The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-05-29
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (17,472 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee met on Thursday, May 29, 2025. After roll call and a statement of conduct, the committee heard a staff presentation from Portland Permitting and Development and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on proposed amendments to the Flood Hazard Areas Code (Title 24, Chapter 2450), required by FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program pre-implementation compliance measures, with a stated compliance deadline of July 31. Staff described the program's history, a 2016 NOAA Fisheries biological opinion concerning threatened salmon, steelhead, and orca, the city's multi-bureau compliance work plan, mapped flood hazard areas, riparian buffer zone requirements, mitigation banking, and anticipated impacts on industrial and residential development. Public testimony followed from multiple community members and organizational representatives, raising concerns about tribal consultation, habitat connectivity, mitigation ratios, grandfathering provisions, and climate change considerations, with some requesting further amendments before adoption. Committee discussion included questions to staff and a city attorney about tribal outreach, legal liability, and the possibility of stronger local standards, with acknowledgment that additional review may occur before the June 12 meeting. The committee also discussed budget priorities related to the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management and Bureau of Planning and Sustainability positions tied to the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub. Votes on procedural matters occurred during the session; outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
Literal phrase counts from the official captions — a measurement of procedure, not a judgment of anyone's conduct. Click a marker to highlight its occurrences below. Captions contain errors.
0 All right. Is this thing on? There we go. Good morning. I call the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee to order. It is Thursday, may 29th at 930. Diego, will you please call the roll?
1 Good morning. Canal here. Ryan. Novick here. Avalos. Present.
2 Morillo here. Claire, will you please read the statement of conduct?
3 Good morning, and welcome to the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland gov slash agenda, slash climate resilience and land use committee. Or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be will be muted. When your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thanks.
4 Thank you claire. We have two items on our agenda today. First, we're going to have a presentation on the flood hazard areas code. And we'll consider an amendment package on this code chapter. There is a deadline for us to approve this by July 31st. So I just want folks to be aware of that. Then we'll have time for discussion on climate resilience and land use budget priorities to continue the conversation in advance of the council meeting on June 11th. I do want to flag that we had some additional folks sign up for testimony on the floodplain amendment, and I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to actually give everyone three minutes to testify. So I'm going to cut into a little bit of our budget discussion time, as I think we've had a lot of other spaces to do that. So with that, diego, will you please read the next item?
5 One amend flood hazard areas code to comply with federal emergency management agency national flood insurance program pre implementation compliance measures.
6 Good morning. Thanks for being here. This item is coming to us from Portland permitting and development co-chair. Novick and I have allotted extra time on this item to allow staff to give us some background on a pretty technical topic. And with that, I'll hand it off to pnd staff to get us started.
7 Good morning councilors. Thank you for your time today. We appreciate that. I'm doug morgan, I'm an engineering manager with Portland permitting and development. I have just a few introductory comments and then we'll get right into the presentation. We're expecting about 30 minutes for the presentation. We're here today to present proposed amendments to the city's floodplain development regulations, title 24, chapter 2450. The city has regulated development in the floodplain since at least 1980, when the city joined fema's national flood insurance program. The program provides Portland residents access to affordable flood insurance and provides the city access to disaster assistance funds in exchange or as a condition. The city is required to regulate development in flood plains to the minimum standard set by FEMA. The code amendments we are presenting today are required by FEMA, and will be necessary for the city to maintain participation in the national flood insurance program. The amendments would adopt fema's pre-implementation compliance measures. These measures are intended to bring the national flood insurance program into compliance with the endangered species act, and help ensure development and floodplains does not harm protected fish and other species. Fema has directed that these amendments be implemented no later than July 31st. With me here today to present the details of the proposed amendments are jason butler brown, engineering supervisor with Portland permitting and development. And jeff cottle, supervising planner with bureau of planning and sustainability. We have additional staff in the audience as well, in case there are questions in their areas of expertise. We have patricia diefenderfer, chief planner with bureau of planning and sustainability.
8 Kaitlyn's not here.
9 And we might be expecting caitlin lovell, regulatory strategy manager with the bureau of environmental services. With those introductions, I'll hand it over to jason and jeff to make the presentation. Thank you.
