City Council Meeting Notes 01/17/24
I'm not a week late, I've just always been a week early! The summary of this GOD DAMN 7-HOUR LONG MEETING was written before and after my classes over the last 3 days, so I hope you will forgive my mistakes. I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THIS DONE OVER THE WEEKEND. MY HUBRIS.
TLDR:
Automated Traffic Enforcement is happening eventually. Emotionally prepare yourself.
Cost and scope inflation mean that the 2020 GO Bond can't pay for all the stuff in the GO bond anymore. Projects will need to be prioritized, and the City will need to use money from other transportation funds to ensure the city can deliver all the projects promised to voters.
The Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption is dead. The city is doing a "strategic assessment" of all current and potential new incentive programs. MUPTE is "paused", pending this assessment. There are two projects currently in the pipeline that will continue through the MUPTE process. After that, it's gone.
A large group of people petitioned the city to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza
After more than two years of work, the city has updated its System Development Charge Code. Adoption of specific fee methodology and schedule is delayed to give staff time to incorporate and engage with some late-entry public comment.
Work Session
This meeting started an hour early for the quarterly goal update. I noticed this at 4:30 when I was checking out at the grocery store. Looking at the presentation, I don't see anything that would rise to being mentioned above the 6 other things we need to cover, so I didn't go back to catch myself up. Our fire department is fully staffed, thanks to the levy though, so that's neat.
Automated Traffic Enforcement is on the horizon
So we're starting off this summary with what I am SURE is your favorite subject: automated traffic enforcement! Why are you booing?
Bend PD and the City are looking into setting up photo enforcement systems at problematic intersections where people are speeding and causing a higher rate of crashes. They are also going to have a mobile photo trailer they can temporarily deploy around areas like schools, where pedestrian safety is a concern. They are trying to be very clear that the goal of this program is not to make money, it is motivated by safety, and the only financial goal of resulting tickets is to make enough to self fund the automated traffic enforcement.
We want to change behavior around traffic problems that are occurring that causes severe damage and harm in our community. And this is one tool. It is not the tool. It's really important that we use other systems for enforcement and supplement. This is not the only tool rated regular enforcement that we do DUI enforcement, dangerous driving all the other work that we do engineering and safety changes for the roadways, all that as a piece of this.
Police man
Here are some short term traffic studies that measured speeding over a 24 hour period around the city. JFC look at those numbers at 97 and Murphy.
Council directed Bend PD to continue looking into automated traffic enforcement. Council was generally interested in a phased implementation, and using Neighborhood Associations and Roundtables for community education and feedback.
We don't have enough money to fund our transportation projects, so it's time for some difficult choices
I don't know if you noticed, but the city has been on a bit of a transportation infrastructure construction kick. They're working to increase capacity of our transportation system to accommodate our explosive growth, to fix aging infrastructure so our system doesn't rot, and add capacity to actually get around town walking or biking safely. All of this work is detailed in our Transportation System Plan, and is currently funded using money from the 2020 Transportation GO Bond and our Transportation Construction Fund. At the moment, there are 37 separate projects that are funded and supposed to start in the next 5 years.
Unfortunately, the money side of this equation is not working out right now. Since 2020, national material and other construction costs for infrastructure have INCREASED 60% because of inflation. Locally, we have also seen expensive project delays related to franchise utility lines and pipes under our roads being an absolute mess, and very long lead times procuring materials. We've also spent more time on community engagement and alternative analysis than in the past.
All of this is a long way of saying that we need to move the goal post on what we can expect to accomplish with our current funding sources. Council needs to decide how to proceed due to these pressures.
Council was asked if they were willing to reallocate money within the GO Bond to prioritize specific projects. Specifically, the North/South & East/West Key Routes, Bend Bikeways, and Olney Bike/Pedestrian projects. The answer was an unambiguous yes.
Council was asked if they were willing to delay projects funded by the Transportation Construction Fund to cover the costs of GO Bond Projects that are not currently financially feasible. Specifically, staff is asking if the Council would delay 3rd and Reed Market (5M), Bond and Reed Market (4.25M), and Galveston (4M). Their answer to this was a much more ambiguous yes, explained below:
Council wants to delay 3rd and Reed Market, but not take it off the table. This project is a priority because it is our worst, most dangerous intersection in town. They want to see how this year's State Legislative Session plays out. In 2025, the State Legislature is planning to pass another transportation package that could give ODOT money to work on this intersection. It makes sense to delay this project because it would be stupid to spend a bunch of money on changes that ODOT could be responsible for correcting in 6 months. Council will look at this project again after the legislative session is over.
