From staff regarding the climate action plan.

There's no public comment during work session.

But if you want to make public comment or do public comment, you can do it during the city council meeting.

So I'll turn the time over to Robbie.

Robbie Hammond to begin the work session.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

As the mayor mentioned, tonight we're going to have an update from Robin Strong, our sustainability and resiliency manager.

Robin has done really great work on our climate action plan.

And as a reminder, this is one of the council's priorities for this year.

So there's been a lot of great updates.

Rob is going to walk you through all of that in the next steps, and I'll turn it over to her.

Great.

Thank you, Robbie.

And thank you, Mayor.

So I'm Robin Strong.

I'm the city's sustainability and resiliency manager.

And really, I'm excited to be here to share the city's first comprehensive climate action plan for our community.

I've been working on it for about two and a half years.

So it's really exciting to get to this point where we have it finally like fully drafted and ready for full consideration.

So this is an opportunity for you to learn about the plan, ask me questions, provide any suggestions for improvement or input.

We're not going to make any decisions on the plan today.

It's a work session item.

So my goal is to bring this back for adoption by resolution later this winter.

What would you like from us today?

Just to listen.

Yeah, so I'm gonna pause throughout the presentation to ask for questions, but then there'll be some time for QA at the end.

And if you want to have discussion as well about various aspects of the plan, but it's it's pretty detailed, so I'll just kind of like try to pause as I go through more the more technical stuff to make sure you're have clarity on what I'm sharing.

Great.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right.

So to ground our conversation today, I want to start with the basics of climate change and what we're seeing locally.

Um we are uh here in Hillsborough, we're seeing hotter summers and longer uh periods of drought, stronger rain events, uh, increased intensity of winter storms and more wildfire smoke events.

And this is a result of global and regional climate patterns attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, primarily produced from burning fossil fuels.

So a climate action plan helps us document strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

The plan also includes actions that will ensure Hillsborough is responding to and adjusting to current and predicted impacts of a changing climate.

For a climate plan to be effective and lasting, it's important to have both equitable mitigation strategies to reduce our greenhouse gas inputs, as well as adaptation strategies to help people survive and thrive as the climate is changing.

The climate plan is part of the city's strategic plan and it aligns with the city's priorities, goals, and mission.

Our plan will serve as a roadmap to implement a priority equity focused actions and increase community resilience.

We know our climate is changing, so this plan discusses how the city will reduce our contributions to the problem and help our community adapt while addressing climate risks.

So as I mentioned, it's been a long time, a long process to get to where we are today.

So I'm just gonna share some of the key milestones.

So we started the project in the summer of 2023 by selecting parametrics as our consultant.

Our first milestone was completing a community greenhouse gas inventory to document our baseline emissions.

In early 2024, we hosted stakeholder workshops to develop our greenhouse gas mitigation strategies.

And afterward, our consultants analyzed and scaled the measures to determine the potential reduction impacts and created our draft greenhouse gas emissions plan for review.

Then in fall and winter 2024, so a year ago, we refined those measures, um, emissions cutting measures by conferring with our stakeholders to develop the climate mitigation strategies you see in our current greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan.

Next, our consultants completed a climate resiliency analysis and vulnerability assessment.

This helps determine which adaptation measures we should consider for our second plan component.

We met with community stakeholders to get input on strategies to include in that plan, which was completed this past July.

Then in August and September, we conducted community outreach and engagement to get feedback and input on prioritizing our proposed strategies in both of the plan.

And I'm here now at the STAR.

So we're uh I'm sharing an overview of the plans for your review and discussion.

Um my hope is to get the plans fully refined and meeting all of your needs so we can get them adopted in the winter.

Okay.

So before going into the plan details, I want to share about our community engagement process.

So to frame the project, we used the city's equity toolkit and community engagement framework.

This helped develop our communications plan and ensure we were utilizing equity and inclusion focused strategies.

Throughout the planning process, we worked with multiple stakeholder groups, held workshops, provided outreach through community events and through the local media.

And the process concluded with a climate plan surveys on engaged Hillsboro sites in English and Spanish.

So in addition to engagement, we conducted outreach in many ways, including our city climate change webpage and using the city's communications channels.

Because the climate plan umbrella includes three separate lengthy technical documents.

We developed short two-page overviews for each one in English and Spanish.

That allowed folks to get a quick snapshot of the important highlights in the plans before providing feedback or digging into the full plan documents.

So for the climate plan survey, we focused on getting community members and city staff to weigh in on their lived experience, their interest, and their needs.

During the survey process, more than 1200 community members visited the engaged Hillsborough sites while the survey was open.

Additionally, all city employees received an email about the plan and access to a staff only version of the community survey.

So ultimately, we connected with more than 2,500 people about the climate plan, and of that, more than 400 took the time to complete our survey, and nearly 150 provided personal testimonials about how climate change has impacted them.

Nearly 90% of the respondents supported the city taking bold action to address climate change through the proposed strategies and programs.

So I'm going to share some of the high-level survey responses before I dig into the plan sections, and then the rest of the survey will be embedded throughout my presentation.

So we started the survey with a question to see what climate change concerns rank the highest.

Folks got a list of different possible impact areas.

The survey takers noted that their biggest concerns included heat, wildfires, changes to our natural areas, impacts to air quality, and outdoor worker conditions.

There were fewer folks who are worried about the impacts from drought, flooding, heavy rainstorms, winter storms, and population increases.

In the survey, we also provided a list of resources that the city could or does provide to see what was most desired.

So the top responses were better walking and biking infrastructure incentives for energy efficiency upgrades, fix it fares to help repair or repurpose household items, city policies and programs to address climate impacts, expanded resources for for borrowing, such as the library of things, and help with backyard habitat improvement.

We also asked survey takers what they would like to learn more about from the city.

Out of a dozen topics, the top responses included the city's new rainwater management program, ways to prepare for emergencies and to be more climate resilient, ways to save money and resources at home, tree care and maintenance, and installing solar on a home or business.

So as I noted, the rest of the survey includes feedback on specific plan components.

So I'll cover that input in the next two sections of my presentation.

But are there any questions on our engagement process and the survey?

Counselor Andry.

Is the rainwater management the same as stormwater?

No, it's actually a new program that we initiated this year.

I think it's been a long year.

I don't know.

I think it was sometime at the beginning of 2025.

We have a partnership agreement with the Tweleton Soil and Water Conservation District to do homeowner education about rainwater management on site.

So this is something like creating a rain garden or setting up rain barrels at a home that where a homeowner has, you know, you know, control over their property.

So this is something like creating a rain garden or setting up rain barrels at at a home that um where a homeowner has you know prop you know control over their property, and so we coordinated that with our public work stormwater team, and they're actually in the process right now of hiring a staff person who is going to help oversee the city's part of that program, and we're standing up a brand new website to educate homeowners what they can do, what permits they would need, etc.

Um, so yeah, it's it's an exciting new new program that we're adding.

I have a question for you, Robin.

Um you said that uh when the surveys went out, they could choose people could choose what was most important to them.

Was there a right option if there was something that was not listed?

There was right in.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um, I think that so the survey was any any of the ones where they were choosing from a list, they had an opportunity to write in.

Um, there were some that we asked to rank, and so those they didn't get it, they didn't get to add anything in, but anything that there was like they're choosing from a list of top things that they care about, they had an opportunity to write in.

Thank you.

Counselor Salgado.

For those of us that are not familiar with rainwater management, can you just elaborate a little bit more on what that means and what it is and what the impact of it is?

Yeah, sure.

So this would be um different ways to capture and utilize rainwater on a property.

Um, so one of the things that you can do is a lot of us have um gutters and they go into the downspield, the downspout goes into the storm stormwater drain system.

Um, so you could um there are if if if your house and your soil type is appropriate, you can redirect that rainwater into a garden area and create like a swale or a rain garden where you're kind of like managing the water flow on your own property.

Um, you can't do it such that it impacts the neighbor's property, but if you have enough space, you could do that.

Um, you could also capture that rainwater to use for irrigation purposes.

You can't capture it for drinking.

Um it's just a different way to um look at you the resources that are on your property and utilize them kind of yourself instead of funneling it to into the the bigger system.

And what role does the city play in that?

Yeah, so the city um would it if depending on the type of the situation, the city would uh determine whether there's a permit needed.

Um there could be a plumbing permit that's required to do to make changes to your system that's already been like set up on your property.

Um, and they also they they do also want to take a look and make sure that um it's not like I said, not going to impact a neighboring property too.

Um so the the first um group that the um the homeowner would contact is the Twalton Soil and Water Conservation District.

They're gonna do like a site assessment and they'll bring in the city if need if they believe that a permit might be required for the site.

So what department from the city does that work?

Public works.

Public works, yeah.

Okay.

Yep, it's our stormwater um division and public works.

Okay, and so you said it's been in it's been going on now for nearly a year.

Yeah, so we signed an MOU with the Twilight and SWCD about a year ago.

Um, and they uh that group does all of the outreach and education for the program, and then our team is really just kind of the technical and permitting side of things.

Do you have any data to share to see how it's it's been going?

I don't have any.

I I can certainly look into that and I can talk to the um program manager, but I know I don't think it's been like sort of formally pushed out like through our communications channels.

So I don't know that we've had a lot of uh people requesting permits at this point, but I could check.

That'd be great, thank you.

Any other questions before I move on?

Okay, so the foundational document for our climate action plans is the community greenhouse gas inventory.

And I'm gonna quickly review that as a refresher before I dive into the climate plan details.

There we go.

So the community greenhouse gas inventory is a the total emissions that are directly and indirectly released into the atmosphere each year by a given activity from our city.

Um the emissions and the burning of fossil fuels are responsible for climate change and warming our planet.

Our inventory includes baseline data for developing priority strategic climate change mitigation measures within the city and feeds into our plan.

The chart on the right is the overall summary of community emissions.

The city's emissions total 2.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Carbon dioxide is the most common form and abundant GHG, and it is produced in large amount amounts when fossil fuels are burned.

So CO2E is carbon dioxide equivalent.

Most greenhouse gases are more potent in warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

So to compare all emissions easily, all gases are calculated into a carbon dioxide equivalent, which is measured in metric tons.

So for illustration purposes, a metric ton of CO2 is equivalent to one car driven 2500 miles.

A little more than half of the city's emissions come from local sources, and the rest are from imported emissions.

The largest local emission source is building energy.

Transportation is the second highest source of local emissions, and industrial processes is third.

I'm going to dig into more detail about our emissions types and sources in the next slide.

So this is another view of those same inventory results showing the sources of emissions in Hillsboro.

The blue, green, yellow, and orange bars.

The yellow is very small, it's the waste, represent local emissions.

The local emissions occur directly in the community or nearby due to activity of the community.

The energy used in buildings, so primarily electricity and natural gas, and then transportation energy, which is gas, diesel, and electricity electricity for EVs, they're the largest locally generated emissions.

