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10/05/2009 - Minutes CITY OF TIGARD PLANNING COMMISSION Meeting Minutes October 5, 2009 1. CALL TO ORDER President Inman called the meeting to order at 7:01 pm. The meeting was held in the Tigard Civic Center, Town Hall, at 13125 SW Hall Blvd. 2. ROLL CALL Present: Commissioners Anderson, Hasman, Inman, Muldoon, & Walsh Absent: Commissioners Deughetty Doherty, Caffall, Fishel, Vermilyea, and Alternate Commissioner Gaschke Staff Present: Community Development Director Ron Bunch Asst. CD Director Susan Hartnett Senior Planner Sean Parrelly Associate Planner Marissa Daniels Associate Planner/Arborist Todd Prager Senior Administrative Specialist Doreen Laughlin 3. COMMUNICATIONS - none 4. CONSIDER MEETING MINUTES 9-21-09 Meeting Minutes: President Inman asked if there were any corrections, deletions, or additions to the minutes; there being none, President Inman declared the minutes approved as submitted. 5. URBAN FORESTRY MASTER PLAN (UFMP) WORKSHOP STAFF REPORT Associate Planner/Arborist Todd Prager gave the staff report. His main points follow: • The Planning Commission has been asked to review the Urban Forestry Master Plan and determine whether it is consistent with and supportive of the goals and policies in the Comprehensive Plan. • Following discussion and public comments, we are asking that you pass a motion recommending that Council accept the Urban Forestry Master Plan on the basis that it is consistent with and supportive of the Comprehensive Plan. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES — October 5, 2009 — Page 1 of 5 • In June 2008, Council adopted the Urban Forest section of the Comprehensive Plan, which includes a policy for the City to develop and implement an Urban Forestry Master Plan. • In October 2008, Council appointed a Citizen Advisory Committee comprised of the Tree Board plus additional technical experts to help guide the development of the Plan. The Committee has been meeting over the past year and reviewing studies of the past and present urban forest conditions, scientific community survey information, and City policies, programs, and regulations. This information, which was presented to Planning Commission last April, was used by the Committee to craft 51 recommended actions the City should take over the next 7 year time horizon. The 51 recommendations are listed on pages 3-8 of the Plan, and were carefully developed to ensure consistency with the goals and policies in the Comprehensive Plan. The Committee achieved consensus on their recommendations for Council at their final meeting in September. • Before taking the Plan to Council on October 20th and November 10th for acceptance, we want to make sure Planning Commission agrees with staff and the Committee that it is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Once the Plan is accepted by Council, staff will begin implementing code revisions and developing programs based on the timeline laid out in the Plan. The Tree Board will be tasked with overseeing implementation as part of theft annual work plan. At this point, Associate Planner, Marissa Daniels, described the public involvement effort that had been made. She went over the highlights of the Public Involvement Plan (Exhibit A). She noted a quick fact that from the last 6 months from April through September there had been 568 visits to the website. COMMENTS FROM FREWING At this point, President Inman acquiesced to Tigard citizen, John Frewing's, request to comment out of order (as he said he needed to leave quickly). Frewing came up and commented regarding the Urban Forestry Master Plan. He said he understood from the City Arborist, Todd Prager, that the commissioners had been referred to the website that contained all the historical comments and that he'd made all these comments before. He reiterated his concern with regard to three main themes: • Canopy goal for the streets in Tigard. UFMP exempts those areas from having a canopy goal even though the City itself has a canopy goal. • Wording in UFMP is not consistent with the Comp Plan regarding Natural Areas. • UFMP doesn't deal adequately with hazard and dead trees. There should be explicit direction that pruning and care of the tree ought to be a first solution rather than removing the tree. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES — October 5, 2009 — Page 2 of 5 QUESTIONS OF STAFF & COMMENTS FROM COMMISSIONERS Before questioning of staff began, Vice-President Walsh said he wanted to take the time to compliment Associate Planner, Marissa Daniels, on how quickly the amount of outreach took place. He said there was a lot of public involvement and public opinion, and the outreach that took place was impressive. He was very pleased with Daniel's efficient work and the fact that she adhered to her stated timelines; he wanted to publically acknowledge and thank her for it. President Inman suggested modifying 1 .2b on the top of page 4 of the Plan. She was concerned about the wording that said "Create an urban forestry Systems Development Charge (SDC) for new development in order to administer an ongoing