For the other two projects, Council wants updated cost estimates and high level concepts before making a decision. The current estimate is old, and it's likely the costs have risen dramatically. If that 4 million dollar price tag is now an 8 million dollar price tag, it's a completely different ball game. It's likely these projects are not currently financially feasible. After we have a clearer picture, we can try to identify additional funding sources so they can fit back into the fund's budget.
Staff will bring this back to Council in April with different options, and will ask TBOC if they agree with the direction Council is headed. After the April discussion, the project plans and budget will be updated with Council's decision.
MUPTE IS DEAD. LONG LIVE MUPTE
Let's get the result out of the way up front. The city is doing a "strategic assessment" of all current and potential new incentive programs. MUPTE is "paused", pending this assessment. There are two other projects currently in the pipeline that will continue through the MUPTE process. After that, it's gone. MUPTE is dead in its current form, if it ever comes back it's going to be very different.
So why? There are two(ish) reasons why.
The first one is that MUPTE in its current form is a problem. It's unpopular, administratively burdensome, and getting buy-in for the program from other taxing districts has been a challenge. BPRD in particular is reluctant to provide tax exemptions for projects that don't include an affordable housing component. (They are also reluctant to provide exemptions to projects that do, but that's a different conversation.)
The other reason is underperformance of the Core Area TIF district. When the TIF district was set up in 2020, it was done with the expectation that the area would see 4% YoY growth over the thirty-year term that it was set for. Largely thanks to a sudden increase in interest rates, this growth never manifested. For the first 2 years before MUPTE, the fund grew at a rate of 0%. That's right, before MUPTE, there was no growth at all. MUPTE has helped bring that 0% growth up to an incredible 1%. MUPTE was successful in catalyzing development in the area, but this reduced growth compared to expectations is inhibiting the TIF's ability to be used to finance necessary infrastructure improvements to the Core area. Thanks to the MUPTE projects, the TIF fund is solvent, but also thanks to MUPTE, short term revenue is also reduced. It is not growing at the rate expected. To avoid the TIF fund from becoming over-leveraged, the scope of its use will be reduced until we see further growth in the Core area.
It should be noted that the new 1% growth projections are very conservative. There is already a ton of needed infrastructure improvements on the horizon for the Core Area that should result in increased private development. As the midtown crossings get built, 2nd street gets rehabbed, and if we get State funding for sewer improvements in the central district, the Core Area will finally be ripe for the development Bend has been hoping occurs for decades. Until then, this TIF area is going to stay in a holding pattern.
So what's the plan going forward?
The City is going to look into something called "Site-Specific Investment Zones". These zones, as the name implies, will be site-specific instead of being tied to a region like our current Core-Area TIF. It sounds like this kind of strategy will be a lot more flexible, and let the city leverage and provide incentive to developments where they are, not where the city wants them to be. All the details of how this would be implemented or what kind of incentives would be available are, at this moment, unknown. So I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Regular Session
Public Comment
This meeting's public comment ran over an hour long, because the room was full of people urging the city to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In an effort to avoid focusing on some problematic instances of this hour, such as the anti-semetic language of a certain speaker, I've pulled out two comments that I think, taken together, reflect the intent and demographic spectrum of the group in its best light:
Good evening Councilors. My name is Paula Cohen. I'm a resident here in Bend. And I'm also Jewish, I do have family in Israel, and I call on the Council to support a motion for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. Here in Bend, I'm part of a beautiful community which includes fellow Jews, Palestinians, and other locals who stand in solidarity with one another in calling for this ceasefire, and for lasting peace and justice in the region. First and foremost: a ceasefire is necessary to stop the acute suffering of millions of civilians in Gaza and the 1000s of deaths from bombing, starvation, lack of medical care, lack of clean water, including the deaths of 1000s of children. A ceasefire is also the only path towards freeing the Israeli hostages still in Gaza, and guaranteeing safety for Israeli civilians who are also experiencing ongoing rocket attacks, and most recently, terror attacks on the ground in Israel as well. As a Jew, I want to make it very clear that supporting a ceasefire is not anti-Semitic. It is a stand against an extremist Israeli government, who have limited support from their own citizens, let alone Jews in America and around the world. Calling for a ceasefire is standing against war crimes and standing with humanity. It is not a stance against Jews, given the US political and financial involvement in the conflict through its support of Israel. It is so important that our elected officials at all levels condemn this violence, placing pressure on the Biden administration to stop funding this conflict. Please stand with our community as our representatives and calling for a permanent ceasefire. Thank you very much for your time.
