Crossing is right at the Williamette Shore trolley.

Um, I personally have struggled to cross this until I got a pattern down.

Um, it's still sort of dangerous though.

I have to check to make sure that there's no trains coming.

I have to turn my chair and pop a wheelie over onto the tracks.

Then I have to turn my chair at ninety degrees and go up the tracks.

Then I have to turn again ninety degrees and come off the tracks by popping multiple wheelies again.

Um to do that, the whole process takes fifteen to thirty seconds.

Um, so it's pretty dangerous and leaves me in a dangerous place.

The other ways to get around this crossing is to take the thirty-five bus across it, or to use the um crossing at lower millennium park.

That crossing has its own challenge with the gates that swing closed that are difficult for a wheelchair user to open and push through at the same time.

I'm left on that pad of concrete while I wait for someone to either open and hold the gate for me or to pull the gate and push my way through.

Um mobility aids struggling to get across.

As well as regular people with um strollers or the elderly with carts.

Um I also wanted to touch on how I think that this crossing is dangerous for the visually impaired.

There's only one um tactile paver that's next to the Williamette um short trolley.

The rest three of those sides don't have any visual tactile pavers at all.

Um so I was hoping that if this is ever addressed, we could put the other three missing pavers in.

Um that's all that I had to state.

Yeah.

Good to have you here.

Matt Johnson.

Excuse me.

All right, thank you all for uh allowing me to speak.

Um my name's Matt Johnson.

My family and I uh live uh in the Brian neighborhood.

There's five of us.

There's five of us, three children, nine, seven, and four respectively.

My comments today are really pertaining to the Lake Oswego Swim Club and the use of the Lorac.

Largely for you know for background, the Lake Oswego Swim Club has about 255 swimmers, 92% of which live in Lake Oswego.

So for quick math, that's around 234 uh Lake Oswego kids and their families that have been negatively affected by the move from the Lake Oswego high school pool to the Lorac.

And challenges that we've experienced, by that I mean the Lake Oswego Swim Club, from moving from the old Lake Oswego High School pool to the Lorac have involved a lack of lane of a lack of lane availability that's forcing most of our squads to have to move over to the Lewis and Clark College to pool to practice.

What that is also done in moving from the from Lake Oswego High School over to Lake Lewis and Clark, and so the Lorac has just forced us to change our practice times to accommodate more kids, fewer lanes, and less time available.

Some of our younger swimmers also have to practice a much later times than in the past because of that those constraints.

And also those constraints have also forced the Lake Oswego Swim Club not to be able to take on new swimmers, which is a problem, of course, because obviously growing and having more swimmers is what we all want to have, right?

Um, and um on that note, the Lorac has also refused to let the Lake Oswego swim club host any uh swim meets there, too, for which um there's been a lot of enthusiasm.

My family's participated, my children have in the swim meets.

Um it's not just because it's a swim club oriented event, but it's more of a community event in which we can cheer on our kids and root for young people aspiring to be better at what they're doing.

Um excuse me, and then lastly, on the Lewis and Clark side of things, it's going to be closed from April and May, which is going to become it's going to further complicate the logistics for the swim club and its practices.

Um, the six communities lap um lap swim lanes are not fully utilized all hours of the day.

So the the idea around this is that by uh you know the a planned use of the Lake Oswego swim club there, you're actually we're we're in a position where we can optimize the number of people using the swim lanes at one given moment in time, enabling a more efficient or greater use of the swim lanes writ large for the Lorac.

So while it's concentrated, it's more kids swimming all at once, which enables a greater use of the pools and its service and its excuse me, services.

Um now, to be fair, and my I don't think my timer ever started to be transparent.

Oh well, are you almost done?

Okay.

Um I'll go quickly, yeah.

Okay.

So really quickly, while while there's going to be some considerations around the point of it being drop-in oriented, I would argue that this by the same token, by a concentrated effort of having you know multiple lanes used by one swim club, we're going to optimize and we'll maximize the number of people that are using the lanes all at once, which is great.

And lastly, and this is probably the most important piece.

Swimming is uh hands down the number one way kids die ages one to four by accidental death.

It's number two for kids ages up to uh between four and fourteen.

So um it's not just because we like swimming and we like to see our kids win or compete in swimming events, it's also public safety.

We live in a city that's surrounding a lake that's bordered on both sides by uh rivers.

There's no better way, or um, I mean, outside of teaching CPR and first aid at all the Lake Oswego schools, um I think we can take a hand on making sure that our kids are safer by giving them more of an opportunity to swim here in Lake Oswego.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Johnson.

Uh Deborah Davis.

Hi, good evening.

Hello.

Hi.

Mayor, City Council members and staff.

My name is Deborah Davis, and I live here in Lake Oswego.

My concerns tonight are based in the actions of the regime in charge of our federal government.

Some might still call it an administration.

It's been five years today since a violent attempt was made by our fellow U.S.

citizens to overthrow our democratic government, and it failed.

However, a renewed effort is underway, and the destruction is occurring piecemeal, bit at a time as institutions that form the pillars of our society are weakened.

Education, health care, law, and science, and we can't forget voting restrictions.

Last Saturday morning, without consultation with or approval of Congress, the regime invaded a sovereign country and physically removed its leader.

Putting aside every single thing about that leader and the specifics about that country, this action was a violation of all the post-World War II agreements put in place to prevent another world war that will now include nuclear weapons.

Having restated everything that we already know, my ask is this.

I'd like the city council to craft and all members to sign onto a letter strongly renouncing our federal government's violation of the international rule of law.

I'd like to see the letter in the LO review and in the Oregonian.

And my desire would be for all communities from the smallest hamlets to the largest cities to speak out against this act.

Whether it's international or domestic, we must insist that we remain a country that respects the rule of law.

The speaking out begins at home.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms.

Davis.

Jeff Goodman.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Goodman.

I am here today on behalf of the Oswego Heritage Council to extend an invitation to all of you or next Friday at 7 o'clock when we have a grand reopening and our hope a ribbon cutting along with the chamber of our exhibit hall, reflecting the dollars that some of the dollars that we receive from a bequest to upgrade the infrastructure of the Oswego Heritage Council home there at the top of 10th and A.

There'll be some light refreshments.

And this is an invitation to you and to anyone else who was watching this meeting to come out at 7 o'clock and join us with the celebration for the reopening of the exhibit hall and going over the history of the city going back thousands of years up to the present day.

Hope you can make it.

What was the date?

Next Friday.

Next Friday.

I think it's the 17th at 7 o'clock.

So wait.

We wanted to accommodate your busy schedule.

Okay.

Seven o'clock.

Is it Friday?

It's Friday, yes.

Friday the 16th.

Right.

Thank you.

Friday the 16th.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for the same.

Thank you.

Appreciate you bringing that to us.

Tom Tom Kurtz.

Chris, did I say that correctly?

Good evening to you.

Hello, good evening.

So my name is Tom Kurtz.

I'm here to discuss LORAC as well.

Did not organize with the swim club, so I was glad to hear we're at a similar mission here tonight, it sounds like.

A lot of time at the old high school pool, so very familiar with that.

And we've really worked hard to build a good relationship with the Lorac staff.

So we want to take a solution-oriented approach to this.

Some key points about how limited space has impacted uh water polo, especially during fall and winter.

Lake Oswego water polo currently has 160 kids in the program.

The vast majority are Lake Swego residents and students at Lake Oswego School District.

Our program is open to kids of all levels.

We don't turn anybody away no matter the swimming ability.

Instead, we'll provide swim instruction if necessary.

But the more kids we take, it gets more credit, especially with limited pool time.

Both Lakeridge and Lake Oswego have experienced unprecedented success.

In the last five years, there's been eight state championships between Lake Oswego and Lake Ridge between the men's and the women's program.

A lot of that success is attributed to the water polo program.

In the last year, uh we've had groups have to travel to Park Rose High School, Tiger to Walton, uh, the Elks Lodge.

If you're not familiar with that, it's in Milwaukee.

It's an outdoor pool.

We have 12 to 14-year-olds practicing their outdoors in the winter.

They're probably there tonight.

So everyone knows what it's like out there.

Imagine being in a swimsuit outside for an hour and a half training to play water polo outdoors because we can't get into the Lorac.

So water polo is meant to be played in an all-deep pool.

So to be able to get access to that is a challenge.

LORAC provides that.

Um, but we haven't been able to get there Monday to Thursday during fall and winter for half of the year.

Um that that presents some some challenges.

Umother thing is LOPO has been able to put eight kids or help them live their dream of playing in college.

Uh we've been successful at that.

So some solutions.

Uh one thing would be just to leave the pool open an hour longer until 9 30 instead of 8 30.

Uh while that is late, the old pool we were able to do that.

Uh, that extra 60 minutes would be very helpful.

Today, kids do that at other pools and then drive 40 to 60 minutes back home.

Um, so give us the option uh to do that.

Uh presents the opportunity uh for lifeguards to get an extra hour as well.

And a lot of the lifeguards are high school students, that's outside of school, so they would be able to do that.

We could also rework the contract with the district to allow for outside parties to share the competition pool during high school if the coaches allow and space allows uh would be an opportunity because the lap lanes, as you heard earlier, are not fully utilized.

You should be able to use the unutilized lanes and limit lap swimming to certain hours.

So do I understand correctly?

I just wanted to so you you're the equivalent of like a swim club for water polo.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

And you're and both of you are working with the school district.

Because I did understand this is one of the conflicts was that you can't have the club teams practicing at the same time as the um as the school teams for some unknown reason.

Correct.

And that's understandable where they need the pool, right?

They actually have the priority during their season because they lost the case.

Well, then even if there was capacity, they just can't be using it at the same time.

Apparently, some OSAA rules or something like that.

So I think that's part of the issue here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's where we think the extra hour in the day would be very helpful.

And then when the schools aren't there, the lab six lanes are for lab swimming all day every day, but not utilized.

And we could probably limit that a little bit.

So we appreciate you bringing this board in as well as the solutions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Kurtz.

Connie, uh, or excuse me, um, Corinne Beaumont.

A parent next door neighbor, so Jeff Goodman.

Oh, yeah, we didn't coordinate with the swim club, but Tom and I um have similar interests.

I'm also here representing LOPO.

Uh so thank you, council uh members for allowing me to come and uh speak tonight.

I'm Corinne Belmont.

I'm an educator uh primarily at Lake Grove Elementary.

I'm also the administrator for Lake Oswego water polo organization, our LOPO.

Um, first, I want to really thank you for the Lorac facility.

It's beautiful, it's an incredible um addition to our community and to our city.

The deep water competition pool has really improved the quality of our training.

Um, also it's greatly increased our visibility to the community.

So we have um more young kids trying water polo than ever before.

We have trials every day at trial requests.

Um LOPO is a nonprofit.

Um a lot of these are kind of the same things that Tom said, so I'll I'll try not to repeat them.

Um but we do have 160 athletes.

Most of them are uh do attend Lake Oswego schools.

Our program uh supports arguably the two most successful high school athletic programs in the city.

Um, as Tom said, we have eight uh state titles in the last five years between the two high schools.

Um, a lot of NCAA collegiate college recruits.

Um and nationally, our athletes compete at the highest levels in place very highly at junior Olympics every year.

So we're very proud of these achievements, but I think um what we're most proud of is being an inclusive program.

So we do not cut players.

So, regardless of your ability, regardless of your ability to swim, um, you are welcome to come and join LOPO, and we will uh provide swim instruction during that time.

So we think that building water safety along with LOSC, that's one of our goals as well.

Um, but the limited availability of the LauraC has created real challenges for us.

Um, as he said, we have to travel distantly, especially in the fall and winter because of the high school aquatics programs.

Um tonight we do have players, I think, that are outdoors at Elk's Lodge, which if you've been there, there's a nice tiki bar covered in snow often in January, and our players are in the water at the same time.

So it's not ideal.

Um, but they're tough, right?

They're water polo players, but it's not ideal.

Um also these pools that we travel to are shallow, and water polos requires deep water.

Um, so we want to be clear, we deeply value our partnership with the Lorac.

We really have enjoyed our time there.

The staff has been great, um, and we want to collaborate.

So um just to reiterate the three uh solutions that we think are possible.

One, extending the pool hours to 9.30 um to allow our programs to continue or have a little bit more space around the high school programs, maybe reevaluate, um, consider sharing that competition pool or some pool time when the high school is there.

Um it may be more of an issue for a swim team, I think, because I think their OSAA water polo is not OSAA.

Um, so that could be possible for us.

And also uh looking at the lap swim and maybe designating it in blocks instead of just having lap swim open all the time.

Because as I think a lot of us are noticing, it's not very efficient in the lap swim.

A lot of those laps are going unused.

So maybe if we block out times instead of being open all day, it'll be more efficient.

Um, our goal is simple keep our kids uh training safely, competitively, and proudly in Lake Oswego.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Ms.

Beaumont.

Thank you.

Dorothy Atwood.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

Thanks again for for your service to our city.

I'm Dorothy Atwood.

I'm representing the Lake Oswego sustainability network today.

And I'm here to talk about our our excitement about the Foothills district.

Um the Foothills district presents a tremendous opportunity for our city, and we're excited that we'll be able to provide new alternatives for prospective residents there with clean affordable energy, safety, and healthy active lifestyle.

Our LOSN objective for the Foothills redevelopment is to support a sustainable, inclusive, and forward looking community by prioritizing clean energy and the integration of middle housing and affordable high density residential options.

The development should explore district heating by leveraging the wastewater treatment plant or ground source geothermal.

Additionally, water reuse from the water wastewater treatment plant should be maximized.

We support pedestrian and bike friendly plan that includes sidewalks, bike lanes, and a connection to the Lake Oswego vibrant downtown core right here.

