City-wide Land-Use

January forum minutes

City Wide Land Use Minutes
January 1999

Attendee's: Peter Meijer (Roseway), Will Stevens (Beaumont-Wilshire), Matt Carter (B-W)
Brit Anderson (B-W), Hilda King (Sumner), Arlene Kimura (Hazlewood), John Wolz (Irvington)
Jillian Detweiler (Commissioner Hales Office), Jerry Powell (Goose Hollow)

The meeting began with a welcome by Tom Badrick, and group introductions.

Tom introduced Jillian Detweiler from Commissioner Charlie Hales office for an overview of the coming years activities in the Planning Bureau.

Jillian gave a brief review of Blueprint 2000 and the amendment offered by Commissioner Francesconi and Mayor Katz at the Council session for Blueprint 2000 approval.

The future of long range planning both within the Planning Bureau and all City Bureaus is up in the air. Long range Planning within the Bureau of Planning is now under the direction of the Mayor and she has set a goal of May 12th to develop a plan of how to manage it within the City.

Other issues this year for he Bureau of Planning include the Hollywood Town Center effort, base Zone Design standards, funding for St Johns and Lombard planning projects and there will be an effort to find money to do planning for areas between I-405 and the Park blocks between the north end of downtown and the NW Industrial area.

Tom asked about the hiring of the new Planning Director. Jillian described the process as not having a timeline because of the changes within the Bureau (long range planning, blueprint 2000). David Knowles remains as Director until April and it falls under Margaret Mahoney with the changes adopted with Blueprint 2000.

Jillian was asked who typically instigates money being directed to neighborhoods, especially in light of St Johns planning funding. Also, how is it started?

It used to be planning by quadrants in the City and funding requests were managed that way. It is no longer done in that manner and projects are funded more strategically such as town centers. Funding can be both internal (City budget) and external (grants). Tom described funding for the Sunnyside neighborhood being a mix of grants and city funding. Jillian used the example of NINA/NWDA as an external source that led to internal funding.

Will Stevens and Matt Carter described their dissatisfaction with how the City, notably Commissioner Hales and his staff responded to the special amendment to Title 34. Beaumont-Wilshire (B-W) and many other neighborhoods protested and it went all the way to LUBA for a ruling. LUBA found in favor of B-W. They both came to the meeting to ask what steps would be taken to prevent this type of action again both by the Planning Bureau and Commissioner Hales and staff.

Specific issues:

Incorrect handling and behavior that appeared favorable to specific developers violating the spirit and language of the laws.

Failure to follow up with communications and commitments

In the end, the Bureau of Planning apologized to Council for the amount of time this took but never acknowledged the efforts of the neighborhoods or apologized for the harm caused.

Matt feels that commitments were not met and hopes that in the future this will not continue.

Mike S observed that it was a serial mistake and that more response back to the neighborhoods would have been better.

Matt described the developers application as blank and that BOP staff essentially completed it for the developer. That's not right. He wants to know how the system will be changed to prevent that from happening again. Neighborhoods just want respect and to be treated fairly.

Tom asked Jillian to discuss the future of long range planning. Jillian described it as up in the air right now.

Peter noted that Roseway wanted to be next in the process and asked what steps they should take to get on the list. Jillian answered that a letter to the Bureau of Planning and copying the Council would be the best way to be added to the work list.

Jordan informed the group that there will be an informal group put together in mid February to discuss how to promote a series of workshops at each coalition to talk about the Comprehensive Plan. He stated they would be asking each coalition for input on the committee make-up. Tom suggested they also send a letter to each NA chair to keep them informed as coalitions can't always get the information out in a timely manner and there are areas not really covered by coalitions.

Tom asked the group to suggest potential future topics describing possibilities including adding transportation issues to the realm of the group and talking about and with the schools..

Feedback included:

More big picture issues
Specific cases
Transportation committees
Boffo speakers
Building coalitions between groups
Getting better communication between developers and neighborhoods
Adding PDC to the mix-invite Felicia Trader
Urban growth issues

The meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM