City Council, December 4th - Redeveloping the old General Hospital Site

For Council's meeting on Monday, a late add is really the only item of interest. It's a temporary arrangement for the City to "buy" the old General Hospital property, hold it for a short term, and then flip it to the developer for the affordable housing project.

The City has been asked to help facilitate the conveyance of approximately 10.6 acres located at the 2500 block of Center Street, NE from Salem Health to Green Light-HomeFirst, LLC (Green Light) for the purpose of Green Light developing affordable housing on the property. Under the tentative agreement reached by the parties, the City will take an assignment of the existing purchase and sale agreement between Salem Health and Green Light and execute a new purchase and sale agreement to convey the property to Green Light.

Location, with site context notes added

And further detail:

1. City will take an assignment of the sale agreement between Salem Health and Green-Light;
2. City will close and acquire the property no later than January 31, 2024,
3. City will not be required to pay the purchase price of $3,833,715 ($4,000,000, less Green Light paid earnest money and other set offs) until December 31, 2024;
4. City will execute a purchase and sale agreement with Green Light to convey the property to Green Light for $3,833,715;
5. Close of the sale to Green Light anticipated to occur by October 1, 2024, however, Green Light can extend through January 2025;
6. Green Light will pay City a $50,000 transaction fee to compensate for the City’s costs in facilitating the transaction;
7. Green Light will lease the property from the City for no money and will be required to maintain and insure the property until the sale to Green Light is completed.
8. The property is the home to the former Salem General Hospital and adjacent to the Oregon State Hospital Grounds and the Housing Authority’s Yaquina Hall. Preliminary site investigations indicate the potential for burial sites which may include Native Americans who were patients at the hospital many years ago. Prior to the City acquiring the property, the Green Light will perform Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to determine if there are objects underneath the property and if they will pose an issue for redevelopment of the site. Green Light will share the results of the GPR work with the City. Based on currently known information regarding the site and discussions with City historic preservation staff, it is very unlikely that the location of burial site on the property, if any, will substantially affect development of the property for affordable housing.

Hopefully it will all work out. 

• See at Salem Reporter for more on the project concept, which includes a chunk of State funding, "Affordable development with 120 new apartments planned for northeast Salem."

Also on the agenda are a couple of second readings of some interest:

• Adoption of the five year update to the Floodplain Management Plan (This hasn't seemed to occasion much comment.)
• Second Reading for enactment of annexing a 48 acre parcel in south Salem. (Some good discussion at our Strong Towns group and a Council discussion group.)
• Reclassifying Landaggard and Colorado Drives in West Salem. The citizen critique was not persuasive for Council, and it will now be interesting to see if any appeal is made to LUBA. (See previous notes on Landaggard here.)

City Council, November 27th - A little Greenwash for the Airport

Also on Monday Council will consider a pricing update for airport parking:

At the Salem Municipal Airport, there is parking available for customers. The current daily rate is $15 per day and this action would decrease the rate to $10 per day to encourage more customers to use available parking spaces.

The Planning Division of the Community and Urban Development Department proposes adding a fee to comply with State of Oregon rules around Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities....

The new fee will set a charge of $1,500 per parking space for the proportion of climate mitigation not resolved with solar power generation and / or tree canopy.

Later in the Council agenda for Monday is the Second Reading for enactment of the new parking lot rules that include the provision for the fee. So the City is getting ahead of the new rule and somewhat voluntarily applying it.

Last week's Community Report and
this week's Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan

But consider it this way: The City encourages driving and parking and more emissions by reducing the price to park, and then adds back a climate surcharge, as if that somehow reduces the emissions you instead induced? Not to mention the fossil fuel and emissions from the air flight itself.

That's hard to embrace sincerely and whole-heartedly.

The point is to reduce emissions, not to increase them and then by a dodgy bookkeeping move somehow to offset and "mitigate" them.

Some headlines this month

The move looks like some greenwash for the airport. It is implicit recognition of a trade-off, but is a little glib and superficial, even BS.

