You may recall a revision to the big mushroom plant redevelopment. Last spring the developers submitted a proposal for apartments and a gas station mini-mart type store in the southeast quadrant at the corner of State and Cordon
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| New proposal for Apartments Gas station in lower left of 2022 inset |
The Hearings Officer denied it and Council affirmed the denial on appeal.
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| Reversed at LUBA |
The developer appealed to LUBA, and LUBA issued a strong rebuke, reversing outright rather than remanding back to the City as they have seemed to prefer.
Part of the decision criticizes in very particular contexts notions of livability and compatibility that the City has used in approvals:
SRC 240.005(d)(3) requires evaluation of whether the proposed use is "reasonably compatible" or will have minimal impact on the "livability" and "appropriate development" of neighboring property. The CUP criteria are intended to balance or mitigate the impact of the proposed development on surrounding properties and require subjective, value-laden judgments. They are not objective and may not be applied to the application. Application of the criteria in SRC 240.005(d)(2) and (3) required the city to engage in a value-laden analysis regarding adverse impacts to surrounding properties.
At Council on Monday is the reversal, a new approval for the project.
It will be interesting to see if this has any broader implications for ways that arguments about livability and compatibility are often used to try to foil development.
At the Meyer Farm there have also been arguments about "clear and objective criteria" and we may see more on this.
Other Items
There is also an Intergovernmental Agreement with DLCD for a process to identify Climate Friendly Areas and separately to conduct Scenario Planning.
One major component of the rules requires Salem and other cities in metropolitan areas to identify walkable, mixed-use areas - referred to by the State as “climate friendly areas - and adopt regulations in these areas to promote development. The first step in this work is to conduct a study of potential walkable, mixed-use areas (Study) in Salem. This work will rely on and build upon the recently-completed Our Salem project, which rezoned many areas - particularly transit corridors - for mixed-use development....
The [Scenario Planning] process is similar to the scenario planning work that was done with the Our Salem project; the focus then was on land use changes. Staff anticipates that the new regional scenario planning work will focus on transportation changes needed to meet the state’s climate pollution reduction targets, including current and future investments in active transportation, fleet and fuels, transit, pricing, parking management, education and marketing, and roads.
These are positive developments! But we should remember that the "scenario planning" in Our Salem did not yield a plan that got us anywhere near the necessary emissions reductions. (See the top header image for the blog.) These are processes that can be done well or done very weakly and symbolically.
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| SJ, top; Oregonian bottom, earlier this week |
At the same time as there is this good climate talk, also on the agenda is a grant to increase carbon emissions and lead pollution at the airport. Council really needs to think about being more consistent on climate, not giving with one hand and taking with the other.
The $850,000 grant will provide 70.83% of the funds and the $350,000 in local matching funds raised by the community will provide the remaining 29.17%. Travel Salem will be the fiduciary agent for the reimbursement of local matching funds, and an agreement with Travel Salem will be executed.
Should the community’s local matching funds fall short of the $350,000 pledged, the grant will cease at that point and the remainder of the grant will be returned to USDOT. No City funds will be used to backfill any shortfall of local matching funds.
What is it going to take to employ a real climate lens on all Council decisions? At the very least, why isn't there a greenhouse gas assessment for a revival of commercial air service at the airport?
The Fire Department answers an important question, Why do we send fire trucks on medical emergencies.
The fire engine is our primary response vehicle and responds to a wide variety of call types, including medical emergencies, fires, car crashes, hazardous materials, natural gas leaks, overpressure/ruptures, severe natural disasters, false alarms, service calls, good intent (includes calls cancelled in route), and citizen complaints. Think of the fire engine as a toolbox, that provides us all the tools we need to mitigate all call types we respond to. Salem Fire Department doesn’t know ahead of time which type of call will come next, so we need to be prepared to respond to anything...
But it doesn't have any kind of comparative frame. Why do some communities apparently disagree, and have chosen not to default to sending out fire trucks also? The answer in the Staff Report is very one-sided, in favor of over-preparation, and is not very helpful on any alternatives. They say, "Salem Fire Department has used computer modeling to explore various alternative service delivery methods to validate if we can provide the same service using a more cost-effective approach," but say nothing about any empirical data from other cities. At least as expressed in the Staff Report, it is not a very thorough analysis.
Somewhat related, there is a report on an RFI for a CAHOOTS type program. It got only one response, and that occasioned no further comment in the Staff Report. That seems odd.
3 comments:
There are a couple of adds to Council agenda.
- Councilor Nordyke has a motion to advance a CAHOOTS-style Mobile Crisis Unit.
- The Legislative Subcommittee proposes specific requests for the 2023 Legislative Session (slightly edited):
"Funds for River Road Slide Mitigation ($20 million, one-time), Funds for Peace Plaza public square ($2 million, one-time), Funds to sustain sheltering program ($9 million annually) and Navigation Center ($2.1 million annually); and for a sobering center ($1 million for two years operations).
The Committee also recommends the City pursue opportunities to an affordable housing fix that was the subject of Senate Bill 1557 in the 2022 Session related to Orchard Park apartments, a photo radar fix that would include Salem as a City able to use the technology similar to Senate Bill 560 from the 2019 Session, and support an effort to capture cost of future recreational vehicle demolition at point of sale or point of licensing - similar in scope to Senate Bill 4066 from the 2021 Session."
South River Road slope stabilization, Peace Plaza parking expansion, and photo radar are of particular interest here as transportation items.
I think it important to clarify on the "Mushroom Plant Rebuke" that from the neighborhood and from the planning staff point of view it was not about compatibility or livability at all. It was about the fact that the area was zoned for commercial and the application was to change it to residential without addressing the kind of issues that are normally discussed in zone changes. It all got very convoluted and I do not know how the lawyers argued the case to LUBA. But at issue is that we will now get a gas station at the entrance to a large apartment complex with no defined pathways for cars that separate pedestrian use verses vehicle use. We now will have children dash ing through a parking lot of the minimart/gas station to get to their school bus....no sidewalks will be provided!
I'm looking into ways we might be able to negotiate this conflict.
The area is rapidly developing as a residential area. You might go bike out that way and see for yourself. It's not a bad development overall and the houses are selling faster than they can build them ($400,000 to $450,000 range) and the apartments will likely be full in short order too. Another fairly large apartment complex is going in almost kitty-corner to this development off of Center Street as well.
Why the applicant didn't just go through the zone change process is not clear, but it would have been quicker and provided a way to resolve some of the remaining issues. Traffic will be a nightmare for a while because two traffic lights that were required are now delayed due to supply issues.
Airports are a direct wealth transfer from the poorest citizens, who will never use an airport yet still pay taxes through rent, to the wealthiest, who will jetset from the airport.
Improving the Salem Amtrak station will do far more equitable as buses and trains are how people travel from all walks of life.
Every time I've taken the train this year there has been far more diversity. Not only that but train and bus travel is far less emission intensive then airplane and even car travel.
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