Springfield City Council — October 23, 2023

0:05 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call Mayor Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councelor rodley here councelor Blackwell here councelor Doyle here and counselor pisher here thank you all right we've got a couple items to saing the first one is Planning Commission interviews with sandy bson sandy why don't you come on up and then hang on for a second because we're going to let Michelle yes due to my relationship with this interview I am going to evening May and Council my name is Sandy bson I'm the conference of planning manager and on staff of Planning Commission uh so tonight we have one applicant who indicated

0:51 Planning Commission is his first choice and that is Bruce Weber um we are interviewing to fill the position of Grace Bergen who resigned earlier this year so this position would fill her term which would expire in July of 2025 thank you Sandy Bruce why don't you come on down take a seat like me to go somewhere between Neil and the end of the table okay I that work about heref BR I think you do you know everybody oh yes I believe so I it forly I guess but nice to meet

1:38 you person yes yes I believe I do all right I'm gonna ask the uh the three questions we have and then um then we'll go from there okay you ready yes sir what what strengths or skills would you like to bring to the Planning Commission okay uh I retired uh from a 43y year banking career in 2019 um I was a commercial lender for and team lead for many many many years and one of the things that we did was you know we collect information you ask questions you analyze the information and then you know you make a lending decision that's you put it all together and come and come up with the right answer hopefully um I worked with developers on the financial side for many years during that time

2:23 um and get their projects to to finish off or whatever and I think this gives me some sight into the planning process I've served on numerous boards over the years um since I retired four years ago um I focused my attention on community service and I currently am Vice chair of the L County budget committee I'm Vice chair of the fair board and I'm past president of Springfield rotary so I am lots of people in Springfield and that's part part of it happy to answer any questions how do you think the work of the Planning Commission improves our community um well I mean the Planning

3:08 Commission uh improves the community in my opinion because it's it is the citizen oversight um for all the things that go through from you know transportation and infrastructure and all those things that's what the Planning Commission that they are the citizen involvement with that um and I think that really ensures that Springfield residents have a voice on what what happens in Springfield um and I I think this helps build trust between the citizenry and the city if you could make one positive change in Springfield what would it be well I don't really have any specific Focus or agenda um obviously my goal is

3:55 to learn a little bit more about what's going on in the plan con I watched a couple Meetings online um but then again to help to figure out what what needs to be done and where I can help out in that regard um I'm in the community a lot out and about in lots of different organizations and going on like that and uh and I think one of the best things that you can do is is be informed so when you are out talking to people you have answers that you can give them is just instead of just going well that doesn't work very well for that then you can you know why it's working that way and you can explain to them why it is that way and that was one of the one of my reasons on the Lane County budget committee that you always hear they're wasting money they're doing whatever well you spend I spent three

4:41 years on the budget committee down and watch where the money goes and how they do things and so I can feel like I make an informed response to somebody asking questions okay do you have any questions for us no like I said I watched the uh last week's meeting and a couple ones online I know they meet on Tuesdays and you passed that was a secret question yeah I did I did know twice twice a month perfect um we were G to talk about what we want to do and then somebody from the staff will get back to you so thank you so much for coming in I'll be happy to ask answer anything else like we went with a shortened Q yeah all

5:28 right thank you thank you that was our only interview um in Sandy how many openings do we have on the Planning Commission okay all right folks and I think we went out that was our second time we went out right we've been out twice for planning Comm we extended the okay you guys good good good good good good good good okay there you go thank you so much before he leaves all right next one is the Springfield history museum advisory committee Maddie and do bring Melle oh

6:16 we should wait he's see how long should stay out hello mayor and Council um I am matal mcra I'm the curator at the Springfield history museum and I am the staff for the Springfield history museum advisory committee and we had um one vacant position uh for the term expiring for Adam Howard and we also had Megan England expiring as well um Council went ahead and allowed for Megan to be uh

7:03 directly reappointed so we do not have Megan here tonight um two applications were received one from Mahala Rell and one from Megan cheel Megan cheel was not able to be here tonight um but we have Mahala redel and so that would be for a term that it would be a full term with an expiration date of December 31st 2027 and long all right any questions all right I think we're ready to go come on down hello we're going to do a round of introductions real quick um and then

7:49 we'll go ahead and get started with your questions why don't we start with Victoria and we'll work our way I'm Victoria I am City councel for Ward five so kind of in the middle of thirston and um middle of spring Michelle Weber counselor for w one Gateway and North Springfield steeve commissioner for ward two which is sort of high five to 10th Street blackvell Ward four can smack dab in the middle industrial kind of area you know I said commissioner in [Laughter] counsel gave yourself a promotion President we still get paid right yeah yeah I want to ra I'm rodley she her prodos I'm in word three Sean Van Gordon mayor and

8:34 apparently on the second interview we've totally lost control go thir six they'll be tested are you ready for the questions yeah what strengths or skills would you like to bring to the museum committee um so I have a background in history um and I did actually used to work at a small Town Museum so I am pretty familiar with kind of the both the rewards and the challenges that can come with um work in that kind of environment um I am fairly new to Springfield um I actually I have a here and there kind of relationship with with Oregon I I went to high school in Eugene

9:20 um but then I left after high school and didn't come back until um this last year so I moved um back into moved into Springfield um so I looking for ways to get involved in the community ways to meet people ways to sort of bring my skills to um to a community initiative so I currently work in a library um as an archist um so I've got some experience um and skills with that I've got experience with um community outreach with exhibits um with all that kind of thing so um that is really kind of what I'm hoping to bring how do you think the work of the museum committe improves our community um I am very passionate about