City Council, October 9th - Climate Mitigation for Parking Lots

On Monday Council looks to have a short set of items on the agenda. Two are of interest here.

Some search results for "parking lot solar awning"

Council will hold a First Reading for a set of code amendments for climate mitigation on large parking lots and increased housing options.

The proposed code amendment will require climate mitigation when developing new parking lots larger than one-half acre; allow existing parking lots citywide to be converted by a public agency to park and rides; allow single-room occupancy housing in all residential, commercial, and mixed-use zones;

The parking lot provisions include options for:

• More trees,
• Solar installations, or
  
• Paying into a fund for new wind and solar power

The State is making these requirements, so the code package is largely a matter of compliance with those requirements, and hopefully should be a straightforward adoption.

Details in Statute too often keep Values Merely Aspirational

On Monday Council will continue and deliberate on the appeal of a proposed large apartment complex in West Salem.

• Agenda item for July 24th
• Continuation agenda item for August 14th

Several of the disputed items repeat themes we have recently seen at the Meyer Farm and at the former Mushroom Plant, themes that reappear over and over in debates over development. 

That the City, developers, and neighbors keep getting sucked into these protracted debates and disputes may mean there is not enough clarity in our development standards. 

Rather than trying to weigh in on this particular proposed development, I want to use it for more general observations.

One particular problem is the way we don't carry higher level policy values into statute, Salem Revised Code.

Here, one of the appeals at the former Blind School in 2014 was clarifying. (You may have discovered this state of things earlier or later, of course.)

At the former Blind School in 2014

This theme is back. An attorney for the developer cites "uncodified elements of the City's Comprehensive Plan" and "unclear standards."

Uncodified elements of Comp Plan

The City may say "we need flexibility," but from climate to trees to safe walking and biking, there are so many instances where our high-level policy statements are effectively just words for show because we don't translate policy language and values into statute.

One of the items is a question about "safe and convenient bicycle and pedestrian access."

What is "safe and convenient"?

Over the years here we've argued that this is a nearly useless approval criterion. Usually it is resolved through lines on a map, whether there is a blue line signifying a bike lane nearby, a very theoretical kind of proof, and not anything most people would agree is in fact "safe and convenient." The revealed preferences of people after these things are built show the "access" is rarely "safe and convenient" and instead induces car trip after car trip.

City Council, May 22nd - Apartments near Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights

At Council on Monday is an information item on approvals for 436 apartments in a complex near the intersection of Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights in West Salem. Part of the new development was a slice of a parcel that a decade ago had been designated for "neighborhood center mixed use," but which recently was rezoned as MU-II

City of Salem zoning map

The north half of the parcel was rezoned a couple years ago for apartments with RM2 zoning (including that slice of NCMU), and these approvals are its fruition.

Site plan for apartments

Interesting is a reversion to the original plan for Landaggard.

West Salem's Bone Property and Colorado Drive Extension at Planning Commission

At the Planning Commission next Tuesday, in addition to the Bike Plan, there will be a hearing on what is, I think, the first application of the Neighborhood Center Mixed Use Zoning. A street will need to be reclassified to accept a busier level of traffic, and some neighbors are not happy.

Chapman Corners, the Straub Property and Condemnation for Schools

The corner of Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights is pretty old and old-timers will remember it still as Chapman Corners - a name remembered in Chapman Elementary School.

It's on the edge of development in West Salem, and there has been lots of conversation around how best to build here.

One of the parcels holds an historic home, whose core building precedes statehood, that is still held in the family of former Governor Bob Straub.

The school district wanted the land for schools, but in part because of the Great Recession and housing bubble, the property's value declined and the family and district were unable to find an agreeable price. The district subsequently initiated condemnation around the house (the house remains) and built two schools.

School siting can be complicated, but already the decision for suburban land on the edges of development is making it more likely parents will drive their kids to school and deprive them of the benefits of active transportation - walking, biking, skateboarding, and the like.

