City Council Meeting Notes 12/20/23
I hope you are having a great holiday season! I'm having a blast wasting away my hours reading webcomics, drinking beer with friends, and watching just an absurd number of committee meetings. Best Christmas ever. I'm not sorry for the even later than usual summary. It's Christmas!
Also, huge thank you to the City's technical staff, who worked with me in the hour before this meeting to make sure I could record it to produce this summary. Zoom updated that day, and they needed to make an adjustment to the meeting settings so that my transcription tool would continue to work.
TLDR:
The city has completed their Climate Friendly Area Study and is submitting it to the State
Magnolia Meadows, a 151 unit Hayden Homes housing development on the SE side of town has been annexed. This is notable progress for the development of the Southeast Expansion area known as the "elbow".
We're paying for the design work for the Midtown Multimodal Connection and Streetscaping Project, so bike and pedestrian improvements on Greenwood and Franklin are FINALLY HAPPENING
The city hopes to give the final concept for the Hawthorne Overpass to ODOT in July. Construction should be complete by the end of 2027
Work Session
Climate Friendly Area Study
The Climate Friendly and Equitable Community (CFEC) land use rules coming from the State require the City to do many things. One big thing they require is the designation and adoption of Climate Friendly Areas (CFAs). Climate Friendly Areas are places "where people can live, work and meet most of their daily needs without having to drive a car." These CFAs need to be able to accommodate 30% of the housing needs of our current and future growth, as determined by the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis (OHNA). Right now this means approximately 15,366 housing units, but this number will change in a couple of years because the State is currently updating their methodology. The housing capacity of an area is determined by finding out the theoretical maximum number of units an area can accommodate if every buildable area was built to the maximum height / units possible under the area's building code and zoning. CFAs also need to have a high standard of Bike/ Pedestrian connectivity, and commercial space.
Establishing these areas is a long, multi-year process, with designation to take place in 2026. We have just finished Phase 1. In this phase, the City did extensive community engagement, and an involved examination of potential designatable areas within the city. All of this work has culminated in a Climate Friendly Area Study the city is submitting to the State this week. You can and should read this 103-page report here. A lot of what these areas will look like are still up in the air. The City has separated the areas under consideration into 10 parts. The City can choose to have smaller, denser areas with higher 85' building heights, or have larger, less dense areas with our current Mixed Use building height limit of 65'. One area that is almost certain to be designated as a CFA is the Core area and Central district. The area around OSU-Cascades, and the area of Greenwood between Pilot Butte / Costco are both strong candidates.
Before the CFAs are officially adopted in 2026, preferred areas will be selected, fleshed out, potentially rezoned, and the code will be updated. There will be additional community outreach throughout the process.
Regular Session
The regular meeting began as usual with roll call and Land Acknowledgment. It is Homeless Persons' Memorial Day.
Ordinance to annex approximately 19 acres in the Southeast Area (Magnolia Meadows)
Hayden Homes is in the process of developing a property in the Southeast Expansion area known as the "elbow". This 19 acre property, designated to be annexed into the City as an RM and RS development, is planned to be built into a 151 lot subdivision of 103 single unit residences, and 48 townhomes. All in all, it looks like a pretty good use of the area. The properties are going to be much smaller than the older developments that are around it, and it is close to Caldera High, and the future Steven's road and Ranch Developments. The annexation hearing went through with no screaming neighbors, and only two submitted public comments, both in favor: one from the Chamber of Commerce, and the other from Bend YIMBY.
Price Amendment #2 for construction of portions of the Awbrey Butte Distribution Improvements project
The Awbrey Butte Distribution Improvements Project continues forward. The stormwater and sewer lines are being replaced because some of them look like this.
This funding package pays for the construction of the second of three phases of construction. Over the next two years, you will see construction related to this phase along the green line and blue shaded areas of this map.
We didn't get to hear about the in-conduit hydropower feasibility study this meeting, but they did mention that the 9th street pump station will have enough water pressure that in-conduit hydro would work there.