10:06 the value that history um cultural engagement um knowing about the place that you live um and where you know where it came from basically and and who are the people here and who are the people that have been here um that that enriches life in a community um so that is I think uh you know where I see value in the work of the museum um and subsequently then the the museum committee which is you know working in tandum with the staff of the museum working on Outreach um initiatives and and education and getting the community in the door and through providing those services so that's what I feel like is very uh

10:51 important if you can make one positive change in Springfield what would it be um I am still definitely learning about Springfield um I I have heard so many great things about it even in just the few months that I've been here um you know seeing things like the block party and the the revitalization of Main Street and um kind of bringing bringing that um pride and engagement um with the city um so I don't I guess I don't know for for sure right this minute um what I think might might change except that I do think it's very important to see that kind of initiative and that kind of forward momentum keep growing um and

11:36 keep you know keep up that engagement don't think that the work is done um yeah great thank you so much do you have any questions for us um I guess I am kind of curious about uh I don't know what the relationship is with you all and the and the history Committee in particular um yeah does any want to take this one we're the spot for civic uh Civic go ahead yeah so welcome and you got an amazing background I have have to tell you it's pretty very impressive awesome so like like all other committees and commissions they serve basically at the pleasure of the council and that there

12:21 is Staff lays on to each one of those those committees and commissions that uh provide that resource to the members of the committees and commissions and typically we try to have all the Committees and commissions report to us on an annual basis as to what's you know updates what's going on and and any issues they've been encountering um so there's not a ton of contact um but there is typically a counselor that is appointed to each one of the count committees and commissions that will try to make those meetings so they can report back to the council great one right there so yeah it's it's it's pretty pretty uh it's a good good mix hope that answered your question perfect thank you it was so

13:08 nice to meet you um we're gonna talk about what we want to do and the uh staff person will let you know great thank you thank you welcome than thanks for coming in all right I'm looking around I've seen head nods head nods head nods we'll let staff know how we how we're not as pocket up tonight as one would want I think yeah all right you got everything you need AJ I do okay appointments are scheduled for December 4th just as a followup for staff and people in the building if you stalled on that then we

13:54 would have really had to call sorry they can attend the meetings between now all right uh next one is Arts commission interviews Mindy good evening everyone mayor council uh so my name is Mindy Linder I am the liaison to the Springfield Arts commission this evening you will be interviewing one candidate for two vacancies for membership on the Springfield Arts commission uh the commission currently has two positions open one is due to a term expiring of our current chair um who is terming out summer young gelan at the end of this calendar year and one position remains

14:39 vacant because it was not filled in our previous recruitment um so we do have one applicant Chris roale roale for um two vacan I I did um so we asked that you interview this candidate um um and determine we believe that the candidate is eligible and qualified to serve on the committee or on the commission and we ask that you with the interview so Chris you're out yeah do it hi everybody hello Chris how's everyone tonight I don't think I've ever met a mayor before so that's pretty cool better be on my best behavior you

15:26 know I didn't laugh at that I I did third interview and completely off could you help us with your last name ro haly ro Haley okay nice to meet you nice to meet you guys so Chris we haven't met um but you are we're going to go around let people introduce themselves and then we'll ask a couple of questions okay so Victoria Victoria Doyle I am word five of by thir okay Michelle Weber word one Gateway Springfield Steward two 55 10 streen okay Beth Blackwell word four where's word four and the middle Industrial Area okay um 42nd to kind of 21st olypic I'm word okay sweet yeah uh Cory rodley she heard pronouns I am in word three which is

16:11 kind of also up the middle um uh like 10th Street over to 21st Street we share 21st Street um so Mackenzie mamit Maman kind of right up in that I'm still in Word six chary everything basically east of 58 okay Joe all right so what strengths or skills would you like to bring to the Arts commission Lots okay yeah I mean not not to sound overly confident but I have a lot to bring um I've been a local business owner here in town for 25 years uh Area 51 Tattoo um I brought a worldwide syndicated television show I

16:57 created it called called epic Inc on A&E and um I kind of birthed that from from the beginning and I brought that here to town um and that was viewed by three million people a week for almost two years um some especially proud of that not only to feature art and you know create something from from The Roots but to feature Springfield heavily in it um we filmed at the M stadium and all over town um the scul out here the welcome to Springfield vat sign I think we're jumping in and out of it Ying from Cops you know um but I I really tried to involve a lot of local businesses where where the apparel for local business and stuff and once I did

17:42 that I realized this was in 2014 and 15 and I realized that I wanted more I wanted to do more with my City because I was especially proud of my city and featuring it and having everyone see it on national TV from here to Australia to Brazil you know um so I started doing more and um I started coaching a lot of Youth Sports and donating my time for a lot of Youth activities my my son uh is a little athlete so um I did that so I've I've made a lot of connections in this town not only from tattooing 10,000 people in this town from being the very first tattoo shop and the last one still stand still standing out all of them but

18:28 um all those connections all the parents of all the children I've coached for the last decade almost 15 years of coaching Youth Sports um so I pretty much know everyone in this town except any I don't know any of you guys surpris I haven't tattooed you guys I have tattoos all over that's crazy but that's gonna change so um I so basically I feel like I I have a good pulse on this community from the younger generation um from tattooing them all and seeing what's popular with them and what they're in touch with and the culture that they have all the way to