Our specific request to the city council is to evaluate a clean energy district, evaluate the opportunities of leveraging the wastewater treatment plant, solar and ground source geothermal, consider the water reuse from the wastewater treatment plant, include electric vehicle infrastructure, pedestrian and bike friendly pathways and access to public transportation, and to include diverse high density housing integrating middle income and affordable residential options.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ms.

Hamlet.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Thank you so much.

Folks, is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment?

Who did not sign up?

Okay.

With that, we're going to move on to Council Business Item 9.1, this pedestrian improvement projects update.

I'd like to invite uh director Eric Aruni as well as assistant city engineer Mauri Truch Nirvani and senior associate engineer Heka Shipton.

Providing us on an update on some of the recent pedestrian improvement projects.

Yes.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Erica Rooney, and with us with me tonight are um our new assistant city engineer, Mort Anisharani, and um Haika Shipton, the project engineer in charge of our pedestrian program for the last couple years.

We're here tonight to talk to you about the pedestrian program or the sidewalk projects that we've been doing recently and what the plans are for the near future.

Um just wanted to highlight though that this isn't the larger conversation that we'll have later on about the street fund.

There's a whole lot of other things that we spend street fund money on.

Um we've talked about those before, the paving program and many other things.

And we will come back to you later in the spring to talk about the more global picture, but this is a great um time to uh check in with you about the pedestrian improvements we've made this last fall and where we're headed in the spring.

So I'm gonna turn it over to staff to do that.

Thanks, Director.

Thank you, Erika.

Hello, Mr.

Mayor and the counselors.

Um Shirwani, and I'm still on probation, so I still have to behave.

At least for a couple of more weeks, maybe.

She's gonna share with you uh some of the information and some of the statistics and some of the work that we have accomplished over the last year.

Hi Ka.

Thank you, Mort.

Good evening, Mayor Buck and Council members, uh city staff.

Um, yeah, as Mort mentioned, we're here to present you with a brief update of three of our recently compared completed sidewalk projects.

This also includes Lakeview Boulevard, which is not just sidewalk, um, treetop and meadowlark.

Um next slide.

Yep, that was that.

Since 2022, we designed and constructed more than two miles of sidewalk in six different neighborhoods.

Notice the proximity to schools.

Those are shown pale yellow, and park screen spaces shown light green.

The purple line showed the about one mile of site walk currently in the works.

These projects align with city council goals and community priorities to improve transportation connections, mobility, and safety for all travelers and all types of trips in Lake Oswego.

With a council initiative to continue construction of sidewalks and pathways, focusing on safe routes to school.

Yeah, based on that, we are here to just present a brief update of what we've accomplished last year.

Let's jump right into Lakeview Boulevard.

This project kept us on our toes for most of 2025.

The project was fully funded in our capital improvement plan with funds coming out of stormwater and street funds.

We started design in 2022 by hiring an engineering consultant.

This was Consor.

The full scope include nearly half a mile of new concrete sidewalk, close to one mile of reconstructed roadway, new stormwater pipe, catch basins, and new stormwater treatment system.

Almost exactly one year ago, we hired a contractor to construct the project.

The contractor was selected based on lowest bid COVID points, and additionally demonstration that they were qualified to handle such a project of this magnitude to ensure timely completion before the start of wet weather.

Knife River was the winning contractor.

This project in particular experienced constantly changing traffic patterns.

Our communication specialist Katie Kirkland kept local residents and the public well informed.

Project and construction activities were also posted on our project website.

We had to coordinate with post office, republic services, school district, swim park, fire and police.

Contractor coordination also often included to manage large parties, some of the residents had and weddings.

Wasn't always easy.

But we made it.

While a lasting pavement surface was one of the major objectives of this project, stormwater management was the other.

Frequent flooding of the roadway was observed prior to construction.

As you can see, the picture on the left shows the extra large puddle on a particularly miserable day.

The new pavement surface, which is shown on the right, sheds away from the residences towards the sidewalk curb and catch basins.

The catch basins then send all the stormwater to the newly constructed stormwater pipe, which then sends it on to our treatment facility, which is shown here.

This stormwater treatment vault was placed in the parking lot underneath the Lake Rose Swim Park.

A large crane was used to lift the stormwater vault into the 16-foot deep excavation.

Lakeview had to be fully closed during setup of the crane and installation of the walled for about an hour and a half.

And this had to be fine-tuned with resident schedules and school traffic buses.

You have to change those cartridges every so often.

Yeah.

Our stormwater crew will have to.

But I made sure they have a little extra headroom in there because often they don't have headroom.

It's like four and a half feet tall, and they have to climb in there.

Wow.

So all right.

Approximately half a mile of new sidewalk, replaced the former shoulder walkway, and a new raised, more visible mid-block crossing at the Lake Grove Swim Park, improved safety for pedestrians, especially during the summer swim park use.

Originally we had hoped to provide a sidewalk throughout the entire corridor.

Unfortunately, this was found to be infeasible.

Therefore, the sidewalk ends at the Good and Easement.

The design team came up with some smaller scale solutions that improved overall conditions.

I'll show you some of that, but these solutions included trimming vegetation, removal of roadside hazards, and adding signage and pavement markings.

One of the challenges of the project was the curved safety improvements, which you can see in these photos.

First, the challenge started out with a legal agreement allowing the permanent alteration of the adjacent property due to the required removal of a large Douglas fir tree.

Thanks to the council directive to further look into this matter and see what we could do or what it would take to remove the rock outcrop.

We were actually able to add the scope during our project during construction after reaching an agreement with the homeowner.

It took some extra time, but in the end, we were able to remove a couple of large trees and bedrock to allow for some extra shoulder space for pedestrians to get through this narrow area.

Residents had to endure the noise and sometimes vibration of the equipment during rock excavation.

We also added some striping, profiled high reflective fog line and reflective pavement pavement markers throughout the corridor for better visibility at night.

Curb was also added to the roadway to direct stormwater into catch basins.

Total construction cost was 4.8 million.

But in the end, they proved to be too busy to follow through with that.

Most appear quite happy after the long inconvenience, having made it through construction and finally seeing the benefits of the project.

So yeah, that patience is very much appreciated.

And yeah, the feedback was good.

Everybody's very happy that the puddles are gone.

That's that was the residents' main concern.

Let's move on to our treetop and meadowlark sidewalk projects.

Both projects were fully funded in our CIP Capital Improvement Plan.

The goal was to finish the upper part of treetop before the beginning of school.

And now here I need to mention that we added a short 200-foot section along Overlook Drive as well.

After our first public meeting, we got feedback that that connection is really a missing gap then from Meadowlark over to the rest of overlook.

Did I say overlook?

Meadowlark to overlook.

So we added that as well.

Total length of sidewalk on treetop was approximately 1400 feet, and Meadowlark and Overlook was almost 900 feet.

Before I dive into some project photos, I would like to briefly talk about how these projects get started.

One of the first decisions that need to be made is where is the sidewalk going to go?

Do we have enough right-of-way?

We first meet with the public and affected residents to hear what their observations and key concerns are, and we try to improve, incorporate their feedback as much as we can.

The general public perception is that the property line starts at the existing roadway.

There's often confusion that requires education.

Going into the street or towards the property also depends on street classification and often the need for parking.

Here's some photos of the treetop sidewalk before, after and during.

We ended up going into the street because of existing utilities and the large impact on existing driveways and front yards properties.

Storm water also would become a concern, more of a concern, and street lights would have to be moved.

So we went out into the street.

Construction work is full of little problems to solve each day.

Maybe how to keep access for electric vehicles to charge while the concrete is curing, or make sure guests of an Airbnb have unrestricted access during this project.

We had some last-minute change in plans to accommodate those cases, electric vehicles and Airbnbs.

And so we, you know, our contract always needs to be flexible.

And so they pour driveways in two halves to ensure that.

And so when those people can access their charter for a full week, they have a problem.

The photo on the right shows demolition, tree removal, roots exposed, broken irrigation lines, broken water meter line, you know, everything happened there.

You can see maybe faintly see the orange line that's in the background.

That's a Comcast cable that was exposed.

But that's reality.

A couple of before and after shots of the sidewalk along Meadowlark Lane.

The sidewalk was constructed going toward the residence.

Priority of the neighbor neighbors was to keep as much street street parking available as possible along Meadowlark.

We still have mostly parking on both sides, except in the small area where the sidewalk bums out into the street to save a large Ponderosa pine and ancient Japanese maple tree species.

And as previously discussed, an additional 200 feet of sidewalk was added along Overlook to close the gap.

This ended up being a great addition to the project.

It's really my favorite there.

All in all, it was nearly half a mile of new sidewalk, 688 curb ramps, and yeah, we got that done without impacting school traffic really too much.

Next up, Carmen Drive, Pilkington and McEwen Road.

We have just selected a contractor for the Carmen Drive sidewalk construction.

This will be on the consent agenda for approval during one of the next council meetings.

Pilkington Road sidewalk should be completed later this year.

There we were being held up by a property dispute and dedication.

And the design of for the McEwen sidewalk near River Grove Elementary is being finalized, and we anticipate construction this summer.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

It highlights how much, in addition to just the you know, the the complicated construction work a lot of these projects entailed.

Also the um the complicated evolved communication that is required.

And I just want to tell you that we hear nothing, well, we hear nothing.

And we and which is a good thing.

And what we do here is very positive.

People are very, very positive about these improvements in their neighborhoods and the process and the um the way that you work in such a cooperative way, uh, but then people really appreciate it and goes a long way.

So thank you very much.

I'm curious, are we have we been working with some of the same contractors on the on these projects?

And we've done some, you know, a whole variety.

We have worked with Tourney now two, three times out of seven, six, seven projects.

But um, other than that, it was always different ones.

And now with Carmen Drive, we had 16 contractors bid on the project.

Oh, wow.

Hungry.

Is uh I just is it ever helpful kind of working with as we know we're doing these projects every year, kind of working with the same people to set up.

Yeah, if they're not if they're good contract, then well, yeah, they you know, right.

Then it's then it's helpful.

And Turney does an amazing job.

And they know they know our expectations, and so it's nice to have a contractor who is really accommodating to because they have residents come out all the time to talk to them about this plant or this going on and this going on.

And um it, yeah, I think it it's good for them to be want to listen and be respectful and always kind.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Councillor Ref.

I may have missed it, so tell me if that's the case.

How many of these projects did were we able to bury the power lines on?

Zero.

Not really part of the scope of the project.

Cost.

Yeah.

Cost.

And you remember too, and we bury the power lines, every home has to then reconnect underground.

It's a huge.

Well, it's not just the power lines, it's everything else.

Everything's well.

So are we not going to be able to do that?

It's no, I mean when I got here, the estimate was a million dollars a mile.

That was six years ago.

I guess a million dollars a mile.

A million dollars a mile.

It's really very, very expensive.

Yeah.

That's just on the private side.

Then the public, every property owner has an expense to connect.

You gotta put a vault in.

I mean, it's and I skipped over these items in my presentation.

It's hard to get PGE or to respond to to work with us.

Um on Meadowark, I was gonna mention, but I forgot there is a missing sidewalk panel because they needed to adjust the vault, and we gave them notice in March, and they did it just last week.

Um, it's not easy to then get projects completed.

You um one of our colleagues online has a counselor Afkin.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I wanted to uh say what you said in a different way for construction projects.

No news is absolutely great news.

So my kudos to and compliment to the team that executed this two miles of sidewalk and uh all the stormwater improvement.

Honestly, without having a single complaint that crossed my email.

So this is a great accomplishment and the way we do projects at Lake Cost Rigo.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Afghan.

Counselor Willem.

So we have three projects that are that are in process.

Um those will be completed by next summer or during the summer.

Carmen Drive will start early spring.

Should be completed.

It's proposed to be completed in August.

Um, and there we have major components to it.

Um River Grove uh McEwan sidewalk.

Yeah, that should get completed by end of next summer and fall.

And uh pilking is just a small, two small sections that shouldn't be too big of a deal once we truly have to go ahead.

Yes.

Well, I just have to say that I I've been to all the different projects and walked along the roads and the sidewalks, and I'll tell you the patience um of Hilke is incredible.

I've seen her in so many public meetings with neighbors and everything else, and she never gets rattled, and she's the most calm person.

And um I have to do a shout out to you to thank you for um you're not just an engineer, you're a psychologist, and uh almost everything else um that is uh is needed.

And I'm excited we'll get these next three projects.

Um it's great for our kids, it's great for the walking organizations, people that are really involved.

Um do we still have a list of projects at least for the next three or four years?

Is that kind of the idea?

Uh counselor, we have a list of about hundred potential projects.

Uh so as we go through and prioritize every two years, we just keep adding uh those to the funded projects.

So there is no shortage of needs.

There is just shortage of time and money, if you will.

Right.

If I can make another comment.

I didn't call her our star engineer for nothing.

I'm glad you recognize that also.

Oh, yes.

We recognize it for a long time.

Thank you, Councilor Wonderland.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

It takes the whole team though.

They take my orders at times out in the field.

Thank you, I got uh Counselor Corgan.

Yeah, so speaking of the whole team, I I really did want to call attention to the great public communication that comes out of the engineering department.

I live not that far from this pathway, and I walk on it continuously.

It's like at least a weekly walk.

And boy, things changed almost every day.

And you did an outstanding job of letting everybody know what was going on, and I I really appreciate it.

And then the end product is simply extraordinary.

I mean, it is absolutely beautiful.

And it was one like which pathway.

Lake View I'm sorry.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm in my own little head.

Yeah, it it it works too.

Boy, does it work?

And we've really had it tested here in the last little bit.

So uh greatly appreciate that.

And then my question was where does that bryant pathway come in the upcoming schedule after we after we complete these three?

Do you happen to know?

Um, it's I'm working on it.

I'm working on getting engineers on board.

I haven't quite started, but it's right around the corner.