Hi, I'm Rhonda Olmstead a Bend resident for 18 years, and as a first generation Palestinian American, my family emigrated from Rubella Palestine, which is located in the occupied West Bank. I am shocked over what has been allowed to happen and continue to happen to Palestine and its people. Today is the hundred and third day of what is clearly a genocide, according to international human rights experts. Entire families and their lineage are being decimated. Each day, we witness this genocide in real time. Each day, we awake to new horrors and losses to grieve and more. Each day is worse than the previous day. Nearly 2 million Gazans have been displaced, some multiple times, to supposed safe zones, only to be bombed shot or sniped at, even while trying to get food from aid trucks or waving white flags. They're living in inhumane conditions without basic necessities of life. If the Palestinian people are not killed by US weapons paid for with our tax dollars, they will continue to die of dehydration, trauma, illnesses and hypothermia. There are even some children who are dying from cardiac arrest because they're so scared. On behalf of your constituents, I ask for you to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to allow lifesaving humanitarian aid into Gaza, release of all hostages and political prisoners in both Gaza and the West Bank. It's unbearable to me that people continue to think this is a complex or controversial issue and refuse to take a clear stance. This is not a conflict. It's not a war. It's genocide. Please hear our voices and the millions around the world. We have a moral and humanitarian obligation to condemn these atrocities. Thank you, free Palestine.
Councilors are only able to bring forth resolutions like this on the first meeting of the month, so if a councilor brings up this resolution for a vote, it will happen on February 7th.
The city is changing how it interacts with Utilities that build in the right-of-way from a franchise agreement model to a uniformly applied right-of-way code
The City has lots of roads. Underneath and above these roads are a bunch of pipes, wires, and other infrastructure private businesses use to move water, power, internet and probably other things. Right now, the way the City monitors and regulates these utilities is kind of a mess. The city doesn't actually know where all the stuff under the roads are, and has to negotiate a franchise agreement with every utility separately. The City has changed this process to move from these individual franchise agreements to a franchise code, that would be the same for everyone. Utilities will be moved to this new process as their franchise agreements expire. In December, this made all the utility companies upset, and they had a lot of concerns. Since then, the city spent a lot of time talking with them and modified the new code before council passed it to make everyone happy, and now they are happy. Yay.
System Development Charge (SDC) Methodology Update
When a building is developed or redeveloped, the City charges a one time fee to help pay for the increased demands this building has on the City's infrastructure. These fees are a really important funding source for the city, and are used to pay for capital projects. Staff have been working for a very long time to update how the city assesses these fees to streamline the process, and make the charges more fair and equitable. We've talked a lot about specific changes to SDCs in the past (this process has been going on since July 2022), so I'm just going to do the bare minimum here.
Tiered SDCs for single unit and middle housing, and changes for other housing types
For single-unit housing, duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes, SDCs are going to be charged on a tiered system based on square foot. Smaller developments will pay less, and larger developments will pay more. ADUs will also see a reduced fee. The fee for other housing types is going to remain roughly the same, but the way that it is calculated has changed.
Moving on from residential...
Non-Residential Land use category consolidation and rate adjustment
In the old system, there were more than 60 different categories of land use that a development could be under, and it wasn't consistent across the Transportation, Water, or Sewer SDCs. These categories were also charged seemingly at random. How much a development would need to pay for transportation SDCs was not related to how much a development impacted our transportation system, it was related to the whims of whatever council was thinking about back in 2003. Categories like dental offices and quality restaurants were completely exempted. The table below shows Bend's old and new transportation SDCs, and ranks their intensity to comparable Oregon cities:
For categories that were severely under-charged, the new rate is a very significant increase. This increase really freaked out local dentists, who waited for 5 hours to speak about their concerns during the hearing. After public comment, it was decided that tonight Council would pass the Code, but delay passing the fee schedule and fee methodology to give staff time to talk to the commenters, make sure that staff are happy with the new land use categories, and figure out a way to phase-in the fee increases for the categories like dental that are most affected.
There are several other changes to the SDC methodology, things like a 30% transportation fee reduction for the central district and other opportunity areas, and changes to how multi-tenant commercial developments are evaluated, but IT'S TIME TO STOP.
Oh btw, I'm on a committee now
I'm very excited to continue my habit of volunteering for important, hyper-local, time-consuming work that doesn't pay me any money, and doesn't even look that impressive on a resume.
Meeting Adjourned