Springfield City Council — May 28, 2024

0:04 I'm going to call the city council work session to order with roll call. Mayor Van Gordon. Here. Councilor Webber. Here. Councilor Mao. Here. Councilor Rodley. Here. Councilor Blackwell. Here. Councilor Doyle. Here. And Councilor Pishioneri. And the Councilor Pishioneri is on his way. We have three items this evening. The first one is the Human Services Commission Commission's intergovernmental agreement. Tera Fiefield. Good evening, Mayor Council. Um, I'm here tonight uh with an item regarding the Human Services Commission. Um, I'll just add this is for information only. I have not I do not have any questions for what that's worth. Uh, the Human Services Commission, affectionately known as the HSC,

0:50 uh is made up of elected representatives um and some budget committee members from Springfield, Eugene, and Lane County. The purpose of the HSC is to collaborate on addressing social service needs throughout the entire county. Each jurisdiction contributes general funds and eligible federal, in our case CDBG, and state funds toward the work of the commission in order to fund a variety of community programs including rent assistance, uh homeless access centers, street outreach, uh basic needs programs, um The HSC makes decisions and recommendations on the use and prioritization of these funds. Since fall of 2022, Lane County has led an effort to reim- reimagine the work of

1:35 the HSC and the Lane County Advisory Board, the Poverty and Homelessness Board. And after months and I guess years in this case, uh of discussion and a vote, uh the HSC and PHB members adopted the new bylaws this past February. Representatives from Springfield on the Human Services Commission include Councilors Rodley and count and counselor Weber. Representative from Springfield on the poverty and homeless board is the mayor. Uh in your packet, I've included a copy of the Lane County amendments to their Lane manual to update the HSC. I've also included uh the new bylaws for the HSC and a one-page summary in attachment three, so at the very end of the packet. That was put together by Lane County

2:21 staff just summarizing the high points of clarity or changes to the HSC bylaws. Um and for um us here in Springfield, these changes will be reflected in the city's fiscal year 25 IGAs with Lane County for your general fund and CDBG contributions. Thank you for bringing this and um I appreciate us bring it back to council cuz this has been has literally been years of work and we've had lots of um conversations and meetings in between

3:07 and uh counselor Doyle was a part of it for a while. W- when we were first in the really messy part and counselor Weber has come on to to help get it over the finish line and and so just thank you for um your attention cuz I think now with these changes you're in a non-voting member who has to go to these meetings as well. So um it's been I for the public, if anyone's watching, it's been a very diligent process um involving all of the jurisdictions to kind of clean things up and to figure out the relationship and and it's a both of these, the poverty and homelessness board which you've been a part of for years, and the HSC have just sort of they've been part of how we do business for a long time, but enough turnover and changes happened that we all sort of

3:53 lost track of what we were doing and why and how everything related and I think we've it was painful but we got there. So, thank you Erin for your part in it and for bringing it and thank you for all of the counselors who participated in this process. All right, anybody else? And I will echo the comment that it was painful and then we got there. It was a little bit it took a little bit of thinking through but we're going to be better off because of that. Um so, you're bringing this back on a regular session in the future? I'll be bringing it back um through there'll be two IGAs, one for the general fund contribution and one for the CDBG contribution. Um I sorry, as I'm thinking about it now, the CDBG contribution is going to

4:39 be less than 100,000 so, I think technically it doesn't have to come back to council but these changes will be reflected um and then the general fund contribution will be either on recess or most likely this fall. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Next item, planning and engineering development fees with Mark Rust. Good evening, mayor and counselors. I'm Mark Rust with the

5:25 planning department. Tonight with me is Jeff Pascoe, immediate or development and public works director. Well, AICP. Yeah, okay. Immediate. I have a short PowerPoint I'm going to go through tonight to kind of set the stage. This is a check-in with you at this point on where we're at with our planning and engineering development fees um we've been working on for a while now. I was last presented to you almost a year ago, June 20th of last year. We presented the Portland State University planning fee study that they performed for us. Um, one of those one of the recommendations in that study was to do a more comprehensive look at all the fees and and time associated with processing

6:12 development applications. Um, and at that time council gave direction to look at 100% cost recovery for processing development applications, which that direction coincides with that recommendation to consider all the staff time that goes in to processing those applications, not just planning staff. So, those would include our engineering staff, transportation engineering, and survey, as well as a few others. Um, I highlighted on this slide some of the other direction given to council at that meeting. I went back and listened to that work session and so pulled some of these from that, um, video that I listened to. Um,

6:58 so again, we were just trying to over the last year work with other work groups to gather their time and estimates on, um, gathering the amount of time they did spend on applications. The tools we used were some of the same tools that PSU used to perform our initial planning study. The one was a survey that they created that they left for us to use. So, it's basically just a Google Doc kind of survey that get emailed out to the different staff for them to go in and estimate the amount of time they spent on different types of applications. So, we used those survey results. Um, the other mechanism was