Yeah, I imagine that's gonna be very challenging because it's difficult to walk, very difficult to walk down the street now.

I I think the challenge will be the railroad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So thank you for your efforts on that.

Well, thank you, Councilor Corgan.

And um you know, it in the future projects, you know, we had the transportation advisory board kind of advising.

So is the is the plan to kind of bring to the council then proposed projects and or and when there's questions.

Absolutely.

We'll we'll dust off the list again where we left off that were those that were the high priority associated with schools.

We'll dust that off again and we'll come to council to talk about what our recommendations are based off of, you know, as you might recall Will Farley uh when he was traffic engineer, he had the um uh points associated with them, and here was the highest ranking, and we'll discuss all of that again.

We'll but we'll discuss it with you all as opposed to uh the transportation advisory board that's on hiatus.

Yeah, I feel like the the department's methodology was always really good.

You really you know made the decision making pretty straightforward.

I wanted to ask about the um McVay.

You know, we did that kind of study on McVeigh, and we had some of the are those improvements kind of in our those, you know, short term.

We kind of identified a rough million dollars worth of kind of crossing improvements and yes, and off the top of my head, I can't remember where those fit.

They might be in the some of them might this the if you will, the easier ones might be in the next um what we call the funded section, which is a six-year time frame.

I'd have to go back and look.

I can't remember them off the top of my head.

Okay, okay.

Um we'll we'll let you know, I'll go back and take a look and see if we'll fit.

That would be great.

Yeah, that's a a corridor that there's a lot of uh interest in.

And the um when we did those the flasher improvements out here on on A, what I mean, huge improvement.

Yeah, yes, on fifth and A.

And are there other opportunities to kind of weave those into other non-signalized intersections where there's you know, I think of like First Street, we hear you know the mid block crossing at first, or there's so much activity there, you know, and people just kind of and then the the six corners crossing where there's also just a lot.

Um you know, do we would there be an ability for us to look at some of these other opportunities?

Those are just such great improvements.

Yeah, I think I think those are identified as well on the more like the six-year plan.

Okay, um, I can't remember where they fit off the top of my head, but those are you know part of that discussion about priorities because although it looks like a simple project up here at Fifth and A, it's not inexpensive.

Um they need to improve the sidewalks too and everything.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, uh again, a signal in itself, just a regular traffic signal can be a million dollars.

Oh, I know.

It's closer to a million than it's not.

So that's expensive, but a flasher might be more in the two to three hundred thousand range, depending on electricity and all these other things that go into it.

But none that said, we do have a few of those identified in the CIP, but I can't tell you exactly where they fit at the moment.

Maybe when there's as I I sense that there's interest on the the council me put those in the hopper with the projects, and then of course, you know, we only have so much money, but uh to bring them all to us so we can just do one and then some you know.

They're on the list, they're in there.

Okay.

It's just they're not the priority for this current um biennium that we're in.

And when we come to you this time next year, um this time next year, yeah, we'll be in the middle of putting together a new CIP proposal and we can talk about those priorities with you and the budget committee as well.

Absolutely.

That would have been such a such a big difference.

And you see the I mean you can you come down A Avenue and you'll see them from way back, you know, way back by 10th, you know.

Wow, there's someone crossing and before they'd stand there forever, you know, and be just seeing cars come.

So um, oh, excuse me, Councillor Raff, please another question.

Uh any update on any update on the Blue Heron Project, how you guys track it on that.

Yes, um, I'm also working on that.

I'm I meant to have that RFP out to select uh um consultant by the big by now, but I'm a little behind.

So um yeah, that's next.

That's on my plate next.

Okay, hopefully to sign it this year, construct it 2027.

Happening.

It's happening happening.

Well, thank you all very much for the update for the good work.

Great team.

We really appreciate um these improvements for the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, next we have several uh study sessions we're going to uh engage with here tonight.

And first is uh Foothills District vision and goals and objectives.

We have a long-range planning manager, Mr.

Eric Olson here, as well as our representatives from the first 40 feet.

Hello.

Great consultant working on this project.

This is our well, I guess since our this is our first update, kind of our first update on the I think this is the first one.

Kicked it off and now the advisory committee's been meeting and and first 40 feet's been engaging with the community, doing a great job, meeting with different stakeholders and uh members of the community, and we're looking forward to this kind of preliminary update as we the council kind of gets into setting some of the big um uh goals, you know, over our overarching vision for the for the project.

So thank you all for being here.

And I just want to recognize the the the chair, Randy Arthur and Vice Chair Lisa Sharyan are both with us tonight as well, and doing a great job.

So and we do have other members of our community advisory committee here as well.

So thank you, Kara for being here.

Hi Kara.

Uh yes, Kara's here.

And of course, uh Jeff is on the community advisory committee, so he was here earlier.

Um but uh yeah, you know, I just wanted to clarify, you know, we are talking a little bit um tonight about kind of transitioning into visioning, but really we're gonna focus mostly on some of the inventory and analysis work that has been done um recently in the area, a lot of really technical work um that the consultant team that we've um hired to to help us out here at first 40 feet, um which uh is with us here today ha has done.

So really just want to introduce them because I'm not sure they've been in front of council as of yet.

So um yeah, this is anyway.

Why don't you interrupt?

Hello, I'm Jason Graff with First Forty Feet and my partner Will Grimm uh sitting in the front row is also here.

We're supported by not only ourselves, but a team of engineers at Apex Um and also an economist Echo Northwest are supporting us in terms of thinking about your renewal area um and viable development opportunities from a market perspective.

Um we also have DHM, which does research sort of polling research with the community, which we felt like moving from 2012 to our our current time.

There's been a period of time where a reset and refresh and getting a sense of where Foothill sits in the public's mind was was a good thing to do.

So they've helped us do some initial outreach and get some perceptions about future development of foothills and our current situation.

So that's been great.

And we're also supported by book and group, which will help with post-plan amendments, meaning helping develop that code that will allow the new development to happen over time.

So we're excited to be here.

We met with the planning commission previously, and we'll share with you a bit of some of the outreach we've been doing to date.

So exactly.

Thanks.

Thanks, Jason.

Really just wanted to talk a bit with you all just to let you know how much work we've been doing on this project.

So we're happy to be able to come to you here with some deliverables, some of the first sort of really big deliverables, the more um meaty work that's been done for this project.

Um we will be leading you through some of the outcomes from again the inventory and analysis phase of this work and talking about some of the opportunities and constraints that we identified in the area.

And um want to really take that information and transition from sort of talking about that to what does this mean and what do you all want to see in the district as a result of these findings?

So I will help uh lead some discussion at the end of the presentation, but for now I will hand it over to Jason to cover the bulk of the presentation prior to that.

Great.

Good evening.

Um we'll go through the work we've done today.

So this is super high level, but just get you caught up.

We're gonna get to a point where, and this is where we're at, we have a number of questions, not only for ourselves from the technical side, transitioning from what the goals were in 2012 to what the goals are currently.

And so part of the end of this presentation is sharing some of those questions and challenges with you all to get a sense of your priorities and also help us with direction.

What we think we should be going in a certain way, and this will be helpful to get your perspective on that leaping off point, which is sort of where we're at at this point in the process.

So our work obviously is rebuilding from the effort in 2012, and there's been a ton of information created.

So we filtered through that.

Um, and what we found is there's a lot of pre-existing challenges that we're still addressing, but there's also some new conditions.

And I think the wastewater treatment facility is creating some real opportunities.

Um, it has some challenges associated with it, both building that structure, and as that gets developed, the design of that facility, we're realizing that the work that it's gonna take to build that wastewater treatment facility is gonna be a similar effort to bring development into the district.

And so I'll talk a bit of a about floodplains and fill because that's a consideration that is kind of top of mind for us, and some of those points of interest that we'd love to get your feedback as well.

So access to the district is another another key issue.

Um, and of course, coordinating this effort with the East End Redevelopment Plan is a part of what we're engaged in.

The work we've completed to date is an existing conditions report, which summarizes a number of technical analyses.

It's primarily looking at the information from 2012, refiltering it, doing some additional analysis, for instance, around traffic to get caught up 10 plus years since that effort was done.

And then we've summarized that into opportunities and constraints, which really set us up for looking at conceptual layouts for the district, scenarios, street networks, land use and development.

And we're working through all this analysis work at the same time.

We're we're gearing up our engagement, um, which has been sort of broad base to a variety of different groups, starting with affected stakeholders.

We have focus groups, so special interests that we really want to tap into, getting diverse perspectives of the community.

And then we'll also look for opportunities to have broader sort of open house outreach with the larger community.

So we're we're in that state of engagement.

We've done a number of I mentioned the DHM focus groups, we've had meetings with the youth leadership council, we've had interviews with variety of different groups that engage both seniors, both youth, and both diverse populations in the community.

And so we're rounding out the opportunities to gauge directly with those groups.

The youth leadership council meeting was great.

Uh, Mayor Joe Buck attended that, so it was super fun.

Um, I think the things that we heard from the student population, many of the issues are the same that we're hearing from other groups as well.

Um, access continue use of the waterfront, those are really preeminent in most people's minds.

And then how the heck are we going to pay for all this?

So I think those are the top three.

We also have our citizens advisory committee.

We're moving into meeting number four.

We had the first couple of meetings, kickoff.

We did a site tour with everyone in the group and members of the public, which was great.

We toured the entire site.

We looked at a number of key points within the district, issues, challenges, steep slopes, property ownerships, and so that really gave a broad perspective of folks of what the challenges are and an understanding of how the district is working, both from an access point, topography point, and land use perspective.

And of course, Foothills Park still continues to be one of the greatest assets and something that the folks want to preserve and maintain that access.

And so what we've heard, there's some key themes that we've heard from focus group meetings and from the DHM research and conversations and interviews.

So improving access and connectivity is really important for folks.

And that means also crossing State Street.

That means being able to access the riverfront.

There's a desire for continuous trail network that goes from George Rogers and continues north into foothills and then across Trion Creek.

So that's still really important for a lot of folks.

Mixed-use development.

I think people see an opportunity to create a neighborhood on the river as a desirable thing, whatever form that that takes.

But the other is with development, there's somewhat of a fear of losing public access to the water or to the park.

And so I think some folks had some reservations about we want to make sure that as Lake Oswego residents, we can still get to the water and still navigate through the district.

And then also the district become an extension of downtown.

That seemed really important and an opportunity to be able to do that.

The standard issues around more development means more traffic.

That certainly comes up.

Flooding, building in a floodplain was certainly a concern, environmental impacts around Trion Creek, and having good clean, you know, water along the Willamette River, those are important aspects in terms of the ecological footprint because there's so much of sort of nature around this project.

You know, tree canopy is another big one that we've heard a lot about.

Lake Aswego really is known for its tree canopy, and so that's an important aspect in terms of environment.

Um and then, of course, connecting foothills to downtown.

That really does that is a theme that continues to resonate.

We've built something called a story map.

And the story map can be accessed from the project website.

In a story map, you come in and you can kind of learn more about the district than just you know, a couple of bullets on a website and you know, a handout.

And so within the story map, you can scroll through and learn about the history of the districts.

We've done a little bit of work around that.

There's a number of topics around the opportunities and constraints that allow you to look at challenges around the floodplain or steep slopes.

And there's a variety of questions that are interspersed in that opportunities and constraints analysis that allow for folks to provide feedback about some of the issues in the district.

So we're hoping to use this as a tool that we can provide access to the community through a variety of different channels as a way to collect information for a number of months as we continue to do our engagement process.

There's also technical stuff in there in terms of the existing conditions, a variety of conditions, land use and other things that you can filter through.

So it's it's a little heavy, but the first part is is meant to be accessible, and we're hoping to use that throughout the process.

So not only for gathering information early on, but presenting alternatives and concepts in the middle of the project, and then where we land with a preferred land use and circulation scenario.

So some of the existing conditions that we've unraveled and that are combined together in a full report are around the physical and environmental aspects, and so we've mapped obviously those things at topography and try on creeks, the Trion Creek limits and street trail connectivity.

We've mapped the floodplains, the wetlands, resource setbacks.

I mean, there is layer upon layer of a variety of different conditions that are dictating where development can and cannot occur.

So mapping that has been really key.

The rail corridor, obviously, that continues to be preeminent as that's a barrier really to the district, and you know, there's limited access when you have a rail.

So that's something that's top of mind.

And flooding, the 1996 images are just they're amazing to look at and to see the extent of where how far that water reached, primarily coming in from Trion Creek, not the Willamette flooding over into foothills, but sort of working its way near the wastewater treatment plant.

So these are really good datum lines and really good points of reference for us.

Um what's shaping the foothills today?

You know, the limited access is a real challenge.

There's one way in, there's one way out.

It's been that way for a long time.

Um, and that has some issues as we think about development long term.

You know, emergency access, ability to get in and out, um, access not only to the park, but also to future development really is it it needs additional access to really be a viable development area.

There's a number of existing uses too, and so you know, a master plan like this has to be able to look and navigate it at passive, sometimes least resistance, thinking about longer term, looking at where there's opportunities for maybe near-term connections, thinking about the street network that runs along property lines and creating a viable scenario so that you can phase development over time.

So that'll be a challenge for us.

Um I think the trail and active transportation networks are one of the most exciting things because you've you've done some of the work of acquiring those additional right-of-ways to connect George Rogers to Foothills Park.

So I feel like that's that's already a trajectory that's a real positive.

So we're hoping to feed more into the walk bike connections that feed not only along the river, but between the river and downtown.

Um we've also interviewed uh a number of developers.

This is to give a perspective of the type of development that's potentially viable in downtown.

Um you've had a lot of great projects happen along first, and A, the anchor project is another one.

So these are these are indicators of what the potential market might be, and it gives us a sense of scale and the type of development that might be in the community.