So this helps reinforce the need to transition to renewable energy and renewable fuel in our community.

The magenta bars are the city's imported emissions.

So these are the items we use within the city, which were grown, manufactured, or otherwise created outside of the city limits.

That includes upstream fuel production, household consumption, goods, foods, and services, and air travel.

While local emissions include specific aggregated data from our partners, imported emissions are estimated using standard protocols.

However, they are significant.

And so we have proposed strategies in our emissions reduction plan to reduce those along with measures to reduce our largest local emission source for buildings and transportation energy.

We are not proposing to address emissions from industrial processes or wastewater in this plan.

Question.

Thanks.

On the uh building energy, does that include commercial, industrial, and household?

And what is the breakdown on those on that?

Do you know?

I don't have that off the top of my head.

So you want to know like the percentage of our energy that's in those three sectors.

Of the building energy, the building energy sector, which is 34%.

How much is residential versus commercial versus industrial or manufacturing?

I don't know whether the industrial process product use of 7% captures the buildings that do industrial.

I'm doubting it.

I'm guessing that's the process.

Yeah, it's that's just the special specialty gases and things that they use for processing as for and refrigerants, but it's not if it's a if it's an energy source that's used to condition a building at all, it's included in the building energy section.

Just occurs to me that those are three wildly different categories that could use different mitigation strategies.

So I'm just curious as to the breakdown because that could dictate strategies.

Yeah, possibly.

Text me or email me or how I can find that or do my own research.

Happy, happy to share that.

I want to hold things up here.

No problem.

Um, the residential and commercial make up less than half of the total amount of industrial.

So just scale purposes, those two stacked together are less than half of industrial building energy.

Of the building energy.

Counselor Solgato.

So I've seen other cities and companies kind of uh you know, plant trees and say, well, we're doing this to reduce CO2s.

And we have a lot of parks, a lot of wetlands that are you know, would consider I guess a reduction of CO2.

Is there a reason why that didn't be analyzes?

It's just not standard during these kind of evaluations because I think that would be important to kind of you know count the assets that the city has that is actually helping reduce that question make sense from the next problem.

It absolutely does make sense, and it does seem like a really intuitive thing that we would just plant trees and we would reduce our emissions.

However, uh it would take over 400 million acres of forest to sequester the amount of um carbon we're trying to sequester with this plan.

Yeah, we don't have four million acres in this city of Hillsborough.

Let me clarify my question.

That wasn't my question.

My question is we have parks like Noble Woods, other areas that have a lot of trees on them.

Correct.

And like, is there a way to calculate that?

I guess difference and offset, because there's this term net zero, right?

Like you produce CO2s, but you also have assets that reduce CO2.

So just to try to does my question make sense like why doesn't why aren't those things getting counted in this analogy?

It is factored in to the analysis in our greenhouse gas inventory.

Okay, it's on the report.

Yes.

Okay, I'll look it up.

And I I can um point you to that as well.

Okay.

Counselor Andre.

Uh things.

Um so the the air travel, what is that mean, Robin?

Is that the planes going above us?

Is that what that is?

Um, so there's a couple of different ways air travel is captured here.

So if it's um actually um air travel of people like coming to and from the Hills or airport, that's captured in our transportation bar, so it's in the green.

The little sliver of air travel on the top of that bar that's in the magenta color, that is an estimate of how many um emissions are caused by Hillsborough peak residents going to PDX and flying.

So that is uh again, that's an estimate based on our population and the amount that we think people are traveling.

Okay.

Okay.

Good to go.

All right.

Thank you for those questions.

Um, so got one more kind of data-heavy slide, and then we'll we'll dig into the plans.

Um, so ultimately, we would like to drive our emissions, particularly our local emissions to zero by 2050.

Um, 100% greenhouse gas emissions mitigation would help us align with the international goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and reduce the worst impacts of climate change.

And most communities um, as uh counselor mentioned, are with climate change programs, we're aiming to do this no later than 2050.

So getting to that net zero or kind of like trying to get as close to um zero emissions by 2050.

So local emissions are expected to decrease over time thanks to strong climate action from our state building energy and transportation sectors.

So you can see that here in our blue and green wedges.

For instance, electricity emissions are required to be reduced by 100% by 2040 for our uh electricity provider, Portland General Electric.

Um, so that includes that that will uh immediately decrease the greenhouse gases associated with operating our businesses and homes.

Um, this projection also includes Oregon's recently readopted climate protection program, which will cut emissions from natural gas and other fuels.

Um, that's in the light blue bar above the dark blue between between the blue and the green.

Um so we're starting to see some progress in these sectors, and we are also monitoring those to ensure that those um companies are staying accountable to the goals.

And so while local emissions are estimated to drop by over 70% by 2050 compared to 2022, um, that is still not quite enough to hit that 2050 target.

So additional goals and actions beyond our current projections and legislation have been modeled as part of our greenhouse gas emissions plan to help us meet that target.

And I'm gonna dig into that plan next.

Any other questions on our emissions profile and the forecast that we're looking at?

Yeah.

Um counselor.

So by 2050, we want all of them to go to zero.

So uh even even the orange and the purple, the the the magenta, the foods and goods.

Yes.

So ultimately we're gonna be be able to be focusing mostly on the the um ones under the magenta.

Yeah, as far as we know we can measure and and um put into policies that are gonna reduce those.

The magenta is going to be harder, and I'll I'll talk about that when I talk about the um the strategies that we're thinking of.

But yeah, ultimately we'd like to get them all to as close to zero as possible, or consider things that we can offset those with.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Great.

So our first component of our comprehensive climate action plan is our greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan.

This includes strategies to help cut emissions to lessen the worst impacts of climate change by reducing our contribution to the problem.

So I'll walk through our planning process and those outcomes next.

So in 2024, we hosted three community stakeholder workshops with a diverse group of experts who work and volunteer in the sectors with the highest greenhouse gas emissions.

We framed the conversation with equity and climate justice and discussed the most promising activities to cut the emissions.

The goal of the workshops was to develop equitable greenhouse gas emissions strategies for consideration in our plan.

We brought together city staff from economic and community development, water, public works, finance, and the city manager's office.

And joining us were partners from utilities, community-based organizations, trade organizations, community volunteers, and public agencies.

So we discussed strategies for reducing emissions and shared what is currently going on in those particular areas.

This allowed our consultants to take in the information and create a plan with measures that would help us address climate change in ways that would be supported by our partners as well as our city departments.

So our consultant team analyzed the potential impacts of the various actions from the workshop to create our plan.

This outlines a comprehensive set of actions the city, community partners, and Hillsboro residents can do to achieve emissions reductions while prioritizing equity and other environmental co-benefits.

It includes strategies to cut emissions over the next 25 years in the building and transportation and consumption sectors.

So this pie chart chart shows potential emission savings by sector for the 17 strategies that were analyzed in the plan.

And as you can see, there's a lot of potential for reduction in the consumption and transportation sectors via the actions recommended by our stakeholders.

If fully enacted, this plan will eliminate 4.6 million metric tons of CO2E of emissions from the atmosphere over the next 25 years.

That's far more than we currently produce.

So this volume is equivalent to 25,500 rail cars worth of coal or the emissions generated by 12 natural gas power plants.

So as a result, we don't anticipate the need to reach full potential with all the actions listed in our plan.

It just shows the scope of what's what the potential is, looking at what's feasible today.

So I'll go over the strategies in the coming slides to help show which are the most likely to help the city reduce impacts.

So first we develop the building energy emissions reduction strategies.

This table ranks the plan strategies in order from the most emissions reduction to potential to the least.

This also lists cost effectiveness so you can get a sense of how much funding would be required from the city.

The top action would update the current city permit fee exemption for alternative energy devices to include renewable resource systems, energy saving devices, and systems that reduce greenhouse gases.

This includes also reduces those fees if home appliances are switched from gas to electricity or upgraded to the most efficient model.

The next two top actions are projects underway via our community partners, uh Hillsboro School District and Genentech.

HSD is working on energy upgrade projects using an energy services company or ESCO, which will help them cut energy use and save money.

Genentech has installed local battery storage on their site to diversify and strengthen their site power.

The installation includes large solar array that will maintain the battery charge while reducing the facilities' carbon emissions.

So while primarily for private use, the battery storage can also potentially support the local area through participation in the NPGE's energy partner program.

And we hope other businesses might consider this option as well.

The last three strategies in the chart are encouraging densification through zoning requirements to add smaller dwellings, which use less energy to operate, providing funding support for energy efficiency projects in existing homes, and creating a funding source for conducting more home energy audits, including homes not for sale.

So all of the strategies had some community support in the survey.

However, the top strategies ranked included number one, residential energy efficiency through programs that reduce bills and improve home comfort.

The good news is this aligns with the city's recently launched energy efficiency assistance program.

Number two, clean grid capacity in the form of securing the grid with more renewables and battery backup.

And three residential energy efficiency permitting via reducing permit fees for home improvements that save energy and emissions.

So the other items receive somewhat less interest by the survey takers, but they still have merit.

The rankings from the survey may be used to help inform the ways we prioritize program development, project funding, or partner support.

But I'm also interested in hearing what the council thinks about those potential actions either now or during our QA section.

Counselor Servato and then Council Harris.

I have a few questions, so bear with me.

So on the residential energy efficiency, uh, you know, I was aware of the community action program and energy trust of Oregon.

Can you share what the what the barriers are that you highlighted in the report from those programs that we would need to create another program at the city for?

Because that kind of duplicating what community action and energy trust of Oregon are doing.

Can you share what those barriers are?

Yeah.

So we created, we had a program that was existing that we found that community members weren't able to access because the funds weren't quite enough per home and it all they also weren't flexible enough to be used where they were needed.

So for example, we found that um some of our community partners could provide like a free water heater to be installed in a home, but the home needed plumbing upgrades to be able to accept that water heater to make it function properly.

But the community-based organizations didn't have a set source of funding that could support plumbing.

So ours can help with plumbing upgrades, electrical update grades, structural upgrades if they need more reinforcement under an appliance because it's a larger, heavier appliance.

So the way we recreated our energy efficiency assistance program is to allow that flexibility to support those community-based organizations.

So they can basically stack the funding to make it so that it will help a project get completed.

And it's a program that's currently running right now.

It is, it is currently right.

Okay, and we have how much in the fund to distribute?

We have $50,000 per calendar or uh fiscal year.

Okay, so is that does that mean that we have a staff person dedicated to that and it's a whole program that's being run and operated?

Or how does how does that work from the city side?

No, from the city side, we just grant the money to the community-based organization when they tell us they have a client that can utilize that source of funding and how it's going to stack with the other funds to basically enable another project to be completed.

So it's minimal amount of time on the city side.

It's more on the community-based organization side to do that.

Okay, so we don't have a dedicated person at the city that's managing this program.

It's somebody within a specific department adding this onto their job.

