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HomeMy WebLinkAbout030404 Ag Min · · · CITY OF PORT TOWNSEND PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA City Council Chambers, 7:00 pm March 4, 2004 I. Call to Order II. Roll Call III. Acceptance of Agenda IV. Approval of Minutes V. New Business A. GMI Indicators 1. Consultant/Staff Presentation · Meeting Goals & Objectives · Purposes of the GMI Program · Basic Framework for the Program · Overview of the Key Policy Objectives of the Plan · Principles Applied in Identifying Potential IndicatorslBenchmarks · Selecting Indicators & Benchmarks, Additional Considerations · Trimming Down the "Menu" - Questions to Ponder Public Comment/QuestionslDiscussion Interactive "Dot Preference" Exercise Planning Commission Deliberation and Recommendation 2. 3. 4. VI. Unfinished Business VII. Upcoming Meetings March 11, 2004; special meeting to formulate final GMI recommendation to Council March 25, 2004; public hearing on suggested amendments to the Comprehensive Plan and GMA White Paper VIII. Communications IX. Adjournment · · · CITY OF PORT TOWNSEND PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES March 4, 2004 I. CALL TO ORDER Mr. Richard Berg called the meeting to order at 7:04 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. II. ROLL CALL Other members answering roll were Cindy Thayer, George Randels, Liesl Slabaugh, Steven Emery. Those excused were: Jim Irvin, JeffKelety, Lyn Hersey, and Alice King. Also present were BCD Senior Planner Judy Surber, BCD Director Jeff Randall, and Eric Toews with Cascadia Planning Services. III. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Ms. Thayer made a motion to accept the agenda; Mr. Randels seconded. All were in favor. IV . APPROVAL OF MINUTES Approval of the minutes of February 26 would be postponed until the next meeting. V. PUBLIC COMMENT -- There was none. VI. NEW BUSINESS A. GMA INDICA TORS Chair Berg confirmed that new members Ms. Slabaugh and Mr. Emery had enough background information in the written report that a thorough review of the September presentation was unnecessary. Eric Toews with Cascadia Planning Services made the Staff presentation. He gave a brief overview of the key policy objectives listed in the Introduction to the Comprehensive Plan: maintenance of the City's small town character, achieving a better balance between jobs and housing, a number of items regarding pursuing economic development strategy and affordable housing strategy and policies, accommodating Port Townsend's share of county-wide growth in a compact urban manner, and providing necessary facilities and services within the City's financial resources. Of necessity, the Growth Management (GM) indicators and benchmarks cannot capture all the nuance and detail in the policies, so the real objective of this session is to identifY those indicators and benchmarks the Commission feels correlate most closely to the central themes of the Comprehensive Plan - to whittle the menu of 3 8 Growth Management indicators and benchmarks down to a more manageable number of 15 to recommend to the City Council as the basis for preparation ofthe City's first benchmarks report. Comments on the earlier draft were that a number of the suggested indicators and benchmarks seemed to be dealing with subjects well beyond the ability of the City to meaningfully influence through policy. He reviewed the basic approach to program development (also from the report), that is to identify the key objectives or indicators that would accurately measure those critical trends that are linked to those outcomes, and to identify benchmarks or targets that relate to those indicators. He noted that while there is a lot of good, reliable data available on a cycle more frequent than the census, they had found it difficult to identify data sources that were disaggregated down to a municipal level. Referring to the Benchmarks Desired Levels of Achievement, Ms. Slabaugh asked whether part of the process is going to be somehow quantifiable? Mr. Toews said that while some jurisdictions have done this, we have instead put the benchmark statements in terms of desired trends without actual bright line targets, but it is certainly a direction the City could go if not now, in future iterations of the report. George Randels asked if there is a quantified baseline? Mr. Toews said that after the various indicators are selected they would try to fmd the point in time closest to Comprehensive Plan adoption and use that as a baseline. Mr. Toews then moved on to reviewing additional considerations - complexity, relevance, influence and data availability - noting that some indicators are so intertwined (such as economic and employment indicators) that if selected in isolation you would almost have to use some of those other trends to make sense ofthe one that is selected. This relates to a concern raised in the written comments: that we receive both relevance and influence. That is, how useful is the indicator in assessing multiple objectives of the plan and will the outcome related to the relevant indicator or benchmark be within the reach of the City to meaningfully influence or change through a policy? Also, Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 / Page I · the cycle for the availability of the information needs to be considered - it might only be available once every ten years, in which case the benchmark report would be on a fairly long interval. As it stands now, the City is mandated statutorily to update its Comprehensive Plan and to develop regulations, review them and ensure that they comply with the Growth Management Act once every seven years. Pending legislation would