19:13 the older generation that I've been tattooing for years and and that kind of thing so um I feel like I bring a really good connection to the community in that aspect so right how do you think the work of the Arts commission improves Community um okay I'm GNA be honest I didn't even know this existed I didn't and that's why I want in okay um I knew nothing about an Arts commission I know my friend Bane that paints The Simpsons murals everywhere you know um that was about all I knew and a friend of mine sent me the link for this vacancy and they said man with all the people you know and the connections you

19:59 have and the art background you have you'd be really good at this and I read about it and I was like wow this is amazing I didn't even know this existed in this town you know so I immediately said that I want to be a part of this so other people and I have like I said I know this town and I know everyone in this town and everyone I talked to didn't know that this this commission existed and I was like well I'm going to change that you know I have a huge social media presence from the television show and stuff like that um and I want to utilize what I have and what I've built to bring awareness to programs like this and the historical one and I I didn't know anything about these and and I've had a business right down the street from you guys for 25

20:44 years you know so I feel I can make a huge impact on bringing awareness in this community to programs like this especially the art program because I have I have that connection in the art field so if you could make one positive change in Springfield what would it be I feel like I'm constantly trying to make positive changes in Springfield I do um right now I'm actually currently right next to Area 51 Tattoo there's a vacant lot and I'm putting in a Turf uh football field um I'm starting a nonprofit for underprivileged kids because with all these years of coaching we had to turn away so many children that couldn't afford to play and these kids in turn get in trouble you know

21:29 they don't have sports to look up you know to get involved with and stuff and and I see these kids are great athletes and they're great kids and before you know what they're doing drugs and they're getting in fights because they don't have something like that and this is just one example I me to be longwinded I'm sorry I'll make it quick but I I saw that problem and I had this vacant lot next to me and I decided you know what I'm G to I'm going to build a field there and I'm going to offer free clinics and free lessons I have lots of connections with organ duck players and other other guys like that that have tattooed and they've all are they've all signed on and they're all willing to teach free clinics and and kind of keep these kids focused on Sports and out of trouble and athletic exercise and that sort of thing so things like that I'm

22:15 constantly trying to do in the community um I'm in the middle of that right now um I teach I teach tattooing and I'm looking into getting grants to help people that can't afford my program um so I'm constantly trying to improve Springfield in my way that I can and I feel like if I get this position it's just another way that I can help improve Springfield by drawing awareness and attention to these kinds of committees and getting more people involved with it so than do you have any questions for us no everyone has food but I don't have any food you want to um no uh I'm just I'm happy to be here and I hope I can represent um you

23:01 know kind of a different aspect of uh a committee that maybe you're used you're used to and stuff like that I feel like I can bring a lot um to the table for this and I'm pretty passionate about it so I'm excited yeah so thank you guys for having me I appreciate your time thank you so much aw thank you thanks all right all right I've seen a lot of head nods so all right let you know what we said you guys are regular comedians tonight that was our last interview for the evening next we're going to move the housing diversity tax exemption with

23:46 Katie Caroll I just wanted to comment that I just thought we had a great collection of folks who had applied even for the person who didn't show up it would have been a tough choice depending on how it when I just think we'd had a good round and this time since there's two positions on that art yeah we we we'll Hing them again and see if we can't get them here Kati here you're up well hi everyone act to follow okay uh so I'm Katie I'm the city's housing analyst uh

24:32 tonight we're going to be that's transition um talking about a property tax exemption that the council has been considering that we're calling the housing with tax exemption or hdp you may also know of this as the multiple unit property tax exemption or M um and I do just want to really quickly acknowledge that this has been a coordinated effort between Community Development Economic Development and finance and in particular thank um Ali camp and Nathan Bell who are here tonight um for their support of and help with putting this together so um I'm going to be brief on background since the council's been talking about this for a while but there is more General background at the very end of your packet tonight as well as

25:19 LinkedIn um prior Council packets which are linked on page one of your memo um but basically this is a property tax exemption to incen development of new multiple unit housing near Transit and in core areas the idea being that by exempting property taxes for the first several years of a building more projects will pencil and we'll see more housing of this type than we would without this tax exemption um the city needs to decide how many units uh minimum would be required for a project to be considered multiple unit under this exemption Springfield has chosen um five units minimum and then the city also needs to identify the geographic areas within which the exemption would be available and under State Statute

26:04 those have to be within a quarter mile of Transit um so Council has previously directed Zach to include the areas on the map and the tax exemption um so no one second just a quick question on those those areas are those all areas that are identified that fall within those parameters or is that just selected and they so um Council to my understanding this was pre my taking this over looked more generally at areas of Springfield to include and excluded some Gateway um not being on there for example Glenwood not being on there and then I don't remember the exclusions

26:49 umy I don't know if you bees doesn't mean it didn't doesn't mean it didn't happen but I just don't remember providing exclusions to the program was opposed to I thought we're looking at it to see what all areas would be included that that the Liv a quarter mile of a transit system gateway's got a ton right on the MX could be I could be mistaken right so um yeah we did exclude Gateway because of Transportation issues at Gateway Belt Line we excluded um further out east on Main Street uh in part because because in previous discussions you didn't want to encourage that housing right up next to Main Street Street that's right remember and

27:36 so this area this area of Main Street um has more mixed um zoning than um further east yes uh and we did not include Glennwood either we started off not including downtown but that was added in partway through so this is what um we had come up with the one other change happened in processes up at Q Street that small piece off to the right um we added that at your request commissioner commissioner again another motion and I think and and as my mind refreshes here which is kind of a Kickstart too I think we excluded the talked about the Gateway area Gateway area because um it already has a