No, my team manages the program, but we don't have to do a lot of work.

We just have to basically approve the projects that are going to get funded and approve the funding to go to the community-based organization.

Okay.

And then have you all ever thought about maybe advocating to change some of those restrictions in the funding that's with energy trust of Oregon or community action?

Because that's from my understanding, they have a lot of funding, and they actually at the end of the year always ramp up their marketing because not a lot of people kind of they kind of have some money left over.

So is that has that ever been considered?

The mostly their funding sources are restricted in terms of what they can be used on.

So whatever wherever they're getting their funding source from, whether it's a federal agency, uh state program, or uh utility, there's restrictions on that funding.

So I don't know that it would be our place to advocate for making that funding available to be used differently, because it's not our it's not our money to say.

Yeah, I understand.

I just think like as a city councilor, when I look at what the cost of running this program, and seeing that there's already community-based organizations running a similar program, and we're kind of funding the gap that's there.

I'm not sure if that's the best way for us to support the work, especially if there's a lot of money already out there to do this sort of work.

Um so, you know, uh, I know energy trust of Oregon has a really big budget for this sort of work.

So that's that's why I so if there's any way for us to get some data on what the cost is staff time, what it takes to manage the fund and navigate all that and how we kind of assess whether the fund goes out or not.

I think that would be really helpful information.

So we need to understand what the cost of the city is to run the program.

Okay.

Thank you.

Residential and residential efficiency permitting explain to me what that is in layman's terms that I can understand.

Yeah, so this is right now the city has a permanent fee exemption for um what's called alternative energy devices.

It's kind of an outdated term.

Um it was established uh 15 years ago, maybe.

Um, and basically the idea would be to update this fee exemption to make it match with what's currently being put into homes.

So renewable resource systems, energy saving devices, like appliances that are more efficient, um, or systems that can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, or like EV charging stations, things that we weren't really doing 15 years ago.

So that is so when someone needs to get a permit with something like this, and there's some sort of waiver reduction process.

I think yeah, and that process is already in place through our building official, and they have a whole system to to track uh when that those fees get um uh reduced, because certain there's certain portions of the fee that actually have to go to the state, but we can reduce the city portion only.

All right, yeah, this number here, the reduction is if we updated that um criteria, we would see this additional reduction.

Correct.

Okay, got it.

Thanks.

Counselor Case and then Councillor Sargato.

Um Thanks, Robin.

Hi.

Hey, uh, we took a tour of Genentech a couple of years ago together and saw the battery storage in action, and it's amazing what they're doing, and I want every business in town to do it.

Yeah, I know you do too.

I know we're on the same page there.

Um do we have a plan for that?

I mean, is that part of the building the plan, or do we have other businesses who are like this is awesome?

We want to do we want to be just like genentech.

We don't have a plan for that yet.

Yeah.

All right, we're working on it.

Maybe, yeah.

Counselor Sorgato.

So I have like four more questions, but I'll start with something, you know, the program that she just that counselor case just mentioned.

Sure.

Um, so in the plan it says that we've supported construction and other things as a city.

So how much how much has the city invested in that program with genentech?

Uh nothing that I know of.

Okay, so it's just pre-staff time and permitting.

Because it says that we we've done some work in there as a city, so what's I believe we have permitted the project that they have already existed on their property, but I don't have no idea how much time it takes or something like that.

Well, I thought there was a mention of construction in there.

That's what I have in my notes.

Um uh permitting and construction support.

Can you just elaborate a little bit on that?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

Okay.

Cool.

And then um, so are most of these programs programs that we're already running, and essentially the community action plan is approving that these programs are going to be called a commun uh climate action plan.

Um of these are existing programs, and some of these are like adjustments to existing programs.

Some of these have been put into place in the two and a half years that we've been developing the plan.

Um, and some of these are not yet in in place.

Okay, so it's it's a kind of a mix.

So as you read through the plan, you can see what the proposed action is, and that's what would need to be done to um actually enact.

Yeah, so that's why I'm asking questions because I read through it a couple of times and I'm uh I was so confused.

So the the home energy scoring, is that a program that's currently running, or is that one of the planned actions?

It's a current program, but it's only available for uh people with certain an income um qualifications and only for homes that are for sale.

So if a homeowner, for instance, wanted to remain in their home, their low income, they would qualify to get a home energy score, but they're not trying to sell their home, they wouldn't qualify for our funding to help get the the uh assessment, which costs about 150 dollars.

And same question with the other one, is there a dedicated staff person that's running this program, or is it just kind of okay?

So if we could get information about how much staff time it takes and how much how much it costs to run the program, that would be really helpful for me.

Um I think that was the last one.

I have a few others, I'll send you through email so I don't love the okay counselor Ambry.

Um how how does the home energy scoring help?

So what you get is uh uh a complete assessment and list of potential projects and how much energy could be saved by each project.

Um so you kind of get like a top 10 best things you could do to improve your home, how much money they think that would help you save, how much energy it would help you save.

So it helps you basically prioritize the things that are the best bang for your buck.

It also connects you to the energy trust of Oregon incentives that can help install those upgrades.

Okay.

And then how how does so uh sorry?

So my question is also the city helps with the home energy scoring part, but at the moment you said it's uh only for people who are selling.

Okay, so someone would get the scoring done and then do the upgrades.

And then there's there's an assumption that they've done some of the upgrades to get that CO2 reduction.

So the home energy scores required to be done for any home that is listed for sale in the city of Hillsborough.

So everyone who sells a home is required to do that.

We have a program at the city that provides funding for one of our community-based organizations to do those assessments.

If the person is uh in a low income bracket, they can get that subsidized for them.

Um so the seller um could take action based on their home energy score, but that's that that's not the intent.

The intent is to let the buyer know what how much energy it uses, how much it's gonna cost to operate the home, so they can use that to factor into their decision about whether they want to buy that home, and they'll also have a list of projects that they could consider implementing if they do buy the home.

Okay.

All right.

And and and then, and then the reduction is CO2 is based on an assumption that some of those were undertaken.

Correct.

Okay, good.

There you go.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And that uh it's a pretty low assumption, it's a little low amount because we can't assume that everyone's gonna do all 10 projects on every list, but it's kind of based on the data that we have from energy like energy trust of Oregon can provide us about what's been done in homes that have had home energy scores.

So it's an extrapolation based on places we know that have had scores and places that have taken action and they've received incentives for those actions.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Robin.

In the interest of time, I'd like to ask the council to hold questions and email them if you don't mind.

So take notes as Robin is talking, make notes of what questions you want to email, and then send those to Robin afterwards because we do have an executive session after council.

And Robin, go for it.

Okay, yeah.

So I'm gonna move us ahead to transportation.

Um, so this again, it's another look at our strategies organized by uh most emissions reduction potential to least.

Um, and I'm gonna just briefly explain what each one is.

So renewable diesel would be a strategy to craft a policy um uh using Portland's renewable fuel standard as a guide, which would require the sale of R99 diesel within our jurisdiction by 2030.

Our local fuel supplier um already offers this for um on-road diesel and the city's fleet currently runs entirely on R99.

Um the next action is to uh read help collaborate to meet regional transit ridership goals.

Um skip ahead.

Um then the final three actions are to increase access to EB charging infrastructure in apartments and to improve and expand active transportation infrastructure and then adding bike racks at local businesses to encourage bike travel.

So I'm gonna skip ahead to show you which um ranked the highest in our survey.

So number one was active transportation via expanding areas for safe biking and walking.

Number two is increasing transit ridership and tight for third place are more electric vehicle charging stations at apartments and more business bike parking.

So I just want to note that um, even though the renewable diesel action wasn't a top choice by our survey takers, it still received votes.

Uh, it's a great option for our community, but people may not understand the environmental benefits of R99.

So, what it is is this fuel is chemically the same as petroleum diesel, but it reduces carbon intensity by 65% and produces a much cleaner exhaust.

Um, so that really helps address our air quality as well as our upcarbon emissions, and it can be used in all diesel engines with no modifications, so it's an easy switch.

So I'm gonna keep us moving forward to get through the plans.

Um, our last section in this plan is our consumption strategy.

Um, so this uh the top action would be to decrease our food waste in accordance with the DEQ waste reduction goals.

Um I can I can um elaborate on any of these um when I go through the um what the choices were.

The second action is to encourage reuse through community repair events, the third is developing a city policy of purchasing low climate impact foods and providing community education about climate impacts of food choices.

The third is developing a city policy of purchasing low climate impact foods and providing community education about climate impacts of food choices.

The last three actions are reducing emissions through building smaller homes, which use fuel building materials, expanding composting to multifamily, and adopting low carbon concrete standards for city construction.

So the way they ranked in the survey is here.

So number one is decreasing food waste.

Number two is fix it fares.

Number three is using environmentally friendly low carbon concrete in construction.

I think that covers all of our sections of our greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan.

Again, happy to take questions by email.

So to get through our last plan, I'm going to zip ahead to our resiliency plan.

And I'm going to skip through some slides here.

So we have basically two set two components to our climate resiliency plan.

First is social resiliency, which is actions to help make people safer in our community, and infrastructure resiliency, which helps protect our buildings, roads, and water and energy systems in the community.

So our stakeholders included city experts from water, public works, fire and rescue, parks and recreation, community and economic development, and the city manager's office.

We brought in partners from community-based organizations, tribal nations, and other public agencies.

So this getting it into a pretty big list of actions, these are all recommended by that pretty large stakeholder group.

But before we met as a stakeholder group, our consultant did some analysis on the potential impacts of climate change risks.

So this is kind of a repeat of what you saw earlier.

These are the main risks that we're seeing here in our city.

And so the idea with this part of the plan is to proactively address these challenges.

So we can really build long-term resilience in our community.

And the goal is to help protect public health, preserve our natural resources, and safeguard our economy from climate related disruptions.

So in the resiliency plan, there are 14 actions for short-term resiliency that include themes related to safety and resource systems, homeowner and venture assistance, and cultural and community support.

These are actions that can could be completed in five years or less.

And as we're scanning these, I'm going to highlight the top recommended actions from the survey.

So the STARS are what were ranked the highest by our survey takers, and that includes fire resilience, anti-displacement planning, affordable energy and home improvements, and increasing community education and empowerment related to climate change.

So again, all of the actions that you see listed here did receive some support.

These were just the ones that seem to be more resonant with our survey takers.

And you will also notice that these do align with some of the other work that's underway by the city, such as our community wildfire protection plan, which aligns with the first star that you see there.

So the next section is long-term social resiliency actions.

So these are actions that would take longer than five years to complete.

They're typically more complex and would require more partnerships and possibly more outside financial resources to actually implement.

So that includes themes such as building energy safety and efficiency, support for mental health services, and community resilience hubs.

So these again are the ones that would take a lot longer to develop in our 25-year plan than those first ones that we saw on the slide previous.