10 Good morning councilors. For the record, my name is jason butler brown. I'm an engineering supervisor with Portland permitting and development, and I use he and him pronouns. The agenda for today's presentation is to summarize the action action we're requesting of the committee review. Background on the national flood insurance program, the 2016 noaa fisheries biological opinion, and the city's response. We'll describe fema's pre-implementation compliance measures, which are called the pick'ems, and summarize the proposed building code amendments. We'll describe the impacts the pick'em amendments may have on development and summarize public outreach that has been performed to date. And then finally, we'll have some time for questions. So today we are requesting your vote to refer the proposed FEMA pre-implementation compliance measures, building code amendments to the full city council for adoption. As doug described, the pick'ems must be implemented in order for the city to remain in the national flood insurance program. We have a couple of slides that remind us that occasionally, Portland experiences serious flooding that has severe impacts on our residents property, infrastructure, and economy. This image is from portland's modern flood of record, the February 1996 flood. The image is looking south up the Willamette river. Mccormick pier is to the right, and we can see the steel bridge in the background. This is a slide or an image from the 1948 vanport flood on the columbia, perhaps one of the most famous floods in Portland. And we're looking south or southwest with marine drive in the foreground. And in this case, the river had breached a railroad embankment and destroyed the wartime public housing city of vanport. A little background on the national flood insurance program, or nfip. And I must apologize in advance for all of the acronyms. The city has been participating in the nfip since 1980. My apologies. The national flood insurance program makes federally backed flood insurance available to Portland residents and property owners. The flood insurance is mandatory for any federally backed loan or mortgage on buildings within the 100 year floodplain. It also makes disaster relief funding available to the city. In exchange, it requires that communities adopt minimum floodplain development standards. The city participates in fema's community rating system, or crs program, which incentivizes communities to adopt higher regulatory standards, the intent being to make development safer and reduce the potential claims. Portland is currently a class five community, and our residents are eligible for up to 25% discounts on their flood insurance premiums. This is a slide that depicts the portland's mapped or portland's mapped floodplains. The blue represents flooded areas of both the FEMA 100 year flood and our February 1996 flood. We regulate both floods for building development. The city's mapped floodplains include the columbia river, columbia slough, Willamette river, fanno creek, tryon creek, crystal springs creek, and johnson creek. Jeff cottle will now present the next couple of slides on the noaa fisheries biological opinion and the city's response.
11 Good morning, councilors. My name is jeff cottle. I use he him pronouns, and I am the supervising planner at the bureau of planning sustainability. I manage the river environmental team, so we do long range planning for natural resources in the city. So just a little bit about the 2016 biological opinion. In 2009, a number of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against FEMA, claiming that the nfip impacted threatened endangered species in Oregon, which would be in violation of the endangered species act. A settlement was reached that resulted in the national marine fisheries service preparing what is called the biological opinion on that insurance program. The biological opinion reviews a program or project to determine whether it is expected to impact threatened endangered species. If it does, it also recommends measures to address those impacts. So the national marine fisheries service issued a biological opinion in 2016 and concluded that the implementation of the flood insurance program harmed 16 salmon and steelhead species and the killer whales that depend on them by allowing floodplain development that reduces habitat for those species. The biological opinion included what is called a reasonable and prudent alternative that recommends actions needed to make the program compliant with the endangered species act. The reasonable and prudent alternative identified three issues to be addressed through updates to the minimum nfip criteria. There was a focus on habitat, specifically trees and the replacement of trees. Flood storage, which refers to the available volume of water that fish can occupy during a flood. And so flood storage requirements ensure that a waterways capacity to transmit those flood waters is maintained after development in the floodplain. And then also water quality through effective stormwater management. Originally, the expectation was a FEMA was to implement a number of short term measures identified in the biological opinion within two years. However, congress granted FEMA a three year extension, and FEMA shifted its focus to its to a to its long term compliance approach. With that extension, FEMA developed what they determined to