28:22 tremendous amount of traffic and that to further increase the population that area would even compound that issues that that was kind of where we were at with that one right and I think also there's a lot of multif family in that area already a ton yeah so we're trying to Target okay um I mean if you want to revisit we can but this is where we had gotten to and um and you had confirmed these areas at your previous meeting I just trying to get a refresh it makes sense thank you and then the actual boundaries themselves are drawn around plan designations that multiple unit housing yes Cory and we could always adjust it as we like we could do this for a while see how it works and if it really encourages it and that if there are other areas we wanted

29:07 to Target we could adjust it later on yes so the one um thing to keep in mind with that is with adjusting areas we may need to go talk to other taxing districts again because it may change the mix of districts that are involved Victoria would someone who isn't in one of these designated areas has a great idea and has an opportunity to develop could they come and say we'd like to be in you know we'd like to to be considered for this and then have that considered or is it like nope sorry you're not in the area um so they could be considered but Council would have to change the boundaries of it so under State Statute we have to designate areas where the exemption is available and so

29:53 if they came to council and said we have a great idea they would still need to be within a quarter mile of transit or in a court area also because those are other state statute requirements for this right right I understand that but if they met the requirements and they were in one of those areas I just I'm trying to figure out why we wouldn't just do it on a case- by case basis but okay St I'm The gled Advocate I never say very much but I'm going to start doing that in the future in this case I looked at that map I wondered why wasn't included in that and there must be a reason but I am curious Sandy do you remember much about why we excluded

30:38 Glenwood well just stay sure I'll just stay um so initially we were not including the urban Ral districts because those are based on tax increment financing they had other tools available to support diversifying our Housing Development so we initially did not include either Urban reild District in later we added in downtown but we did not have a request to add Glenwood there are areas there are in say limits yes I mean and it's also um in the Glenwood refundment plan there's talk of the vertical housing tax exemption which this um tax exemption would be replacing that in the downtown area so there is policy support for

31:24 Lenwood um but we have didn't ever gotten direction to include right okay let's keep going all right so um anyways it's to incentivize development of multiple unit housing in these areas that Council identifies so um council's been talking about this since 2017 obviously there's quite a bit of History here um most recently in the spring Council had two work sessions in March Council directed staff to not cap this program um right now but to set it up so that the council could Institute a cap on the maximum Exempted Revenue in the future should it want to and then Council also looked at

32:11 the um areas under consideration for the exemption and confirmed the areas that should be eligible um and then in the may work session Council reviewed initial staff recommendations for the public benefit aspect um of this program and directed staff to make it more flexible and to allow developers to propose public benefit ideas to the city um and then there were also some differing opinions on Council around how many years to offer the tax exemption for um so both of those things will be coming back to tonight um so following those two meetings staff did some Outreach um we reached out to other taxing districts that uh could be impacted by this if the

32:57 council moves forward with adoption those are all listed on the screen um we did not hear back from the smaller taxing districts but did have a chance to talk to staff at willaman the county and the school district um willaman staff did share some concerns about the potential impact to the district from the exemption um council could pause change or end this program at any time based on a request from willaman or another taxing district um which would be a way to address that concern that they brought up we also talked to um several local developers and kind of three themes emerged from those conversations that you'll see repeated throughout staff's presentation tonight uh the first one is certainty developers want a program that's clear and offer

33:43 certainty about the requirements that need to be met to get approval for this um they want efficiency so they want an approval process that is quick and relatively simple and they want flexibility so they want multiple options to meet the requ requirements some may want a more prescriptive path to approval and some may want a more open one so staff um took that feedback to help inform updates to the draft program guidelines which you had seen in a previous meeting um those are attachment two in your packet tonight and then also to write a draft code which is attachment three of your packet um these are written with staff's recommendations for the various policy considerations we'll go over tonight and those are all highlighted in blue so they're pretty

34:29 easy to pick out in there um so I'm going to go through all of the policy considerations that we have for Council um staff's recommendations and then have some questions for council at the end so the first one of these um policy considerations is how many years to offer the exemption for the city needs to um decide how many years someone granted this exemption would receive a tax exemption for a maximum of 10 is allowed under State Statute so um the city could uniformly offer this exemption for 10 or fewer years or could decide on a project by project basis how many years to exempt taxes for um in that case uh the city would need to

35:14 adopt criteria to kind of determine how many years on that project by project basis um as I mentioned at your last meeting council members shared some different opinions on this um policy question one of those was an interest in limiting tax exemptions of 10 years um to only be for projects that could show they wouldn't pencil but for this tax exemption so making that analysis would require developers to submit two pro foras one with the tax exemption applied and one without to kind of make that finding um staff is recommending that the city uniformly offer this exemption for the full 10 years allowed under statute and to not require that but for

36:01 analysis so returning to what we heard from developers um in terms of certainty this would help applicants know before applying what they would be likely to get so that they could start to evaluate if they even wanted to apply for the tax exemption and then plan in their project around that um looking at proformas to do that but for analysis is I learned from talking to developers pretty subjective um so making a requirement tied to doing a pror analysis is potentially problematic because it introduces a lot of uncertainty um about who would potentially qualify or not for this um in terms of developers interest

36:46 in efficiency if the city were to do a proforma analysis we'd need to hire outside expertise for that which would add on to administrative burden it would add on to cost for developers and then on to application timelines um and then other reason staff's recommending this is that all the other cities that we looked at with this tax exemption offer it for 10 years with the exception of I believe Salem once um granted one for fewer than 10 years so this would make Springfield kind of in line with other cities programs and um more competitive when developers are sort of looking around and deciding where they may want to build a project and then Council can as I mentioned change this program in the future so staff's recommendation is to