And so what we hear from developers as we it's it's not new now from that probably 2012, but the access improvements are going to be really important for redevelopment to be attractive in the foothills, having good access points in and out are important.

How the floodplain is addressed, how that's mitigated, whether it's fill, having a clear path for that is going to be important.

And then the infrastructure costs, how much of that will be on the development community, how much of that might be a catalyst project that the city can initiate.

So understanding those parameters were important from a development perspective.

Um, and then of course, as we think about density and intensity and types of development, um, you know, you're you're poised for sort of increased density in this district, what that is just to be determined, but we know housing is also an aspect of that.

And with housing, placemaking becomes a really important thing because people want to be in a in a place that's desirable, uh, mixed-use development if that's an opportunity.

What we're hearing is really needs to create the riverfront as a destination.

So even if there's a limited amount of commercial or whatever, having it river oriented, river facing, having housing development, river facing, having Foothills Park be a part of the experience.

Those all those parts coming together are going to be kind of critically important for success.

So, what limits redevelopment potential?

I mean, I can talk about access all day.

You can see a number of arrows here where we've been looking at potential ways to come in and out of the district, um, whether it's through existing uses or aligning with to Williger, the wastewater treatment facility is moving in from one location to another, and so we've been testing sort of paths.

Are we is there an ability to weave between the new and the old facilities?

So those are considerations for us.

Um I mentioned floodplain buildable areas.

Um this access thing is going to be really critical because we can't really have an isolated district.

There's always opportunities, the secondary access would be great.

Sure, absolutely.

So go back to the previous slide, please.

So are those real possibilities, or is that dreaming?

Um, everything's a dream, pretty much.

Um everything is cost, you know, cost will play a factor.

Here's there's a number of constraints here.

The rail will say that's fundamental.

You do have a crossing today on that lower arrow going through that white building.

That feeds to the public storage units today.

Um you don't have a connection at Twilliger that you see in the other arrow.

And but the trade-offs are like what are the what are the benefits of one location versus another?

So the 2012 plan said let's let's go through the path that's through the public storage unit.

So that's an acquisition of property and trying to weave a road through through that.

That's at great.

So the rail line and state street are at the same level.

So from an engineering perspective, that's that's pretty good.

Um but then you have the cost of you know purchasing property and weaving your way through.

What to Willager does is it aligns you.

The other issue with potentially the public storage location is it's between Terwilliger, which is a signalized intersection, and D, and it's in between.

So it's a little complicated to get a new signal in there so we can get in and out of the district.

It can be done.

It's going to cause some other streets to limit access, write ins, write outs, those types of things for the Terwillager intersection to work and be able to speak to this new intersection.

If Terwilliger were the new intersection, that is a more normal four-way intersectionalization.

Um, and so that works from a transportation perspective because it feeds into the broader regional network, and so it's it's a good connection.

But there's a high cost with rebuilding that intersection and spanning a roadway across Trion Creek.

So to your point, John, that those are the challenges that begin to maybe outweigh one option versus another.

Um the other thing is the culvert, the fish culvert and that project, which has been run through the Bureau of Environmental Services through the city of Portland to date.

And they've been working with the core of engineers to design a new culvert to allow for not only the cutthroat trout that are already thriving along Tryon Creek, but salmon populations that are increasing that want to come up Trion Creek and get and get back inland.

And so there's this inflection point where the salmon can't get through the culvert today.

This project that BES was working with the Corps of Engineers was solving that with a much larger culvert.

What the core does is they build culverts.

The federal highway administration builds bridges.

Bridges are cheaper than culverts, but the Bureau of Environmental Services, when they talk to the federal level, they talk to the core.

If the Oregon Department of Transportation was working on Highway 43 and they wanted to rebuild the Terwilliger intersection, they would have conversations with the FHWA federal agency.

They wouldn't talk to the core.

And they could do a fish culvert project that might include a bridge and a new intersection.

So it's interesting that the agencies involved in the culvert project get directed to this federal agency or that.

What we're finding now is that with a wastewater treatment facility coming into Lake Oswego's Fold, that'll be your facility, no longer the city of Portland, that the city of Portland, the Bureau of Environmental Services, is not directly tied to this culvert project anymore because it was a part of their management of the wastewater treatment facility.

So the culvert project is, I would say, in a bit of limbo in terms of who's going to take the reins over on that project.

So this is a long story, John, coming back to why we think about the Terwilliger intersection, because as you can build opportunities, let's say Oregon Department of Transportation was interested in intersection improvement, and they could be a federal, they could be our state partner.

We could work with FHWA, might be able to create a fish culvert solution that is less expensive than the core, be able to address a transportation issue on a state highway, and build access into emerging redevelopment area in Lake Oswego.

So have them pay for it all.

Of course, John, exactly.

You're tracing me perfectly well.

It's exactly the scenario that I'm hoping if we get enough people involved, they'll all be putting money into it, and then you know, we'll just sit and watch and and wait for all the good stuff.

That is the ideal scenario for sure.

So as you've identified, a lot of the access question requires money to solve, and the access question is absolutely central to the success of this district.

So that's something that we're going to have to address head on.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Great explanation, though.

Thank you.

That was a perfect way to get through that.

We only learned from talking to a number of different folks.

It was the Trion Creek watershed council that opened the doors to that conversation and helped us out.

So the bullets keep saying the same thing, access, strategic cut and fill, these are the things that we need to think about.

It's in a floodplain.

Um expanding waterfront connections, these are all opportunities.

We're moving now from this analysis stage, existing conditions, to really understanding what people value in the district.

We know you all have stated goals for foothills.

And as a community project and a long-term future project, it's important for us to get a sense of what the community desires in this space, the things that they think are important.

And we take that information to sort of craft not the final design, but these are the things that people value in the district.

So we need to take some time to understand that.

At the same time, we need to identify what are drivers for design.

What are sort of guiding principles that we think are important?

If it's housing is really important, if access is really important, we need to make those statements clear before we get into the design work so that once we are designing, we're designing something that we can react to, we can go back to and measure how well we're performing because we've looked at the vision, we have some guiding principles that are helping direct us with decision making, align that with the goals that you clearly have stated for the project.

And so that helps us to, I think from just a community perspective.

This project's difficult.

So for instance, when we asked the same question about the foothills, folks said accessible housing, workforce housing would be really important, but they weren't sure how really affordable housing could be built in this high value area.

And it was more the logistics, not that these things aren't important here.

So just wanted to caveat that some of the things we heard, housing is important, workforce housing, some questions about how you could build in affordability on a waterfront.

That was just a question, not an opposition.

So I'm trying to think whatever else here.

I'm getting a little sidetracked.

Um I was giving you the process here, that's really outlined there.

Um as we move from vision to alternatives, we're gonna mention the vision, I've mentioned the guiding principles.

We'll be using that to create conceptual plan alternatives.

And that'll be an additional access, a road network mapping along property lines and existing businesses and determining some opportunities for the variety of different land uses, housing, some commercial expansion of Foothills Park.

So all those things will be a part of the scenarios that we'll be developing.

Um I think by the end of March, so around April is when there'll be some great viewing time in terms of those initial scenarios.

Um tonight we're really curious about your perspective on a number of these topics, and and Eric is going to kind of walk those through with you, the access issues and other there's trade-offs with all this.

Um, and of course, we'll we'll be coming back, I think in March to give you an update on the scenario planning, but I'll pause now for a moment to just sort of transition to this conversation with you all about um some of these key questions, and you see them here one through five, and we'll we'll kind of walk through each one.

I'll let Eric start.

I may jump in.

So Yeah, I guess I should begin by just asking if there was any questions, I guess, about the initial presentation from Jason, anything that we talked about in just the general overview of some of the recent work we've done and um the findings from our inventory and analysis work.

Are there any questions you had before we get sort of more in depth here?

No, go ahead.

All right, thank you.

Well, um, as Jason pointed out, we have about five different topics we really wanted to focus on with you today, and really just thinking about how to best utilize your time, not just kind of report out what we know about the district already.

Again, we've already been through a large process as a city at least, um, you know, 10, 15 years ago that um, you know, I think a lot of us are familiar with this area.

Um, but you know, obviously there's extensive um, you know, reporting for you to review a very um long set of documents, very technical documents that we distribute along with your packet.

Um of course, the the really I think the primary question, if not one of the primary questions, but potentially the primary question um is how should access and connectivity be prioritized to support redevelopment and safety and sort of an integration with downtown.

Um this might be somewhat just of a a no-brainer, like of course, you know, those are things that we want to support, but we want to be very clear with you all that that is a priority before we kind of move forward because um you know that uh we'll have uh an impact on kind of the visioning that we do um eventually for this area.

Um so you know, really questions are um and I think we can start with the first question.

Um is establishing secondary access a top priority.

Do you have any thoughts here that you can share with us on that?

You feel this would this is kind of the the advisory group so far feels pretty strongly about this the second access being a key, you know.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I don't know how you could do it without it.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, okay.

But I also think some of these might be so obvious as to not require much conversation.

And I think that's a good thing.

Um it's obvious if it if it's 150 million dollars, it's pretty obvious that we won't be doing it.

Yes.

Um we'll we'll get to that part of the conceptually if we're dravers.

Conceptually.

Yeah, I mean it's yeah, we'll get we'll get to that.

We'll get to that.

Let's get through this and then we'll transport back in time to when we approve the RFP for this project.

And you all you told us all to dream big and to not to not uh be too weighed in by that.

Of course, we will be talking about those specifics, but this is kind of the dreaming portion of the project.

Um so I yeah, I I think you know, obviously there's you know costs associated with everything we're talking about here, more or less.

So there will be, you know, um some costs and benefits to weigh once we establish what the priorities are for what we want to see in the district.

Okay.

Um so I I think that should be a caveat potentially to everything that we're asking from you.

Is that cost could could play uh a large factor here?

Um so you know, obviously that's going to be something that we are um able to analyze once we know what we're looking for in the area and can talk about that in more depth.

Um so I think that should be you know something that kind of goes along with everything here.

Um so I guess you know, in in terms of access, um, you know, we're talking about sort of the different um vehicular uh access that we can establish on the north side of the district.

Um, you know, is there any particular emphasis that you um you know, in addition to vehicular, you know, I think um we've also talked about the importance of establishing these trail networks and um you know uh ped and bike access to this area is being really critical, particularly as it connects to downtown.

Um do you all share that sort of view?

Um and is there anything in particular in terms of non-vehicular access, I suppose that you feel is a particular priority.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important that we have that access.

And I think we're not gonna see vehicle access through like A or B.

You know, it's gonna be on the north end.

So we need to have some pedestrian access that really connects the main downtown with foothills.

So I think it's really critical that we have that.

So in addition to the trails, which are all are fantastic, but we need to have that flow of how do you get people down there and not always buy a car.

So how do we you know really kind of focus on that?

I think that 2012 didn't they have like a stairway or something?

Yeah, there was a sort of Spanish steps inspired uh yeah entrance.

And I don't know if that's right or not, but just I think that's just critical to bring the flow of people between the two areas.

Yeah, it has to be encompassing one flow.

The two areas so that it's it's a whole you wouldn't want to have to like park down there to go down there and park up here or to go, you know, you can park here and it's one experience.

And it kind of I mean, we're gonna talk next about economic development strategy, but one thing that came out of that is even like the is improvements to B Avenue with the North Anchor, you know, project.

So how does that then tie into these uh improvements and how do we create this one?

Um we didn't do a lot of pedestrian improvements to the downtown, really, aside from some street escape.

So it's not it's one of our trickier connections in town for bike and ped connection and of course highway 43.

It's the one state owned highway, you know, we have going through the town.

Um, and so that's in the jurisdictional issues are an additional challenge.

Um but you know, so it's it is it's foothills, but then it's it's also kind of a a few blocks maybe into the downtown that you're gonna do.

I mean, I was struggling with the uh comments later in your thing about the isolation that we we do not want this to be an isolated area, it needs to be part of the whole thing, so then everyone is um feeling very comfortable about the services that we already have in the downtown core, that that's just part of the extension of what they'll they'll be using.

So it's encompassing the whole.

And I think it's gonna be critical that it we don't rely on getting cars down there to enjoy that space.

I mean, I think we really want to make sure that people can park, I'll say on the other side of on the west side of 43 and then go down.

And you know, again, to limit the impact potentially, you know, again, we don't want to deter people from going down to the new foothills area, but we would I mean I think I'd rather encourage them through foot traffic, right?

You know, bikes, other means versus the vehicle.

That's really helpful.

As you think about adding traffic, the w I think the last thing we want to do is to make it even harder to cross state street to get to foothills, whether it's at the existing point of access today or at a new one on the north end, or even pedestrians that are created at A and B connections.

So thank you for that.

What we're also hearing from the Oregon Department of Transportation is this is not a priority state facility for them, and they're leaning more toward on local jurisdictions to inform the design on the roadway based on land use and preferences and values around how you want to either get across that street, how much congestion you can live with on state street.

So we're kind of we're in a good place where they're they're deferring to sort of best practices and direction from the city.

So we have a question from Councillor Afkin on Zoom.

Councillor Afkin.

Uh it's thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

It's more of a comment.

I think that the access and connectivity is obviously everything that's listed is important.

Uh we can't add more people down there without a second access.

It's safety and security, and we can't just uh ignore that.

So we must have a second uh connectivity.

Having said that, I don't know if going through the existing storage uh space makes sense.

It may be the easiest thing to do, but connecting to Twilliger, what came to mind as uh the number one priority as far as the connection is concerned.

One other thing that uh counselor uh verdict said extension of uh our downtown, and when we talk about that, I don't know what all people assume.

Things that comes to my mind is that if we're going to make this easy for pedestrian to go back and forth, I don't know if the zip line would work, but I think similar to Oregon City, and I used example to articulate my thoughts.