7:44 actually just keeping track of time for the amount of time each staff spent on processing those different applications. So tallying the amount of time to kind of truth check those survey results. What this fee study does not include and this slide I've presented before, it is just focused on the development application fees, but it does not include building permit fees. It does not include systems development charges. There's also land drainage and alteration permit fees. Those are not part of this as well as any public improvement project costs or fees associated for different development that may happen. I've talked about this dynamic before. I keep kind of touching on it because as we move forward, we're proposing to

8:29 potentially do both of these types of fees structures. The state law allows us to recover costs through either or one of two ways, average cost of service or actual cost of service. So in certain cases, we're looking at proposing some application types would go towards actual cost of service, which we do not do now. All of our fees are based currently on the idea that they're trying to capture the average cost of service. So as an example, one subdivision of four lots may take 20 hours to process where a subdivision of 100 lots may take 40 hours to process,

9:16 but the average is that we spend 30 hours to process subdivision applications. So they're not always you know, it's it's one fee for that application type, but some we spend more time on, some we spend less time on is the theory with that average cost of service. This is just a graph. We keep track of how many applications we get each month and track it year to year. There's not a lot of rhyme or reason um necessarily to this graph. There's some months that tend towards being higher application months and some towards lower, but um we just keep track of that for our own um information more than anything. And this

10:01 is a graph of those month-by-month numbers. I will just say that the um the largest month last year that we had was November of about 26 applications submitted in November of last year. And this year um in January and February, we already had 25 applications submitted each one of those months to start this year. So, we've started off very high. And then this slide is the budget for the last three fiscal years of just the current planning program budget. Um you can see the totals there at the bottom and then compared to the revenue we've generated from each uh of those years. The one

10:48 thing I'll point out on this slide is a fairly drastic reduction in the revenue between fiscal year '22 and '23. I would primarily attribute that to the new code that we adopted in June of '22 at the beginning of that fiscal year. Um we simplified the process a lot for a lot of different types of development applications. So, instead of having to go through a more um cumbersome site plan application process, for instance, for some development, there's a much easier and less expensive um minimum development standards application that somebody could go through. Uh Uh, it just has resulted in less revenue from those fees collected. The

11:34 total number of applications or types of projects we processed that year weren't drastically different, but the fees were. And with that as an introduction, um, I'm happy to just talk more about some of the information that's in the memo tonight or answer questions. Are there any questions? Victoria. Hi, thanks for being here and um, I appreciate that. I actually went back and watched the video as well and there were a couple things that stood out to me. Um, first off, just off the cuff is that in your note you're talking about reinstating the fee for comprehensive planning, but we

12:19 didn't receive any of the information that is the whole reason we asked to have it put on hold, which was how much have you collected over the last 20 years, how much has it been spent, and how much more is needed for this comprehensive plan. So, I don't know how I could support reinstating that until we have the information, which is the whole reason that we put it on hold to begin with. Um, I'm a little frustrated with the fact this has been a year and I feel like I opened this up and I was just like Uh, anyway, I was really frustrated. Um, so that and then I think in the in the um, the session that we had on June 20th last year, we all I think the mayor also talked about wanting a tech fee breakdown and I'm not sure if we've already gone over that. I know that we know what some of that stuff was, but there was a request for that.

13:05 You also, when we were talking about the different fees, um, you were talking about some some of the most common applications that you have, site plan, subdivision. And one of the things that you noted about subdivision was that uh, not a lot of the not a lot of time difference between a 10 versus a 100 lot subdivision, definitely not enough to create such a large fee differential for the per lot. And that um that the own the other two um municipalities that did do that were at 25 and $50, where we're at 309 all the way up to 895. And that that was probably something that we would see a considerable reduction in as well as the site plan, because it's a tiered thing.

13:52 That's not what we got in this. So, that's something that I'm questioning. Um so, we can start there. I'm happy to respond to those comments and questions, if you'd like. Yeah, I have a lot, but I don't want to go yeah. So, um So, the first one, the comp plan fee. So, and I'll just preface this tonight as a check-in. This isn't a new proposal for how we think the fee should be. This is really just building off of what we presented last time based on our existing fee structure, but building on it from just accounting for the planning time and adding to it what the engineering and transportation engineering and survey uh time or fees associated with each of those types,

14:37 how that looks compared to what we um brought to you last time with just the planning fees. So, I don't intend for this to be the new fee structure. I still intend to simplify a lot of these fees, like we talked about last time and and that per lot fee. Um I think you pointed out in the some email questions about multiple modification types and things like that. So, that in terms of a new fee structure, that hasn't been developed yet. This is still just all based on our existing fee structure as a starting point. We're just trying to com- pare apples to apples to get to the 100% cost recovery that we talked about last time as well. Well, but in here you're asking us to

15:23 go back to to put the the comp feedback in place and you gave us an amount that we lost by not collecting that, but I have no comparison because I don't know what we have and that and so that's where I'm I'm struggling with that one. That's and and that's a great point and question and I would say we will still do that work. We haven't done that work yet. Um you know, unfortunately we're very limited in the amount of staff time we have to contribute to this. We had hired PSU as a consultant to prepare the original planning fee study for us. It It was tens of thousands of dollars we paid them to do that work for us over 6 months or whatever it was. We don't have the luxury of having that support now in terms of a consultant to help us.