seek to put this on a ten-year cycle so that review and assessment of urban growth area boundaries, as well as the Comprehensive Plan, would be on a ten-year cycle, which theoretically would tie in with the census data. Chair Berg said that measure is not likely to be adopted this year. Mr. Toews then explained an exercise, whereby everyone present would identify with a dot reference system which of the 38 indicators they think should be recommended to the Council. He suggested picking at least one preferred indicator out of each of the major topic areas; some have few indicators, like housing affordability tenure and type and parks, open spaces and trails, and ten remaining dots could be placed anywhere. Since no public were in attendance he also offered that the Commission could also discuss and formulate a recommendation through another, more broad-based means. Ms. Thayer observed that about 17 ranked high in the relevance rankings. Mr. Randels observed that at least two of the indicators might be logically merged into one and asked whether it would be possible to make his selections on a merged indicator, which Mr. Toews confirmed. The Commission ran through the exercise of selecting their 15 priority indicators. It was noted that there were several suggestions for mergers. Indicators with five votes or more were recorded as follows: 6. Retail sales 13. Acres of vacant manufacturing land served with roads, water and sewer 25. Housing inventory data 27. Water and wastewater level of service (LoS) standards 34. Miles of desigÌíated for non-motorized use · 37. LoS standard for parks and recreational facilities Mr. Toews then reviewed indicators receiving one or zero votes: 1. Percentage of countywide employment growth occurring within the City 3. The employment growth rate 4. Total wages 5. Retail business diversity 7. County unemployment rate 14. The fair market value of unimproved land zoned for manufacturing use 17. The fair market value of unimproved land zones for commercial use 21. Building permits issued for development on land zoned for multi-family use 22. The number of historic structures preserved 31. Compliance with state and federal drinking water standards 32. Fire flow 36. The number of shoreline public access points, both direct and visual Chair Berg asked about the possibilities for a combination by zone, such as industrial zones, how much land is available, what is the value and how many building permits were issued, then do the same for commercial and multi-family zone. Or would it make more sense to combine them by how much land is available in the three zones and the market value? Mr. Toews felt it might be best to merge by land use designation. He clarified that while these indicators might be grouped for the purpose of writing the benchmarks report, they would remain separate indicators. Chair Berg commented that if someone is going to look up the data, they might as well look it up for all three zones and write it up. · Ms. Slabaugh asked if the three indicators are measuring the same thing or contradict each other. It seems that you would want to keep the reported information separate for clarity and simplicity in understanding. Mr. Toews responded that as separate indicators they are not measuring the same thing. When the report is written there Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 / Page 2 · might be situations where they will have to interpret the data and put it into proper context in the narrative. Ms. Thayer expressed concern that if we start combining or merging then have we made a decision? Chair Berg said he believes it is important to look at each of the three land use zones (manufacturing, commercial and multi-family) separately. Noting that each zone has three proposed indicators - vacant land, market value and number of building permits issued - he asked if any one of these seemed more important than the other. In response to several questions, Mr. Toews said he believes vacant land with appropriate infrastructure is the most important to track. Fair market value information would give insight into what "appropriate" means when you have to go back and judge whether you have an appropriate amount of land zoned in each one of those categories. So it is a situation where one indicator gives context and meaning to another. Keeping track of building permit data - such as for mixed use - is not complicated. The conclusions drawn from building permit activity are the least useful because they do not tell you anything you could not see by looking at the vacant available land indicator and benchmark. Ms. Thayer expressed concern that fair market value might move too quickly to be a benchmark. Mr. Toews agreed that if he were to prioritize one of the three, it would be vacant land available. Ms. Slabaugh said, regarding Mr. Toews' point about what is adequate, that comparing the number of acres ofland vacant at the time of your evaluation to those available at the baseline level does not tell you adequacy. Mr. Toews agreed, but said that it is ajudgment call just as it was back in 1996 when the comprehensive plan developed and adopted. It wasn't based on a formula. · Ms. Thayer said but it was a judgment based on not having enough. Mr. Toews agreed, but said it wasn't as though numbers were input on one end and a magic number for commercial manufacturing and multi-family came out the another ~ it was the collective judgment of the citizen work group and the Planning Commission and Council as to what was necessary and appropriate. Here, we are obviously going to have baseline data that show x amount available and a trend - maybe not in mixed use but maybe in the other zones - toward less