Okay, so the next section of the plan is our infrastructure resiliency action, and these are the short-term actions that were listed in our plan that could likely be completed under five years, and the themes include water resources and systems, hazard management, green space, and agriculture and environmental wellness.

So our survey brought these to the top as the ones that our community would like to see us take action on.

Those focus on drought and natural hazards, urban forestry, local food, and agriculture and forest land protections.

Again, you'll note that many of these relate to our city strategic plan priorities and our city council goals and projects that are currently underway.

So as you're looking through the plan, you can see which things are actually already in process and which things would be newer items that we would want to think about adding as new programs.

So our final section is our long-term infrastructure resiliency actions.

So these were themes such as local energy and water systems, green space and urban updates.

These are the more complex actions that would take longer than five years and probably more partnerships to complete.

And our top survey items were focused on local energy reliability, resilience to heat, and improving the ways we get around our community.

These are multi-year strategies, as I mentioned.

Any questions?

Quick questions on the resiliency actions.

Mayor, if I could maybe just offer, I I know there's a lot here.

Recognize that this is a heavy plan.

As Robin mentioned, two and a half years worth of work.

And we've been in front of this council and previous councils on this.

So I just want to make sure the council understands as well that this is our own plan.

So we don't have like anybody telling us it has to be adopted by the end of the year.

This is really an update for you all.

So if there's more questions, please let us have them.

Uh email works.

If we want to come back for another work session early next year or something as well to go over some of the details, we can do that.

We have a lot of flexibility with this plan.

So I don't want you all to feel like we're under the under pressure for tonight.

There's a lot of stuff uh on this plan.

So Rob's done a great job, but we don't have a specific time constraint on this plan.

Okay.

Thank you, Robin.

Really, oh, you still have more.

Yes.

Just gonna show how the two plans kind of overlap and intersect.

Um, so really this is the complete climate action plan packages, the two plans.

The first plan is those measurable strategies in blue, and the second plan is really those ones that we put we we do our adaptation and resiliency measures, and there's some that overlap in the middle that actually benefit both.

Um, they'll help cut emissions as well as provide adaptation strategies such as planting trees.

Um, so the whole goal is to look at this holistically, and as Robbie said, the goal is not to rush to adopt it.

That the goal is to like take it in and see what makes sense for our city.

This was a lot of stakeholder work to get to this point, but it still needs to have um your influence on what we actually include in the plan.

And that's just a quick yeah, just I would like to come back and talk with do another work session, but I think generally I would just like to see the price tag on all these things that we're proposing in the plan and what the costs are going to be to the city.

I think that would be really helpful for us to help us make a decision whether we support it or not.

So you want the price tag on all the actions in both plans.

Yep.

And that's including staff time and then whatever money we're proposing to put into the funds.

Okay, so it's it's included in the emissions reduction plan because that's a um those were quantified by our consultants.

The resiliency plan, they did not do that.

So we would need to go back to our consultant team if you want to get uh price tags on those.

Just for us to cost money too, right?

Going back to the case.

It would cost money.

Yeah, just for us to consume it easier.

I mean, the way that you have the actions lined up, I think it's really helpful that you summarize them page by page.

But I think maybe the staff time is something that our human resources department can calculate, right?

We wouldn't need to go to a consultant to understand how much the cost to actually run these programs and how much it costs to fund them.

Yeah, we um I probably maybe not HR, but we can we can take an initial stab at it from a staff perspective.

I think to do a deep dive like what was done the other plan, it would it would be just go much deeper, but we can at least kind of give a like some of the plans that Robin talked about earlier.

It's very many minimal staff time.

Well, we can say that, but some of them are probably much more staff time intensive, and we can clarify which ones those are.

Yeah, I mean, even if it's an estimate, because we're committing to these actions once we approve this plan, right?

So we need to know what we're committing to spending as a city.

Sure.

Yeah, we can come up with a way to identify the amount of staff time on average.

It may not be perfect, but at least gives you all a sense of this one's very time-intensive.

You know, here's a staff that work on it, here's the cost associated with it.

For sure.

Thank you.

Robin, thanks for the work that you've put into this over the past two plus years.

We really appreciate it.

I also noticed that there were uh pieces that were uh from previous councils, specifically counselor Martin, right?

I saw a lot of elements from him.

So I want to say thank you for listening to previous councils and incorporating them.

We really appreciate the work that's gone into this.

Thank you so much for the briefing.

Uh and council, thanks so much for the questions that you had.

They were really great.

So all right.

Yeah, and feel free to give me a call or send me an email if you want specific to get into the details, but I'll try to put together some of those questions, the answers to the questions that I received today.

Thanks, Rob.

Thanks for your time.

The recording has stopped.

For translation services, please use the QR code on the poster on the left-hand side of the room over there.

And or on the front page of the agenda.

To begin this meeting, I'd like to invite you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God is liberty and justice for all the interests for all.

Mayor Pace.

Here.

Councilor Harris.

Here.

Councillor Salgado.

Here.

Councilor Case.

Here.

Councillor Annvarry.

Here.

And Councillor Alcair and Counselor Sinclair are absent.

Thank you.

Our first presentation this evening is an annual update from David Moore, who serves as the vice chair of the historic landmarks advisory committee.

David, welcome.

Thank you.

Just press the little button in the middle of that console.

There you go.

You're you are live.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you for the opportunity to share.

Really excited about some of the things that uh are happening with the uh historic landmark advisory committee.

Um six different things want to just uh touch on briefly, and then if you have any questions, there'll be opportunity for that at the end.

Uh the first thing is we did a um uh a mailer to all of the different properties on the cultural resource inventory this year.

We have uh over 80 different properties on the cultural resource inventory.

And so letting those property owners know uh that their property is on there.

There were some people that weren't aware of that, but then also letting them know of some of the uh benefits of being part of the um cultural resource inventory for the city of Hillsborough.

One is the uh Hillsborough uh heritage plaques uh that's made available to them.

And a number of years ago we started offering those where the city would actually pay for half the cost of that if the property owner paid for half.

Uh and then also the uh Kramer uh preservation grant.

Um as a uh result of that, we had a number of uh uh quite a few actual responses to that mailer.

These are some of the examples of some of the Kramer preservation grant uh recipients uh from the past couple of years and some of the the preservation that has been able to happen.

That the Kramer Preservation Grant is a four thousand dollar matching grant.

Uh so if the property owner uh gives up to pays up to four thousand dollars, the city will match that um and to help with uh external um repairs, uh renovations uh to properties that are on the cultural resource uh inventory.

This is one where they had done some repair to the um the uh uh brickwork there, and this one to the siding on the back.

You can see the significant uh improvement uh that that was able to make to continue to keep these uh historic properties in good condition.

Uh as a result of the mailer also, uh, we had seven of the heritage uh plaques that were ordered.

You can see the example of the plaque there to the right of the door.

Uh so these are seven new ones uh that have been ordered this year.

Uh so super excited about that, just helping people to be aware uh of those properties.

Um earlier this year we had the uh preserving historic Hillsborough Awards during the uh uh historic preservation month.

Uh and these are the awards that were given out at that time.

We had really good representation from property owners that came to receive those.

Uh and some years in the past, we haven't had a lot of property owners actually come to the meeting.

So excited about that.

Um the last couple of years is had a presence at the La Strata Chalk Art Festival.

Uh we had a uh Hillsboro Historic Landmark Advisory Committee booth there.

We had a map showing where all of the uh cultural resource inventory properties uh are located around the city of Hillsborough.

We had a lot of uh people that came by and and asked questions, look to see uh where their house was in relation to those.

A number of people asked about how they could uh have their house added to that.

We had interest in a couple people in joining the committee.

Uh so that was really exciting.

Uh and one of the uh highlights uh from this last year uh is actually highlight the city-owned uh fiber optic network.

Uh they've recently agreed uh to give a discount uh to any of the uh properties that are on the cultural resource inventory uh as a way to to partner with uh HLAC and the cultural resource inventory that the city has uh and to add another benefit uh to properties uh that are on there.

And so where highlight is currently available, which is in large part a lot of the uh properties on the CRI are in the the downtown area, which is where Highlight has started their um their service currently, and so offering their uh residential product, which is usually $55 a month for just $10 a month for properties on the CRI, and then also a $20 discount for uh non-residential properties.

Um so that will be beginning at the beginning of next year.

Uh so excited about that, and um yeah, if you have any questions.

Any questions for David?

Counselor Amberey.

Yeah.

Hi.

Uh so um uh may I know who who is Kramer?

Joan Kramer uh was part of the Hillsborough Historic Uh Landmark Advisory Committee.

I believe that she was one of the the first members on the committee, and so that uh preservation grant was named uh after her.

Very cool.

Yeah, I believe she actually served on the committee for 12 years, the full kind of length that you can on a one committee.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other questions?

What intersection are we looking at right here?

That is uh second street looking south.

I'm not sure what the cross street is there.

I was just gonna ask the cross, yeah.

Yeah.

Looks like it's Lincoln.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the Civic Center is to the right.

Yep.

Next to South.

I mean, a hundred.

Courthouse to the right.

Courthouses across the street.

Okay.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

All yeah.

Great.

Any other questions?

David, thanks so much for coming in tonight, and thanks for your work.

You bet.

Thank you.

Right on.

Okay, we're moving to item three, which is public comment.

And before I open public comment, I just want to point out that the council has had several sessions regarding ice.

We've heard over five hours of testimony regarding ICE activity.

Um we will continue to talk about it and uh, but not tonight.

If you want to do public testimony about it, you're more than welcome to.

Uh, we held a special work session on the community impacts of ICE uh on Monday, November 24th.

And the work session led to a formation of a plan of action.

And we have we have shared those details of that plan on the city's website.

So if you are interested in learning more about what we're looking at for the ICE response plan, you can go to the city's website and see that.

The city council will meet again on December 16th to get updates from staff on that plan and to see what we'll be doing moving forward.

So regarding public comment, persons wishing to speak to uh will be recognized at this time.

If you're here in person and wish to speak, please fill out a yellow card.

It's what it looks like, and hand it to the deputy city recorder.

The yellow cards are over on that desk to your left, my right, and the deputy city recorder is right there.

Her name is Aubrey, just give it to Aubrey.

I'm being very specific so everybody knows where the cards are.

We have uh one public hearing listed on the agenda.

So I just want to be clear here.

There's open public comment, you could talk about anything you want, and then there's something called the public hearing.

It happens to be item 5.1 tonight, and it's regarding our housing production strategy.

If you want to talk about the housing production strategy, please wait until we get to that topic.

Item 5.1, I'll announce it.

And then you can comment then on the housing production strategy.

Um if you do, we will need to have some way to contact you.

So on the cards, we only ask for your name and your email.

If you want to c comment on item 5.1, we will need either your email or your address to get back to you.

It is state law that we get back to you regarding what's called a notice of decision.

And so, again, if you want to comment on 5.1, please give us your contact info.

If you don't want to comment on 5.1, no problem.

