Tualatin City Council Work Session – June 22, 2026
Tualatin City Council Work Session – June 22, 2026
The Tualatin City Council held a work session on June 22, 2026, at 7:00 PM. Three major agenda items were discussed: the Climate Action Work Plan development, the 2027 legislative agenda and funding requests, and an introduction to the contextualized housing need and housing capacity analysis. Council members provided direction on prioritization criteria, project funding lists, and housing analysis methodology. No formal votes were taken; all items were for discussion and staff will return with updates.
Climate Action Work Plan Development
Amanda Watson, Climate Action Program Manager, presented draft prioritization criteria for implementing the Community Climate Action Plan (adopted May 2024, 28 strategies, over 100 actions). The criteria include: climate impact (mitigation and adaptation), co-benefits (economic, health, equity), alignment with city goals, feasibility (staff capacity, funding, community support), implementation costs, and opportunity/timeliness (leveraging partnerships, sequencing). Council members suggested: adding a separate category for preparedness/resilience (President Pratt); emphasizing cost savings (President Pratt); weighing feasibility, cost, and opportuneness more heavily (Councilor Sako); phasing larger projects (Councilor Brooks); and incentivizing low-lift actions like cool roofs (Councilor Brooks). Councilor Brooks also requested data from Metro’s 2050 heat maps and emissions study to leverage community interest. The next step: apply criteria to actions and return late summer/early fall 2026.
2027 Legislative Agenda Development
Megan George (Deputy City Manager) and Cody Field (Policy Analyst) reviewed the process for state and federal funding requests. A preliminary list of projects was presented: Riverfront Park construction (~$14M); Tualatin Greenway Trail (cost TBD); Nyberg Creek Trail (cost TBD); Tualatin-Sherwood Road Railroad crossing (cost TBD); Basalt Creek Area Sewer (~$3.1M); A1 Reservoir upgrades (~$3.6M); Library City Offices Solar (~$1.7M); Tualatin City Services Microgrid (cost TBD); and Veterans Plaza shade structures. Council discussed pros/cons: Councilor Brooks supported the microgrid and solar canopies, but wanted more info on Basalt Creek sewer and noted community confusion on the railroad crossing; Councilor Hillyer supported most projects but also wanted clarity on Basalt Creek; Councilor Reyes agreed, adding that the railroad crossing needs better community explanation. Council President Pratt expressed concern about microgrid technology advancing quickly. Councilor Gonzalez noted that operations & maintenance projects (e.g., A1 reservoir) are unlikely to get federal funds, and that parks funding is “DOA” for federal unless zeitgeist changes. The consensus was to move forward with the full list except O&M projects and the Basalt Creek sewer for now; staff will vet with Congresswoman Salinas’ office (projects must be $1–3M capital infrastructure), and will return on July 13 with more direction.
Introduction to Contextualized Housing Need (CHN) and Housing Capacity Analysis (HCA)
Consultants Mary Chase and Matt Craigie (Echo Northwest) presented the two-phase project: the CHN (housing demand by type, characteristics, location) and the HCA (supply of buildable land). The project fulfills state requirements and is funded by a DLCD grant. Council discussed: President Pratt asked if demographics (age, family type) are considered – yes; and expressed concern that the analysis might lead to mandatory upzoning in low-density areas. Consultants confirmed that recommendations could include zoning changes, but council retains policy authority. Councilor Hillyer questioned the state’s growth projections given population outflow; consultants explained the state allocation includes catch-up for underproduction and factors like homelessness and second homes. Councilor Brooks asked about conversions of vacant commercial buildings, mixed-use capacity, and industrial-to-residential rezoning – noted that Metro rules limit converting industrial land, but commercial conversions may be possible under new state rules. She also raised the need to consider health, social services, and carbon offsets alongside densification. The next meeting with council will be in mid-September to review CHN results, with draft buildable lands inventory in fall.
Key Outcomes
- No formal actions were taken; all items were for discussion and guidance.
- Climate Action: Council provided feedback on prioritization criteria; staff will apply criteria to actions and report back late summer/early fall.
- Legislative Agenda: Council directed staff to proceed with the full project list (except O&M and Basalt Creek sewer) for further vetting with federal and state offices; final priorities to be discussed July 13.
- Housing Capacity: Council received the project overview; staff and consultants will engage council at each phase, with next report in September.
- Work session adjourned at approximately 6:55 PM; the regular council meeting began at 7:05 PM.
Meeting Transcript
In progress. Good evening and welcome to the June 22nd, 2026 dual to City Council work session. Our first item on the agenda tonight is our Climate Action Work Plan Development discussion led by Amanda. Welcome, Amanda. Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. My name is Amanda Watson. I'm the City's Climate Action Program Manager. Is that closer? Okay, perfect. Good evening, Mayor and Counselors. My name is Amanda Watson. I'm the city's climate action program manager. And I'm going to talk to you today about our climate action work plan development. I first presented to you all in April, and we talked a little bit about the process. This is a continuation of that discussion. So as a reminder. Which direction do I need to click for this? Anywhere. Let me sorry. Doesn't seem to be working. I'm getting a light that it might just be. Technical difficulties. Exactly. I had an extra long weekend. I can still get started though while we go for the slide. I was just going to kind of give for the audience a brief reminder that the Twalton's Community Climate Action Plan was adopted by the City Council in May of 2024, and the plan includes thanks. Perfect. Strategies and actions to for Twiliton to adapt to and lessen the impacts of climate change on our community. So these are our community-wide goals, net zero emissions by 2050, and preparing for and increasing community resilience to the impacts of climate change. So we're currently developing a five-year work plan that will guide implementation of this plan, which has 28 different strategies, over a hundred individual actions, right? Guide the implementation of that work over the next five years, which would be 2026 through 2031. And in April, you got an update on the work on the climate action plan so far. At that time, we talked through the process for developing this work plan, so I just wanted to give a brief reminder of that. The plan was to start with developing prioritization criteria, right? How do we want to decide which actions to take on in the next five years? So that's the phase we're in right now. We will then apply those criteria to the actions in the plan, come up with a short list and review that list, right? Make sure it aligns with our priorities, make sure the balances feels right, make any adjustments we might need to make to the criteria. We'll then develop metrics for the actions that are in the plan and adopt the plan. And the goal is to do this by the end of this calendar year so we can have a plan that informs budgeting and goal setting for next year. So since I last met with you all, um we've convened a city staff working group. We call it the Climate Action Coordinating Committee with representatives from across city departments to meet and talk about the direct the prioritization criteria. And we've also met with a number of different um community advisory groups, including the idea committee, the Tualeton Parks Advisory Committee, the Planning Commission, and then the CIO community involvement organization representatives at their quarterly land use meeting. Um prioritization criteria were to review the criteria that we're using in different city plans and processes around the city, right? We already have a lot of good experience with doing this, and so we reviewed the criteria used for the parks utility fee projects, capital improvement plan, our neighborhood transportation system, and the criteria that were developed by the downtown revitalization community advisory committee. They had a really interesting process to develop criteria for prioritizing projects for that revitalization work as well. All right, so I'll just jump into the draft prioritization criteria unless there's any questions on the process side of things. So this is the draft list that that staff advisory committee came up with, and that we then got feedback from the advisory groups on. And just to walk through it at a high level, the your packet also has a chart that has a little bit more detail, so I'll talk through that piece of it. So one of the uh draft prioritization criteria, it would we would look at the climate impact of an action, really the degree to which that action contributes to either mitigation, so the greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the climate pollution reductions of an action, or um adaptation.
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