City Council, July 25th - Our Salem and new Climate-Friendly Rules

Our Salem is already a little outdated. On Thursday the 21st the LCDC (the board) approved new administrative rules on climate and city planning formulated by DLCD (the State agency).

Cover of the Staff presentation to LCDC

Some of the rule changes will supersede or modify policies and code for Our Salem, which Council looks to enact formally with a second reading on Monday.

From the DLCD press release

I guess the benefit is now City Staff get to point the finger at the State when people complain, so in there is political cover in that sense. "Our hands are tied."

But it's also disappointing the City isn't following our Climate Action Plan and going further on their own. (See a little more on the passivity and reaction in "Climate Action Plan Committee: Transportation and Passivity.")

I am sure Staff will come to Council later with an update on another set of code and policy changes to bring Salem into compliance with the new rules. It will be interesting to learn where exactly are the new inconsistencies. There is also an explicit set of new tasks the rules assign to each city and area. (The chart is too abbreviated to be very legible, and obviously there will be more to say about it later - but it gives a holistic sense of more work to do.)

Salem area compliance tasks

In the meantime, at Council for Our Salem the second reading is broken up into four pieces:

• An Updated Housing Needs Analysis
• Amendments to Salem Revised Code, particularly with the new Neighborhood Hubs and two new Mixed-Use zones.
  
• Changes to the Comprehensive Map and the Zoning Map
  
• And the new Comprehensive Plan document itself
  

Staff identify next steps:

1. Update the Transportation System Plan to align with the updated Comprehensive Plan
2. Update the Comprehensive Parks System Master Plan to align with the updated Comprehensive Plan
3. Coordinate and implement strategies in the Climate Action Plan
4. Conduct a new Economic Opportunities Analysis
5. Conduct a Goal 5 inventory
6. Develop a Housing Production Strategy

And to this we will add a seventh, which itself contains multiple actions (see chart above): 

7. Update everything for compliance with the new Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities rules.

Additionally, as part of the tweaks Council made to the final package

City Council voted to approve the Our Salem project on Monday, July 11 with the following revisions:

• Remove the proposed neighborhood hub on Brown Road NE
• Remove the proposed map changes north of Orchard Heights Road NW (west of Grice Hill Park)
• Only rezone the northern half of the properties at 3486 and 3266 Orchard Heights Road NW to Mixed Use-II
• Rezone 255 College Drive NW to Single Family Residential as opposed to Multiple Family Residential-I
• Direct staff to schedule a separate public hearing to consider rezoning properties along Commercial Street SE roughly between Superior Street and McGilchrist Street to Mixed Use-II
• Direct staff to address traffic issues on Wallace Road NW - including the Congestion Relief Task Force recommendations - in the upcoming update to the Salem Transportation System Plan

Most of these are nits, details that don't really matter.

Commercial Street will have more significance, and that's an interesting discussion from SCAN. There will be more to say later.

The last item on Wallace Road and the Congestion Relief Task Force is definitely more systematic.

The Congestion Relief Task Force arose out of the failure of the SRC. It was a compensatory consolation prize.

But we have seen that 53% of our emissions come from driving, and in Scenarios 1 and 2 our Climate Action Plan calls for:

6. The rate of residents walking and biking has doubled.
7. Transit ridership has quadrupled.
8. Vehicle traffic coming into and out of Salem has declined by 40%.
9. Traffic within Salem has declined by 10%.

The exact mix will vary in reality, and number 8 in particular seems out of whack and isolationist relative to number 9, but what is clear is we need less driving, fewer trips and shorter trips when drives are made.

Bittersweet benefit (earlier in July)

But the whole framework of "congestion relief" in which driving is made easier and more convenient is out of date. Even the bullet points from that DLCD press release talk about moving away from "subsidizing driving" and "focusing on motor vehicle congestion."

Short term actions (yellow and red notes added)

Instead of reducing the time-cost of car travel, we need to reduce all the costs of other kinds of travel. And we need to figure out how to be ok with increasing time-cost and increasing dollar-cost of car travel. Car travel needs to be the choice of last resort, one tool in the toolbox, not default and first resort! Currently everything is looks like a nail, and we hammer everything.

Of the near-term recommendations from the Task Force, those in yellow need more emphasis, and the items in red need to be reconsidered as anti-pedestrian.

The whole needs a reassessment in light of our need to drive less. Congestion relief is no longer a useful paradigm.

See also at Sightline, with particular emphasis on parking. (The new "climate friendly areas" cities will need to designate and plan for will be especially interesting to learn more about, but these pieces don't much discuss them.)

• "Oregon Just Slashed Parking Mandates. 5 Things That Might Happen Next"
• "Affordable Housing in Oregon Is About to Catch a Big Break from Parking Mandates"
• "Oregon Nears Green Light for Big Parking Reform"
• "Oregon Has a Chance to Sharply Cut Urban Parking Mandates"
• And the DLCD website on the rulemaking project.
  

Other Items

• There is the formal referral of the Bond proposal. It is hard to be excited for it. There is so much missed opportunity on climate and business as usual with 20th century legacy-style projects.
• Probably this deserves more attention. Approvals on a new subdivision a little south of the Meyer Farm and Hilfiker Park have been called up for Council review because of "traffic concerns." Maybe we'll come back to it. 
• The Parks and Recreation Board are asking for more power, collaboration, and greater consideration in Council decisions and policy direction. That will be interesting to follow. Many of the boards and commissions are kept docile and largely powerless, and there is room to expand their advisory function.
• Second reading for designating the Eco-Earth Acid Ball as a local historic resource. (See previously here when it was first at the HLC.)
• Adoption of the Bailey Ridge Park Master Plan. It's near Illahe Golf Course and the old community of Roberts, where the Oregon Electric crossed River Road and the Livesley hop ranch was located. It has a seasonal swale and wetland in it. That area is a little interesting and maybe we'll come back to it.
• There are two information items on approvals for removal of "significant trees," here and here, and tree advocates may have commentary on how our new process and codes are working.
• And municipal support for a music festival at the new amphitheater, the "Capitol JAM," a free, all-ages event with eight bands. These would be back-up funds in case fund-raising falters.
• And previously here on the proposal for Capitol Street.