16:08 And in the meantime we've also lost staff support on our from our finance department side and so I don't want to get defensive or make excuses. I don't like excuses, but just the fact is there's limitations on the amount of staff time there is our ability to do this work. Um so we're not there yet. We We haven't done the comp plan um numbers that you want yet and we can get those for you. Okay. I've asked this afternoon. Um I I can tell you right now we we will not have 20 years worth of information. We'll be lucky to get accurate numbers for maybe 10 or potentially 14 years. There's a a time when the city fee is my understanding. I haven't been here that long, but we switched from what was

16:53 called the old Tidemark program to our current program. Basically anything that was in Tidemark and I forget what year it switched over is one not going to be captured or able to be retrieved is my understanding and likely wouldn't be comparing apples to apples anyway. So we might be able to get 10 to 15 years worth of data and and we'll do that. So, we collect a tech fee and it goes into a tech fee fund, right? It's kind of set aside. Is that correct? So, we can jump to the tech fee. I was trying to adjust just a general question because we do that, then why are we not doing that with a comp fee? Like, if we're collecting a fee that is supposed to be covering comprehensive planning, then how can we ever know that we've got

17:39 enough or that we're done or if we're putting that into a a bucket that's just this giant bucket, then how can we look people in the face and go, "Well, we need to keep collecting this from you." And it's, you know, $300,000? Yeah. I I think with all of these planning fees, they go to the general fund. So, we we collect, we show revenue, but it's not necessarily broken down. What Mark's referencing is we'll have to go into the actual Ascella to pull out and go, "Okay, we pulled an apple annexation." And we can see in that software and that what they paid for a comprehensive planning fee. But, most of these fees just they go to the general fund, then our planning programs are then budgeted out of the general fund. So, it comes in as a general fund revenue that when we talked about the budget a week or so ago, you look at

18:25 that and you see revenues that aren't aren't um property tax. They're planning revenues. That's what you would see. They're kind of just up in that group. And I know Nathan's on and he might have more insight, but that's my understanding of where the how these fees are tracked. So, and if I can make another comment about the comp planning um work that's being done. So, we're not just trying to update our comp plan and then we're done updating our comp plan and we don't need to do comp planning anymore. This comp planning fee was or is set up to be an ongoing funding of our comprehensive planning program. So, as you all know, the the state has

19:12 had numerous mandates for us to implement locally, unfunded mandates. So, adopt middle housing or allow middle housing land divisions or now do CFEK work and don't require parking anymore and on and on and on. Now it's the um new exceptions that we're going to be required to allow. So, all that work is being done by our comprehensive planning team. So, Haley's here tonight. You're going to hear about some of the code changes she's working on. That's become basically a full-time constant job. It's we did, you know, 2/3 of the development code is the rough number I use. We updated a large chunk of the development code that we adopted

19:58 in June of 2022. But the other third it's like an evolving third and it's well, now go back and change some of what you did in 2022. So, I guess my point is the comp planning work isn't ever really done from my perspective and I don't work in the comp planning um work group. Sandy Belson manages that group. Another example is the the comp planning work that needs to be done in North Gateway right now. So, that's I think some of that work has been on the council's wish list of comprehensive planning work that we would like to see done. We don't quite have the capacity, staff capacity yet to get to it, but when some capacity opens up, then we can start doing some of that PSP planning work

20:43 that needs to be done up there, those types of things. Yeah, and I think that's probably where we need more information specific to the comp plan question because when it originally came up, the way I read the material was it was historically to get the first comp plan out, we did this and now that we sort of recovered the total cost then, you know, across all the other jurisdictions we could we could effectively retire it. And now what what it sounds like um your the your position is is that hey, we're we still have to refresh, redo, make additions. So, this really an ongoing process and more of a living document. And the way I think about it when I read the packet was we may just have to define really what the work is. And then, you know, and then whether or

21:28 not it's sort of what's in scope for that. And then let that kind of lead us towards the how is that how is that work work funded? Um so that we can get some of the additional information. And then if it's ongoing work, right? Like what fits into that bucket, if you will. Uh yeah, that's a great point, Mayor. And when I read Counselor Doyle's questions, it made me think and I remember um and you may recall Sandy was in front of you in the fall with a update. And so we've been trying to bring annual updates on the comprehensive planning group to get, you know, at least Council head nod of consensus around what the priorities are that that group should work on because as Mark laid out, we have a lot of mandates and then a lot of things that

22:13 we should be doing just for our city to keep us, you know, keep areas developable like North Gateway, things like that that we haven't been able to get to. But um I pulled that that was um November 27th when she brought that to the work session. But she has a packet in there that kind of lists all of the priorities, those mandates, CFE, the CFAs that we're working on and those sorts of things. And so I think you're right. It it And I don't know cuz then that's what Mark and I have discussed this many times. We we weren't here and it's kind of really hard to find any kind of documentation on what the intent was behind the comprehensive planning fee when it was added to the the fees and when it was added to the fees and how and why. But that may be a very good characterization. But I think yeah, what what we've been looking at it now as far

22:58 as staff, even prior to me is that it's this comprehensive planning group that has all of this work that needs to get done for the city. Yeah. Other questions? I'm not I wasn't done. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. No, keep going. And could I just mention what uh you mentioned the tech fee breakdown. I think Jeff had brought a tech fee update to you at one point in the not too distant past as well. So, we're not intending to necessarily address the tech fee question with this No, I I was just using it as an example that other question. I don't I think we've done a lot of good things with our tech fee. Um So, the other question I have is that the breakdown is on I've got it noted here. And so, under your direction received from council, which is on the memorandum, um number two is include the

23:44 cost of engineering, transportation, survey, administrative, tech tech the the um customer service staff time, and other applicable work groups. Um and I'm trying being in this department as a my career staff. I'm trying to understand when I look at these, how we come up with $2,100 in survey fees for partitions. I What is your not that you have that doesn't make sense to me. Um or a a property line adjustment that has fees that are for surveying, engineering, and transportation. And the And the thought was what I was told was, "Well, the reason why we see these lower fees with other municipalities is cuz they're getting that fee on the back end or the front end." Well, how do you know

24:29 that? You haven't shown us that. So, show me that Eugene or Albany or whoever is only charging this amount, but then they're getting these fees somewhere else because I don't understand just looking at $2,100 in surveying fees on a plat. If that person's getting paid a hundred bucks an hour, you're telling me that there's 21 hours of surveying that's going into putting in a partition? I I mean, they're not out there setting monuments on a on a tentative. I So, I'm just I'm not understanding how you're coming up with the fees and that's that's frustrating for me as well and I may just not understand how Springfield does it. So maybe I need to be educated on that at another time. But those fees don't make sense to me.

25:16 Um You guys while she's getting her next question you guys have any feedback or thoughts on Do you have any feedback or I mean I having managed the survey group for a while before we had a city surveyor in between transitioning there. I can tell you some of that is is the time it takes. So there there are mandated requirements in the ORS's that are required on plats. Partition subdivisions it's very mandated on what specific has to be on there and it mandates what the county surveyor's responsible for cuz ultimately the county surveyor's responsible for plats in the county but that is transferred to the city through agreement to our city surveyor. Um and so there's reviews and check offs. I I can tell you I was a little surprised as well at how long it took sometimes to

26:02 get partitions and plats through but sometimes it's that back and forth with those private surveyors. You're talking about a plat. I'm talking about the tentative. You have $2100 on a tentative. And then they also have to do a plat and so I understand the plat. We can go dig into why but like I said I think like what Mark said is a lot of this was on a survey and it's not tracking specific time yet. Um that that is something that we are working on. And again it's an average. So these the $2100 number is an average. So what that doesn't account for is the difference between a 10 lot and a 100 lot. So partitions only going to be three. I'm talking about partitions right now.

26:47 Okay. And I went through your questions in your email earlier and highlighted some things. I'm happy to go down that list, but if I can just find the partition um Yeah, I answered my own question on a couple of those. That's when I told you Okay, cuz all those some of the fees weren't like zoning verification doesn't include any time associated with engineering and Which is I just I don't know. One of the other things you'd said in them in our last meeting a year ago was that they were recommending that we not charge for the manufactured dwelling disaster and hardships, but yet that is still listed on here. I I'm just I'm just not quite sure why we're here today. Well, so and so your question about partition tentative it's only $191 for

27:34 survey review of a tentative partition as listed on this table. It's not 2100. Below it the 20 cost? For the plat, the tentative partition is $191.91. Gotcha. Okay. And so where the majority of the work is done is at the final plat. That's when they do run all the Sure. closure boundary things. I I don't fully understand what survey does, but they that's when they spend the majority of their time is on the final. Yeah. I'm still struggling with trying to figure out that average of 2100 bucks, but okay. Okay. I'll stop now. Other questions?

28:20 Okay. Um So what you're you're going to take our feedback and then are is the next piece of information that we're going to get the new proposed fee I guess table for lack of a better word? That that's why yeah, that's why we're here tonight. We wanted to get before you before recess. Um as you can see, we're seeing record numbers of applications as Mark said, we are limited in staff, but we really really want to get this done work done ourselves and so we're here to get kind of direction so we can come back with a final proposal from staff for you to react to and and give us final direction on hopefully a new set of fees that we can bring back for adoption off of this work. So So when I when I read through it one of

29:05 the things that would help me is you put you put money you put that sort of cost associated with each of those fees is if you put the hours is that we had sort of planned in there so we kind of kind of get a size of you know how much work is this actually? The other thing I feel like it's missing and maybe it would help in the new in the new proposed fee schedule would just be a a basic financial model right? Because you got a menu it's a table of fees right? How your volume comes in and those actual permits come in really does matter quite a bit. And I think that would help get understand when we pull these levers right? What are we actually trying to do? And I think the the other piece of feedback that that

