This work session of the Forest Grove City Council covered two major topics: the development of historic downtown design standards and guidelines, and a review of downtown parking conditions and potential solutions. No public comment was taken, and no formal action was approved. The meeting began with a presentation on historic design standards, followed by a detailed discussion on the 2022 downtown parking study. Council members provided feedback and direction on both topics.
Historic Downtown Design Standards and Guidelines
Downtown Parking Study
Excuse me. I'm going to call to order this work session of the Forest Grove City Council. The date is April 13th. The topic is historic downtown design standards and guidelines. Just a reminder: no public comment will be taken, and the council will take no formal action. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jesse. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So this work session is really intended to allow City Council an opportunity to comment on our historic guidelines and standards before we get started in this process. As Kim and Matt will take you through the presentation and also through the work session, we'll introduce the consultant, introduce kind of the scope of the project that's before us. But before we get started, if there was any kind of overarching kind of guardrails that the council may or may not have pertaining to this particular effort, we would love to hear from you about that. We had a previous work session, kind of just explaining what historic uh design guidelines and standards were and the difference between standards and guidelines. We'll do a little bit of recapping about that. But um other than that, um thank you, Mayor, and I'd like to turn it over to Kim and Matt. Cool. All right, thank you, Gen C Council Matt Johnson Senior Planner, Robert Dortnet. Next to me, historic architect. Um I'll give him a more formal proper introduction here in a moment. We'll go ahead and go to the next slide. So here's what we're we'll be talking about today. Uh we'll connect it to the Vision 2040 plan, uh, describe a purpose, uh, do a whole timeline uh creation from the district to where we are now, uh, introduce Robert, um, give you another little bit of project background, because I know it's been about a year since we last talked about this. Um scope of work, um, uh what Robert will be producing for us and how it will be applied, um, and then we'll invite your discussion. Okay, so within the vision 2040 plan, uh the goal statement economy very much applies uh the outcome to revitalize downtown and foster community identity and sense of place uh actions that it contributes to increase volume and diversity of commercial business development, encourage and attract more events downtown to promote traffic, and of course, explore exterior and architectural design standards to create that visual identity. So our purpose again today is to uh discuss the process, our our timing and expectations of the development of these standards and guidelines for our downtown historic district. Let's go ahead and get started on this timeline. And next slide, please. Thank you. All right, so this is uh been a long time in the making. Uh so this all started in 2017 when city council adopted the city's historic preservation plan. Part of that preservation plan was to explore the creation of a downtown district. Um the first steps in establishing that district were to identify and evaluate uh historic resources uh to our downtown. Um the city completed an updated historic survey, uh part of the original town plat, um, accompanied by a contextual statement that basically details all the the character of Forest Grove. Um the consultant that was hired to prepare those updates was also directed to find out you know what's the what's the best boundaries for our district. Three years later, um city council recommended the nomination of the districts in early 2020, and then uh it was sent to the state and was officially recognized as a national historic district um in October, late October 2020. And then in 2023, council officially adds the downtown historic district into our city's comprehensive plan. And just last year, around this time, staff secured a grant from the state preservation office, now Oregon Heritage, to create these standards and guidelines to accompany our national historic district downtown. Um shortly thereafter, we held the work session with council and the HLB describing what this is. The winter we found Robert uh who will draft our standards and guidelines for the districts. Slide please. And so this is Mr. Mr. Dortney. This is uh Robert has very long career. These are just a few things that are specifically applicable to the work that he's doing here in Forest Grove. He was the one that actually created the standards and guidelines for all three of our residential districts. I believe that's 2016. 2014, time flies. So in addition to his work that he's done here, specific in Forest Grove, he's also created design guidelines for Oregon City. And he's worked with the city of Independent Independence to combine their work guidelines with the commercial and residential. As a conservator for the American Institute for Conservation, he prepared architectural condition reports for the Hoover Minthorne Historic Museum and Property in Newburgh, and also for the Troutdale Historic Society properties. And lastly, he prepared preservation ports projects and consultations for Fort Dells, the Salem Pioneer Cemetery, the Willamette Heritage Center, Jason Lee House, Deepwood State Patrol Garden, and he's continuously involved with ongoing work for the Portland's Water Bureau, Washington Park Historic District, and Mount Tabor.