Not a problem.

Um our yellow comment cards are only asking for your name, and the email is optional.

See when I call on you, please join join us here at the two front tables, one of them.

And uh speak into the microphone so those on Zoom can also hear your comments.

Which one?

Five one.

I think that one's general general, okay.

Um we also have a translation tool, and community members can speak in their language of choice, and there and the city recorder can display the translation on the screen.

Just let the city recorder know what language you want to speak in.

We have one person uh registered to speak virtually, and the deadline to register to speak virtually has now passed.

If you were unable to sign up to speak prior to the deadline to speak virtually, you're always welcome to email your comments to the city council at any time of day.

As a reminder, this is public comment because it's time dedicated to you to inform the city council about your views.

Comments are limited to three minutes, and I'll just let you know there's no back and forth.

We won't ask you questions.

You have three minutes, and then when you're done, the next person comes up.

There's no dialogue.

I just want you to be prepared for that, because it can feel funny when you do your three minutes of comment and then we say nothing.

That's what we do for every public comment time.

So just wanted to let you know that.

And we'll begin by hearing from Demaris Rubio.

And is he virtual?

I do not see them online.

You do not see Demares.

Okay.

Give Demaris just a second.

See if there's anything.

Uh no, I think you should move forward on this.

Okay.

All right.

So we have, let's see, the first person the register.

Uh this is general public comment again, not on item 5.1, the housing production strategy.

We'll hear from Steven Steve Stoltenberg.

Steve, come on up.

And then after Steve, we have Haven Caldreth.

Oh, and he says he's giving his time to Sarah Taylor.

Okay.

So Haven, do you want to speak?

No?

Okay.

So Sarah Sarah Taylor is next.

Sailor Sarah, come on up.

You can come over to the next desk.

And I assume it's not about item 5.1, it's just general comment.

Steve, you just press that middle button there, and we'll get the timer up on the screen.

And so Sarah, just hold tight and we'll wait for Steve to talk, and then you'll be right after Steve.

Does that work?

Excellent.

Steve, you are on, you have three minutes.

Okay.

My question is is what is the oath of office for you guys.

My next question is what is illegal.

And then my third question is is who do you represent?

Those are my questions.

I understand I don't get an answer.

Yes.

Okay.

Are those the only comments you have?

Those are the comments I have because what is the oath of office?

For you council members.

Okay.

Thank you so much for your time today, sir.

Do I turn it off?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Sarah.

Thanks for coming in tonight.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor Pace and members of the board.

I am sure you all are aware that our community is hurting in recent weeks.

ICE and Border Patrol and Customs created chaos in our streets, and many Hasbro families are living in fear.

I'm here tonight with a few ideas that have not been mentioned.

The first would be to enact a hundred and twenty-day eviction moratorium.

Families already struggling to pay their bills now face the added fear of detention separation and homelessness.

A temporary moratori moratorium would give residents the stability they need during a frightening and uncertain time.

I am asking the board to implement a hundred and twenty-day pause with a reevaluation afterward to determine whether an extension is needed.

The second is to address ICE vehicles operating without license plates.

I've personally seen ICE vehicles driving around town without plates.

If any one of us did that, we would be stopped and cited.

Finally, provide direct financial support to affected families.

Residents are struggling to pay rent, keep the lights on, secure legal help, and meet basic needs.

As my mother always said, it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

I'm asking each member of the board to donate one month's salary to support families in crisis.

Thank you for your time, your attention, and your commitment to acting on these urgent matters.

Thank you.

Yes?

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our public comment.

Any more cards?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Moving to item four, the consent agenda.

The items on the consent agenda are normally considered in a single motion.

Any item may be removed for separate consideration upon request by any member of council.

Is there a request to move any items for separate consideration?

Okay.

Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved case.

Do I have a second?

Second Anne.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I have a roll call.

Councilor Salgado.

Aye.

Harris.

Hi.

Case.

Aye.

Annbury.

Aye.

Motion passes.

Thank you very much.

Moving to item five, public hearing.

So now we are moving to item 5.1.

So, Andrew, you'll be called up soon.

All right.

So I just want to give you a heads up.

All right.

Long range miscellaneous 004-23 housing production strategy.

Consider adopting a resolution to readopt that Hillsboro Housing Production Strategy Cycle 1, 2025 to 2030, as a guiding planning document required to be completed by the state and containing specific and meaningful plans, tools, actions, and policies to address identified housing needs along with a timeline for adoption, completion, implementation, and impact for each strategy.

Resolution number 2907 is available.

And I will open the public hearing on item 5.1.

I'd like to invite Dan Rutzick and Dan Diaz to come forward.

Good job, guys.

You're already here.

You want to go for it?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

For the record, Dan Dias, economic and community development director, and I'm joined by our long-range planning manager Dan Rutzick.

I just wanted to introduce this topic because this is a multi-year effort that is a result of a remand of the housing production strategy that the council approved last year that our staff uh, in addition to extensive public engagement, have worked with state agencies to bring back for your consideration and public hearing this evening.

I especially want to thank Dan Rutzick and our long range planning team as well as our affordable housing team that plugged into many of the policy proposals you saw in the packet and as part of this item.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Dan for a brief presentation.

And then we're happy to stay for the council's questions prior to opening up for public comment.

We're also happy to come back after public comment if the council has any final questions before your deliberation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, good evening, Dan Rutzick Long Range Planning Manager.

Um excited to bring the Hillsborough Housing Production Strategy Cycle 1 2025-2030 to the mayor and council this evening for re-adoption.

I'm gonna just go through about seven slides and then open up for questions.

Um the housing production strategy HPS is a state required planning document outlining specific actions the city will take over a six-year period.

The purpose of the HPS is to help ensure housing supply meets the community's current and future housing needs.

And the identified need is from our housing production, our Hillsborough 2023 housing needs analysis and the housing production strategy's contextualized needs analysis.

So in terms of timeline, um, as Dan just mentioned, um we received from the Department of Land Conservation and Development, DLCD, a remand notice last April of the Council adopted housing production strategy from last December.

Here we are a year later.

And um just to highlight a couple of the intervening pieces from this last year.

One is we had a council work session in June to talk about the readoption next steps.

Um we then went forward working very closely with DLCD and our project consultants to put together a housing production strategy readoption draft.

Um then we came back to council in October for a work session that give updates on where we've been, and then we took the document and made it available to members of our technical advisory committee from last year, along with um folks who provide testimony during the council public hearing, who provide testimony during the DLCD public comment period and others, and it was posted on our project website.

And from there we then finalize the housing production strategy in November.

Okay, sorry about that.

Next slide.

Okay.

So the city staff, we've worked really closely with DLCD this past fall to ensure compliance with the DLCD remand conditions.

Uh we've edited actions to align with the identified housing needs.

We made actions more clear and committal, um, and we more clearly articulated the specific action timelines.

So we now have 22 new actions in the um topic areas of regulatory, land-based partnership, incentive, and investment.

And as you can see from these slides, it's really hard to read because it shrunk down quite a lot.

But as you can see here, it really very clearly identifies when um the project um will begin, in which year, when it will be completed or approved, uh when implementation will happen, and then when the impact to needed housing will occur.

So working in terms of over the last month and a half since our October council work session, we've working really closely with DLCD, received confirmation that three actions that previously we were told were exploratory and would not be evaluated as part of the housing production strategy review in 2026.

In talking with DLCD staff, they communicated that these three actions moved from exploratory to committal because of the city's uh inclusion of more committal and clarifying language, uh specifically having to do with action 4.2, 4.1 and 3.4.

So that was really uh positive affirmation this past month.

Um some other major changes since October is um the partnership action 3.4 move from an investment action to focus on partnering with the regional government to um focusing on helping to um partner with the regional government to help coordinate and plan for a future revenue source for affordable housing.

So that was another major change.

Instead of Action 4.3 was amended to specifically target middle income housing as part of expanding the use of the vertical housing development zone program.

And uh finally, just one more example is the investment action 5.3 title was changed to approve criterion housing solicitations to include preferences for support of housing accessible units and affordable housing projects in order to better reflect the action detail.

So these give kind of a high-level perspective of some of the major changes that have come through in the last month and a half, two months.

And so following this evening's um council consideration of this resolution to readopt the housing production strategy, we would then upload the documents to the Department of Land Conservation Development's website, and their review would begin in the new year, and the city would receive a decision letter from DLCD in April.

And then beyond that, we would be moving into implementation.

Before the council this evening, um there should be RIN testimony that was submitted by community member Dirk Knutson.

Uh Dirk served on our housing production strategy technical advisory committee last year.

It was fantastic to have a whole wide range of technical advisory committee members participating.

Uh Dirk shared that um over the last decade, he has really advocated for um system development charges, SDCs to have an adjusted amount for middle housing, and um was very much wanting the action involving the SDC study and implementation to move faster sooner than is what is shown in our housing production strategy before you this evening.

Um city staff have focused this last nine months on responding to the remand conditions of the housing production strategy.

Uh we are excited to be finalizing a scope of work in order to go out and bring a consultant on board in 2026 to begin the SDC, the system development charge study and analysis.

It will include consideration of uh potential adjustments having to do with middle housing.

Um, but that is the timeline we're set at for right now.

So with that, um turn it over for council questions.

Any questions?

Council.

Councilor Harris, then counselor Sergado.

Thank you.

I had two things.

They may be more comments or observations than anything, but I do want to make a record of public record of my understanding and the reasons for my vote, which I will be voting to approve this based upon the understandings that I have received from City Administrator's Office.

Um, under action, I think it's action 3.4 partner at partner uh agreements to establish a stable funding source for affordable housing.

Um I think that my understanding is that language does not bind this council or any future councils to agree to any specific or any form or structure of fee or tax that may be agreed upon by Metro County or any of our partners, we are still able to make our own decisions and either vote for or against as a council as part of a tax or fee that will be imposed upon our citizens.

So I want to make a record that my vote for this is based upon that understanding, not and obviously we're gonna work in good faith and try and reach consensus.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is I don't want this to be a binding um requirement.

And my understanding it's not.

Second thing is actually on the SDCs and fees.

I agree this needs to be uh somewhat urgent.

There's very few levers the city can use in order to reduce the cost of housing.

Um of them is SDCs and fees.

And in reality, that's not even going to reduce the cost of housing short term.

It's more of a long-term strategy because markets are going to be markets that are going to sell for the houses for they're going to sell.

But if we encourage more people to build here to get those little extra profits, eventually we will increase our inventory, which will reduce or stabilize or flatten out the cost of housing.

So I think that that is already a long-range issue to deal with.

And so the sooner we do that, the sooner we will reach that more equilibrium where uh supply and demand is a little more equal.

So I I do and I've been talking about that since I was during my election, you know, two years, a year ago plus you I was talking about that.

So this is not new, and I'm not the only one that's talked about this, nor is Mr.

Newton, and I know that we've all talked about it.