29:50 would help is really to get clear about what are we trying to do? Because the outcome of this was driven by Hey we haven't just we haven't done market work on this in a while. We have the new we had the new development code we wanted to understand its impact right? And so we've got a a variety of pressures on on collectively the fee structure right? And we want to be competitive right? We want to recover recover costs and just get super clear about what are we trying to accomplish at the end of this. And then I think lastly I would be interested in a little bit more information about how much of that actual cost that exists today that you think investments through

30:35 the tech fee could you know help recoup right? You know other just sort of process improvements that are out there on the horizon for the next two to two to three years so that when we go and finish the end product of this, right? We need a balance between, hey, our costs are competitive, they're transparent to to the developers. Um we've kind of incorporated all of, you know, our view of long-term process improvement so that we can so that we can walk out and talk to the community about that when we want to be economically competitive, we've done this sort of work to make sure that we did the development code and now we've restructured the the fees around that if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. I I just want to

31:20 comment on the what I feel is the amount of work asking to be done is extensive. So to compare 100% cost recovery of say processing a subdivision application to look at Eugene from beginning to end. Um I know that's been in the past. When PSU did the study for us, it was with narrow focus of just comparing planning fees to planning fees. Through that process, it did come out that you know, Eugene does charge a separate transportation impact analysis fee. It's not a planning fee. It's an engineering fee that they charge for subdivisions. That wasn't captured. So anyway, just the

32:07 the amount of work to actually get a true apples-to-apples comparison to make sure we're competitive is a big lift and I mean honestly, I'm not sure I'm the right person to do it. I think I've talked with Nate. I know Nate in finance said they can definitely help us do a financial model. But I'm not sure outside of hiring another consultant where we're as our limited staff going to have the capacity to do that thorough analysis of three or four other jurisdictions to get a true apples-to-apples comparison of 100% cost recovery. Go ahead, Joe. So, perhaps we can look instead of keeping it so internalized and within government, has anybody looked at the Home Builders Association say, "Hey, let's look at two

32:52 of your projects that are almost identical, which they are, a lot of them are, and say and ask them, "What was your total cost to turn the doorknob, and what was your total cost over here to turn the doorknob here?" The bottom line. And then back work it from there. If there's a large deviation, you could work it backwards and find out what happened where. But it seems like that'd be simple to I know nothing's simple, but it seems like that would be a a potential good source of information for people actually are, you know, the boots on the ground of people that are making doing those developments and say, "Okay, what does it cost here and here? What's Seems like that may be an easy source. And And I have done some of that. So, I've met with Dan Hill, who does

33:37 development both in Eugene and in Springfield. He's readily willing to share his numbers. It's It's difficult because when you did Blossom Cottages on River Road in Eugene compared to doing that same project on Fifth Street in Springfield now, is a drastically different financial environment. The price of the dirt was different when you began. I've talked with um Mike Blankenship and Earl McElhinny. They do a lot of development in both jurisdictions. They do similar kinds of projects. Again, it's it's They've sat down with me and explained it all, but getting again the bottom line apples-to-apples comparison of, like you said, price per doorknob or whatever type of thing at the end. Well, what that was in 2019 is drastically different than it was is today.

34:23 Um I'm I'm willing to do that. I think the mayor mentioned previously, you know, convening a small group over the summer and trying to get some more of that information and I'm happy to try and do that. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily thinking about you know, because cost of construction, cost of labor, I mean all that, you know, inflationary costs went up, but I'm talking about they would know when they wrote checks to a public agency. And that's that's the bottom line I'm looking at. I'm not looking at how much the cost the project costs. I was looking at specifically how much it costs via a public agency to get to get their project done. So, it could be that, you know, and Dan, good friend of mine, too. He's got that He's got to build those eight units out on Thurston area and several units here.

35:08 I think that it would be you would just need to compare have a comparable project and then cut out all the other side stuff, the construction costs and all that, and then it's like, okay, how much were your checks that went to Springfield and how much were your checks that went to Eugene? And it may be cuz Springfield has got one on the lane, Eugene has got their own park and recreation district. So, they would they but they would still have those numbers of how much money they sent to the public agencies and and I wouldn't want to even try to ask you to try to figure out the cost of construction, labor, etc. with the especially with the inflation the way it is on some products, so. And And the other piece I'll just mention is so with the planning fee study, we compared I think three or four

35:54 other jurisdictions. We include Albany, Medford, Corvallis, maybe Salem and us and Eugene if I didn't mention Eugene. Um And I know you've heard before, I know when Jim Donovan was here, he did a side-by-side comparison to Eugene specifically and tried to do a whole flowchart and a fee analysis of the process. The other piece of it is that our process is different than Eugene's. We do things differently. Um we do things with a lot fewer staff than Eugene does. So, it might take us more time, but you know, there's differences. And so, we do have a more front-loaded process. Should we also compare how many appeals we get compared to how many appeals Eugene gets? Cuz that drags on a lot of