37:31 kind of start wider see if and how it works and then um narrow in the future if council is beginning to meet its goals for the program any questions about this one or sh do you want us to talk about them as we go through them or do you have are the questions going to prompt us up the I think my preference would be to just get through and then discuss through the council once but if they're like clarifying questions any anybody have questions go Jo so I would be curious to any of the uh requirements to apply for or be part of this program any of the things that you're asking the developers to do and you looked at the costs associated for those additional

38:17 requirements and those would be upfront costs which then themselves May hinder what we want to do in terms of like a proor analysis um yes off the top of my head I haven't broken it out specifically but I've looked at application fees and I will say just off the top of my head that application fees are quite a bit higher for cities that require that analysis like in the, plus more in application range and I believe if I'm remembering correctly that um some cities have said that they're not even recouping the cost of having that analysis done um so yeah there's so that's something I think May deserves some more delving into before

39:02 moving forward if the council is interested in doing um or having that butt for analysis then yeah I can invite it's kind of like looking inviting 10 people to the party but if we say hey I you 10 it's a it's a bob and then start telling them what brand to bring then then we may not have 10 people show up and I think that's the reason staff's recommending not going down that path of doing that analysis okay this is going to sound maybe sound crazy but why are we doing a complete 10 years at 0% tax it just feels like that we're that the taxpayers that are currently paying taxes or subsidizing this and I don't know why we wouldn't do something where the you know

39:48 in the first year is zero and in the second year it's 90% And at the third year it's 80 to where they're eventually at the end of the 10 years they're boom now they're paying what everybody else's you know their tax rate as opposed to just giving it free money for 10 years I mean I get that we want development but I just got my tax bill and it's six grand and I'd love to have some sort of an exemption for you know paying year after year after year so I guess that's my question is why does it have to be the full 10 years at zero so um I think the idea behind this exemption is that it's incentivizing development that wouldn't otherwise happen and so the city would

40:35 still and all the other taxing districts would still be collecting tax on the land that's not Exempted in this tax exemption so it's like if the improvements weren't built at all and so the idea being it's kind of this short-term tradeoff of not getting revenue for however long we're exempting taxes and in return getting buildings built that may not otherwise have been built and so getting kind of the long-term Improvement value when they come onto the tax rols in terms of the specific structure of could we do 100 90 80 70 60 50 is that kind of what you're talking about I'm just asking um I don't know if that is allowed under statute and I wondered about that and then are you saying that the other taxing

41:20 districts are on board or are we going to be the only ones giving I mean like what about m is it mwmc do no that's that's right that's right that's FD um so in order for this to apply to the whole tax levy and not just the city's share we need 51% of the tax Ley Levy to sign on which is basically the city um the county and willaman or the city in the school district um School District staff have indicated that um their board is likely to be supportive of this as I said wellam Lane has some reservations but we do have a followup course meeting with them um and so then it would apply to everyone if we get that 51% okay okay let's keep on going okay um so

42:09 this next policy consideration is around stacking of incentives so Council had previously directed staff to not allow developers that receive ceda's um SDC payment assistance to also qualify for this tax exemption so in other words to stack those two incentives um multiple developers did ask the city to reconsider this and staff is now changing its previous recommendation to recommend that the city conditionally allow stacking of these two incentives so in order for a developer to get both ceda's SDC payment assistance and this tax exemption uh projects would need to be four or more stories uh so this is a question that's really only applicable downtown where the urban renewal District boundary

42:54 overlaps uh the boundary for this tax exemption and so returning to those themes again um in terms of certainty structuring the conditional allowance like this would be helpful for developers they could easily see up front if they would qualify for one potentially qualify for one or both of these um incentives other reason staff's recommending this is market conditions are really difficult right now developers are facing high costs to develop so allowing stacking of incentives kind of recognizes that and making it conditioned on a building being four or more stories is also recognizing that there's generally a higher cost for development of mid and um

43:39 high-rise and then other reason staff is supporting this is downtown is as you know mostly one to two story development right now with the exception of the I don't know if it's the rivet or the riv uh project um and then the Royal building which actually did receive a tax exemption the vertical housing tax exemption as well as some affordable housing subsidies so encouraging higher density development would help the city both meet a goal of the downtown refinement plan as well as generate more revenue for the district because we would be encouraging these kind of higher value projects that once they did come on to the tax roles would be bringing in um more revenue for the district questions on that one okay

44:26 so um the public benefit structure this is the aspect that Council discussed pretty extensively at the last meeting um by Statute projects cannot be approved for this tax exemption unless they include one or more public benefits as defined by the city um at your last meeting staff presented initial recommendations to council um and has since refined those based on the direction that we got from Council as well as additional research and input from Developers so staff is recommending offering three options uh for developers to choose from to meet this requirement of the exemption um and I'll go through each of those now so the first option would be a clear and objective criteria um so it's

45:13 basically a list of different categories of public benefits with very clear minimum standards developers would need to meet um they would pick two public benefits to include in their project if at least one of those met list a criteria or three public benefits if all of those met list B criteria and list B items are generally lower cost and or lower effort um so how we put this together is we took the list of public benefits that you saw in May there were some additional ones that uh weren't developed yet that Council said we want to see those included too uh so we added those on and then sort of went through all of them and identified categories that lent them elves to a clear and objective review and included those in