Similar to Oregon City, downtown, Oregon City, maybe elevators would work.

So we make it easy for people to go back and forth.

Those were the two things that Mr.

Mayor came to mind for the access and connectivity.

Thank you, Councilor Afghan.

I think it's an Afghan tram, isn't it?

Yeah, we've got oh, the tram.

Don't get started on the gondola into the discussion.

I think Joe may have seen this as a point of discussion.

Designs previously.

Well, again, we'll talk about this with the economic development, but people are looking for these experiences, you know, and it's unique to Lake Osigo that we have this beautiful area right here along the river and this connected pathway network.

And so the more what I like about to Willigers, and that could connect up to the pathways along to Willie Garden to Triangle Creek State Park, um, which just provides that added experience.

You can see people coming and these kind of activity-based experiences are you know key and something that we can offer that not everyone else can.

Like the fish ladder type thing.

I mean, having they can walk through the culture too.

We're gonna offer that culvert.

Yeah, I mean, that is another thing.

That's already happening.

It's already happening.

Yeah, handle some salmon, you know, right?

The watershed council encourages it.

They they were asking us, oh, Eric, Jason, do you do you want to walk if there's gonna be heavy rains?

This is gonna be great.

We're gonna walk through it and I was like, I'll I'll wait for the drive.

Yeah, that's I did ask one of the high schoolers though, because when we're talking to the youth leadership council, has anyone walked the culvert in?

So I get the sense that people spend some time in Tryon Creek doing things that they they might not spend doing there if we were to make it more accessible.

So we're hearing yes on all this.

So then it is does the second access, is there something in it in addition to that second access in regards to emergency access?

No, I think it um it's just important from uh an emergency perspective.

I think for the folks who live off Stanford Road who have limited access who are going through underneath uh uh you know a rail bridge.

Yeah, I think to Williger does add some additional advantages to access and safety of those folks if there were an event, the ability to get in and out.

Um they are in a flood-prone area as well.

I know it's probably not a high topic for them to have a roadway at that intersection, but I think that that is another consideration, not only for Foothills District, but to the residents to the north.

Yeah, we did a site tour and we went and um sort of access Stamford Road and um the Tryon Cove Park area, and we created a miniature sort of traffic uh hazard potentially on State Street.

We're just trying to turn right into the roadway that sort of goes into that area.

It's a really just a hairpin turn that goes straight down and under a very old rail bridge.

Um, so it's um you know it's hard to think about planning for this area and leaving that kind of as is, right?

Um it's yeah.

Um just something to continue to think about.

That's important for sure.

And you know, just even for them to be able to, I guess, move if residents in that area wants to move, I guess they have to um uh have a smaller truck and have like sort of you know relays between a larger moving truck and smaller truck and actually fit under the rail bridge.

So there's a lot of access issues just in general and in that area.

Okay.

So the next question is about floodplain and thinking about floodplain, it seems like this is it's hard to say that this isn't also the most important issue here, too.

Um I think access and floodplain are more or less equal.

Um so really, you know, what we're asking you tonight is um, you know, how should environmental protection and redevelopment feasibility be balanced?

And of course, um, you know, in order to really have um you know adequate environmental protection in this area, we need to uh more or less balance cut and fill um of this district.

Um if we are going to add um new you know, fill, we need to um balance that out somehow by taking um the cuts elsewhere in the district.

Um so you know, I think Jason, I don't know if you want to just maybe talk a little bit more about the situation with cut and fill in the area before I get into the more detailed questions here, but we really want to get uh your temperature on kind of what strategy we should be pursuing with the storm plane or the um floodplain mitigation.

Yeah, so the cut and fill says basically flooding needs to go to low-lying areas, and as you take low-lying areas out, you're you're you're making the flooding issue, you're exacerbating the flooding issue.

You could put in a wall, for instance, but that would back up and cause other issues.

The wastewater treatment plant itself, the the area that we're relocating that, a portion of that is out of the floodplain, and some of it is not.

And so they'll need to level that surface, put put some fill in there.

What we found is that previous work done on Foothills Park lowered the park and it created larger area for flooding to actually move into that zone.

So we've increased the capacity from 1996.

And the wastewater treatment plant is gonna use some of those balance cut and fills as they they level their area.

They know as they're adding fill to create a level surface.

There's these credits that have been given by um Foothills Park.

As we think about when the old wastewater treatment facility moves, now we have this mound, some of which is bedrock, but that's a location where we can take some soil from there, create more opportunities for flooding, and put that fill in another part that's lower to raise it up.

The image on the on the on the wall here, and you probably have in front of you is a really good example of the cut and fill.

So previous fill, the Lake Oswego, the Aswego Point condominiums is all area that was raised up four or five feet for that housing project.

That was outside of the flood in 96.

They were high and dry, which is great.

And it's a similar concept in that yellow area that you see between previous fill and the wastewater treatment site, those are the areas that we're looking at bringing in some fill because that would be your redevelopment area outside of the floodplain.

Not all of it.

That yellow line is going up toward Trion Creek, we wouldn't be moving that far.

But you get a sense of the scale.

If you look at Oswego Point, how much area was fill?

What we're looking at as potential fill.

Doesn't seem like that much if you just measure up this way.

But as you measure across from State Street to the Willamette River, we're talking about a lot of fill.

Not all of that would be five feet up.

We have setbacks to the Willamette River.

We have setbacks to Triangle Creek.

So the developable area actually gets a little bit smaller, and where you'd put that fill wouldn't necessarily be in that entire yellow area.

We'll be going through those calculations to determine can we carve off some land from the old wastewater treatment facility to put the soil over here?

And so we'll be trying to balance that out.

And we'll have a better indication then of what actually is outside of floodplain and where development can occur.

But that's a moving part and piece because the wastewater treatment facility is gonna figure out its thing.

It's tapping into Foothills Road that is gonna stay where it is today.

In the future, Foothills Road may need to be lifted, a portion of it.

So we're trying to figure out how would that impact the the new wastewater treatment plant and its access points.

How would this new road that if it were to come in from Towilliger, in any instance, whether it the new road came from Twilliger or from the public uh storage units, it's going to weave between the new wastewater treatment vessel and the old one.

So there's there's some a number of moving parts to consider not only built wastewater treatment plant, but what we can do in terms of lifting things up and not impact facility.

So sorry, too much information.

What does um cutting the doing cut and where the current wastewater treatment plant is?

What does it do to the developable potential of that land?

Um well it you can put some soil on, let's say the west side to create more of a let's say it's more of a cone, uh-huh and you can create you can carve off a side, compress it down and move soil around so you can create a more contiguous level flat surface.

So it's some of it's just manipulation of something that's conical to have more of a flat surface.

Um, but as I mentioned, bedrock is something that's underneath doesn't mean you can't work through bed bedrock, you can blast that out and create level surfaces from that.

Does that answer your question?

Or do you have something more specifically?

Would uh I mean in the areas that we cut like we did with Foothills Park, then we do we made that into a park.

You know, we're not we don't build there, you can't you can't build exactly some of that cut then may add more park area, and so the you know the parks plan, which is looking at improvements to Foothills Park, absolutely.

We want to look at at how that additional cut can contribute to more park space at the same time, you know, give us fill for development area.

Okay.

So why would we not do that?

You know, I I think this is this might be another one of those obvious questions that you know I think we we really are strongly leaning towards the sort of district-wide um balance of cut and fill, and that's kind of what we're proposing here.

The alternative would be um you know, allowing building in the floodplain, which you know I think is something that we're wanting to avoid for potentially obvious reasons, but it is something that could be achieved if you have um less active uses or kind of mere development sort of raised.

Um and you could imagine that creating a much less vibrant pedestrian atmosphere and really um yeah, kind of uh interfering with the character of the area um quite greatly.

So I think you know, for for a lot of reasons, we would be leaning towards, you know, obviously trying to balance the cut and fill.

Um, just wanted to again be on the same page with you all about this concept.

Okay.

Cut and fill.

Council.

So when you fill, are you saying that you're going to limit then the amount of space that you could use?

Are you building it with two tiers so that um yeah, it could be two tiers, yeah.

It's not the whole thing built up.

There may be lower portions.

There's parts of the development that can get inundated, meaning a parking area.

So as you think about where buildings go, they don't all have to be out of the floodplain.

There's portions of a development that could could get wet conceivably during or you could have like concrete properties.

Yeah, you get appears or things elevated.

And elevated for, you know, so you could kind of but that space where the the old water treatment or the the current treatment plant that's not X out, that could still be developed.

Yeah, absolutely a portion of that for sure.

So other than what we want to do.

Yeah, carcass.

Yeah, currently in yeah, out of the floodplain.

But again, there's the opportunity with the expansion of Foothills Park Northward to think about how everything is sculpted and balanced in in the future.

So we don't, you know, have to keep those critical infrastructure pieces necessarily out of the floodplain as they were before.

If we want to think about an expansion of a park, that's something that we could also think about in that area too.

So we have a use for all the dirt at Receipt Park now.

Clearly, yes, start start collecting dirt now.

Yeah, people want to bring them in bags and they can drop them off at City Hall, that would be great.

It's anything because cost is a huge part of that as we talk about road connections, fill is cheaper than roads, but it's not free.

Yeah, yeah.

And I, you know, I think as Jason pointed out, um we were talking a lot um with Stefan, who's um a part of our project management team and and really trying to figure out the details of the interface of that wastewater treatment facility and the new design with what will be needed to increase access, particularly for that north point in the future, and trying to coordinate with them.

So um lots of sort of details to figure out in the relatively near future on that front.

Um I guess we had some other questions just about expectations.

And you know, I think we already have a lot of these expectations, like codified in overlays and sensitive land, et cetera, particularly with the Trion Creek and the watershed um associated with that as well as the Lama River.

Um but just wanted to confirm that you're on board as council to continuing um those sort of protections, enhancing those areas, and um, you know, I guess as a follow-up, you know, um uh you know, kind of gauging your interest in sort of the fish habitat and ecological connectivity piece with the culvert project, you know, thinking about um really the the opportunities, you know, I think that were new to us that we didn't necessarily know about prior, just how much you know salmon are able to sort of re-enter Trion Creek.

It's one of the more um, you know, it's one of the higher opportunity, I guess, areas for that and in the um I think it's within the region, but it might be with a statewide top 12.

Top 12.

Like the the ability to bring habitat back.

This this is one of the top 12 locations, no funding yet for it, but in the state.

So it's really good.

Yeah.

Tryon Creek is cool water, and that's exactly what fish habitat, especially young fish need.

And the tree canopy in Lake Oswego is just tremendous.

And so Trion is just this perfect recipe of you know water temperature, and so it just it they just need to get to it.

Okay, but it's a perfect habitat.

Are you asking for more space or I mean, or I think the question is with Bureau of Environmental Services stepping away, there's a void in this conversation about this fish culvert.

A lot of work's been done in determining the cost and how it would work and all that.

Um but as BS steps away.

We're we'd love for council to say, yeah, Lake Astwigo we we should step in to the conversation and engage that directly, and it may be a conversation.

Obviously, it would start with the Bureau of Environmental Services, but our federal partner may not continue to be the core, or maybe they would be.

The core is still, it is still a project for them.

They haven't received the money from the federal government to build the project, but they've done all the due diligence and it's you know, it's a piece of paper that someone needs to review and sign.

And maybe that's great, and we can continue to push on that lever.

Someone else is going to pay for it, so it's great.

But if if that goes away and we see other opportunities, maybe Oregon Department of Transportation is a potential partner.

The the key is I think like a swig go, it's the balls now on your court.

Yeah, really the the project champion is no longer at the table, I suppose.

So it's so where we step into the role of stewarding this resource in this project, I think that's where we're saying heads nodding that that's critical.

Yes.

Okay.

And it could, and it's an opportunity to leverage additional partnerships in the project and funding in the project.

I hope so.

It seems like one-way.

But I I just want to be clear that we're not we're not converting land into other in.

I guess we're we still have the same footprint of what we look at from development standpoint of view, but we still want to support the role of I mean, I'm all for the fish and all that stuff, but what I can do is resources.

They're just protecting the existing resources.

Right.

Well, when you say enhancing, that's when sometimes people might say, Oh, are you going to chop off half of the site now so that we can save no the culvert has no impact on development of Creek there?

Yes, this is not like taking away from that to do the same thing.

I think the protecting is is key.

I just want to make sure we define enhancing so that doesn't sound like we're, oh yeah, we're gonna take half that area now and have it as a um an overlay or something that we can't develop.

Yeah, that wouldn't be an issue.

Okay, that's we're not proposing new overlays or anything.

Okay, no, go that's a great question.

Right.

And what do you mean by this the third point here?

How should environmental constraints shape the location development?

I'm not exactly sure.

I think some of it um, yeah, I think it makes the fill it really gets to the fill question.

If if fill is too much and it's too expensive, we're not gonna do it, then we have a much smaller footprint for development.

And so I think um if if that's open, that's a good thing.

Another thing for us to think about is how we institute stormwater management into the design of streets, how we incorporate that into you know low impact development requirements as a part of the district plan.

So these are you know, these are conditions we can put in development of the district to make sure that we're we're doing good things from a water quality perspective and stormwater perspective.

You know, flooding has been an issue here, so it seems pretty obvious that maybe we should standardize that and some of the infrastructure design of streets, for instance, would be a good way to do it.

Another option is to consider things like regional stormwater where you build a larger facility that then all the development can feed into.

So those are something other tools we might consider.

These are just sort of infrastructure projects that get paid for by future development as it as it comes online.

So we want to explore some of those opportunities.

At least the river's close.

So yeah, we we are mindful that there is uh you know important confluence of the Trion Creek and the Willama River in this area, but there's also an existing industrial area with lots of contamination issues, lots of need for remediation, most likely, particularly with um some of the more intensive sites.