and less vacant and available land. The difficulty, perhaps not an insurmountable one, is establishing the criteria internally that you develop and apply to determine what constitutes "adequately served." Once you do that and use the same approach each time, it is not rocket science. Mr. Randall said he agrees with Mr. Toews. Vacant land is the most important factor for the Planning Commission - zoning and land availability. He thinks it would be interesting for the Planning Commission to see the building permit data with vacant land information. Basically, it is an investment - somebody choosing to invest in that particular business or zone. Over time, if you are seeing a lot of investment in commercial, but none in manufacturing that tells you something. Mr. Randels said that when he listed his priorities, he had considered what issues and data would come before the Planning Commission perspectives other than the Comprehensive Plan review process. When he came across a category that was absolutely certain to be dealt with in some other way, he lowered its priority and Mr. Randall's point seems to fall into that category. The people that need to know of an extreme shortage ofa certain type of land willleam of it through the market and the political process long before any indicator report comes along. Ms. Thayer agreed that we are trying to plan that process before it is too late. Chair Berg said that what is needed is some kind of report that gives the objective data rather than this political, subjective thing where people just claim there isn't enough commercial land without any basis in fact. Mr. Randall agreed that this is the purpose - to give some objective facts to balance out how things feel or what people want politically. · Ms. Slabaugh said that while she agreed with Mr. Randel on topics like fire safety and water quality, she differs with him on land use issues because we are trying to reflect the core values of the Comprehensive Plan, to which the issue of zoning is central. The overlap between housing affordability and economy and infrastructure really ties it all together. Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 / Page 3 · Chair Berg reiterated that the building permits are the most tangible data that is tied to our Comprehensive Plan policies, working or not. Since much of the Comprehensive Plan reflects our desire for more family-wage jobs, we have to ask: Are building permits being issued for the kind of businesses that create family wage jobs? Is the Comprehensive Plan is working or not? Ms. Thayer agreed and recommended that Indicator #21 remain. Mr. Toews relayed that just this morning Staff was considering the very obvious lack of infrastructure to support the densities zoned in the southwest quadrant of the City and wondering what catalyst would bring the development required to generate the revenues the City will need to do the very desirable things the Plan has laid out. If you were to just look at vacant land, for instance, there is plenty of vacant land out there - and there is a reason it is vacant. Ms. Slabaugh agreed, but said it is vacant land with infrastructure. Mr. Toews agreed. He thinks the data in the first report would very possibly show that the number has not budged a whole lot since Plan adoption. Chair Berg asked if there is a way an indicator could refer to infrastructure development like "miles of pipe" or "dollars worth ofpipe/road?" Mr. Toews said this is done somewhat in the non-motorized element, which measures miles of trail. Ms. Thayer suggested that the more important indicator would be vacant land with infrastructure. Mr. Toews clarified that there was general support for including the vacant "appropriately-served" criterion for all three of the broad land use designations with building permit information, but not fair market value information. Ms. Surber noted that fair market value could easily end up being in the report because if you ask "why" many acres of land served are not being developed, it might you lead you to an analysis of the value. · Chair Berg suggested tying the amount ofland and building permits. If Mr. Toews finds after doing the first report that the information is not useful enough without the value information, then indicators could be adjusted. Mr. Toews noted that assuming these are combined for each of the land use categories and still count separately though commercial, manufacturing and multi-family, we stand at nine total. Ms. Slabaugh asked what harm there would be to leaving fair market value in. Ms. Thayer said the fair market value changes so quickly, that it might be misleading. Mr. Toews said the context in which it would potentially make a lot of sense and be very useful is if the report were being prepared on a recurrent cycle, like every one or two years and you saw a spike in values that was indicating there was a real shortage of supply. Ms. Thayer said that would then be covered in the indicators of what it available. Mr. Toews agreed and said it ahnost raises more questions than it answers. Chair Berg asked to clarify that he would then take vacant land and building permits in each of the three zones and combine them into three items. Those indicators being merged would be 13/15 and 16/18 and 19/21 for the purposes of writing the report. Mr. Toews confirmed. Ms. Thayer asked if we are merging the acres of vacant land into the different zones with the building permits. Mr. Toews clarified that just for the write up - probably saying adequate land zoned commercial. There might also be sub-indicators, one being vacant available land with infrastructure. Ms. Thayer clarified that Indicator 19, which says residential, means