45:59 this option one for categories that um were more subjective those are still included in the draft guidelines they're just under option three so I'll get to that um so the categories available under option one obviously shown on the table on the slide this responds to developers interest in having certainty um it would really be helpful for developers wanting to know upfront some clear minimum thresholds to meet for a project in order to be approved for this exemption um it would allow developers to evaluate again whether or not they would want to apply for this and to begin planning their project including public benefits early which is something that uh we heard from multiple people would be helpful in terms of efficiency

46:44 since it's a clear and objective review it would be straightforward a lower Administration effort um there'd be less back and forth between City staff and developers to try and understand the expect ations and that could translate into cost savings for developers as well option two here is a fee in L so instead of directly including a public benefit in the project a developer would pay a fee to the city the city would use those funds to increase Ada accessibility of our public facilities by completing projects like curb ramps um these are all identified in the city's Capital Improvement program already um and this would be a 10% fee of the total amount that a developer

47:30 would receive in as as an exemption which they can either pay upfront with a discount or pay over time uh delayed so that there would be a period for the project to stabilize um this essentially is the same benefits as option one in terms of certainty and efficiency uh with potentially even faster decision timelines since there would be very little for the city to review and then option three here is really responding directly to um council's Direction at its last meeting and to what we heard from developers where you know some people want a I guess it would be the safer like clear objective pathway and some may want to take on more risk to propose something novel or

48:18 um kind of interesting for the city to review and so um we took all of the categories that you saw last time that didn't really lend themselves to clear an objective review they're under this option three with some examples so a developer could propose public benefits as part of their project that fell under this or something else entirely for the council to consider and the guidelines include a set of discretionary criteria that you would be able to use to evaluate projects sure quick question on the excuse me on the uh I I like this um but it allows for flexibility a lot of flexibility which is great so who's who's the one that says that'll work so

49:07 what the guidelines currently have is a set of um criteria that are discretionary for the council so it's sort of um a set of items that you would use to weigh a benefit to see is it sufficient is it a public benefit um is it something that staff could you know monitor over time so that is how the council would kind of weigh those proposals so we would we would see those with ones that come get to this level saying hey we want to ask we W to uh we want to go with proposal under option three or whatever you want to call it and that at that point it would say okay hey Council we have this one anomaly here and this is what they're proposing what do you think and then council could

49:52 specifically look at that you have a y yes that gets into my next okay point so I don't me to answer that's I just want I just want to see where the decision point is and who's making that decision because it's gonna it would be a subjective decision yeah okay Corey before we go forward yeah I just wanted to clarify that you are suggesting that we keep all three of these options yes and with P so the idea being that option one and two is if you want to take on sort of a lower risk easier approval process okay are we going to have an opportunity sorry goad are we going to have an opportunity to review in more detail those options I have some concerns about some of those but I know that now

50:37 probably isn't the time it's just it's a lot of information for us to deal with and that's not something that we probably need to take up time tonight with but if if we do go forward and say yeah we want to move with this I want to know that I can still talk about those options in one and two yes so um my idea is to get through these and then kind of open it up for our Council so we could take some direction tonight Depending on time that we have too um okay so two councelor pisser's point um the next kind of consideration here is the approval Authority um for this so previously the statute required that Council review and decide every application for this program um but the legislature changed the rules for that this most recent session so that Council

51:23 does not have to do that anymore so staff is recommending delegating approval authority to the city manager or their design for applications that meet clear and objective criteria so that's that option one or option two um so to answer your question the option three open proposal would still come to council um so what that would look like sort of review pathway wise is on the screen here so obviously there's kind of a saved saved set for those clear and objective applications um this is obviously really responding to developers interest in having efficiency this would really help streamline the program um for people meeting clear and objective criteria not having to wait for their application to go in front of

52:09 council um and Council would still see the more subjective applications and staff could um provide updates to council so you would still be aware of if how the program is working um in case there are changes that the council wants to make and then Joe's got a question yeah sorry I'm just wondering now you said that that staff could update us but I'm just wondering if are they or is Staff planning on updating us when we have any projects that are going into this program or is it any projects that specifically are option three so seeking feedback on that the way the current current guidelines are written is that staff would would

52:55 provide an annual update to council um however we could provide communication packet Momos about each approved application in addition to that I think it's a question of um you know what information the council wants to receive when see with me the way I look at this would be um I mean I personally want to know what kind of activity we have and but also being able to and I imagine you'll have a offramp down the road but want to be able to see that we have an offramp to this and when that when that would be mandatorily kicked in or where we would have that decision Point saying okay at what point is you know enough's enough you know we can only drop taxes for 10 years for so many buildings so to

53:40 speak or so much valuation and then it's going to start cutting into the and start harming the city taxpayer wise so I don't know if that's been considered or not if I'm getting ahead of the card on this one um so there is in the can't remember if it's in the guidelines or the code but there is that off ramp you speak of to allow Council to Institute a cap um based on Direction in the March meeting there's not sort of a set time for that and city attorney's office also recommend not having some kind of automatic expiration because then if Council wanted to continue the program that would get really complicated with having to yeah I I support the No No cut off point but at some point based on the amount of information or feedback we're getting

54:25 it would be something that staff I think would should be able to say hey this is getting kind of crazy here Council and so maybe you may consider or you may think about this offr yeah I think an annual report is a really good opportunity for that um but if council is wanting to hear about individual applications okay yeah I think we're g to want more information more than simply an annual report a special like yeah or something similar to some of the land use application pack you know packets that we have where just simply a table saying here's five things that are going going live right like we're gonna get asked more about this this this program and so if we don't get that kind of refresher it's GNA you know