So you know, there's a pretty big uh gradient of uh you know really beautiful um you know ecological land that we need to restore, and um, you know, some some previous industrial uses that are in a very different state than that.

So I think we're wanting to prioritize the areas that um are less uh ecologically sensitive, but also maximize the redevelopment area as much as we can.

Great.

All right, so just getting into land use and intensity, you know, thinking about the mix of uses that we want to see in this area.

Of course, you know, we're relatively early in the project.

We've still gotten quite a bit of input from the community that um there is a desire for uh you know a mix of uses in this area that includes housing.

Um, I think there's also a lot of uh consideration given to potentially uh commercial in this area, at least in um certain areas of the district, if not throughout.

Um so there's some conversation about how much commercial, I suppose, in this area, but um you know, I think really we want to get your um gauge on that.

Of course you know, we're all somewhat familiar, at least with the 2012 framework plan and the work that um was done there that would have introduced um you know essentially what we're seeing here, that the housing and the mix of uses with commercial ground floors and parks and open space.

Um to what extent do you think that that's that continues to be viable?

Do you have any um feelings that are contrary to that vision from the sort of previous plan in a general sense?

No, I general plan is good.

General plan, other than the the fact that I think I've been in this community um for a long time, there is a uh a shortage of houses for people that want to downsize.

Um kind of uh I think one of the desirable parts of the 2012 plan was that for some people was that there would be a chance for them to have like the mini south waterfront.

But they didn't want to have a 10-story, you know.

Well, some people wanted a 10-story building.

A lot of most people didn't, so things kind of changed on that.

But I think that the um the supply and demand, that's something that we're very short in uh short of in in this community is having a place for people to give up their bigger houses so that we can get more kids in the community and you know get that rotation going because there's just not a lot of um options for people that move.

You know, and it has to be uh I'm all for the affordability affordability part too, but I think we also have to have that element of um of high high end or higher range um opportunities for people to sell their 5,000 square foot house and you know, downsize to a two or three thousand square foot condo or something.

I mean, it you know, it's all proportional in people's minds, but it's something that is um uh highly desirable for for um a lot of people in this community.

And we need to be the planners and thinkers because we're not building as many houses because we don't have the space, so we're existing inventory.

So we need to we need to incentivize the shift of people that want to who people die and like us, we go, they just don't want to leave.

Um and they stay, and there's one person in uh we have people in our neighborhood that have 4,000 square foot houses, and there's one person in it, you know, and she's not going to leave for another 10, 15 years because that's she's going to die in her house.

And she would much rather have an opportunity to say, hey, let me move somewhere else because I want to stay in like us, we go.

I just want to keep us moving along.

What are you getting at here?

I mean, this is it's obviously.

Well, they're not going to be building family hamsters down here.

No, but no, but it something in the I don't want it just to be um we're thinking focused on affordability.

Yeah, market rate is an important component of of what you want to see market rate.

Yeah, yeah.

We have a citizens advisory committee member who can't wait to buy a condo or a town home or a condo on the waterfront.

So great.

Yeah, I I hear that same sort of refrain about you know downsides like you're not having options um within the city to relocate to on a very regular basis, almost on a daily basis.

And yeah, it would be crazy.

The Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel.

Or the carousel.

We've deleted that, Jay.

You know that doesn't that never even happen.

That's a great idea.

Um and yeah, you know, I think um, you know, we'll on positive, we'll be having lots of discussions in the future about the scale and intensity of development along the waterfront.

But um, you know, I think um, you know, as with other topics here, we're hoping to take your temperature a bit on just you know, what I guess you think the balance should be between the intensity of development in this area and the sort of public facing spaces, open spaces, parks, et cetera, that um, you know, I think are also needed for the success of this area.

Um, and I I the the solution is probably try to include it all.

Well, it's gonna come down to this is what council is talking about before.

Like we have to look at the economics of this whole thing at some point.

Like it's great to have like the general vision.

I think you're hearing from the council, yes, we understand this housing, there's gonna be some commercial space down there, public and open space, these trails and all this stuff, but the intensity and the particulars of it are really going to depend on on the economic.

So at some point, I think relatively soon, we need to start kind of looking at, you know, what is going to be feasible before we get this big appetite, and then all of a sudden we're like, because it's not that much area down there to recover.

You know, I mean, I think we're gonna have to get as much private development out of it as possible because already a big chunk of it's being taken up by the wastewater treatment plant.

And at least some of the old site is probably going to be some public use.

So, you know, it's not like the downtown area where we had all of this um all of all of this um assessed value.

You know, there's not the the increment just doesn't seem like it's gonna be at the same level, you know.

So what can we finance with this district?

We I think we need to come to the kind of that question sooner rather than later.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, again, we're we're still very early in the process, and that is something that we are um we've built into the process for the coming months here, of course, as we move into the plan alternative.

So that's something that will I think um, you know, uh after this sort of large scale visioning exercise, we're going to get into more of those specifics and talk a lot more about trade-offs and et cetera.

Oh, do we have an online uh yes?

Uh counselor Afghan.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, I think we need to step back and elevate a little.

We've been talking about this area would be an extension of the downtown area.

And what does that mean?

I think we need to let the consultants figure that out, and then we look at the bigger picture then decide.

We can't just add 30 more 2,000 or uh 3,000 condos for the people who want to retire.

But at the same time, uh we need to have an extension of downtown, so commercial residential mixed views, all of that needs to come into play.

And none of single item needs to win here.

It just needs to be an extension of downtown.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Very helpful, thank you.

All right.

So I guess kind of on the same uh note to a degree.

Um, we can talk a little bit about the public realm and amenities.

I think I know what the answer is going to be here.

Is that um, you know, we have question what role should public spaces play in defining foothills identity?

Of course, there is an existing, there are multiple existing public spaces down there already that have already played that role to a certain degree.

But what we're hearing is, you know, that there's a desire for you know that riverfront to really be emphasized and the access to be continuous, of course, which is something that is coming to fruition here fairly soon.

There's you know a desire and plans for Foothills Park to be expanded northward and enhanced as well as for trails and open space connections.

So just wanting to confirm with you that that is something that you're really wanting to prioritize in the space moving forward, obviously um most of it is already there.

Um, but really to make it as accessible as possible, I think um, going back to that first question about access and um what's that?

Okay, yeah, I think I think we're on the same page here.

Yes.

Um so um yeah, just talking a little bit more about implementation, and again, this is something that is going to be something we consider a lot more moving forward in later phases of the project.

But um, as you can imagine, you know, there's um, you know, there's no uh because of this effort being led by the city and not really being led by a group of property owners that are getting together trying to sort of spearhead this effort like the last time around.

Um it's difficult to anticipate exactly when and how development will unfold in this area um once the plan is adopted.

Um so really, you know, what we've landed on is that there's really an uh almost a need, but you know, we're kind of calling it a preference here for both a phase long-term build up and to have these early catalytic projects that get some um you know investment in the area for that infrastructure to start being constructed and to actually be able to finance that piece.

Um so we think that this is something that unfortunately it would be great if everything was just ready to roll and we had a giant development site that we could just go and work with, but it's something that probably will take some time, particularly with you know that sort of public storage site on the north access um being critical to unlocking a lot of what occurs elsewhere in the district.

Um so yeah, I think uh, you know, I I think we know that we need to kind of try to balance these things and um are looking for your confirmation of that.

Um and you know, I guess with the development of the urban renewal plan, talking about the types of public investments that might be needed to unlock private development in that area um and different sort of more flexible approaches.

So I think you know, we're we know that we need to be flexible, but there is this question about um you know the sequencing of public investment, obviously, in this area.

So um I've heard that financing and and funding is a huge concern and that you know, obviously we need to see what's viable before we move forward with with any sort of large-scale infrastructure projects here.

Um, but obviously doing so would provide that certainty to developers that we found is is is desired um with what we heard from those developer interviews.

Um so you know, I I guess it's just um just asking the really initial question without having too many specifics, but you know, to what level do you think that that public investment in this area should come early um and um and really try to catalyze um private developers to come in or um you know, do you have any other ideas, I guess, of what we can do to catalyze development in this area.

Well, I think I mean the we have to we're gonna have to get going on the formation of the urban renewal area.

I mean, that's gonna be the main no develop, no renewal area, no development.

Well, and not only that, but the question is gonna be, and this is really gonna need to be fed by the urban renewal plan.

How long are we gonna have to have the urban renewal plan in place before we can actually afford to borrow any money?

I actually I don't I I I guess I would just caution you guys that I think the earlier guidance you have to do.

Yeah, the earlier guidance you gave, your honor, is the right guidance on this question as well, which is it all depends on what the financial plan says for the urban renewal district, but whether we can approach this through a huge upfront public investment, or whether we have to wait until funds accumulate in the urban renewal district before we can borrow.

And of course, we have to um we have to uh what is it unwind, tie up, what uh and we have to let the current east end district expire.

Because I'm sure there is some properties and I think our uh big opportunity for uh people like the that's not what that was.

I know you wish that's what that was.

That was not what that was.

The uh I think there's probably the best opportunity for some, not just with the North Anchor, but the with the the the what the North Anchor will catalyze, perhaps in that vicinity along uh B.

You know, but until we we wind down uh before probably anything happens in um down in Foothills, because we're gonna have to make, I think some of these infrastructure investments almost, I think this is more akin to kind of like what we did in Lake Grove with really that's an infrastructure plant.

It's an infrastructure plant that has then catalyzed other private developments all along the corridor now.

And we didn't know what would come at the time, but things just came, you know, and I hate I mean that's not a great plan.

Like, oh, let's just see what happens.

But um, there might be, I think it'd be a little more intentional down here, but the infrastructure is going to have to come at least somewhat contiguous with these um with these developments.

I think we'll be able to afford it with some of the current downtown redevelopment, but that has to be a part of the urban renewal plan.

So we're on a it's kind of a tight timeline in a way.

You know, we have to unwind, we've got to, you know, the east end, start the the foothills, kind of have an idea in advance of all of that of like what properties would we include along, especially like the B Avenue corridor that have a high opportunity for redevelopment, and maybe some others along you know State Street.

Um and then just what the overall uh debt capacity of the district is gonna be, at least kind of a broad strokes.

So we know like this.

I mean, because we know that that second interest is gonna be expensive.

Yeah, big bucks.

So at least it will help.

Like, are we even are we maybe dreaming too big or at least give us an idea?

You know, yeah.

This is you know, very early to start talking about the actual um you know dollars associated with these things and how that's going to phase.

And I would say the the phasing of development um and infrastructure improvements in this area is one of the more tricky um you know puzzles to solve, I think here.

And it's something that you know, luckily we um that was one of the big um strengths that we saw on this consultant team, and particularly the inclusion of Eco Northwest on the consultant team.

And so we're going to really talk about that in a lot more detail later in the process and hopefully have some visuals a lot more cost estimates go along with um those phasing discussions.

So anyway, the I think I got uh the general sort of sentiment though from council that we need for this particular question.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it more comes into can you just get it within yourself to go like, yes, there may be some big ticket items that we have to deal with.

This won't be just a policy shift.

We're gonna up zone it and we're gonna tell everyone we've got a URA.

But there's there's gonna be some decisions to be made and some tough, you know, initial investments are are likely going to be necessary.

I think that's just sort of get wrap your head around that.

There's gonna be some big ticket items.

I imagine as we start talking, people will start becoming interested in this area for for sure.

You know, certainty brings absolutely investors.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think if you read those developer interviews, you'll see that there's definitely some interest, although you'll see a lot of other stuff in there as well.

But so you're saying that but pretty much any money that would even start the project would have to come to the from the urban adult that rule.

Yeah.

I mean, we have no we have no other funding for this.

Okay, just so we're all clear on that.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

And in some instances, knowing where your infrastructure project is, right?

Investing in the engineering, knowing you know how it's gonna be built, how much it's gonna cost.

You don't have the money yet, but you've done all that due diligence and you've told the world this is this is the road we want to build.

We don't have 150 million yet, but we're we're betting everything on this is the alignment that we prefer.

The developer sees a property not too far from that connection, they can get into the district from the current location, but they see the future too.

They see that you're committed to it.

They're they're more apt to invest in the district early on, knowing their their property is gonna be that much more valuable in 10 years when that project ultimately gets built.

So I think that's the chicken and egg.

You know, that's the incentive we're trying to create here, which is that you as decision makers want to go down a certain path.

And as we know with North Anchor, nothing happens quickly.

So was this the uh final uh the final slide, Scholson?

Yeah, okay.

We have a one more core question.

Last question from Councilor Afghan.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, it's not a question rather saying that the consultants have done a great job, a few hundred pages of report that looks at this uh opportunity and challenges from every direction.

I was uh truly amazed at how much information there was.

And since I'm in design and construction, I had to read every single page of it.

Now, when I look at the bigger picture, I think we have to uh show the vision to everyone.

This is the right thing to do.

We have an opportunity to make this happen.

And it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fast.

Now for Mr.

Olsen, uh I have put these, all of these information into three buckets, safety and security, sustainability and equity.

I think you guys have done a great job on safety and security and even equity looking at uh all the things that needs to happen in this area to make sure that we uh serve to all uh Lake Hostwigal residents.

On the part of sustainability, I did read that it would give us an opportunity.

This area would give us an opportunity for a uh larger canopy, tree canopy.

But I was wondering if we can ask the Le Cast Vigo sustainability network.

What else should be considered in that RFP that we want to put up?

That was one.

And the second thing is I couldn't help myself imagining that there will be some platforms on near Highway 43 because of the connectivity to looking at the river, looking at the area in the foothills park.

And if that image is also rings true for you, we have to make sure that the view we're looking at is something that is attractive, and we don't have all these rooftops with a whole lot of mechanical units and uh uh plumbing items that would ruin the view of uh what we're trying to do.