36:40 projects in Eugene, but isn't necessarily accounted in the amount of fees they pay up front. So, there's a lot of different that dynamics that go into that. Um but we can try and do if if we do it side-by-side comparison with Eugene, that's one thing, but we try and do that with multiple jurisdictions. It gets a lot more complex. You know, Victoria. One other thing that that Joe triggered for me is I was thinking about the fact that this has been going on for like a year and a half and we had this discussion a year ago, and I would have expected that in the within your department, you would have said, "Hey, we've got this partition. Let's let's actually track it from beginning to end and write down the fees and see how much they are." And maybe that's what this actual cost is. Okay, cool. Cuz that's

37:27 what I would like to Cuz are our engineers keeping track on graph paper? That's that's the technology we have. Uh extra points for using graph paper. Understanding, you have engineers doing your partitions and your property line adjustments? They the primary piece they evaluate also transportation engineering has to evaluate traffic on every one of them. I mean, they Partition? They they may be only spend a half hour on it of time, but the other big piece right now is stormwater. Stormwater impacts every development and is a significant piece. And your planners don't do that. You have to you send that to through your planner and through an engineer. Maybe it's a process thing we need to look at then. I I'm That's confusing to me. Wow. I I can jump in. So, I I think when Mark

38:14 mentioned we do things, you know, a lot of things we do are concurrent. So, with a partition, there's a lot of um engineering planning stormwater planning that is done prior to them even getting to the development. So, evaluating, do they have the right stormwater for the number of lots, where is the stormwater going to go? And so, yes, that's why the review may be very short on the partition, but it's they're already sitting in there. If they come in for a development issues meeting, they're getting notes on that. And so, it it's what we have experienced from and what we've heard anecdotally from many of them is it speeds up the process on the back end by having more of a concurrent review process. And so, yeah, um it does get reviewed by um multiple um parts of our group.

39:07 All right. So, um one last comment and then I will let you guys go is that I I think there's a lot of good feedback about how to avoid getting into that sort of 99% accurate precision. I don't think we're looking for that. I think we're looking for tangible step sort of steps forward is, you know, we work as we kind of work this overall process understanding that, you know, there are some limitations and we've tracked some stuff on on graph paper. So, um if as we kind of work through this a little bit more and we see it in the fall again, I think just seeing seeing some some sort of graph some sort of material about we are here, right? Here's the five or six steps uh to get us to the finish line. There's a lot of room for you guys to help define the how, right? And let us keep, you know, keep worrying about the why.

39:52 Right. All right, I I appreciate it. This is a ton of information and a ton of work. Um and it feels like it's the last, you know, big thing from the development code rewrite. Thank you.

40:49 Okay. Good evening mayor and counselors. My name is Haley Campbell. I'm a senior planner with the city. Tonight I have a presentation for you on the housing and non-residential areas code amendments. And it's a pre-recorded presentation about 15 minutes and then after that I'll open it up for questions. Hello and thank you for attending this work session to discuss the housing in non-residential areas code amendments. My name is Haley Campbell. I'm a senior planner with the city of Springfield and a project manager for this code amendment. In a minute I will start the presentation. As this work session is pre-recorded, I ask that you hold all questions until the end. In 2023, the Oregon legislature made efforts to address the state's housing crisis with new laws and 1.2 billion

41:35 dollars in additional spending on housing and homelessness. On any given night in 2022, at least 18,000 Oregonians were homeless and state analysts predict Oregon needs to build at least half a million homes over the next two decades to keep up with demand. The legislature passed several bills that have prompted the following housing opportunities in non-residential areas amendments to the Springfield development code. They are House Bill 20984 commercial to residential building conversions which took effect January 1st, 2024. The bill requires local governments to allow conversion of a building from commercial to residential use without requiring a zone change or conditional use permit as long as the land is not zoned for

42:21 industrial use. House Bill 3151, manufactured dwelling parks on non-residential lands. It took effect January 1st, 2024. Manufactured housing makes up 8% of Oregon's total housing and 16% of the affordable housing stock according to the American Community Survey data collected between 2013 and 2017. That's why House Bill 3151's major impact on Springfield is to allow manufactured dwelling parks serving households with incomes of 120% or less of area median income or AMI to be added to the bill's definition of affordable housing. The bill also adds property owned by a housing authority, manufactured dwelling park nonprofit cooperative, or nonprofit

43:08 cooperative organized as a public benefit corporation whose primary purpose is the development of affordable housing to the list of properties where local government is required to allow income qualified housing. And House Bill 3395, residential use of commercial lands, which took effect June 30th, 2023. House Bill 3395 allows housing within commercial land use districts if it is affordable to households with incomes of 60% AMI or less or for mixed-use structures with ground-floor commercial with residential units that are affordable to moderate income households or 80 to 120% AMI. The bill requires cities to apply the residential density level most comparable to the commercial density

43:53 currently allowed in the land use district. The city of Springfield and Lane County are seeking approval of amendments to the Springfield Development Code. This is a type four legislative amendment that applies to all land within the Springfield urban growth boundary, which includes land within city limits and urbanizable land outside the city limits. So, the amendments require co-adoption by Springfield City Council and the Lane County Board of County Commissioners. The code amendments specific to Springfield include conversion of commercial to residential use requirements in House Bill 2984, changes to Springfield development code 4.7.370 for income qualified housing on property owned by religious nonprofits,

44:40 Springfield development code 4.7.405 to implement bills related to income qualified housing, and address changes to 4.7.375 through 4.7.385 for architectural design and multiple unit housing, and minimum development standards 5.15.110 and site plan review 5.17.110 for multiple unit housing. The code amendments specific to Springfield and Lane County include address state law related to single room occupancy and significant changes to 4.7.100 for various districts.

