City Council, November 14th - Overlay Zones and Video Promotion

At Council on Monday, as a kind of sequel to the second reading for enactment of the rezone on middle Commercial to MU-II and MU-III zoning (see previous notes here), there's an interesting motion from Councilor Stapleton in Ward 2 about overlay zones, specifically "the Superior-Rural, Oxford-West Nob Hill, Oxford-Hoyt, Hoyt/McGilchrist, and Saginaw Street overlay zones." This is a small area, and that's a lot of overlays! She says,

These existing overlays complicate the process and diminish the potential in this walkable neighborhood with access to frequent transit.

Overlay zones on or near south Commercial
(City of Salem zoning map)

This is Councilor Nishioka's ward, and it is at least a little interesting that she is not originating the motion. Councilor Stapleton is certainly correct about complication and red tape, and it will be interesting to learn more about the intent for the overlay zones if the motion can get enough support to generate an analysis, report, and formal discussion.

Between Hines and Oxford, E-W connectivity is zero

At 20th Street SE there is a little stub of Cross Street that currently dead ends and functions as a parking lot. Back in October, Council accepted a petition to vacate the stub so an adjacent business can use it more permanently as a parking lot. In researching the petition, the City realized that there was undeveloped land nearby, and east-west connectivity a real problem between Hines Street and Oxford Street.

Consequently, the City Staff Recommendation now asserts that a vacation is contrary to the Public Interest and recommends denying the request. As a compromise solution the City has offered

a revocable permit to encroach in the right-of-way...until such time as the City chose to extend Cross Street SE to enhance connectivity in this area.

The applicant did not accept the offer.

Council will also hold a formal Public Hearing on an omnibus code update, mostly technical fixes for compliance with recent court cases and State legislation. 

For example, in response to the the Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities rules the City will require

[N]ew multifamily and mixed-use buildings with at least five units to provide electrical vehicle charging capacity to 40 percent of the spaces that serve the buildings. In addition, the amendment eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements for any use within a half-mile of transit corridors that have 15-minute service as well as for a variety of other uses citywide, including affordable housing, residential care facilities, shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and dwelling units that are smaller than 750 square feet.

Discretionary items broadly seem reasonable, like aligning cannabis and psilocybin zoning restrictions so they are consistent.

The quarterly economic and business development report is pretty brief, but in it is reference to the first of ten promotional videos.

"Coworking in Salem"

You may recall back in August, "the Urban Development Department signed a contract with Allied Video to produce 10 business marketing and lifestyle videos." 

A few years ago a "sizzle video" seeemed more than a little fake, and one oriented to history seemed much more authentic.

•  On fakeness, "Performing our City: There's Something about Salem" (2016)
•  On something more authentic, "New Heritage All-Star Video Surpasses Sizzle Video" (2016)\

This new one has a much more narrow focus and is more like an ad for two coworking businesses. There isn't, in fact, much about the city or downtown in it.

One real omission could be remedied by a brief exterior, "establishing" shot. Except for a couple of drone shots over downtown, the whole of the video occurs inside, but one of the businesses featured in the video occupies the second floor of the Gray building of 1891, wonderfully restored in the last few years.

The Gray building (CBTwo)

Why wouldn't you show this polychromed facade and a street scene?!

The interior spaces and the business that occupy them are abstracted from any actual urban context and fabric. They are conceived as essentially portable and could be anywhere. They are a little generic.

Indirectly, this promotes the idea of downtown, or any place, as a drive-to destination rather than an actual and distinctive place in which to live, work, and play. Even though it tries to be about Salem, the video expresses a placelessness. This was a problem with the "sizzle" video, and is an important reason the history video seemed so much stronger.

Here, the biggest problem with business development has seemed to be that every thing is backwards. Focusing on businesses first has implied a drive-to destination model, and we have had two generations at least to show the failure of that basic approach. We keep losing anchor, big box retail, and it seems clear that what we need are people living downtown as a baseline supply of customers for business.

Just flippin' build housing downtown! Most of the incentives should be focused on housing. With more people downtown, businesses will follow. Supply people first.

The Staff Report suggests the next two videos will focus on Oregon Fruit, near 25th and Madrona, and on Chubby Bao in Fork Forty.

The series will be interesting to follow, and interesting to see as a whole once it is complete.

 Bullets for the rest:

• $15,200 in City hotel tax funds for the Main Street Association to support a Thanksgiving weekend parade and tree lighting
  
• Grant from PGE for basically a 50/50 split on a medium-term project to install over several years multiple EV chargers for the City fleet at the Library and new Shops facility.