So I but I just for the record I want to make clear that I I believe that is a relatively urgent thing because it does have a longer horizon result to it.

So the sooner we get to it, the better off we will all be.

Thank you.

Counselor Sergato.

Yeah, I just want to, I guess, double down or back up what Counselor Harris is saying on the SDC.

And last time you had we had the work session on this.

I also asked about a timeline and you know shared how urgent it is.

I mean, one of the things that's highlighted in the plan is the different populations that are impacted by housing costs, right?

And one is that one of those is seniors.

And so I've talked to a couple of people now that have taken the step to build ADUs in their backyards so they can help their their parents move in and help them, and they talk about how much it costs them to build an ADU.

So I think, you know, just to back up what Councillor Harris is saying, uh it is more urgent.

So uh the timeline seems a little bit long.

Uh so I would like to see it done a lot quicker, if possible, to get that study done and actually implemented because you know these are things that are happening uh, you know, time is flying by for these people, and the the more people we have that need that ADU housing, we want to make it easier for them to build and encourage them, because that keeps people in in Hillsborough also, right?

If we're able to kind of create that opportunity for them.

So thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, Councilor Harris.

I'm sorry, I did have one other item in my notes here that I had just jotted down.

Another issue that I would like to see move along is any a review of the state building code, see if we can modify any one for local purposes.

I brought this up before about single stairway access in some smaller apartments would potentially open up small smaller parcels to get more units on where appropriate.

Um and I I know the one response uh legitimate response was well, we need to make sure that that's okay with you know fire inspectors and stuff and engineer.

I get that, but that also is another issue where we could do some um sort of infill.

I mean, I guess it would be called infilled, even if if it's within the you know, on a city lot or two city lots, uh, where you could increase some density as long as you don't obviously um create a dangerous situation.

So I'm gonna flag that a little bit as well.

That's not for this report, but it is related to this because it is mentioned in here uh as a tool to be used.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Dan Rutzick, thank you, Dan Diaz, and Andrew Barker.

Is opportunity for your public comment on item 5.1 housing production strategy.

Similarly, you will have three minutes and we will not engage in conversation.

So evening, my name is Andrew Barker.

I am a Hillsborough resident.

It seems to me that this housing production strategy in front of you is not actually very serious about producing housing.

Uh the chart that they had up about the timelines uh helpfully shows which actions that are being proposed have high impact, have medium impact, have low impact.

And you'll notice that all of the items that have high impact are not scheduled to even begin until 2027 at the earliest, and most of them begin in 2028.

The housing affordability crisis that we have in Hillsboro is now.

It is not in two or three or five years.

And the people who are struggling to pay rent can't wait five years for you to only begin starting to implement one of these actions in 2028, and then waiting for its actual effect to happen in 2030 or later.

So I'm asking you to direct your staff to come back with a new plan that really prioritizes the high impact items for 2026.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew.

Uh Aubrey, do we have any additional yellow cards for item 5.1?

No.

Okay.

Does the council have any additional questions for staff related to this item?

Councillor Ambry.

Yeah, I I uh I I would like to understand the timeline a little bit better.

Dan, you might mind coming back up?

The Dan's So what's your specific question, Counselor Amory?

Yeah, when we um when we had the chart up with the with the table and the line items with the years.

Can we get back to that?

Can we get back to those slides, Mark?

Please.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks.

Uh did you want the next one, the the timeline actual?

Or this one?

Yeah, this is fine too.

So uh so uh for like if we take the first one, Action 1.1.

So uh it A means it's gonna start in 2028 and then uh complete by 2030?

Is that how I read it?

So um the gray indicates the year it will start.

So in this case, 1.1 will start in 2026, be adopted in 2028.

Yes.

That's what I thought.

Okay, yes.

Okay, very good.

So there are multiple highs that are being are starting next year.

Yeah, I think I think it's may I I I was a little mis uh confused as well when we uh when I looked at it the first time.

All right.

Very good.

Great.

Any other questions for staff?

Thanks.

Mayor, may I add just one additional piece to that?

Please, of course.

And also to respond to the public comment received.

This it's an important, I think to note that this slide and the next slide that you saw, and and to the point about the high items, especially um starting, most of them are some of them are underway already currently, many of them, as you see on like this site, for example, are starting in the coming year.

Um that work is happening.

A couple of them, as you'll see, like in this particular slide, are policy-related items.

And so we will try to run these as efficiently as we can, but when we are amending codes, we are asked to apply our city's engagement framework.

We typically try to conduct community engagement around those policy decisions, frame them up effectively, and then do the appropriate engagement with both our planning commission and our council.

So while we do seek to move as expeditiously as possible, some of the items that you see that we start but might take a year and a half or two years, is because oftentimes in this particular case it is an extensive policy package and there is some additional research and groundwork that we have to establish.

So I want to respond to that because acknowledging that there are multiple years till we get to the adoption of the implementation phase here, that is the reason for for a couple of those.

Some are to as was noted earlier with uh the system development charge and the development fee conversation, those are two pieces that we have work already commenced in the evaluation of that, but it will take some time to come forward because as the council is aware, those financial decisions, system development charges and what we are or aren't charging there can affect what we're then charging and covering cost and the permitting fee side and or then the downstream utility rates.

And so they are interconnected in our staff goal and and the direction we've received, at least we understood from council and also from city managers' offices, bring those forwards thoroughly and expeditiously, but understand the trade-offs and the impacts, because if we do give in one location financially, we have to be ready to address and answer that how do we pick up those costs or find ways to cut those costs elsewhere.

The last thing, and and this is an oversight on on staff's part, so I wanted to own that.

What you saw in the presentation this evening is the new items coming forward.

What we didn't cover in the presentation this evening, but that's in the packet is a similar set of tables of all the additional actions that are also already underway or being implemented.

So I did just want to note for the sake of the public hearing that there are extensive programs and efforts already underway, some of which have been underway for a period of time, some of which have been deployed more recently, also seeking to enhance housing production across the community.

So just to note that uh for the sake of the public record.

Great.

Thank you, Dan.

Any other questions?

Councillor Harris.

Thank you.

Is it my understanding that there's an RFQ or an RFP out for development of the SDC study?

There are two efforts.

There is one that the economic and community development partner department is leading in coordination with city manager's office and many of our peer departments, including parks and recreation, fire, water department, public works, uh and in some cases other agencies, because we need to, I think importantly point out that many of the system development charges aren't solely under the direct control and decision making of the city.

We have peer agencies that may administer or hold the ultimate authority over those system development charges that we also have to work with if we're going to modify or change them.

There is a scope of work to assess all system development charges citywide to make sure we benchmark the baselines, frame up the policy questions, such as can we tier for middle housing or should we look at adjusted rates for affordable housing or senior housing or system development charges?

And so that work is to establish that baseline, frame and bring options to some of those policy questions to then implement per the timelines that you outlined.

So that scope has been drafted.

There is a separate system development charge effort that is being discussed and considered to evaluate additional system development charges for some of our utilities as well.

And so those will be happening somewhat uh in tandem and in parallel, but could also add into the mix of that conversation.

I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, I guess.

Council Harris.

I guess the question is the one that's in development, the RF, I don't know if it's RFQ, RFP, whatever it is that's in development.

Um for the scope.

It's developing the scope of that.

What is your timeline on completion of that?

Do you have you developed one yet?

Because this looks like it's going to be through three years, you know.

Absolutely.

So the scope for the broader STC system development charge scope has been completed.

We uh initially went out to seek responses to those RFPs, and unfortunately got a pretty limited pool of candidates.

So we are right now actively assessing which way to go with that.

Do we repost and solicit additional consultant interest support to progress the work?

Um that is the case.

The scope is completed.

The RFP had been initiated.

To the development fees piece, the the twin item in the implementation on the next slide, uh, that RFP has already been issued, and much of that baseline work and data collection has already been completed.

We are in the formation of the policy questions there as well.

So that one is is actually preceding and progressed a bit further than the SDC as well.

But that RFP has also been scope completed, issued work commenced.

So do you still anticipate us not being able to make changes until 2029?

Much of that will depend on in the system development charge space, how the different SDC scopes and efforts are managed, as well as the extensiveness of the policy considerations.

If we're focused just on one specific area, that is limited in terms of the fiscal impact assessment, coordination with peer jurisdictions.

Because that scope is right now larger across more SDCs, that's why we've put in the two and a half years until when we anticipate being able to fully come back roughly in the 2028 timeline for full council adoption.

Again, that's the consideration of those policies, but taking the steps to adopt and be ready to implement those as well.

So it is a substantive amount of work, um, but that is the estimated timeline now given the scope, which is a significant scope of work across all SDCs and across all housing types.

Is it possible?

I'm gonna take this sort of offline a little bit, but is it possible to get more of a understanding through maybe a clear memorandum, the different processes that you need to complete, the different timelines, uh, whether the staff is doing it or you're going to contract to do it, and the when decisions have to be made, because it does seem like three years is a long time to me, particularly if what you say is a lot of the work has already been done.

But I understand there's partner issues that need to be dealt with, like parks and you know, duality to Alton Hills Parks or whatever that we have to deal with.

But maybe I I just need a better understanding of why it's gonna be three years.

And I'm getting a lot of it.

It's complicated.

I know you squeeze a balloon here, it bulbs out there.

I know that's an issue.

We got budget issues we have to deal with as well.

Uh but maybe a better way for me to better understand this is just to get a memo or something from your office.

We'll defer to city manager's office ultimately on that.

But we absolutely are planning and will bring individualized periodic updates and project plans to updates to council beyond just this evening's presentation as we get into each of those sub-tasks more.

I think it also is important to note that this graphic, while nice to illustrate everything kind of in a holistic way, the 2028 year, all 12 months are shown in a single block.

And so our goal right now would be to try to hit the earlier part of 2028, but we do anticipate needing the bulk of 26 and likely at least parts of 27 to really have the full policy framing and vetting again and some engagement work done.

Um, but that doesn't necessarily mean we would need to be at the tail end of 28.

So I just want to flag that too.

But we're happy, Robbie, I'll defer to you too of which of these items do we sequence to bring back more details on, but we can do it for all of them, frankly, as we progress the work.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I apologize.

I I should have asked uh our city manager, not your not you directly, Dan.

I apologize.

Well, I'll just add, uh, and I agree.

Uh we it we're hearing very clearly from you all that this is a high priority.

So uh we will we will make sure and expedite this to the extent possible and make sure to get back to counsel about the process involved with all of this.

Counselor Sogato.

Yeah, my question is about the land-based actions uh 2.2.

Can you just share briefly what are the considerations we have to take and the steps that we need to take to get to completion on that?

That's the identifying new city owned land for affordable housing.

Just want to get a better idea of what goes into that.

Sure.

So some of this is again one of those areas of work that if you look at the existing efforts, which are not in this presentation, but they are in the packet materials.