tree and urban forest enhancement program." Inman was concerned about making developers pay when it is a citywide goal. She suggested modifying the language to instead read: "Investigate funding mechanisms to help support an ongoing tree and urban forest enhancement program." The other commissioners agreed this was a good point. Walsh noted that there were several references to creating a position called "Greenspace Coordinator". He wanted to change the language so the City wouldn't necessarily be forced to "hire" someone to fill that position. The position could be created, but the City shouldn't necessarily have to hire someone to fill it. Prager: This is in the draft that you were provided. As an update, I discussed this with the Parks Division and they are actually working on creating that position now. Walsh: Very good! COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC Ernie Platt, representing the Homebuilders' Association, spoke in opposition. He went through several sections of the UFMP stating it was not consistent with the Comp Plan. One was with regard to 1 . 1a; however, he did not have the most recent version of the UFMP and, after seeing the most recent version, said that may not be an issue now. He took issue with 1 . 1b & 1 .2b as well. After a lengthy talk, Platt noted that when/if this gets adopted, more discussion will follow at the implementation stage. Ken Gertz, Developer/Property Owner, spoke in opposition to the plan. He said he was an advocate for the "old people" of Tigard. Among other things, he said the old Tree Code was totally discriminating against the (mainly elderly) people who owned property with trees on it. He spoke against protecting groves in the manner this wants to do it. He said it's an outright taking of property from mainly the senior citizens of the community. COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC CLOSED DELIBERATION There was discussion with regard to what the public had to say and a few more questions of staff. They went over some of the points the public had brought up. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES — October 5, 2009 — Page 3 of 5 Inman summarized: • There's the possible revision to 1 .2B regarding funding mechanisms and removal of System Development Charge language. • Canopy cover - existing document is okay. • Natural areas — Can be handled at the code level. MOTION The motion was made by President Inman, seconded by Commissioner Walsh, as follows: "I move that we recommend that City Council accept the overall Urban Forestry Master Plan on the basis that it is consistent with, and supportive of, the goals and policies of the Comprehensive Plan - with one minor modification. [ The modification referring to 1.2B regarding removal of SDC language - changed to read something to the effect of "Investigate funding mechanisms to help support an ongoing tree and urban forest enhancement program."] The motion CARRIED on a recorded vote, the Commission voted as follows: AYES: Commissioner Anderson, Commissioner Hasman, Commissioner Inman, Commissioner Muldoon, and Commissioner Walsh (5) NAYS: None (0) ABSTAINERS: None (0) ABSENT: Commissioner Caffall, Doherty, Fishel, and Vermilyea (4) 6. WORKSHOP II Downtown Code Amendments CPA2009-00003, DCA2009-00005, ZON2009-00001 Senior Planner, Sean Farrelly, recapped the September 21st workshop and then presented his Power Point which detailed the Downtown Land Use and Design Standards Code Amendments (see Exhibit B). QUESTIONS OF STAFF (Answers in italics) After his presentation, Farrelly reminded the Commissioners that the public forum will be in two weeks on October 19tF1. He then opened the discussion up for questions. I-Ie asked if there were any specific design standards that they'd like to talk about. Is there anything that would attract the florist and the baker? Well, I think the lower parking requirements could help that kind of business on Main Street. Especially for a smaller business like that — perhaps these reduced parking minimums will help. We can 't, unfortunately, require that type of business. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES — October 5, 2009 — Page 4 of 5 The Planning Commission discussed the four different options for the Design Review Body as outlined in Farrelly's September 29th memo. They made no decisions but tossed around various ideas. 7. OTHER BUSINESS — Doreen Laughlin polled the commissioners as to whether they preferred a hard copy of the Community Development Code or a CD. In either case, all updates will be sent to the commissioners as needed. Laughlin will have the copies made and will distribute them as soon as possible. Office services at the City will be doing the copying and will need a few weeks lead-time. Because of that, the hard copies will take a little while before they can be distributed. CD versions will be replaced with updated CD's as needed. 8. ADJOURNMENT President Inman adjourned the meeting at 9:30 p.m. Doreen Laughlin, Planning Co ssi n Secretary m � ATTEST: President Jodie Inman PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES — October 5, 2009 — Page 5 of 5