So keep that in mind as an aesthetic and the the overall viewpoint, vantage point, or those type of things that we don't end up with something that's less than desirable.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Those were my comments.

Thank you, Councillor Afghan.

Yeah, I couldn't think of a better place to have like a roof deck or rooftop amenity space than what could be built down there.

So I can certainly see that point.

Can I ask one quick question?

Yes, of course.

One um last time we talked about height with the 2010 one.

I mean, it went way up.

Have we talked about height at all in the sense to Councillor Afghan's question about I'm not saying that we want to go way up, but um is I think that's kind of do you need more direction on that, or is that something we'll be able to test the height scenarios once we create the street network that's gonna create development blocks, and within those blocks, we'll be able to look at parking is always the typically the definer because once you start going underground, the cost gets predictably higher.

So there's a threshold.

I think 20-story tower seems ridiculous.

I think we're in that, you know, testing the five to eight range.

Some of that is the elevations are so much lower east of State Street that buildings are not going to be creeping up above state and blocking your view of the Willamette or other things.

So we'll we'll test that.

We'll be able to have blocks and look at what is a three, four story, three-story walk up.

What does that look like?

What does four over one or five over one where you have housing and maybe a ground larger ground floor commercial space?

So all those will be in in the scenarios that we test.

A lot of those will be guided by the parking capacity of the block to deliver on that much development, but you'll get a sense of of how it's going to look visually.

We're also using a 3D model in Rhino, so we'll be modeling the existing topography.

So you're not going to be looking at just like a flat drawing section.

We'll be able to see it in perspective at a scale that what's the view from the A Street Corridor looking to the river.

What's the view from Foothills Park looking back into downtown?

We'll be able to develop all of those visually.

Thank you very much for the update.

Um, thank you, Will, Jason for uh the good work, Eric and to the community members on the CAC who are here.

Thank you very much for all your attention and colleagues.

Thank you for the good discussion.

I hope it's been good good guidance.

It's a great first check-in, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And just uh just as a as an ending statement here, we're hoping to return to city council in March, early March on March 3rd, so you continue to talk about uh the vision and guiding principles, and we'll have a little bit of public input to share with you at that point as well.

That's great.

Okay, thank you very much.

60% plan, is that what I heard?

Forget it.

We're gonna take just a quick five-minute recess.

747 when come back.

Very quick thing.

So I don't know if I did something in particular.

Stand up.

Okay, okay.

We are uh back in order and moving on to the next item on our agenda, next study session.

This is our economic development strategy update.

And I am pleased to welcome a consultant Mary Bosch here who's been working with the city for many years on economic development issues.

And we're looking forward to tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Mayor.

I'm gonna make this a very short presentation, and it won't be nearly as complex as Foothills.

You already know.

It feels like a piece of cake after uh the diversity and complexity of Foothills.

So thanks for having me back.

Umgratulations on getting through the majority of your work plan from three years ago.

Um I'm always happy to put on my economic development hat in my own community because frankly, it's an occupational habit to be always checking in on every business and every business district in town, no matter where I am.

It simply is the way it is.

So there's three separate products for this assignment, and they each stand independently, but of course, retail and office analysis does feed directly into the economic development strategy, and none of this work of spaces in order to stay responsive to the market.

Um this is a summary slide of what I heard in talking to a number of people.

First, just to check in on, you know, we're a huge office market, the second largest outside of downtown square uh square footage wise.

Um, of course, our location is Premier.

Um we have a beautiful quality suburban office setting.

Um it's a good thing that we have diversification happening among our property owners because many of them are owner occupied businesses, buildings and properties, so that's a plus.

Um it's also a plus to see Shorenstein paying attention to the need to adapt and change and convert.

They have a national perspective, and they're bringing that to this development, which is really important.

Um, on the challenges, which he every single one of those is um an opportunity as well.

Um it's sometimes it's hard not to look at the cruise meadows given our space constraints in this community.

It's hard not to look at the um the developable land in that corridor.

And earlier in the fall, when I was sort of studying the parking usage, I guess at around 60 percent, and I think it's actually lower.

So the land to improvement ratio is quite quite diminished.

So it'll be interesting, you'll see as we get to the strategy that that's become a um an important uh discussion topic.

Economic development paradigm, nothing is changed.

Umic developers look at businesses that serve populations, the local population, that's our convenience retail, um, other types of businesses, ones that serve visitors, which some of that is retail, but it's also arts and recreation and restaurants, and then traded sector, which is what everybody desires because it has the greatest economic impact uh on our local economies in terms of multiplier effects, higher wage jobs.

So it took me a little while.

I tried to update many of these numbers.

I couldn't reach everybody.

Um this is a list of our largest private employers.

This is um this is wonderful.

This is a wonderful list.

We have diversity among these traded sector employers.

Most almost everybody on this list is uh Lake Oswego is their headquarters.

Um they are committed to being here.

And uh as we get into strategy, these are targets for our business retention expansion initiative.

Um I wanted to share just a couple of anecdotes from the conversation with um Scott Studd at the Biotronic Microsystems.

Biotronic is a German-based company, but microsystems is based here, and they are connected with the work that they do.

550 employees, that's updated.

Room for expansion, payroll of 40 million.

Just as one anecdote on their economic impact, 45,000 a year feeding their employees donuts once or twice a week.

So let's you can unfold that.

It's significant.

And he's very eager, by the way, for to give tours to show you what they're doing, to talk about their location.

They are, you know, the major anchor in the Southwest Employment area.

They have about about those employees, about 50 to 100.

He was ballparking, live in Lake Aswico, which is close to what we know our employment base hosts.

You know, only a couple thousand live and work here compared to about 22,000 that go out of town every day or are coming in.

Quick snapshot of the industrial sector.

We have no space.

So I took a stab at what I thought it meant here with input from the retail, the office, knowing what I know about the big projects in town, and the assumptions that we will have a full-time position, staff position at the city, partially devoted to economics development, partially to redevelopment, and that there will be continued partnership with the chamber.

One piece of business from the last three-year plan, the code audit coming up.

But nobody does economic development without partners and more partners, and we have some great partners in our region.

The county's a terrific partner.

Everybody on this list is a terrific partner, and they will come into play not only in terms of marketing and promotion, but technical assistance and access to you know grants and loans that I'm not sure we're factoring in the mix right now and should be.

Each that I spoke to was very excited that the city might be expanding its role or rethinking its role in economic development.

So the frame the strategic framework is a little bit different than the last three-year plan.

It was that time a little bit more internally focused.

Maybe not looking at some of the bigger issues we have today.

Each of these buckets would be a part of any economic development strategy anywhere you go.

And I I think that weighing their importance is part of, of course, what we're eager to hear from all of you about, and knowing that they'll adapt and change over time, and certainly many of the projects the city's already working on fit under these buckets.

So I tried to provide some small bite-sized projects as well as some longer-term thinking and strategizing, and created not a detailed action plan, just sort of a jump start to say who's the lead partners out of the gate timeline and metrics.

We've got to be measuring how we're doing to make this work as valuable as I believe it should be and can be.

So I won't spend time reviewing the details, all the steps under each of these elements, but maybe just to give you my quick take on relative importance.

I'm every economic development strategy needs to begin with supporting the businesses and investment that's already here.

He said, Well, yeah, I remember talking to the city during the Southwest Employment Area Plan.

That was 10 years ago.

And so he's eager to have a conversation to be open to share where they're headed.

He wants to stay here at one time.

He looked at going to Hillsborough.

We do not want that to happen, and Hillsborough might be talking to him for all we know.

But that's just the game.

So I think business retention expansion is critically important.

Most of the details you see here are just building the infrastructure.

There's this is a strategy that really costs very little money.

It's staff driven, it's relationship building, it's sales and marketing, it's follow-through, it's time and trust.

One or two things that pop out here, a cruiseway focused campaign, bringing those property owners possibly together, maybe to talk about a long-term vision.

How do they see things changing?

I mean, there's some opportunities here, and I'm sure they're ready.

Economic vitality marketing, that doesn't mean a brand for our economic development efforts.

It simply means let's let's get clear on what the promise is.

What is the value add the city is bringing, probably bringing already to businesses, but hasn't stated, hasn't put on the table.

And through an economic development program should become a little more crystallized so that the city knows what its commitment is, and that could be things you're already doing, you know, targeting turnaround time on permitting or you know, follow-up with business issues or developer issues, but it's not getting promoted to around a vision or a message.

Um and there are certainly other things, you know, that how do we want to position ourselves in as an employer location, and um what's the image we want to create, and there's lots of ways to do that.

Many of those are just again one-on-one, strong partnerships, showing up, actively engaging in the region and in the business community with some consistent participation.

So once again, um everything on this page, maybe with the exception of a web page or um you know some more memberships and organizations.

This is this these are not big budget items.

This is energy commitment follow-through.

Even without a large swath of land ready for development for retail or industrial, there are still ways we can be diversifying our business mix by getting ahead of vacancies and maybe more actively participating, both in commercial and in industrial, in helping shape the conversation around the types of businesses we want to see here.

And so again, many of the steps here tie to just creating the systems and making sure the systems are being worked for how do you pay attention to leads and potential vacancies before the property owner takes the first business that walks through the door.

If it's in your core downtown retail area, for example, that's a you know pivotal location where this is important.

And that's of course just paying attention to what's going on in the marketplace.

Um our business community has lots of ideas and getting out and looking at what other suburban districts are doing, it can be really informative and it's pretty exciting.

There's a lot of change going on out there.

Customer attraction, I think is really important.

It's very important to our retail and service businesses, our business districts.

Um it's everything from sharing the work that's already been done, like around looking at gaps in parking.

No, we don't have any, according to the last study.

So let's just find ways to keep those that information in front of businesses and focus on the things that are more important, like feet on the street to keep retail in open uh no matter where they're located in town.

Uh, everybody wants that, not just from the local marketplace, but also from the visitor market.

They clearly identify visitors as being really important to their success.

We also it's I don't think we've ever asked this community what they want to see, and it would be relatively simple to say what businesses would you support that aren't here?

Um it's a pretty straightforward um way to um capture interest and get new ideas, and also come up with a little bit of a targeted list.

So I promise to go quickly, I'm almost done.

Um longer term, I think we have to look at expanding employment lands if we're interested in growing the economy.

Um we can begin that with some a very relatively simple task, and that's looking at the properties that are noted in our comp plan or our economic opportunity analysis, our land base as being developable, commercial, or industrial, and you know, really filtering them through the lens of are they are they business development ready?

And maybe there are other properties that are that you know are not contributing but could be another simple step looking at the Southwest Employment Area Plan.

A lot's changed in 10 years, and um there's still it's a it's an incredible plan.

It was really well done, uh my personal opinion.

Um, and I think a lot of the input and strategies are still very valid today, and of course, all the other work that's going on around Foothills, um North Anchor, and envisioning how that North Anchor project will catalyze uh downtown in all directions, um, particularly down B Avenue would be really valuable, along with cruiseway visioning, which I already talked about.

So, lastly is organizing for success, taking this information first, establishing priorities for the year ahead and beyond, um, and then really taking a look at where the city should be leading, the chamber should be leading, um, how does how does how do those two organizations work uh in partnership with the other economic development players?

Um work plans, resource plans, all the usual stuff.

Uh I'm pretty excited about what there is to do.

Um it's not building new shopping centers every other year, but that's okay.

This is this is more interesting, it's more fun, and I think more opportunity to be responsive to what's the assets are that we already have, including the tr the traded sector employers who are significant contributors to our economy.

That was too long, sorry.

Is that is that the last slide?

Okay.

Questions, comments, feedback?

A lot of great uh information here.

I think it's a really it was a really good thorough report.

I know members of the uh business community have been, you know, in addition to the council have been uh you know diving into.

Um and there are like you said, I mean, we we have so many uh strengths here within our business community already.

We see we have these low, I mean, I know there are so many entrepreneurs in town that we all have like a thousand ideas, and you can't even execute them.

There's no space, there's nowhere to go.

Like we I mean, you know.

Um and we have really good, I mean we look at the work that our chamber is doing, um, building these relationships, like you said.

I mean, that is huge work that's already you know being done.

So we have this great you know, foundation.

It's just kind of building on it.

And you know, one thing I took from um some of the interviews that you reported on is people really want the city to be a participant in it, and it felt like they've just been kind of left on on their own, you know, for some time.

And so now uh here we are, you know, the council's made it uh uh a goal uh these past couple years in you know, have we started partnering with the chamber in this way just to have better information and data and we can continue to take these next steps.

Um what I'd kind of like to do is propose is we have I mean, everything here is really good, and there's definitely more kind of short-term items that we can work on, things that we're already working on, like a um uh marketing plan to bring more people into the community.

And it is shocking.

I mean, there are so many people who come into Lake Osgo from the surrounding, even outside of that defined kind of Lake El Cugo market area, um, that just love coming here.

Um and we see the the resiliency of even through the pandemic of our which was very difficult, you know, for certain businesses, but still so many longtime businesses in this community, you know, run by people who are a part of this community and then who contribute in so many other ways, you know.

Um, which is which is great.

And and then they're supported by the folks that live here, and you know, there's these different aspects to like the the retail side of things that's kind of becomes a part of the identity, uh, but then the importance of kind of the larger, you know, like manufacturing businesses like that no one honestly really knows about, but the fact that they're bringing folks in uh to the community every day plays a huge you know vital role and so maintaining that uh mix of the kind of the residential retail character of the community with with these larger employers or offices that kind of remain more hidden, if you will, to the community at large, but who are definitely playing a role in keeping the community healthy.

But I'd propose kind of because you know we're on the cusp of bringing on an economic development manager, manager, well, something like that.

Okay, yeah.