We are already evaluating and continuously evaluate city-owned sites or future potential sites for housing projects.

For example, Century Commons, the Affordable Housing Project was identified through the summer method is in the final stages of getting their certificates of occupancy and people moving into their new homes, which is exciting.

Uh similarly with Nueva Esperanza going on the the former parks maintenance site and the like.

So we are continuing to do that.

Uh Chris Hardy, who is here, our affordable housing team and our planning team are using the recently updated buildable lands inventory, which identifies both vacant sites across the city and city-owned sites to see if there's surplus sites.

Um right now there's not an immediate site, but we are evaluating a couple.

That can be tricky, though, because if you take a site out of a park's inventory, that can diminish parks operations, or if you take a site away from a park and ride facility, then you know there's trade-offs there.

But that work is underway.

The other land item where we would potentially be partnering with uh nonprofit and religious and other types of organizations for potential housing sites, that too is something that will continue to be progressive in is happening now and will continue to happen as we both can seek out partners for that, or as partners may also approach us with a change of circumstance of a use of one of their sites or their awareness of the program and interest.

Does that answer for that?

Yeah, no, I just want to get a better understanding of that.

Right.

Any other questions for staff?

Thank you very much, staff.

Appreciate it.

Um I also want to reiterate Dan Rutzick mentioned that we received one piece of written testimony from Dirk Kenudson, and that has been included in the agenda packet.

Just wanted to verbally acknowledge that.

All right.

The public hearing is now closed.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number two nine zero seven?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Salgado seconds.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call?

Councilor Salgato?

Aye.

Councilor Harris.

Aye.

Counselor Ambury.

Aye.

Counselor Case.

Aye.

Thank you very much.

Uh moving to item six, unfinished business.

There is none.

Moving to item seven, ordinances.

Item 7.1, first reading of Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan, otherwise known as HCP, Hillsborough Concept Comprehensive Plan Amendment 001-25 Public Facilities Plan.

Consider the Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt an ordinance for a Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan Amendment to incorporate the public facilities plan with the Chapter 16 System Plan Materials, incorporating by reference adopted facility master plans, revise and reorganize Chapter 16, and edit other chapters of the HCP as needed to ensure clarity and consistency with the public facilities plan update.

Ordinance number 6509 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number 6509?

Harris, so move.

Thank you.

Second case.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call?

Counselor's case.

Aye.

Anvary?

Aye.

Harris.

Hi.

Salgato.

Aye.

Ordinance number six five zero nine is adopted.

Moving to item 7.2.

Hillsboro Comprehensive Plan Amendment 002-25.

Regional and town center boundaries.

Consider the Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt an ordinance for Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan Amendment to adopt Metro 2040 growth concept regional and town center boundaries by revising text and figures in Section 2 design and development and Section 35 design type designations map.

Ordinance number 6510 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number 6510?

Harrison moves.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second case.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

May I please have a roll call?

Counselors Harris.

I case.

Aye.

Ambry.

Hi.

Salgato.

Aye.

Ordinance number six five one zero is adopted.

There are no second readings.

Moving to item eight, new business.

A point one.

Consider the parks and recreation commission's recommendation to approve a resolution authorizing the city by and through its parks and rec department to apply for the land and water conservation fund to secure funding to aid an off-trail nature play area at Evergreen Park.

Resolution number two nine zero four is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number two nine zero four?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second, Harris.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call?

Councillors Ambry.

Hi.

Salgado.

Aye.

Harris.

Hi.

Case.

Aye.

Thank you.

Resolution number two nine zero four is adopted.

Moving to item 8.2.

Consider adopting a resolution.

Adopting the community wildfire protection plan.

Resolution number 2908 is available.

However, before I ask for a motion on this item, I'd like to invite Fire and Rescue Department Chief Downey and GIS and Asset Management Systems Supervisor Kristen Judy forward.

Welcome, Chief.

Welcome, Kristen.

How are you doing?

Press that little button in the middle.

When you have a green mic, you are live.

All right.

Thanks for having us.

Mayor, counselors.

We wanted to give you a brief presentation on the community wildfire protection plan.

But before we do that, I'm just going to give you a little bit of the history.

Following the 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon, the city applied for and was awarded a hazardous mitigation grant program post-fire grant to complete a community wildfire protection plan.

This is a community-based plan focused on identifying and addressing local hazards and risk from wildfire.

In April of 24, we entered into a contract with Shaleda Holdings to develop the plan, and that was completed on October 31st of 2025.

It allows the city to better prepare for, mitigate, and respond to wildfires in the city's green spaces and other identified hazard areas.

But again, I I want to raise awareness but not alarm anybody.

I mean, the probability in Hillsborough is low, but again, the impact considering where the green spaces are and what is adjacent to the green spaces, the impact could be significant.

So the plan is long, it's a couple of hundred pages.

So members of the community could flip through the plan.

Um, but one of the best parts of this plan was it's digital.

And so Kristen and her team in ISGIS uh worked again with the consultant using what's known as an experience builder application to basically digitize the community wildfire protection plan.

And we wanted to give you a brief demonstration of the electronic version of the community wildfire protection plan because it's much easier to navigate.

So I'm going to turn it over to Kristen.

Thanks, Chief.

All right.

So as Chief mentioned, we did work with the um consultant Shalletta to develop this application.

Oops, and this is the problem with live demos.

I apologize.

And while I bring this back up, what we did is we um worked with them to build an application, and in doing so, um, they developed an application technically speaking, and then we have gone back through and done things to both rebrand uh ensure that the application meets accessibility and usability requirements.

I apologize, and I will demonstrate that for you here in just a moment.

There we go.

Okay.

Here it comes.

So the first thing that the user is presented with when they see this application is this screen that kind of gives them a brief overview of what is in the application, the data that's within it, and then kind of the purpose behind it.

So the people can advance beyond that to then explore it further.

And one of the first things that they come to is this interactive portion of the application that they can pan and zoom around in.

They can search by an address.

For example, we could search for the address here at 150 East Maine and zoom into that location.

We can take a look at all the data that is available within the application, which right now the community wildfire risk reduction zones are displayed, but there are other data points, uh, priority area fuel treatments, existing vegetation types, and fire behavior fuel models that are available as well as the fire stations that are in the area.

Which right now the community wildfire risk reduction zones are displayed, but there are other data points, uh, priority area fuel treatments, existing vegetation types, and fire behavior fuel models that are available as well as the fire stations that are in the area.

And then folks can turn that data on and off and interact with it.

There's also a legend that helps people understand what is being displayed currently in the application.

And then there are tools to measure and see how far one might be from a particular area.

You can print and then also zoom to your exact location.

Yeah, do you mind scrolling up so we could see the exact location, Kristen?

Sure parts.

Can you see that right there?

Where are we on an outdoors in?

And so you can see right here, there is one small area, probably corresponding to the treed area across the street by the post office.

This will um bring up a pop-up that displays information about that area.

Forgive me, the screen size is a little limited, so we may not be able to see that.

Pardon me.

Apologies, I'm not sure why it unshared there.

There we go.

So folks can interact with that data.

They can also then turn other layers on and off.

There's that pop-up that explains that that is a direct exposure zone.

And you can get pan and zoom in and out, continue to turn layers on and off and see other information in the interactive application.

And then farther down in the application, you can scroll down and see various other less interactive but very informative and complementary to the plan.

Um information around existing vegetation, fuel behavior models, the risks, the wooy or wild urban interface, fuel treatment areas, and defensible space.

So users can click on any of these and they'll be directed to a new section of the application.

So if we go to defensible space, for example, it takes us to this nice graphic that does a good job of explaining what defensible space is for a property.

And then you can also continue scrolling down.

And it'll from there, after defensible space, it will take you to an area where you can users can actually um go to the Oregon State Fire Marshall's website and um see what the availability there is to do a defensible space assessment for their location.

So they're able to search and look for that.

It gives them contact information in order to do that.

Users can then return back up to those other areas where they can all begin to explore other areas of interest.

And then finally, in the application, there is a quiz that allows users to test their knowledge of the plan based upon what they've learned in both the application and the plan that's itself if they choose to read that.

So here they can work through this interactive quiz.

It gives them an idea of what you know, gives them hints around what the correct answer is, and it goes all the way through until they're completed.

And that is in a nutshell the application.

Are there any questions I can help answer for folks?

So thanks for the briefing.

We've already heard from some counselors that we are quote unquote so doing this.

Um thanks for the quiz, the quiz.

Um counselor case.

I love it.

Um thank you.

I I'm on the community wildfire protection plan page that was in the staff report, and this magnificent tool I'm not finding on there, and it might be an operator error.

It is still in development.

So, as I said, we are working on, and while I was uh fumbling with trying to get it back on the screen, we are working to um ensure it's branded properly, it's usable, and it's accessible as well.

So those are underway with my team now.

We expect to have it live sometime at the beginning of next year.

Amazing.

That's great because I was looking at the map, uh, the East Wind Fire Risk map that's on there currently, and I live between Aranco Woods Nature Park and Noble Woods, and so I'm very excited to drill in a little further and see just how it could how it could go if it all goes up in flames.

So thank you.

Counselor Amberey.

Yes.

Uh uh can you talk a little bit about defensible space?

I will defer to Chief Downey on defensible space.

Sure.

Um, yeah, there's really sort of three zones if you look at a structure.

Um, what the recommendations are within five feet of the structure itself.

The recommendation is it's you have no combustible vegetation or any combustible materials within five feet of your home.

And then uh Kristen's bringing it up now.

The the distance between the five feet to 30 feet is just really sort of landscape management and all the way out that you're talking really about wildland urban interface areas where they go, they expect the defensible space to be all the way out to 100 feet, which in an urban area is just not really going to be possible.

But it's it's really about limiting the amount of combustible materials that are right up against right up against your structure, basically.

So 30 feet is the preferred defensible space around somebody's home.

Any other questions?

Go ahead.

Can I show one thing?

Of course.

Um can you go back to the main map?

And I some of the some of my concern with the plan was, and then if we can click on the priority fuel treatment areas, um yeah, we could zoom all the way out.

My one of my concerns going into this is what were the recommendations going to be for vegetation removal.

Um, right?

We love our trees, and tree removal is not going to be a number one option for creating fuel breaks, if you will.

So if we look at if we can zoom out, what they what the what Shileda did for us is they they looked at all the factors involved and they identified these areas in blue as the priority treatment fuel areas.

Um Councillor Case, you you just you just mentioned Noble Woods Park.

It's it's on the list, so is Noble Woods Park.

But what the recommendations are is really what our fuel concerns are in Hillsboro is what we call litter.

It's dead and down.

It's it's leaves, it's pine needles, it's fuels that are already dead and on the ground.

This is not a large effort to remove anything that isn't already I mean it it it's a part of the ecology, it's important, but this is really about timber litter and removing what we call ladder fuels from what are sort of dead fuels on the ground to non-invasive species that sort of move up the tree and then go into the canopy.