55:11 we're gonna get surprised by something Cory go ahead yeah that's all I was gonna add not to get into the weeds but we already get that like weekly development report or whatever that is that says and if it was just another page to that or whatever that said what was happening and highlighted that it was part of this program I think would be that would be enough for me but I'm one person but say and if you know in those development reports if you just have you know the ones that have this program or or getting this incentivization be italicized or something that stands out from the rest of saying okay this is one of those programs and that's okay so not high so high level not super detailed okay I think already say in them if it's an Adu

55:57 or something because I read those and I'm like oh that's what's happening here so if it was something that was like part of the whatever we call this program yeah I think that would be fine okay okay let's keep going um okay so this last policy consideration here uh staff didn't have a recommendation on so the council can either um have the exemption apply to just the multiple unit housing improvements or could also extend it to include parking for the multiple unit housing um so some considerations there is climate friendly Equitable communities implementation means that soon the city will not have parking requirements anywhere in Springfield um so including parking in what gets Exempted May incentivize developers to

56:43 provide it however the market may do that anyways um I think we have an idea but we don't know for sure what will happen there um the other thing that I would share on this is is that surface parking which is what we may expect for most projects coming in under this would represent a pretty small portion of value as compared to a full project so um exempting it not exempting it may not be a huge piece of that puzzle um but so anyway staff didn't have a specific recommendation on this one but it's a question but I think I'll just get through the rest of the slides and then we can jump back to that and then the broader question which I think gets to your um Point earlier councelor Doyle is does council concur

57:30 with staff's policy recommendations and then just quickly previewing next steps once the council's ready to move forward um the city would need to have a public hearing to adopt this by ordinance and then we would need to reach out to other um taxing districts to formally seek concurrence so it would apply to the full tax amount and not just the city share um we would need to establish an application fee uh with the Lane County Assessor and then put together Outreach and application materials so still several steps before we would start accepting applications so um just turn it back over Okay so let's talk about the parking and then we're going to go through a couple of these questions and get some get some head nods or changes um does anybody want to

58:16 jump in them about this question about parking go ahead chill initially when I first heard about this I'm thinking are you kidding me we need to we need people need to place Park and I want the streets all jammed up it's just ridiculous and blah blah blah blah and I started thinking about with conversations that it's it's a market thing I think if a person's developing an apartment complex or whatever they're going to need to want to make sure it's full and part of that analysis is on their shorer to say okay am I going to attract people with ample parking or am I going to have less tenants because there's no parking available so they're not attracted to live here so I I I it's spooky to me but but that I think that may be something

59:01 that's Market dependent based on how the property is put together and and how the developer is is going to do on site or not on site whether he wants to make he or she wants to make it a a benefit or not or something that would attract tenants or discourage them it's it's a risk that the developer would have I don't know I I'm I mean I was really adamantly against not allowing or not having a requirement poliy on site parking but I'm kind of going with what the market decide Cory and then we'll go to Beth yeah I actually agree with Joe on this um you say that like a we do we do agree because I think that depending on the neighborhood there's going to be ones that that people are going to want to live in places where they don't need the

59:47 parking particularly if we look at the downtown area we're we're really trying to do that and if it's a different um if it's a four-story and they put parking in the basement or whatever I think it could letting the let seeing how it goes with the market could help to us to get to some diversity in terms of what the different housing looks like so I'm I'm open to just letting that go yeah that's I was gonna say the same thing I think it's instead of requiring it kind of leaving it to the market to the area that for the building so just clarifying that um none of this is saying that the city would or wouldn't require parking right exemption the application just okay great which could easily want that we may end up wanting

1:00:32 to put par there if it's an exemption or not so um right and I was goingon to say I can check to see there are some other things like the details of public benefits that are just in the guidelines rather than the code because the guidelines can be adopted by resolution so it could be easier to change so I can see if this is something I could put in the guidelines so if the council changes its mind and wants to include parking in the future it may be easier to do that okay um Steve my thinking is in the future transportation is going to change we're going to go to bicycles walking buses stuff like that so the prob is GNA get used to less parking out there it's just going to be part of life and so I hope

1:01:17 think that's going to be as big of a problem as we think okay I think we're ready I think we're ready for the uh next question okay so any questions about staff recommendations now is our opportunity to go back and you know say we want to talk about policy um policy questions or bring something up that was presented that's go ahead um not so much a question but I just want to say I I completely agree with the 10year um tax exemption I think that this is exactly what we need to incentivize um uh developers to come in and and help us with some affordable housing and I

1:02:02 also agree with um the whole adding the the other stacking with with the sdcs I think that's a great idea especially with the climate today with you know um the cost of of in you know inflation and and interest rates and everything just anything that we can do to kind of get that going and especially if if we can change that at some point sounds like we can right we can yeah at particular at the guidelines so I think I think that's a excellent idea so I completely support that okay Victoria so I I've always been one to support these type of things but I think that it's important that we consider that we're not

1:02:48 just giving a this like bonus we are taking away money that helps run the the the our city right and that is the general fund so that's just something to keep in mind I don't know how much it would be but it sounds like over 10 years depending on what we get and the other thing was I had several people call me this week about this and their concern was do we have enough industry in our community to support all this housing that we want to build like I know we need housing but are there jobs here that are like highp paying reg you know wage jobs that are going to um so this like support that right like it's kind of a balance between the two right we need housing but we also need jobs to do that um on options one and two you there

