Creek and the rural reserve area.

So that area that's kind of in that that pale blue could be divided so that when the tax lot is annexed into the city of Cornelius, just the area in yellow area that's being proposed for removal from the city roads planning area, would be just that area back in 1988 when the urban planning area boundary between Cornelius and Forest Grove was done, the land was just drawn straight up with council creek.

That's how portion of the property ended up Cornelius.

Most of that area that's um in this forest grove planning area is along Council Creek, and so it's constrained by natural resources, so it doesn't have much in the way of any development potential, but it could be used for perhaps wetland mitigation or other purposes if the area within the Cornelius planning area is developed at some point.

So getting into the uh text amendments, um, the revised UPAA, which was provided in in your packet, had uh text proposed for removal as strikeout, text ad is underlined tax.

It's intended to clarify the required coordination between Washington County and the city regarding land use matters, but also provides more clarity around the process for modifying the UPAA and get into that.

The city and then the revisions will make the Forest Grove UPAA wording consistent with other UPAAs in the county, including slide.

So related to modifying the UPAA, this is one of the the questions that Commissioner Anderson had related to section five.

Uh these paragraphs talk about agreement modification scenarios and references to the appropriate review body who actually takes the formal action on making the modifications.

And Commissioner Anderson asked if we could walk through some likely scenarios and identifying who the appropriate review body would be.

So I have two scenarios.

Next slide, please.

So one scenario is a proposal to change the land use designation in the city's planning area from industrial to residential, and as a result of the changes, it could affect traffic on a road maintained by Washington County.

Thatcher Road for the entire city is under county jurisdiction, Gales Creek Road, that is west of the batch.

Um so under this scenario, the city would notify the county of the proposal, and the county would have an opportunity to comment.

We would likely invite the county to a pre-application meeting where we talk about the proposal in more detail so that they can get the information and then they could provide formal comments to do a public hearing process.

But since the proposal would modify the city's comprehensive plan at the county, the appropriate review body in this scenario would be the forest road planning from here for reviewing a recommendation to city council on whether or not to approve it, then the city council would make the final.

That's one scenario.

Oh next slide shows another scenario, and this would be where the county proposes the modification to the county's transportation system plan to change the designation of a county road inside the city limits from a collector to a major area.

This could have traffic implications as well.

Um judatorials are intended to serve sensor development, carry more traffic, have more disruption than the neighborhood.

So under this scenario, since it would be a revision to the county's transportation system plan.

The city would have an opportunity to comment, but the appropriate review body would be the Washington Planning Commission Board of Commission.

So since the county and the city's plans must be coordinated, this city's transportation system plan should also be modified for consistents.

And so in this that case to bring the both plans into conformance, planning commission would also review the proposal, and the city council would take formal action.

Nevertheless, the city could appeal this decision or negotiate transferring the road to the city.

So in this case, there could be an agreement where that the road is changed from Washington County jurisdiction to city county city jurisdiction, and then the city would modify.

So that that's really what section.

So in conclusion, next slide.

For the UPA to become fully effective, the amendments must be accepted by the city council and approved after review by the planning commission.

After the UPAA is signed by the city and county, because of that area that's in the Cornelius planning area, staff tends to return with a comprehensive plan amendment at some point in the future to remove the city's comprehensive plan map designation from the territory the Cornelius Planning, which is a technical issue because that small portion of that tax lot is in the city's planning area.

It has a city of Forest Road Industrial.

That needs to be changed so that the city of Cornelius there say comprehensive plan doesn't that's something that would undefined follow up work.

So our recommendation, next slide, is that the planning commission adopt a motion that the city of council approve a resolution endorsing the amendments to the 2018 Washington County Forest Road of Urban Planning Area Agreement adopted by the Washington County Board of Commissioners, and that the resolution also authorizes the manager to sign the amended UPA.

So this includes the staff report.

I'd be happy to answer any quick questions.

Okay.

Um so I see we have no audience members.

Is there anyone that has questions on the we have anything members?

Perfect.

Does the staff have anything to add which specifically addresses the non-issues raised?

Moving on.

Do any members of the planning commission have questions regarding clarification of the testimony to this point?

There are no further questions.

I will now close the public testimony portion of the hearing.

The public hearing is now closed, and the planning commission will begin deliberation.

Does a member of the commission with comment?

I would move that we endorse this change and recommend to the city council that they adopt it.

I would second that recommendation.

Any no, I think it's cleared up.

Perfect.

So it's been motioned and seconded.

Is there any other discussion on the motion?

Okay, perfect.

I will now call for a vote.

All those in favor say aye.

All opposed, no.

Okay.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Okay, so we are going to move on to the business portion of the meeting.

Did everyone get a chance to read through the minutes?

Yeah.

Do you have any questions or changes?

No.

I have a motion to approve.

I motion we approve as written.

Seconded.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Minutes are approved.

Brian, do we have a director's report?

Thank you, Chair Ellis.

Just a couple little updates for you all.

We touched on the comprehensive plan tonight.

We've talked about this before, just kind of in passing, I think, but um in the Forest Grove 204 divisioning, uh, one of the identified projects that the city council would like to see uh the city embark on is indeed a comprehensive plan update.

And we're talking about sort of a full-scale update of the entire conference of plan, which is fairly rare.

You don't see a whole lot of those um in this state for a lot of reasons.

Planning is very regimented here, and sort of you see a lot of sort of piecemeal updates to the conference of plan.

We're talking about a full upward uh uh full uh rewrite of the conference of plan.