We want to avoid a ground fire from dead and down fuel that could be removed efficiently, spreading up into the canopy, and then if we have a wind-driven fire, we have a very significant issue on our hands.

So this is this is one of the interactive portions I think people we would really like them to pay attention to.

It'll tell you exactly how large that space is and what the hazards are, and then the next step for the city is to create a steering committee or stand up a steering committee that will determine what the best actions are and then engage the community again, like we did through this process and discuss about what actions are best for the city to mitigate these risks.

The last thing I'll say is this experience builder is also translated in Spanish.

The button in the upper right-hand corner, if you click on Spanish, the entire experience builder is is in Spanish as well.

Excellent.

Are there any other questions?

Councilor Harris?

Quick question.

Did you take into account areas that were just outside the city limits as creating a danger potential danger to people within the city limits?

We we did.

We we initially went out with uh with an area that was not only specific to Hillsborough, but a little bit outside Hillsborough, and we just did not get a lot of um bids for the amount of money we had through the grant for that.

So we narrowed it to the city limit.

So the only elements of the plan that show hazards outside the city limits is it's kind of that multicolored red, pink, green area outside the city limits.

What that is meant to show is that is the ember cast.

So if we have fuels that emit fuels in the wind beyond the city limits, that's a half mile radius outside the city of where something could spread from inside the city to out, but it's only a half a mile.

You could go the other way too.

It could go the other way, yeah, into the city depending on the direction of the wind, yes.

That's what I was wondering, whether or not like a fire that started just outside city limits.

Um was that considered when you were creating this plan?

Yeah, one one of the one of the one of the things that was very, very interesting to the to the consultant when they were in, because they did come to Hillsborough in July of 24 and actually kind of do a boots on the ground assessment all the way through Rock Creek Park, all the way down from Highway 26, all the way down and through to the Clean Water Services Facility, and then a couple of other target hazards.

They were they were surprised to see as soon as you get past the city limits how quickly we go into agricultural landscape and what that naturally means is a sort of a natural fire break.

Just my experience.

We live right just off of Mackay Creek on 13th Avenue, and that's before you get to the creek, before you get to agriculture, there's a lot of standing trees in that area, which is just which abuts the city.

In fact, there was a big fire.

I think it was a year ago, maybe, burnt down a big uh a big barn up there off of uh Padgett, uh which was just outside the city limits.

So I was just curious because obviously something like that could impact people within the city.

Sure.

And there's no agricultural farm break between us and that.

It's right there because we're right on the creek, and I'm sure there's other areas like that as well.

So I was just curious as to whether they had considered things like that.

Yeah, and and because we we had asked, so we had to sort of limit our scope to the city, but there is a partner document to this.

Washington County just completed a countywide community wildfire protection plan as well.

Um the reason we thought it was so important to do our own is if you look at the previous county wildfire protection plan and then the regional group, the RDPO, the regional disaster preparedness organization did a five county assessment of wildfire risk.

Those two plans mentioned Hillsboro maybe once or twice.

Comparatively in the region, again, we have a very, very low fire risk.

Um I just wasn't comfortable with us being complacent in the low risk category, and we wanted a a self-assessment.

Counselor Envery.

Thank you.

Um when when uh I I didn't catch it.

When do you do when do you think the tool is going to be up?

We're at the process of, like I said, uh developing further for accessibility, usability, uh Spanish language translation, among other things.

And so we expect by Q1 up next year.

Q1 up next year.

Perfect.

And then my other question was so um uh Chief Downey, so uh Hillsboro is lower risk or low risk.

Um but that uh can you kind of help me calibrate that?

Um like LA was probably high risk how like Los Angeles was probably high risk.

But like how how can you calibrate it?

Uh sure in some way because uh I mean why why and was LA high risk?

That's a bit of a because it was a residential area.

Well, there's I mean, there's this okay.

Um, how much time do we have?

Well, I'm just to put LA into perspective, right?

Um 80 to 100 mile an hour winds.

If we have one house on fire, and this is a national standard in the in the American fire service, one house on fire requires 15 firefighters to get that one house fire under control.

If you have an urban conflagration with thousands of homes under 80 mile an hour wind conditions, that fire is not going to get stopped until it hits the Pacific Ocean.

It's just not.

Um there's there's just not enough resources.

And I I know there's been I've been watching what's gone on in LA and the aftermath of preparedness and those kinds of things.

They could have done some things better, but be I'll be quite honest with you, they could they could have had 10,000 firefighters standing next to those homes and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Um I think why we're we're low risk is uh we we we are in what they call an occluded wildland urban interface, is we have a very clear line of demarcation between where our green spaces are and where our structures are.

It's very, very well defined.

Um most of our fuels are green.

Um it's not they're continuous, but it what I mean by continuous is it's not like the forest.

We get pockets, right?

I mean, we have natural fire breaks like Cornell and TV Highway.

We just don't have a continuous fuel load.

My in order for us to have a large fire in the city of Hillsborough, we're gonna have to have an east wind like we did in September of 2020.

We don't have problems with a a lot of fuel, we don't have problems with a lot of change in aspect like mountains and hills and kinds of things.

Um wind.

Wind is what's gonna that's why we have red flag warnings, right?

It's because of wind.

Um if we have uh drought conditions and the wind starts blowing from the east, um, there's two concerns.

Uh one is just the nature of how that's gonna spread quickly.

And if you look at the if you look at the map that's on the screen right now and you and you see that top blue outline, um, that's Rock Creek just north of um Evergreen.

If you can see the diagonal from northeast all the way through down to the middle of the city all the way down to the southwest, I mean that's a continuous green space in the city.

If we have an east wind and the conditions are right, it's gonna run right through there.

It's very, very unlikely.

I don't want to, again, alarm anybody.

It's really, really unlikely to happen.

So yes, this is very, very unlikely.

I'll be I mean, I'll be quite frank.

The reason uh we're we did this is I was in another fire department in 2003, and we did not pay attention to what was the obvious thing in front of us, and before I knew it, we had the Placerville hotshots in the city of Albuquerque fighting a wildland fire.

The Plasterville hot shots are from California.

They were in New Mexico fighting a wildland fire that we did not know was right before us in June of 23.

We had two fires that we had a forest that adjoined a river running through the middle of a city.

Sounds a little bit like Hillsboro.

This is just about awareness and preparedness.

We didn't do this because there was an imminent risk.

I bet you're super fun at parties, Chief.

I am I am.

I I did want to ask a question.

I can quiet a room quickly, yes, ma'am.

I did want to ask a question about Noble Woods.

You were talking about the um the fuel that's on the ground in Noble Woods, and you were talking about standing up a committee.

Were you insinuating that maybe that committee could then have we could have a public service project where people instead of pulling ivy are raking leaves to clear dead fuel out?

Yes, yeah.

That's okay.

That's what we want the steering committee to do is take a look at the recommendations, what are the priorities, and then present the plan to the community.

Like if if Hill's do or day is about removing dead and down in specific areas, that would be a fantastic project.

Sounds like a plan.

I I I we have to be very careful though about telling people how we're going to mitigate the risk.

If they think we're going to go out with out there with chainsaws and chippers and start cutting down trees, I didn't think that would be the result of this, and it's not.

This is really just about ground surface fuels that are already dead and down.

But again, there is there is an ecological impact as well.

You just can't go in there and just you know clean it all out.

It's but that that is the plan, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Just want to drill down a little bit further.

Any other questions?

Okay, Chief Kristen, thank you so much for coming today.

Really appreciate the briefing.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number uh uh resolution number two nine zero eight?

So moved case.

Do we have a second?

Second, Harris.

Thank you.

Are there is there any discussion?

Uh yes.

Sorry.

Uh is this the steering committee is not part of this, right?

That's a separate thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Uh any other questions.

Uh Councilor Sogato.

Oh, no, I don't have any questions.

Okay.

All my questions were answered.

Okay.

May I please have a roll call.

Councillor Salgado.

Hi.

Harris.

Hi.

Case.

I am very.

Great.

Resolution number two nine zero eight is adopted.

Moving to item nine, city manager report.

I'll turn the time over to Robbie Hammond, our city manager.

Thank you.

Mayor.

Um, before I get into it, I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Kristen.

Uh she's walking out and her staff.

Kristen and the GIS team are amazing.

They do so many really cool projects like this.

And so thank you for the partnership with this, and the fire department did a great job at this as well.

So it's just a good good way to highlight uh some really talent that we have on the staff.

Um so just a couple of things I wanted to share with you all tonight.

First of all, we kicked off our holiday season with two great family-friendly uh traditions last month.

Uh on the Civic Center Plaza, we saw an incredible turnout for this year's holidays celebration.

The Hillsborough Downtown Partnership said it was a record attendance with a crowd estimated at more than 10,000 people during the event.

Several local businesses donated their time and equipment to help get the holiday tree ready.

Uh Mayor Pace did a great job of leading the tree lighting, and it takes a great team to put this huge event on.

So a huge thanks to our incredible staff, including Brighty Harrington, who is our cultural arts district manager, uh, Carla Antonini from the Economic and Community Development Department, and Daryl Cecil in our public works department.

And a big thanks to our community partners, uh including the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership, the Tuesday Night Market, and the Evergreen Christian Center, which organized the kids village.

Um I'm also amazed by the hundreds of youth and families who attended our free turkey trot event at Harefield.

It was a little bit rainy um this time.

Year after year, our Parks Rec team does an incredible job building connections and providing the free ways to have fun and stay active and get a photo with the turkey.

Uh thanks to our great Parks and Rec staff led by Kendall Reid, our director, also including Grace Lee, who led the turkey trot with support from Cass Brown and Kevin Zurker, who does a great job with the MC.

And second, I want to invite everyone to enjoy winter village ice skating and Litopia in its final year at the Gordon Faber Recreation Complex.

This year you don't need a reservation uh to go through Litopia.

You can go through as many times as you want.

And this year winter village staff are offering ice skating lessons and special events.

Both events are lots of fun, and you can find full details on the city website.

Thanks to the Parks and Rec events Special Events team that organizes this, led by Kirsten uh Motch Ryder and Nancy Nye.

And thank you to our terrific park maintenance team for rebuilding the ice rink at the Jerry Willie Plaza.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robbie.

Really appreciate that.

Definitely come out uh to Litopia and the Winter Village.

Uh moving to item 10 advice and information.

Community members who want to be informed and engaged on city council matters can sign up to receive the happening in Hillsborough email newsletter.

And Spanish language updates are also available through our Cresciendo Juntos email newsletter.

Please note that the City Council will be meeting an executive session under ORS 192.6602i, as in India, to review and evaluate the employment related performance of the chief executive officer.

FYI uh executive sessions are not open to the public.

No action may be taken in the executive session.

If action needs to be taken, the council will do so in regular session.

And with that, the city council meeting is adjourned.

We will begin executive session at 8 20.

Thank you very much.