1:03:36 was the question of if they put in a certain amount of housing that or a certain amount of units that are at lower cost um as a benefit um my concern was that it stops at the 10 years so these people could get people in and they're paying that rent and then the second that we they start having to pay taxes that person's rent goes up to market rate and that's a little bit of a concern too typically those type of of incentives are locked in for 20 years or you know indefinite um so that might be something that we need to consider when if we're going to make that a benefit it shouldn't just benefit them for 10 you know be something that they pay for that 10 years they need to cons we maybe want to consider that what that what that effect is going to be to those folks

1:04:21 that are getting a 20 and 30% know you know getting a discount on their rent and affording it and then not be able to afford it so the taxes are still being paid on the land that's sitting there right so we're not really losing money yes if it's not being developed it's not being developed it's been sitting there so so we're really just banking on once those taxes kick in in 10 years they're going to go way up compared to having nothing there right yeah that's a good so you kind of got to look at it as like setting aside for a future larger much larger benefit rather than sitting there and getting nobody to develop there plus we we filling a need for for affordable housing too it's just a tool in the tool box good good point thank you yeah I was just gonna comment same thing as as far

1:05:07 as nothing from nothing is still nothing so do has no effect on the general fund anything added to that we'll collect later we just don't get to collect it now but it's still money in the bank so speak but the other thing as far as rent Skyrock and all that stuff well the state already has caps on that you can only rent this year it can go up by 10.25% Max so they already rent costs are controlled by the state it's probably going to get worse or should say get better depend upon if you're a renter or landlord so but but that too so I think I think that that you know I've I think 10 years is plenty long and I was I'll even self-c confess I was even thinking that five years would be would be okay but

1:05:54 doesn't seem like that's too Frack so um I've got a couple I guess I got a couple other questions here so what's the plan with waman I know that that was sort of in in you know are do you have meetings coming up with them like so we'll be going to their board um meeting in December just to provide kind of some more context around like what is this where's the council going with it um I think they have the same question about like Financial impacts what does that look like um and providing that information in December sdc's just go up yeah um but I think the I think the difference I'm hearing in the conversation is the feedback we've got right now is from their staff right not necessarily their policy board until we

1:06:40 get to the policy board level then that's gonna that's going to work our way through that the other thing I think that would be valuable to point out to them um would be again point out to all of us I mean we still have Enterprise owns that go through a majority of this community dealing with commercial Pro you know products um and so even though this one's longer you know we sort of treat develop this will allow us to treat development roughly equally right so on one hand we're taking you know incentivizing commercial development this program's designed towards you know uh housing um I think I'm fine with everything I saw from a recommendation perspective like I don't have any questions about the 10 years that seems like it's in line with what everybody else is doing and then creating some

1:07:25 paths for people so that uh that you know we're only seeing a certain amount of them I think makes a lot of sense Cory um I just I know Beth Beth put it on the line I also support the stacking um and just just appreciate that we've gotten to this because I know we had multiple conversations we all had lots of questions and this just really seems to be tightening up and I'm excited about about it so is there any other feedback that you need yes I hear yes to the stacking too um to get it ready for a public hearing um I think just in terms of like Council Direction on the particular concern that councelor Doyle brought up

1:08:11 around um number of years just clarifying was that concern resolved yeah it doesn't I mean I'm I it was just a curiosity doesn't necessarily have to be a um well then what I'm hearing is that for now we are not including parking y in the exemption but I will see if we can put it in just the guidelines so Council wants to change that in the future um and then the council would want to see in that weekly update um applications in addition to an annual report yes um and then I think that's all I wrote down that we need to just to just for my clarification again you did say that this can be Revisited so if we get to this program and it does have the 10year

1:08:56 tax exemption and the areas that we identified that you know this starts the program starts to take off and we get some interest in it that we can kind of revisit this and decide okay it's it's gotten kind of popular or whatnot we need to maybe dial it down a bit or something maybe put some more sideboards on it yeah yeah and then just reiterating kind of the one big thing that would be more complicated to change would be the boundaries um because that would likely require returning to other tax districts but otherwise um a lot of those changes that are in the guidelines would just simply be an updated resolution Victor are those areas chosen by the the amount of lots that are

1:09:42 vacant no they're simply based on plan designation um in a previous iteration staff had done some analysis of Redevelopment potential but we decided to not do that this time given just you know there's a lot of emphasis on infill now and I think it's sort of hard for staff to determine you know what is a redevelop lot I mean obviously vacant lots are one thing um and so leaving that to the market and developers to determine okay thank you um I guess the other the other question I had is under the programs it's written do we have the ability to pause it yes I would think so I'll double check the city attorney's office but I would assume that we could just stop

1:10:28 collecting applications for a period of time yeah that would be a place we would want to clarify that way we're not stuck with the like hey if we want to slow down right we have to repeal the whole thing and start over again the ability to pause I think would be helpful and I'm sure it's in there yeah I just want to clarify that it is thank you for all the work yeah thank we're almost there I'm excited about it in response to um councelor Doyle's question about the 10year limitation on the lower rents um I think going beyond that could be problematic in terms of enforcing it because we wouldn't have the exemption to H um so I mean we can look into it but I'm thinking that that's probably

1:11:13 not an option to require a longer term investment unless there's some other kind of public money tied to it that would have a longer exemption okay or a longer or ility period you perfect um and how long before we'll see that at the public meeting um I know you have to go talk to will Main in December right so I would think early year okay all right we appreciate it great work thank you thank you that was our last work session item I'm going to adjourn the work session and then we will reconfigure the room for executive session