call. They called it a draft implementation plan, which laid out the approach FEMA expects to take to comply with those long term directives of the biological opinion to basically their overall approach to be compliant with the endangered species act. That implementation plan was released in 2021, believe it or not, and is now undergoing the federal national environmental policy act review. And they're close to releasing a draft document for that. Once the nepa process, the national environmental policy act process is complete, the over 250 jurisdictions that are subject to the biological opinion are expected to have 18 to 24 months to come into compliance with the new requirements. Next slide. So way back in 2016, and even before when the biological opinion was released, the city was preparing for how to respond to the to the changes that were going to be needed. And at that time, we established a multi bureau core team made up of staff from a variety of different bureaus that are shown here on the slide, that each have a role in planning or development in the city. You can see the full list there. But of these three there, I mean of this this list, there are three bureaus that have the most significant role in the response planning, sustainability, permitting and development, and environmental services. So that's why we're all here today. So the first task of our bureau team was to develop a work plan that identified key components that we thought across the city were needed to achieve compliance with the biological opinion. That work plan was completed. It's a five year work plan completed in 2019 and was signed by the directors of eight bureaus that were related to planning and development. The key components of the work plan included relevant regulatory updates, so regulations both in the zoning code so title 33 and the building regulations title 2024 strengthening our floodplain program, floodplain restoration program, and evaluating and expanding the role of mitigation banks in the city. In. In 2024, the team worked on an update to the work plan to adjust the remaining actions over the coming years because it has already been five years since that 2019 plan was finalized, and earlier this year that the second plan that covers the next five years to address those issues was signed by relevant director bureau directors. Again, next slide. So in that first, in this last five years, essentially since the work plan was was signed and we started moving forward, there have been two key phases of our long term compliance strategy that have been implemented. The first was the river plan south reach project, which was adopted in 2020 and really addresses the Willamette river south of the ross island bridge generally. And then we had a second phase, which was the floodplain resilience plan, and that floodplain, which is a zoning code change where zoning, zoning code changes. And then we had an associated update to title 24. That was they were both separate projects but were adopted at the same time in 2023. Those amendments applied environmental zoning to undeveloped floodplain, ensured consistent tree and vegetation replacement, and floodplains applied new, higher standards for habitat improvements close to waterways and increased flood storage requirements within the 100 year floodplain, which is the purview of FEMA and consistent with the biological opinion, the city's long term compliance strategy will need to be approved by FEMA once their implementation plan is finalized. And so we expect that that compliance deadline to be sometime in 2027. So this graphic just shows how we have been sort of breaks down the components of the of the work plan in relation to the overall FEMA timeline. You can see in yellow are various zoning code updates that have and will be completed. So we have the south region floodplain resilience plan and then a few future projects that both are ongoing are are in early phases, the columbia corridor industrial lands project and the Willamette river north project, and then a future project in johnson creek. The city will continue to work to identify from from the entire time. There were a number of floodplain restoration projects already underway by environmental services. They will continue. We'll continue to work to identify those opportunities. And also we've been looking into expanding mitigation banks. So, look, doing a lot of due diligence as to how we can support and expand that option within the city. Next, next slide. So as we were continuing with that long term compliance approach and expecting really looking to get to that 2027 compliance date, we were we received a letter from FEMA in July of 2024 that stated that all jurisdictions subject to the biological opinion would be required to implement what they call these compliance measures. Our understanding is that the compliance measures are the outcome of a second lawsuit brought against FEMA by many of the same environmental organizations that brought the initial lawsuit. The second lawsuit aimed to address fema's delay in implementing implementing measures to reduce the impacts. Since the release of that 2016. Biological opinion. Since receiving that that letter in July, we have the team. The core team again has been working together on a response to ensure compliance with those compliance measures. And jason will provide some information on that.