So that's uh it's a big project that staff and indeed the planning commission will be working on soon.

Um if you're at all interested, we are giving a presentation to the city council on March 9th at the regular meeting at 7 p.m.

here in this same room.

Um this will likely kick off a series of workshops or work uh sessions with the council.

Um there could also be some uh obviously probably will be work sessions with the planning commission as well and potentially even some joint joint work sessions.

Uh we don't know what this will look like.

Um we will kind of get this project scoped in the months to come.

Uh but if you're interested in this presentation, again, it'll be here on uh next Monday night.

Um and that'll be a continuing conversation.

So uh keep keep in tune with that.

Uh just so you know, your development code updates went up to the city council uh for a work session in January, and then uh another work session in February, and uh we had our first public hearing um February 23rd meeting, I believe was a date.

I hope I'm not wrong about that.

Um they were largely kept the same.

There was some feedback from the city council that they they didn't have a whole uh a big appetite for imposing industrial setbacks uh when industrial properties are abutting other industrial properties or other industrially zoned properties.

Um and so those setbacks were uh were not upheld.

Um there were setbacks upheld any time that uh industrial properties are abutting uh residentially zoned properties.

Um those were those were upheld as well as the height limit uh when next to residential.

Um those were some changes that came out of the first meeting and the second reading is on uh March 9th.

Um and then the changes will be in effect 30 days after the passage of the that code update.

Um Historic Landmarks Board.

We are uh in embarking on the downtown design guidelines.

For those of you who don't know, I'm just gonna give it a little bit of a sort of overview.

Uh when the city has a historic district, um we designate certain properties as contributing, non-contributing, and based upon how they are uh sort of put in the development code, um there could can be a historic district standards that apply to properties in the historic district.

Um and those can be as simple as sort of you know window configurations, trim, things like that.

Um they can be more complicated, but inherently all of our districts so far have been residential districts.

Um and when the downtown area was uh was uh designated a historic district, um there was a little bit of a problem, right?

Because you're you have all your design guidelines are residential and you are applying trying to apply those to commercial buildings, and there's there's just a rub there.

And so what staff has been doing is kind of meeting with property owners, meeting with HLB and kind of coming to an agreement on sort of here's what we think will look the best, you know.

Um that's not really playing by hard and fast, sort of, you know, pointing to the design guidelines in front of us.

Um and so the idea is to have a downtown specific uh design guideline uh for all properties in the historic district downtown.

Uh the consultant has been chosen, and you would have thought I would have put that in my notes who that consultant is.

I know they're out of Astoria.

Um, but uh they will have a work session with the city council on April 13th to kind of talk about this project to kick it off.

Um there will be public engagement on this project and uh the planning commission will I believe also see the uh store district guidelines uh for passage sometime probably later on this year.

Um but if you're interested in that, Matt Johnson, who you've seen here plenty of times, uh, is the planner on that project, and you're free to reach out to him if you'd like questions or anything.

Uh but a work session with city council on April 13th on that issue.

Um our new assistant city manager has started, Kim.

I and I I should ask her how you should pronounce her last name.

I'm not sure if it's Isel or Ezel.

I've heard it pronounced both ways in the city hall, and I have not asked her how she pronounces her last name.

Uh, but she began work uh at the end of December.

Um she came to us uh from Tigered, um, and she's doing a bang up job.

And uh just bring this up because you know, whereas you know, many times before, we've always kind of talked about Jesse Vander's and the city manager kind of being overseeing uh community development.

Kim is now taking over community development.

So I report to Kim and she's the one kind of doing the hands-on work with our department.

So um we welcome Kim, she brings a lot of experience, uh, and probably more and more importantly, a lot of uh a lot of enthusiasm as well as a lot of skills to the job.

So uh things are going well there so far.

As you might notice, we still have one vacancy on the planning commission.

Uh, we're working to fill it.

Uh we have one person we do want to interview and just haven't had the chance to get an interview scheduled.

Uh if you know anybody, we're happy to have more applicants.

Um we uh we hope to fill that one soon.

Um I do want to make a mention of attendance, you know.

Um it is important, and it's always understandable if you need to miss a meeting or miss a meeting here or there.

Um when we start having chronic absences, it starts being a problem, you know.

Um we had a night where uh things could have gone differently recently when we had everybody kind of come into this room and we didn't have quorum.

And so that that was a a costly issue, but it was it didn't make us look the best, you know, to have everybody coming here for a hearing we thought was gonna happen that couldn't happen because we didn't have a quorum of people, and so um again, I want to repeat that you know it's certainly understandable if if you have to miss a meeting.

We understand that.

Uming in advance is very helpful, obviously.

And so when you see the emails come from Shannon or Susie to you know verify attendance, I think you all did that.

And of course, you're all the ones who are here, so awesome.

Um we just want to kind of reiterate that the importance of of making the meetings.

Um and and lastly, I just want to say uh thank you, Chair Ellis and uh and Vice Chair Rivera.

Uh, thank you all so much for volunteering or being voluntoled in one case at least.

Um and I and I think you're gonna do a fantastic job.

Um, and Saray, I I also assume that you will do a fantastic job in in Nicole's stead.

And so uh we were hoping that you guys would step forward and glad you did and people are very helpful.

So and with that, uh that's all I have for tonight.

Thank you.

Happy for an answer for any questions too.

It looks like our next meeting is yet to be scheduled.

Yet to be scheduled.

Okay, well, thank you, Dan, and Brian.

Um this meeting.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Karen.