The West Salem Plan

Concurrently, the West Salem Neighborhood Plan calls for additional density and commercial center development along Orchard Heights (yellow and purple on map), and appropriate development here might yield the kinds of walkable neighborhoods West Salem essentially lacks.

The map is somewhat out of date. Already with the schools and other development, the exact parcels marked here won't be developed precisely as the map suggests - but the larger concept is clear: More density at Chapman Corners.

The Bone Property

Not actually in purple, but one of the first parcels to be in play, is the Bone property.

The Bone estate is on the northwest corner, and it will go before the Planning Commission on Tuesday. The Commission will look at two questions: Should the City rezone the property for higher density? And should the City build a new collector street to serve the property?

NCMU Zone

The zoning question appears to have community support. The City has enacted a new zoning designation, the Neighborhood Center Mixed-Use (NCMU) Zone, which it hopes to apply to this parcel.

The key values the code seeks to instantiate are:

Sense of place
Pedestrian orientation
Compact urban form
Neighborhood vitality
Innovative design
Transit accessibility
Connectivity with surrounding neighborhoods
Accommodation of the automobile

Disagreement on a New Collector Street

But not everything is copacetic.

Part of the project involves a new collector street. Colorado Drive would be extended through the property as a higher-traffic collector street and Landaggard would remain as a quieter local street, with connections to Colorado.

According to a recent piece in the Statesman, the neighborhood association opposes the plan:

West Salem Neighborhood Association co-chairman Don Homuth said the association does not favor the change.

"The WSNA will vigorously oppose running the collector street through the newly-passed NCMU development to be considered for the northwest corner of Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights, a.k.a. the Bone Property," Homuth said in an email. "We worked very long and hard on the NCMU designation, and throughout the discussion, it was always intended to place a particular emphasis on pedestrian friendly, with cars being allowed into it for parking or convenience, but never — not even tangentially — did we envision that someone would suggest running a 'collector street' through it."

It's hard to know how to analyze this. One the one hand, Chapman Corners is still on the edge of a low-density and hilly development. Even in ideal circumstances, with a higher density development, it is not clear how actually walkable in practice it will be. Sometimes this looks like a planning exercise better on paper than in reality, and it may not be the best place in Salem to pilot the NCMU zone.

On the other hand, when we visit the early 20th century streetcar commercial districts in Portland, like those on Mississippi, Alberta, Hawthorne, Belmont, Division, 28th, and so on, which in important ways at least partially model important aspects of the neighborhood centers, it seems pretty clear they are all served by collector streets. This shouldn't surprise us: The reason they are commercially viable is because they serve multiple uses and are busy across multiple hours. People are constantly going in and out of the core commercial areas.

According to the current drafts of SRC 532.005 and 532.010, NCMU zone is

A district...located within one-eighth of a mile of a major intersection, as measured from the center of the intersection to the point in the district that is nearest to the intersection....Major intersection means the intersection of two streets, one of which is designated in the Salem Area Transportation System Plan as a major arterial or minor arterial, and the other designated as a major arterial, minor arterial, or collector.

I believe a "major intersection" has always been part of the zoning, and it unclear where the communication breakdown occurred with the neighborhood association.

It is likely that a higher density commercial center at this location in West Salem will perish without provision for significant volumes of auto traffic and the people they bring. There simply will not be enough close-in neighbors walking and biking to support business. Presumably, if the district were already walkable, more schoolkids would be walking and biking to the new schools. With time, as a center prospers, more people may walk and bike, but at first, the district will remain auto-dependent, and long-term success requires acknowledging this in the nearer-term.

What to do here is not necessarily clear. The City and community generally has an great interest in making development under the NCMU zone a success. Perhaps West Salem residents with a better understanding of the zoning and history, or others who have followed the NCMU zoning more closely, can comment and clarify. It's likely there are other factors not included in the SJ piece. Much depends on an actual site plan: Maybe the intersection of Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights is enough, and Colorado would be a superfluous addition - though it's hard to see Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights with parking here.

In any event, this is a new direction in Salem planning, and it deserves substantive conversation and debate with a view towards making a pilot project a success.