We're paying for the design work for the Midtown Multimodal Connection and Streetscaping Project, and handing off the construction of the Hawthorne Overpass to ODOT
itshappening.gif All initiatives under the midtown crossings project umbrella are going into design or construction in 2024. This is hugely exciting news for our urban core, and today is a good day to break down about what's going to happen, and when, since we just contracted out the final design work for most of these projects.
Let's take a closer look at each of these projects in the order they are planned to be constructed. All these dates are obviously tentative.
Greenwood Avenue Quick-build: Construction Begins 2024
The first project to begin construction will be improvements to Greenwood Avenue, from Harriman St to 4th Street. This project is actually two projects: ODOT will be building improvements from 2nd St to 4th St, and the City will be setting up a quick-build to prototype changes to both sides of Greenwood Avenue leading to the underpass. The City will re-stripe the road, narrowing the road from 4 to 3 lanes, to make room for a shared use path along the side of the road. This path will be separated from traffic using temporary concrete or plastic barriers. The plan is to build something as close to Concept 1 from the Midtown Crossing feasibility study as cheaply and quickly as possible. The City's portion of this project should be complete within the year, and ODOT's portion should be done before the end of 2025.
It is important this project get done quickly, because Franklin and Greenwood cannot be inaccessible at the same time or the world will explode.
Second Street: Construction begins late 2024
The section of 2nd street between Franklin and Greenwood has been pretty much endlessly discussed ad nauseum since at least 2014. The degraded street, poor pedestrian connectivity, and utility issues along this road have been cited as a major barrier inhibiting the central district's redevelopment, and we are FINALLY actually going to fix it! The design of the road has been set, and when construction is completed, it will operate similar to a greenway. The final design is a bit controversial, since the Hawthorn pedestrian overcrossing intersects with this road, and it doesn't have a separated bike lane. It should be fine though, there should be enough traffic calming that cyclists will be comfortable, and the stakeholders wanted street parking, and if we tried changing it AGAIN, development of the Central District will once again be delayed years. So it is what it is, and what it is, is pretty darn good. Construction is expected to be complete at the end of 2026.
Franklin Avenue: Construction begins late 2025
Franklin Avenue is the largest non-Hawthorne Overpass project in this package. Similar to the Greenwood improvements, the City will be making substantial improvements to the pedestian connectivity leading to the underpass, with particularly substantial changes to the east side heading to the bridge. Widening the pee tunnel would have cost more than building the Hawthorne Overpass, so unfortunately, that was taken off the table. Thank BNSF. The transformation on the east side is going to be particularly dramatic, because the old Les Schwab building next to the underpass is going to be developed into a 199 unit residential development we heard about last meeting. This project begins later because there needs to be some additional alternatives analysis to be done before the design can be finalized, and, this bears repeating, Greenwood and Franklin CAN NOT be out of commission at the same time. Construction should finish at the end of 2026.
Hawthorne Bridge: Construction begins in 2026
This time last year, the Hawthorne pedestrian overpass was expected to cost the City at least 10 Million dollars, had an 18 million dollar funding gap, and wasn't expected until at least 2028. Today, thanks to Federal and State grants, the local contribution is $312,698 and dropping, and the bridge is expected to be finished in 2027.
Thanks to these Federal funds, two things must now happen. ODOT will have to administer the project and handle construction, and that 2027 deadline is not optional. It is built into the grant. This means we need to hand a detailed concept over to ODOT by September. The city is hoping to get it to them by July. Keep an eye out for opportunities for community input on the design of the bridge that is sure to come out over the next few months. There will likely be a few different visually distinct options, with one of them looking something like this.
Brooks Alley
Pedestrian improvements to Brooks Alley downtown are going to start happening in January. You'll see some striping and signage get added, and then they will add a gate on the north side to stop you stupid motherfuckers from entering the ally the wrong way.
Meeting Adjourned.