multi-family residential, which Mr. Toews confirmed. Mr. Toews pointed out that we do not have anything that relates to vacant and available land zoned for mixed use. He thinks it can be included - he thought that the non-residential uses that are permitted in the mixed use are commercial uses, so you could count it in both multi-family and commercial or you could call it out on its own and collect the same data. · Chair Berg said one of the ideas the Comprehensive Plan is trying to push is the development of mixed-use structures and areas in the City. It seems important to track it as that, rather than part of commercial. There was agreement to include indicator '10 Building permits issued for mixed-use centers. Mr. Toews noted other items that received support were Indicator 23 - Housing Affordability Index, and there were also a couple of votes for combining with Indicator 24 - Housing Tenure by Income Level. Others are Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 1 Page 4 · Indicator 28 - LOS Standards for Arterials and Collectors, and Indicator 30 - Wastewater Treatment Plan V olume- to-Capacity Ratio, he said this is really an important but easy one, since Public Works tracks it. Of all of the big- ticket infrastructure items that the City has to monitor over time and ensure that appropriate advanced planning is done, that is a huge one. Ms. Slabaugh said she believes the community would consider Indicator 23 - Housing Affordability a higher priority than that. There was support for combining Indicators 23 and 24, with the understanding that 24 is only available when the census data comes out. Mr. Randels suggested that because the Plan emphasizes the desirability of good jobs and family wage jobs, it seems that it is the key indicator in terms of housing and the overall health of the community and yet right now, we have no measure of employment or education. It was noted that Indicator 2 Employment Security Department data, does not disaggregate to the municipal level. Indicator I, percentage of countywide employment growth occurring within the City, is census data. Ms. Slabaugh asked which data is more difficult to obtain. Mr. Toews said that numbers 2 and 3 would be more difficult and 1 is derived from census information. What you are measuring as much as employment growth in isolation is whether or not the City is in fact, achieving a GMA objective as well as a Plan objective of serving as one of the principle employment centers ofthe County. If it looks like most ofthe employment growth is occurring in unincorporated areas, even unincorporated urban areas - that would be trending away from the Plan's objective of having the City UGA continue to serve as the primary urban employment center for Jefferson County. Mr. Emery asked if there might be some way to attach a median income. He knows that the number of people working does not give you a measure oftheir income. It was noted that Indicator #4 is Total Wages, but with Census Data you could derive median income levels. Chair Berg suggested that the Commission might request a report item that addressed employment and income and whatever might be said about it from the data available. · Mr. Randels asked if any non-governmental information is available. Mr. Toews said that while there are special studies from time to time that provide great information, it might not be collected in the same way twice. What could be done tonight is to solidify the core elements of the recommendation for fmalizing at a later date, after which the employment and income issue would be reviewed to see if we can devise one or more indicators that capture what you are looking for, which we would the present for your support before forwarding it to Council. Chair Berg said it seems the Commission could recommend an indicator about employment levels and an indicator about income levels to be two of the 15 things and ask Mr. Toews ifhe could come up with the best one indicator for each of those things. Mr. Toews said it would not be a problem to circulate via email or hard copy one or two suggested indicators, to which the Commission could respond. There was Commission support. Mr. Toews said the essence is that there is a desire to look at employment and income levels. There was support for combining numbers 1 and 2, bringing the subtotal to 12. Chair Berg suggested returning to 11 - Adult Educational Level and 12 - Percentage of Population with Bachelor's Degrees or Higher. Mr. Toews said 12 correlates directly with income, but he noted there has been some previous discussion about what the City could do to influence the outcome. Mr. Randels suggested that this would argue in favor of also including the high school data, which is something the City could influence more easily. Ms. Slabaugh agreed and said it is just a core value in the Comprehensive Plan, whether we can influence it or not. If it is not happening, it is not so much that we are failing, it is just an indicator we are measuring and noticing and articulating about our community. ' · Mr. Emery asked about including historic preservation within an indicator. The only one he saw was the number of buildings that are being preserved, but this might be an obvious. Mr. Randels said he saw this indicator as one that some other group would do a better job of tracking. Mr. Toews said that the central themes ofthe Comprehensive Plan would create an economic climate that would enable people to afford to put the money into these old homes and preserve them. Ms. Slabaugh was curious about why others felt 28 - Arterial/Collector LoS Standards should be an Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 1 Page 5 · indicator. Mr. Emery said