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STAFF REPORT 9/30/11 RE: Comprehensive Plan and Turner Land Use Code Amendments TO: City Council

and Planning Commission


INTRODUCTION The Comp Plan amendments that are presented have been almost 2 years in the making. Each component of this work has been reviewed and key elements have been before joint workshops of the Council and Planning Commission. Tonight can be viewed as a first hearing. If you feel you want more time for Public input or your own review you can continue the hearing. If not you can choose to vote on these amendments. Staff will help walk you through that process. The technical staff report provides an overview of the approval process. (Attached.) On page 7 of that report you can find suggested language if the Commission and Council choice to move forward.

BACKGROUND To plan the Citys future and to meet State law there are a variety of planning documents and databases that must be kept current to address changing conditions. All of these documents either had never been addressed or were created prior to 2001 and the advent of sewer. As a result they all frame Turner in a low growth, almost rural character with very little information about or emphasis on economic issues. In addition, there had been long-standing questions as to whether or not the City had the appropriate land supply for a 20 year growth horizon. In settling this question detailed land databases needed to be developed. In order to address this situation the City began a process to gather the resources to update these documents.

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OVERVIEW Three processes came together to perform the needed work. First, a relationship with a land owner along with the use of City staff, provided resources to collect data on residential land use. Second was a Marion County EDAB grant award. This grant was designed to: provide analysis of collected land use data, guide decision making by the City on UGB issues, draft Comp Plan language. That grant was awarded in 2009. Almost simultaneously the City was invited in to the Regional Economic Opportunities Analysis with Salem and Keizer. This process offered free consulting services through ECO Northwest and the COG for detailed economic assessments and goal setting. Turner staff then guided the products into the documents currently under consideration, adding an update to a variety of goals and objectives that were simply outdated or in contradiction to what had happened in the city during the last 12 years.

SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS The detail of the recommendations for approval , frankly, are daunting. The content areas and focus, however, are fairly simple. In order to help people from wading through the full 200 pages, and perhaps to target places of greatest concern or interest, the following is an overview of that content. In this review I have tried to specify in which document and where you will find the applicable text. (The full text amendments are all posted on the Citys web site under Project Updates. There is also one full printed copy at City Hall for review.P) Along with the substantive changes there are a variety of things that were performed here that are housekeeping but valuable. For example, many maps have been upgraded to better quality and new maps have been developed that provide more data for land use discussions.

POPULATION FORECASTING Oregon Land Use is heavily rooted in attempting to constrain the impacts of growth on rural and agricultural lands. As a consequence population and its expansion becomes a prime determiner of whether cities can grow and how much. Counties are empowered by statue to develop population forecasts for cities within their boundaries. Section 9.310, Population, page 9.300-4, discusses this process and the resulting figure of 3.15% annual growth rate. This figure was then used in the rest of the data analysis that follows. (Copy included.) 2 |Page

LAND INVENTORIES Residential The City performed a site by site inventory of all residential land in Turner. The purpose was to look for what land was vacant or partially vacant and also buildable. This data was then provided to the Council of Governments. Using this, population forecasts from the 2010 Census, historical trends in development and the Citys zoning density, they analyzed how much ADDITIONAL land the city needed for the next 20 years of residential growth. (A requirement of Oregon land use.) Section 9.5, page 9.500-7 shows one key result of this whole study. (Copy included.) The last line of Table 9.500 D shows that Turner has a projected surplus (13.5 acres) over the 20 year planning horizon. The consequence of this is that the City does not need an Urban Growth Boundary Expansion to include more land in the City. This data and conclusion should be reviewed every 5 years. However, if growths patterns continue as currently trending, that very low level of housing development will only reinforce this conclusion for the foreseeable future.

Commercial & Industrial The City worked with the Council of Governments through the EOA process to assess the status of commercial and industrial zoned lands. City staff provided site by site inventory of whether parcels were vacant or partially vacant. Using standards developed by the EOA Technical Advisory Committee, guided by Oregon Land Use, a similar assessment on what lands were available to be developed was performed. Finally, using ECO Northwests analysis of economic trends in the Salem Keizer region, commercial and industrial land demand was determined. Section 9.300, Population and Economy, page 9.300-24 shows the result of this work. (Copy included.) Table 9.380 F compares land supply to land demand. For both commercial and industrial land the analysis shows that Turner has sufficient land to meet the needs of the 20 year planning horizon.

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS (Section 9.500) The current Comp Plan had little economic data and what it had had mostly changed. Pages 7 through 13 provide an update to local information. Pages 13 to 15 provide information on regional and national trends. Pages 15 through 20 then 3 |Page

discuss economic opportunities for the community of Turner. Pages 27 to 31 discuss the focus on the Citys efforts relative to high valued sites, which are the Downtown and industrial land south of Mill Creek. Page 36 through 38 then provide a significantly updated set of economic policy goals for the City. (Copy included.)These goals are meant to help provide a thorough context for potential development of industrial and commercial lands.

CODE DELETION Since the closing and rezoning of the Riverbend Gravel Mine there is clearly no need to retain the Mineral Aggregate Resource Zone language in the City Code. All references to the MAR, both in maps and text, are being deleted. This effects the Environment section of the Comp Plan and Article 4Zoning Districts in the Land Use Code.

REGULATORY UPDATES Language has been added to Goals and Policy in Public facilities (9.600) (Copy included.) and Environment (9.200) to acknowledge the Citys permits for the Municipal Storm water System. We have also added a reference in the Transportation Section on the possibility of greenhouse gas issues arising.

DOWNTOWN PLAN CONSISTENCY Staff has worked hard to integrate the goals and vision of the Downtown Plan in Comp Plan text changes and Goals and Polices adjustments. For example, Section 9.790, Transportation, includes under Policy 11 a list of transportation goals noted in the downtown plan. In addition, the Section 9.300, Population and Economy, has data, plan analysis references and goals that come from that plan.

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