12 All right. Thank you, jeff. As jeff described, FEMA notified the city and over 250 Oregon communities that a pre implementation compliance measure or pathway would need to be adopted as a condition of our continued participation in the national flood insurance program. Fema required communities to identify one of three compliance pathways by December 1st of 2024. The three pathways included first prohibiting development in the 100 year floodplain, adopting a prescriptive permit by permit habitat assessment, or adopting model ordinance regulations. The multi bureau team evaluated the options through our communications with FEMA. We came to understand that the permit by permit habitat assessment would result in the same outcomes as the model ordinance regulations. Therefore, the multi bureau team recommended implementing the model code regulations. Approach. On November 26th, 2024, the city notified FEMA of our compliance approach. The long the current long term compliance measures would be maintained where they were adopted in December 2020 and October 2023. As jeff described and adopt fema's model code language in chapter 2450 for all other areas in the FEMA 100 year floodplain. This figure shows the mapped flood hazard areas we saw earlier. The areas in blue are or represent areas where our current long term compliance measures will apply. The areas in orange are where the model ordinance requirements apply, so these areas include the tryon creek, crystal springs, and johnson creek and the Willamette river north reach and the industrial lands within the columbia river. Columbia slough and the Willamette river. Central and south reach the pick'em amendments do not apply within the floodplains managed by the urban flood safety and water quality district. These amendments refer to these areas by their previous names. The Multnomah county drainage district number one, peninsular drainage district number one, and peninsular drainage district number two to remain consistent with fema's current floodplain maps. The core of the pick'em regulations focus on prohibiting a net loss in three proxies for natural floodplain function within the FEMA 100 year floodplain. In addition, there's a requirement for habitat improvements or beneficial gain if development occurs within what FEMA calls the riparian buffer zone. Our amendments call this the riparian buffer zone. The three proxies subject to the no net loss requirements include fish habitat through flood storage. Like jeff described, these are the areas where fish can rest during flooding events or high flow events. Water quality through stormwater management and vegetated habitat through tree replacement requirements and again, the beneficial gain requirements are applied to development that occurs within the riparian buffer zone that are not functionally dependent, and the requirement is that the new area of development, well, 5% of the new area of development must be planted with native vegetation. This slide illustrates the riparian buffer zone. The riparian buffer zone includes the water body and the land within 170ft, measured from the ordinary high water mark. The riparian buffer zone is limited to the area within the 100 year floodplain, and does not extend beyond the 100 year floodplain.
13 Just to interrupt.
14 I just wanted to make a clarification just so we're clear. So just so the functionally dependent that's a FEMA definition. And essentially it means the river dependent, meaning activities that have to be next to the water just so that there was a reference to functionally dependent. So that means that there's an allowance for those types of uses that have to be next to the water.
15 So that's all right. Thank you for that. Yeah. So like jeff described a functionally dependent use could be a bridge pier or a dock that is necessary for the loading and offloading of goods. Those development, those developments within the riparian buffer zone are still subject to the no net loss criteria. They're just not required to meet the 5% beneficial gain requirement. The following slides summarize the proposed amendments to chapter 2450, which include fema's interim no net loss and beneficial gain requirements. We have new definitions, guidance on interpreting flood maps, revised permits, submittal or application submittal requirements, updated our inspection and reporting requirements, and provide allowances for projects with certain land use approvals to be reviewed under the requirements in effect at the time of the land use approval. We recognize that this is a very dense slide. The table reflects the core requirements of the amendments and fema's model code. What we see is that flood storage compensation is greater the closer to the river or water body. Similarly, the number of trees that must be planted increase based on the size of the tree that's removed and its location relative to the river or water body. Water quality requirements are being satisfied through the implementation of the city's stormwater management manual, and the amendments require that the flood storage, compensation and tree replacement be within the same flood zone or reach. This slide illustrates the flood storage compensation requirements. On the right, we see the flood inundation area mapped by FEMA. The orange line represents the ordinary high water mark, which needs to be established in the field. The riparian buffer zone extends 170ft landward, but is limited by the boundary of the flood inundation area. We can see that flood storage requirements vary between 2 to 1 within the pickham riparian buffer zone, and landward it is one and a half to one. The illustration on the lower left represents the placement of fill below the 100 year floodplain. That placement of fill, or it could be a building or structure, requires a corresponding removal of either soil or structure to create a compensatory storage volume at the required ratios described previously. This, again like jeff described, ensures that fish will have an area to rest during high flows and that the waterways will continue to be able to convey the flood waters after development, so that we do not see an increase in the base flood elevation or the velocities of the flood waters. The amendments allow for the use of flood storage mitigation credits sold by approved mitigation banks. Those mitigation banks would need to be within the same flood zone. Currently, there is only one flood storage mitigation bank in the city and it is located on the Willamette river. The model ordinance exempts some development from the requirements. They include projects approved under a separate federal consultation, or projects that have their own biological opinion. Routine maintenance of landscaping, removal of dead, dying or dangerous trees, normal maintenance or repair of structures. Alteration of building interiors provided there is no expansion of the building footprint or roof area. Normal maintenance of streets, sidewalks and below ground utilities. Jeff will now speak to the potential economic and real estate development impacts.