45:26 Next, we're going to address the code changes in the city limits and specific to the city of Springfield. Substantial changes were made to 4.7.405 for income qualified housing. The standards in 4.7.405 A through D were reorganized to make the code clearer and easier to interpret, and to address House Bills 2984 and 3151. Subsections E and F were created in response to House Bill 3395. Sections A and B address the purpose and applicability of income qualified housing. The rest of this section of code was amended as follows. For 4.7.405c, this section was amended by including a

46:13 manufactured dwelling park that serves populations with incomes of 120% of the area median income within the definition of income qualified housing. Including the addition of several income qualified housing owners, namely those owned by a nonprofit corporation, organizes a public benefit corporation whose primary purpose is the development of income qualified housing, a housing authority, manufactured dwelling park nonprofit cooperative, or a utility provider who conveys property for one of the listed owners. And reorganizing existing code language into various subsections for clarity. For 4.7.405d, this section was amended by creating a site suitability subsection, development

46:59 standards subsection, and a density and height in residential district subsection, and addressing the lack of income qualified middle housing standards in SDC 4.7.405. To comply with House Bill 3395, SDC 4.7.405e was amended by allowing income qualified housing in commercial districts and in mixed-use structures provided they meet the area median income threshold shown in the code. And by listing the land use districts that allow only commercial uses and not industrial uses, a requirement in the House Bill, to be neighborhood commercial, community commercial, major retail commercial,

47:45 general office, mixed-use commercial, Glenwood commercial mixed-use, or Glenwood office mixed-use districts. For 4.7.405f, this section was amended by creating a site suitability subsection for requirements where this type of housing is not permitted and creating a standards and procedures subsection for this type of housing. A requirement in House Bill 3395 is to apply the most comparable residential density to the allowed commercial uses in the subject district. After consulting and seeking feedback from the Planning Commission and the public, the following was added to the draft code. A comparable residential density for

48:32 income qualified housing in commercial districts and in mixed-use structures is the mixed-use residential density standards. The code therefore contains minimum densities for commercial districts and the mixed-use commercial district when residential only and when part of a mixed-use development. There are no maximum densities in this section because neither the commercial districts nor mixed-use districts have a maximum density for residential. In the commercial districts and mixed-use commercial district, the mixed-use commercial district development standards apply. The development standards in the Glenwood commercial mixed-use and Glenwood office mixed-use are referenced and stay the same. This option was chosen by the Planning Commission because it allows for simpler and more flexible code standards that support

49:18 more opportunities for income qualified housing. For instance, the existing mixed-use commercial district currently requires a minimum of 60% of the ground floor area within a new mixed-use building be dedicated to commercial uses versus the proposed code for income qualified housing would only require 10% of the total gross floor area be in non-residential use if less than 20 units are provided in a mixed-use structure. The next item is changes to 4.7.375 through 4.7.385 for multiple unit housing. For consistency and clarity, the standards in 4.7.385B,

50:03 building orientation, and C, building form, were moved to 4.7.375 to match the clear and objective standards that already contain building orientation and building form standards in the current code. SDC 4.7.380 was amended to clarify that multiple unit housing is allowed in other districts besides R2 and R3. And SDC 4.7.385 was renumbered following the removal of sections B and C that were moved to 4.7.375. Amendments were also made to 5.15.110 for minimum development standards and 5.17.110

50:50 for site plan review when building multiple unit housing. This included clarifying that the MDS process does not apply to new multiple unit housing. A site plan review or multiple unit housing review in 4.7.380 for the clear and objective tract would apply. And amending the site plan review applicability standards to clarify one instance where a multiple unit housing site plan review is required when an addition, expansion, or change of use is for residential use in a land use district that is not residential and located within 50 ft of a residential land use district or residentially designated land. An exception to this has been provided when a multiple unit housing development can meet the clear and objective

51:35 standards in 4.7.380. Finally, we are going to address other code changes in the urbanizable land outside the city limits and specific to Lane County. House Bill 3395 established a density standard for single room occupancy or SRO units. Single room occupancy is permitted outside the city limits, but in the urbanizable area. The bill states that each local government shall allow the development of an SRO with up to six units on each lot or parcel zoned to allow for the development of a detached single family dwelling, and with the number of units consistent with the density standards of a lot or parcel zoned to allow for the

52:21 development of residential dwellings with five or more units. This means that in the R1 district, a lot or parcel can contain up to six SRO units. In the R2 and R3 districts where multiple unit dwellings are allowed, the density of SRO units will match the density in the applicable district. A separate but related topic to the housing and non-residential areas code amendments were amendments to the standards in 4.7.100. Specific development standards from 4.7.100 were moved to the district that references that district. These amendments will make the code more user-friendly by listing standards that apply to a district in one place instead of needing to reference another chapter