Um and I think it'd be great to put a little subcommittee of the council together, three of us to work with that person when they come on and with planning and city management, however it may be, to kind of really look through all of these different areas and uh because so much of it is person-based, and the this individual who is not yet you know hired, uh kind of working with them and seeing what what are they going to be you know good at and then what and then having that lead into how we can best partner with the chamber and kind of putting a plan together.

Um, because it's gonna be difficult to do this in one sitting of the council here at a at a study session, but um if the council is okay with it, I think a little sub-committee of the council would be uh so and I would only recommend that the things in here that Mary's proposed that are about uh first of all getting organized.

The two things that really struck me about what she did is getting organized and showing up.

Yeah.

And if we did nothing else of her long list, but get organized, clarify our relationship with the chamber, because I do think they've done some great work, but I also think some of the work they've done, maybe we ought to be doing, and some of the work that we've been attempting to do, maybe we ought to ask them to do instead.

I think there needs to be a clarification of that relationship.

Um but the need to show up for the major employers and really listen to them and understand what they're thinking about, so we get a little bit ahead of some of the things that have happened to us in the past, like reading in the business journal when a business leaves, or reading in the business journal when a business relocates.

That's probably the place where I would say, yes, I think the counselors meeting with the new staff person would be great, but I think the thing that we ought to tell them is we need to get organized and we need to figure out how we can be present at a lot of the places that we've been absent for the past decade.

Okay.

And so much of this too ties into other things we're doing.

So I mean, talking to Schornstein and the other property owners long meadows ties into work we're doing on looking at the rezoning of different areas, southwest employment area, like you said, we haven't looked at that.

That's also part of a look at you know, how do we make better use?

Because that's the opportunity to create more retail space and stuff is in those areas without compromising the current employment area, you know, down there, adding to it, you know, and and and revitalizing, not revitalizing, but you know, adding more of um uh sometimes that residential character, you know, people on the ground, you know, vibe you know, add the vibrancy to an area, which you know we've seen downtown, we see it in Lake Grove as well.

And that was more housing kind of comes closer to the area, they just become and we make the improvements to go along with it, making them more pedestrian friendly.

I mean, these are the kind of neighborhoods people want to live in.

Um so, yes, we will do this.

We will put a uh a subcommittee together to work on putting kind of a uh a prioritization plan together and um helping to better define these relationships.

I think it would be with the information that you've put forward here, which is really well done.

Yeah, sounds good to everyone.

Great roadmap.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mary.

It's great.

Okay, final study session that we saved the best for last.

Stormwater management manual update.

Ms.

Johnson.

It's even raining.

That helped yeah, exactly.

We didn't want to get we didn't want to get too excited at the beginning of the meeting.

So we're glad that you're here.

And this is an important update to the manual.

And that's okay.

Um, thank you for letting me come and discuss the revisions that we're gonna have with the stormwater manual that we're we want to implement.

Um I appreciate the time and um attention.

The we we tend to update the stormwater manual regularly, that we did an uh major update in 2016, and then in 2020, we had a uh smaller revision to the manual.

This is more of a uh major update in the fact that we're reorganizing the manual to make it easier for engineers and developers to use.

Um, and we also have had um a lot of water quality requirements that have been revised in the last couple of years, uh, and so we're trying to address them.

And then Mayor, thank you for bringing up the the and counselor for bringing up the rain that we've had this winter.

Um we're also trying to address changes uh in weather patterns.

We're getting more intense storms, we've had several atmospheric rivers hit the state and Pacific Northwest in general, Northern California, and they're coming back to back.

We used to have like one or two atmospheric rivers hit the state back in the day, and now they're we're getting multiple ones per year, and they're now they're coming back to back.

So we're trying to address that with these with these changes.

When we started this project uh a couple years ago, um we came armed with a list of comments and changes that staff and engineers and developers had wanted uh in the manual.

They were looking at inconsistencies, they were looking at um things like I can't find this in the manual, where is it?

And so um when we started, we came with that list, uh, and then we hired a consultant to look at what's being required area-wide within the Portland metro area, and um even into Salem and Eugene, so that what we were asking wouldn't be too onerous for developers and engineers.

They would be used to these kinds of requirements, and be like, oh, yeah, we do that in Portland, it's fine.

Or yeah, clean water services makes us do that.

And then um we have uh a great staff.

Um we formed an internal team uh with staff that has experience in uh geotechnical uh areas.

We have uh staff with stormwater expertise, construction management expertise, construction expertise, um, and uh plan review.

Once we had put everything together, which again took a couple of years uh last May we put the revisions out for external comments for from engineers and developers and the general public.

We put it up on the website.

We uh sent a focused email that was being sent to engineers and developers who've done projects within the city within the last eight years.

And so because we wanted to cast a wide net, get everyone who has ever who's done projects here, make sure that they were okay with those changes.

And we also put newsletter articles in the hello hello, the yellow down, and um uh the chamber of commerce.

So we felt that we cast the net wide for the comments.

One of the first things that people will notice with the new manual is the manual reorganization, and we have included on the website with the manual.

We've included on the website a file that says this is how the manual is reorganized.

This is chapter one.

This information was deleted.

This information is now in section in chapter two, so that people can easily cross-reference.

They, you know, they remember, oh yeah, and in the 2020 manual, this requirement was over here.

Where is it now?

That information is easily seen within the um within the new uh web page that we created for this manual.

We removed a lot of information that wasn't necessarily design information, it was general information because back in 2016, a lot of engineers and developers were unfamiliar with this idea of low impact development.

And the stormwater design software was kind of clunky.

And you know, over the last 10 years, technology has gotten you know gone leaps and leaps and bounds.

The software is now very easy to use.

Um a lot of the information that needed to be input into that older software is now included in the software, so you don't have to have as many input files before you actually get a design.

And um, yeah, and and people are more familiar with um designing these uh rain gardens and planters and uh storm tech chambers and things like that.

And so we felt that that kind of information was just getting in the way of people getting the design information that they needed to get the job done.

Oh, the another um thing that we did is that we had uh requirements that were in multiple locations and then had slightly different language, and so it was coming up with in people were coming up with inconsistencies, and so we took those requirements that were in multiple locations, put them in one location, and had you know, and then you have just one uh requirement as opposed to going, well, it says this over in this chapter and this in this chapter, now it's just it's in one chapter in one location, and um it'll reduce those inconsistencies, which will make the design faster because people understand what they're being required to do.

Some of the technical changes that we've uh are implementing is um one of the bigger ones is we revise the precipitation depths uh required for the stormwater management.

You can see the 2025 numbers on the right and the 2020 on the left.

Um the 2025 numbers are based on the last 30 years of local weather station data.

We used a um a station that Portland has uh in their hydro network up at Nansen Summit.

And the 2020 numbers and the 2016 numbers and the 2000 numbers, if manuals from 2000, all use data from NOAA, and that data was last updated in 1972, and it used precipitation data from 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

So things have changed a little bit, and we wanted um uh the latest data to uh deal with these uh changing weather patterns.

Uh you can see that some of the numbers on changed higher from 2020 to 2025, some are lower, so it just depends on how the huh?

Oh, water quality.

So that is the lowest storm that uh we require engineers to design for.

So another some of the other technical changes is that engineers were having trouble meeting uh flow requirements, um, flows off the site, and so we relaxed some of those requirements so that they can meet those flow flow controls.

At the same time, we we decided to ask those developers, anybody who was putting water off their property because of development.

We're asking them to look at our downstream public system.

Before it was kind of a qualitative thing, does it look like you're going to overwhelm our system?

If not, then you can go ahead and design.

Now we're asking them to provide a technical analysis.

Will the flows coming off your site overwhelm our system?

And by doing that, we're going to decrease the amount of localized flooding caused by our system, just not being able to take the amount of water that is actually being put into it.

In contrast or comparison, the average home here in this in the city is has about 4500 square feet.

And so these bigger projects, 10,000 square feet or more, we're asking them to show us on a technical basis that the water that they're the stormwater that they're taking care of won't adversely affect their downgradient neighbors.

People who are lower than them, adjacent to them and lower than them, and also that again that the system, our system can take the amount of water that's coming off their site.

Oh, there was one other thing I wanted to.

Oh, one other thing that I wanted to cover is we added some, is it's a couple of pages back.

Okay, so we added source controls to the new manual, and those are like a source control, is something like putting a cover on your storage area that has that you're where you're where you're storing waste uh waste materials or raw materials, so that that doesn't get it precipitation doesn't hit it, and then it becomes stormwater, and then it goes into our system and into our streams and our our lake.

The impact that we see this having on engineers and developers is that these larger projects, the 10,000 square feet or more, which when we did the analysis, it's like 10% of the projects per year.

Um so the majority, vast majority of projects done in the city won't have these uh increases in design analysis to make sure that they're not affecting the adjacent property owner and that they're not adversely affecting our public system because of the water that's coming off their site.

Um we'll increase our water quality uh here in the city because of the treatment that's being required prior to discharging water off site, and that is actually a DEQ requirement and the latest stormwater permit that they handed us.

They said every all the water that comes off a site needs to be treated before it gets discharged, and so we um we put that into the manual, but it'll improve the water quality, meaning there'll be less sediment going into Oswico Lake, and I don't know if you remember, but last summer we had um concern about an algal bloom, and that's generally caused by sediment, phosphorus in the sediment, and so it's kind of a vicious circle.

Once that sediment gets into the lake, then it constantly recirculates that phosphorus, and so we're hoping that with these new changes that there will be less sediment entering the lake and our streams.

The um next thing that we're gonna do is implement the manual, and uh we're gonna do a reverse uh of what we did with the comment period.

We're gonna send that focused email out to engineers and developers that have done projects in the city within the last eight years.

We're gonna put that newsletter article into hello low and low down and the chamber of commerce, and then internally we will refresh the memory of staff who maybe don't deal with stormwater every day, and even those who were working on the manual because it's it's been a while since we all got together and talked about the changes that are occurring.

Um and then internally we will refresh um the memory of staff who maybe don't deal with stormwater every day, and even those who were working on the manual because it's it's been a while since we all got together and talked about the changes that are occurring.

And then we'll always be available, um voicemail, email, uh in person, and um we have that online comment form if people just want to dash a quick note off to us and we can answer them that way.

Um with that, um, I'd like to ask you if you will let the city manager sign a letter that um approves the recommended revisions as allowed by um our municipal code.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

Johnson.

I have one uh question.

I was kind of so I know in these um in these updates are talking about looking at the infiltration kind of downstream to and whatnot, changing the um parameters there.

How as we've added more of the kind of sketch, oh no, not catch, but I'm looking at the um at the image here on the right, the what do we call this thing?

The a vault, these vaults, and and and the rain gardens and kind of doing more of that on-site filtration.

How do we, especially when it's um not not so much like an on-site, but one of our kind of public vaults or or garden and it's capturing a lot of higher volume of stormwater, you know, from the road.

How do we know that's not like going down and then infiltrating you know, underground into people's properties, basements and things?

There's uh a software that you can use for it's called modret.

And um it has to do with it analyzes when water infiltrates from a rain garden or a storm tech chamber or anything like that.

It models where the groundwater table is, and then the stormwater coming down and how it uh flows enters that groundwater table, or let's say it hits a clay layer and it spreads out this way.

The the software is its primary purpose is to model what yeah, but that ground what that groundwater, that infiltrated stormwater is actually doing, and it can say whether it's gonna come out at onto an adjacent property owner.

Oh, so so we do this as part of the design process.

Yeah, part of the design process.

Um, and it'll be the they found that the you know when you try to um put a bunch of water into a very small space, like 10,000 square feet into one planter.

Yeah, that is when you have your problems.

Um if you if you took that 10,000 square feet and you dispersed it in your site on like say four planters or five planters, excuse me, five planters, then you're not gonna have that same effect because it it's there's a little bit going over here, a little bit going over here, a little bit going over here.

It's not all concentrated in one spot.

Yeah, interesting.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Questions?

Comments?

Would someone like to make a motion?

Uh yes.

Oh, please go ahead.

I would move to authorize the city manager to approve the recommended revisions to the stormwater management manual as allowed by LOC35-25-11.

Second.

Right.

The motion is made by Councillor Willen and seconded by Councillor Raff.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Imposed.

Okay.

Motion passes 7-0.

Ms.

Johnson, thank you very much for the updates.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for allowing me here.

Great to have you here.

Thank you.

All right, folks.

Is there any information?

Any information from council?

Just remind everyone, obviously we're in a new year.

And uh new committee assignments, take a look.

And I'm sure the staff, if they don't connect with you, connect with them to you know, meeting times and all that stuff.

And let us know if you cannot make a meeting, you'll coordinate with us too, because we can all, I think we'll work pretty well together to make sure one of us is there.

Okay, um, Spennet.

I have only one thing, which is just to let you know that the fire station poll is back out in the field.

So if you get questions about why are we polling on yes, you recall that you the next time you see the fire station, you're gonna get uh closer to final number, but you're also gonna get the results of how vote potential voters feel about a bond measure that might be in the size that would pay for the numbers you saw at your last council meeting.

So that's in the field.

You'll we'll have results and uh to you, I think on February 3rd, I believe.

Oh, February.

Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

Okay, well now we are gonna move into uh executive session for the remainder of the meeting.

I'll ask Miss uh Tatoyan to read us the uh parameters, please.

Oswego City Council will now meet in executive session under OS 192.660 subsection 2H to consult with its attorney regarding legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed and subsection F to consider records that are exempt by law from public inspection.

Representatives of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session.

All other members of the audience are asked to leave the room.

Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session as previously announced.

No decision may be made in executive session at the end of the executive session.

We will not return to open session.

Okay, thank you so much.

As we will uh recess this, we'll conclude the broadcast portion of the meeting and we'll uh recess and reconvene in the side room.

We're just gonna stay here.

Oh, we are side room.