16 Yeah, so we provided a summary of the potential economic and real estate development impacts in your materials. But we also wanted to highlight some of the key takeaways of that assessment. First, it's important again to recognize that the implementation of the limitation implementation compliance measures is required for continued participation in the national flood insurance program. And as a reminder, portlanders currently receive a 25% reduction on their insurance premiums as a result of the many floodplain management actions that we take as a city. As shown in the map that jason presented, the new requirements apply. North reach of the Willamette and other industrial areas of the city and johnson creek, crystal springs creek, crystal springs creek, and tryon creek. This slide highlights some of the implications for our industrial lands. As you can see from the slide, about two thirds of the area subject to these new requirements is zoned industrial. This is because we've generally been holding off on applying the new floodplain requirements to the city's industrial lands, as we saw that these considerations could be incorporated into the economic opportunities analysis, which is required by goal nine state statewide planning goal nine in terms of economic development. And that project is moving forward and will be a future council item here. Tree replacement is not currently required by either our environmental zones or the tree code in the heavy industrial zone, which is made up a lot of that. So for example, in north beach, a lot of it is a heavy industrial. So these new requirements will largely affect the areas close to the waterways because that's actually where most of the trees are. But and so outside of that area we don't see a whole lot of impact. But there will be some additional requirements. And then that dedication of, of an area equal to 5%, which jason referred to as beneficial gain, and that 170ft from ordinary high that will go beyond any of our existing requirements and could be a challenge on some sites, depending on their characteristics.
17 Okay.
18 On the residential side, we want to highlight some of the implications for residential development, which is generally in johnson creek, in the floodplains of johnson creek, crystal springs creek, and tryon creek. The new requirements will be applied generally to low density residential and open space zones. So of the roughly 630 non-industrial acres of land affected, approximately 90% are zoned either the low density residential or open space zones. In those areas, approximately 275 of those acres are zoned for low density residential development, many of which are larger lots in our lowest density zones. So rf, r 12, r ten, those types of things for these residential uses, updates to the tree replacement requirements will only actually represent a change if those trees are not in an existing environmental zone, because our existing environmental zones already have a similar tree replacement. Minimum tree replacement applied as a part of the floodplain resilience plan. But as with the industrial lands, the dedication of 5% of any proposed development within that 170ft of ordinary high goes beyond our existing requirements and could be a challenge depending on, again, how much space is in the on the site. So we just wanted to highlight a little bit about mitigation and its role here. We do similar to our existing code requirements. The additional offset can be either on site or off site. Or as jason said through a mitigation bank if that if there are mitigation banks available to provide those that offset when the required mitigation can't be accommodated on site, an off site location that is owned by the same property owner or controlled through something like an easement can be utilized. As jason said, there's really there's one mitigation bank that's located on the Willamette river and that provides flood storage. We don't have at the moment. We don't have any mitigation banks that would provide off site options for habitat offset. The city has been working on and doing due diligence on the creation of a mitigation bank. As part of the redevelopment project, we call it the east bank crescent. Funding has been secured for the completion of a 30% design, and we hope to identify additional funding to continue to move that that effort forward. We hope, expect, if we are able to, to create that mitigation bank that would assist in that habitat side especially. But the idea is that it could it could provide a mitigation bank in the future for both flood storage and habitat offset. So you could do it. It's a stacked credit. You do it all in one purchase and don't have to split those out. It's also important to note that existing requirements, such as landscaping requirements and other things like that, can actually contribute to complying with these new requirements. The new requirements. So what does it all mean? The application of the requirements is likely to have some negative impacts on development, both industrial and residential development. Proposed development may need to be reduced to accommodate those areas that we talked about for either native vegetation, tree replacement or flood storage. The additional costs of meeting those requirements may affect development feasibility. Given the other challenges facing development at the moment, the perception of these new requirements alone, even regardless of the actual challenges they pose, may also cool the market. It's possible. However, it's just good to note that these requirements will be adopted by most of oregon's jurisdictions. Again, there's 250 jurisdictions in Oregon that are subject to the buy up, so we're not alone. We did complete a review of the north reach permit data over the last ten years to understand the types of work that have been done there and the potential impacts. Annually we receive about ten proposals a year there, and the majority of permits are focused on improvements or replacement of existing docks, in-water structures, things like that. Not a ton of big, larger developments there. So it's a pretty focused type of work. But so there have been some developments as well. You know, there's daimler that's coming through. Daimler has done some work in the past. Portland has been has built within sort of adjacent to the river in the past ten years. And so just quickly to wrap up, we just wanted to