53:06 in the code. A good example of this is the creation of Springfield development code 3.4.330, specific development standards in the Booth-Kelly Mixed-Use District. In the current development code, you can find public and private park standards for the Booth-Kelly Mixed-Use District in 4.7.200, residential uses in commercial districts in 4.7.210, and warehouse commercial retail and wholesale in 4.7.245. To make the code more user-friendly, staff moved these standards to the Booth Kelly Mixed Use District section of code in 3.4.330 and created sections specific to these

53:52 types of uses. Several changes were made to the draft code since the Planning Commission public hearing. These changes were necessary to amend the base zone mixed use development standards in 3.2.615 for maximum building height in the mixed use residential district when abutting residential. The MUR district's density is regulated by height. Thus, the height in the MUR is limited by the abutting R1 or R2 district. Amend the schedule of use categories in 3.2.710 for the public land and open space district for formatting purposes and to explain the PLO district's legislative history for uses previously listed under

54:37 the secondary uses heading. Move the conversion of a hotel or motel for income qualified housing to a new section 4.7.405G as it was previously listed under ORS 197A.445 when it is part of ORS 197.748. And move the density and height standards to 4.7.405H as they were incorrectly listed as part of ORS 197A.445. In addition, for clarification purposes, the reference to the mixed use residential district height standards were revised in subsection H and the Gladwin residential mixed use district was removed. The density in the MUR and GRMU

55:22 are regulated by height, not density. After reviewing ORS 197.748, a height bonus of 36 additional feet is permitted in the MUR district. The GRMU standard was removed from the list of density and height bonuses in residential districts as there is no maximum height in the GRMU. These changes are highlighted in the legislative code and key changes documents in tonight's agenda packet. The amendments to the development code are subject to a set of approval criteria noted here. Based on the staff report and findings, the code amendments are in conformance with the metro plan and Springfield comprehensive plan, are consistent with applicable state statutes, and are consistent with

56:08 applicable statewide planning goals and administrative rules. Thus, the applicable approval criteria are met. This request is reviewed as a type four legislative amendment to the Springfield development code, which requires review and a recommendation by the planning commission, and ultimately adoption of ordinance by city council. Since some of the housing and non-residential areas code amendments apply to areas outside the city limits, and the city has an intergovernmental agreement with Lane County, the Lane County Board of Commissioners must also co-adopt the amendments for them to apply outside the city limits. The Springfield Planning Commission issued a recommendation on April 2nd. The next step is a public hearing on June 10th, 2024.

56:53 A second reading is tentatively scheduled for the City of Springfield City Council on July 1st. The Board of County Commissioners will co-adopt the ordinance at their third reading. Hey, I know that's very technical information, and I'm sure you guys have a lot of questions, so we'll we'll jump right into it. Questions? There's a lot of good stuff in there. I'd like it someplace where I could really study it. I would really like to be able to do that. Corey. Thank you. I do not have a lot of questions. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all of this work and you

57:38 know, to an earlier point, I think that um this is a perfect example of all of the detailed work that staff needs to do um to make us compliant with these changes and I just I just really appreciate that and I really appreciate the work that y'all do in the weeds to to make it happen in addition to the other things that we have to do. So, as I read it before and then when you were going over it just was like really bringing it home that um and it's also an opportunity as as you pointed out in a few of these, is an opportunity for for us to clean things up, to simplify things, to to constantly be evolving, but I just wanted you to hear it from someone that I just really appreciate that the

58:24 detailed work to make this match um what's being required. So, thank you. Thank you. Beth. The section that talks about the MUR district density is regulated by height and thus the height in the MUR is limited by the abutting R1 or R2. Could you expand on that and explain that? Yes. Um so, it's in our existing code the the height is limited by the abutting R1 or R2 district. That is in our existing code and was not subject to change. Um so, I think if we were to look at that, that would kind of be something that we look at in future code amendments. Um so, that was just kind of keeping with the existing code, just kind of clarifying it a little bit.

59:09 You could say it was an error how it's listed currently. Anybody else? Um the question I had was when I look at all these code amendments, a lot of requirements that are coming down from the state, are we expecting to see a lot of people coming in the door using any of these? I think that's an excellent question and we don't know yet. Um, I think what's great about these amendments is it really opens the door for additional clarification about who qualifies for these income qualified housing projects. So, perhaps previously it was limited by the district or it was limited by the affordable housing provider. Now they've expanded that definition to be additional providers can now qualify and

59:56 you don't necessarily have to just be an affordable housing provider. It could also be in multiple districts where we previously didn't allow it. It could be an additional use like that manufactured home park nonprofit cooperative. I know we have one of those now over in the Gateway area. So, it's I think it's a really great opportunity for us to expand our opportunities. I think it's just going to depend on um, can they afford to apply? Can they get the funding for it? Things like that. All right, thank you. Anybody else? All right, I think we're good. Okay. Thank you. And I'm going to adjourn the work session. And then, what time does the CDA start? 6:45?