he picked it because of its high relevance and the low degree of difficulty in attaining the data. Mr. Toews said a requirement of the Comprehensive Plan is that the City maintain the level of service standards and achieve concurrency for transportation infrastructure under growth management. So, if we have identified road sections that are functioning below our level of service standard, under the law, the City must either pony up the money or through developer mitigations improve the level of service standard - or lower the standard. Ms. Slabaugh suggested considering 33,35, and 36 instead and Mr. Randels and Chair Berg suggested 33 - Hours of Transit Service and Total Miles ofIn-City Transit Routes. There was Commission support for adding 33 to the list. · The fmallist of indicators was as follows 1/2 (1) Percentage of countywide employment growth occurring within the City. (2) Non-agricultural wage and salary employees by sector. 4. Total wages 6. Retail sales 10. Building permits issued for mixed-use centers. 11/12 (11) The adult educational level (i.e. percentage of population aged 25-64 with high school diplomas and/or bachelors degrees), (12) The percentage of the population with bachelor's degrees or higher. 13/15 (13) Acres of vacant manufacturing land served with roads, water and sewer; (15) Building permits issued for development on land zoned for manufacturing use. 16/18 (16) Acres of vacant commercial land served with roads, water and sewer; (18) Building permits issued for development on land zoned for commercial use. 19/21 (19) Acres of vacant residential land served with roads, water and sewer; (21) Building permits issued for development on land zoned for multi-family use. 23/24 (23) Housing affordability index; (24) Housing tenure by income level. 25. Housing inventory data 27. Water and wastewater LoS standards 30. Wastewater Treatment Plan Volume-to-Capacity Ratio 33. Hours of Transit Service and Total Miles ofIn-City Transit Routes 34. Miles of designated for non-motorized use 37. LoS standard for parks and recreational facilities VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS -- There was none VIII. UPCOMING MEETINGS · Ms. Surber also noted that March 25 is a regular meeting night to review the Comprehensive Plan suggested amendments and the White Paper. Due to the lack of availability ofthe Chambers for an March 18 meeting, Mr. Toews suggested inserting into the Commission's packets both the White Paper and suggestions on fmal indicator recommendation, and thoughts on the merger of employment and income criterion so they could be discussed at the March 25 hearing, along with the proposed amendments. He then reviewed the Comprehensive Plan amendments that had been submitted by the March 1 deadline: . A change in land use designation at 22nd and Wilson. The vacated street right of way where the City has committed to zoning the vacated right of way to park and open space. This would change zoning from R2 to Parks and Open Space. Mr. Randall said Public Works is planning improvements on the site to make it a park. . The other item - proposed amendments to Title 17 related to the Ft. Worden Park and Conference Center - does not need to be on the docket because it does not create an inconsistency with any existing Comprehensive Plan Land Use plan or designation. A number of uses have been in place since the Park's inception in the mid-70s that were not accurately reflected in the zoning adopted by the City, i.e., the beach concession. What are proposed are a number of changes in the use table for the Parks and Open Space zoning district that would permit certain limited uses consistent with the overall Conference Center concept, but only at Ft. Worden and not in other portions of the POS zoning district. It would also recommend at least one change in the defmitions in 17.08 to broaden the defmition of Conference Center to allow a few more uses that are currently clearly not permitted. Mr. Randall noted that this was driven by the uses for which Ft. Worden State Park is trying to offer its buildings, such as a Peninsula College campus and a performmg arts center. Mr. Toews reiterated that because this does not call into question any Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 / Page 6 · Comprehensive Plan policies or Land Use designations, it is something that would not have to be docketed now but could go on a separate track. Mr. Randall said the Commission could recommend it be docketed and should Council could agree, it would not necessarily have to wait for the Comprehensive Plan process, but could instead hold a July hearing, rather than in October or November. Ms. Surber noted some scheduling challenges and polled the membership: March 11 was the second night reserved as a special meeting to formulate fmal GMI recommendations to Council; March 18 has been cancelled; and the Cottage Housing Ordinance could be discussed either April 8 or 15. Ms. Slabaugh said she could not attend on April 8, while Mr. Berg was uncertain. Neither Mr. Randels nor Mr. Randall could attend April 15. Chair Berg said he would prefer a meeting on April 8 for the Cottage Housing Ordinance (when Mr. Randall could attend). Mr. Randall indicated that there might be a lot of testimony and deliberations that would carry over to another meeting. The Commission's desire was to reschedule that hearing to April 8. IX. COMMUNICA nONS -- There was none X. ADJOURNMENT Motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Ms. Thayer and seconded by Mr. Randels. All were in favor. The meeting adjourned at 8:52 p.m. [l·vtJ ~ Richard Berg, Chair · Joanna Sanders, Minute Taker · Planning Commission Minutes, March 4, 2004 1 Page 7