provide a bit of information on outreach efforts that associated with the package. Since the release of that, since we received that letter in July, we've been reaching out and informing potentially impacted parties of the forthcoming changes where we had the opportunity to do so. We presented at the Portland permitting and development development review advisory committee a few times. Actually, that's what we refer to that as track, if you're familiar with that. There's also a subcommittee of track that's for the building owners and managers associations and for naiop. We did meet or at least discuss these potential changes with working waterfront coalition, because we have been meeting them with them separately as part of the collaborative working group on the economic opportunities analysis. So we had mentioned this potential, these potential changes, and we also met as a part of our public draft with some environmental groups and others that are interested in the north reach. So just a note that though title 24 amendments don't generally do a public process before they come to council because they are building regulations, we did release a public review draft, basically to raise awareness of the forthcoming amendments and to gather comments on potential improvements. To that end, we had a draft that was available to the public between March 4th and March 25th of this year. We received three comments during the public review period. These comments provided general general direction recommendations on the general direction and components of the amendments, as well as specific technical details for implementation. Though we actually have limited leeway to modify because we are taking the model ordinance, generally taking the model ordinance to be compliant with the requirements. We did incorporate a number of clarifications in response to the feedback feedback and including minor updates to the code itself, but also how we might implement the changes. And so our our next steps. As we said, we're looking to have you vote and recommend these changes to the full city council in July. As you understand now, as we said, we're looking to have these adopted as soon as possible so that we can meet that July 31st deadline. Once those these updates are implemented, we will continue to move forward with the remaining phases of our of implementation of the of the floodplain management work plan to ensure our long term compliance with FEMA. So as a part of that, as was shown in that graphic, we have the columbia corridor industrial lands zone project, which will be basically moving together with the economic opportunities analysis because they are so intertwined, especially for the industrial areas. And then technical analysis has started for the Willamette Willamette river north reach project. If some of you remember, we had an adopted plan in 2010 that never went into effect. So and we expect public launch of that project to happen this year. And then just a quick reminder of the action that we were hoping for. And then we're happy to answer any questions you have.
19 Thank you so much. I appreciate that presentation. I believe our next portion is going to be for public testimony. We have eight people signed up, and I'm going to cut into some of our budget discussion time so that we can hear fully from community members that showed up today. Diego, is would you call the roll?
20 Yes. First up, sarah taylor, mary steitz, chelsea stewart.
21 Thank you. And if staff want to stay in the room until the discussion, that would be great.
22 Hi, my name is sarah taylor and I live in the north reach, close to the river where I collect the stories of people who were part of the true working waterfront before it was dismantled. I just want to say that planning knew that we have been working on trying to get a fair and equitable north reach plan, and that this has been really important to the people in the community. We're not just environmentalists, we are people who live in the community and listen to their stories and listen to their concerns. So I just I just want to make that that clear. We did not find out about the flood plan planning, planning until it came out in a bulletin. And I read it on a Friday afternoon and immediately called and said, we have had no outreach to us. They know who we are. They know how to reach us. I would also like to say that when we asked if the tribes had been consulted, we were told that they did not need to be. And I guess what I want to say is the issue of the floodplains and threatened and endangered fish is of utmost importance to the tribes, and is of utmost importance to us who live along that river. We know that that is a sci hub, that is a superfund and is now the site of threatened and endangered fish and orca whale. I just want to remind you that at the close of the sci hub, hearing Eric Zimmerman sat right here and he said, I'm tired of talking about the sci hub. I want to know what we can do right now. So I'm here to tell you. What you can do right now is to make sure that this flood plan provides for continuous riparian zone and floodplain cutting out and filling has gotten us in the trouble that we're in right now. So cut and fill is not acceptable. Using the mitigation site is not acceptable. Had they taken time to really talk to fish and wildlife, they would know that this little juvenile salmon that has to travel through north Portland cannot wait miles to get to a new resting site. It needs continuous habitat. I would also like to say, in addition to the shocking thing, that we are threatened and we are endangering wildlife, we know that if we're endangering wildlife, we're also endangering people that floodplains traditionally cool the earth. They are the buffer between the river and the forest. If you want to do something about the sci hub, give us a barrier, then we will not have industry or houses for that matter, on liquefaction soil. That soil is liquefaction soil. It is not real soil. So that floodplain is not real dirt. And I would just like to say that we have examples in north Portland. We have toyota, we have swan island who have a healthy setback, and they have healthy industry. So we don't have to choose. And the other thing I would like to say is if you ever want to talk about the industrial land study, we should have another conversation. Okay. Thanks. Here's this fish. I'm going to leave it right here.
23 Good morning. Councilors. My name is mary steitz, and I'm the staff attorney at the northwest environmental defense center. And dc is one of the plaintiffs in both lawsuits against FEMA, which ultimately brought us here today, nrdc and other conservation groups submitted comments with specific concerns, none of which were ameliorated in the final draft that we are contemplating today. And to that extent, I'll be discussing issues with the application of the riparian buffer zone. While my colleague chelsea stewart discusses other shortcomings as city staff articulated, the pcms are fema's attempt to comply with the mandates of rpa element two, which nymphs expected to be in effect by 2018. These measures were put simply interim floodplain development standards that could effectively stop the bleeding that was occurring from untracked and unmitigated development in Oregon. Stepping back, it's important to acknowledge that FEMA has been administering the nfip for decades in a manner that violates the esa, and for over nine years, FEMA and nfip participating communities have continued to allow for the very unmitigated and untracked floodplain development that the expert agency found to cause jeopardy to listed species. And to be very clear, the failure to implement the rpa measures not only exposes FEMA to liability under section seven, but it also exposes the city and individual property owners that develop, contrary to the byop, to liability under section nine of the esa. As such, it's very important that the city council recognizes that an ordinance that falls short of the language of the by op exposes the city and individuals to liability, because nymphs found that this floodplain development degrades habitat and jeopardizes species. While conservation groups encourage the city to implement pcms as expeditiously as possible, it needs to be done correctly. Rpa two has two core features. First is the prohibition on development in the riparian buffer zone. Unless the development is a water dependent use, a habitat restoration activity, an activity that results in beneficial gain, or activities that have no adverse effects, the latter of which are expressly defined in footnote 149 and include, for example, repairs and remodels of existing structures or expansion of existing facilities to a no. They can't expand more than 10% of their existing footprint. So, put simply, the buyout effectively calls for a cessation of development in the arbs, except for in very limited circumstances. The other element includes the mitigation ratios that we have discussed throughout the morning. The ordinance fails to include rpa two b's generalized prohibition on the arbs, and instead states that any development just needs to be mitigated at a 2 to 1 ratio, but that wholly fails to give credence to the expert determination that development should occur in very limited circumstances. These shortcomings undermine the op's purpose, which is to protect imperiled species, increase climate resiliency, and safeguard people and property. By failing to meet these requirements, the city exposes itself to esa liability and enables irresponsible development at the expense of public health, safety and environmental quality. Thanks for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Procedural episode · turns 24–33
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
24 Good morning councilors. My name is chelsea stewart and I am a staff attorney for the center for biological diversity. Another one of the plaintiffs in recent litigation regarding fema's failure to comply with that 2016 biological opinion. In addition to the issues mary discussed, there are a few others I want to flag up. In addition to those comments that we already submitted on the draft document, one of those comments discussed the issues with the current definition of flood storage habitat. I'm not going to go into that here for the sake of time, but please do refer to those comments on that issue because it does impact the entirety of the of title 24. And I want to note, also, one of the previous gentlemen noted that the city's that there isn't much room to change the model. The ordinance right now, that title 24, because it has to comply with fema's model ordinance. But you actually can make your title 24 go beyond what the model ordinance requires. Fema's model ordinance that this is based on is not in line with the biological opinion. So that's why we're here today, to kind of clarify that there are things that the biological opinion required that fema's model ordinance did not incorporate. So we want to try to kind of fill those gaps here. So the mitigation obligations are also not consistent with what the biological opinion requires. Title 24 requires only that compensatory mitigation. For example using mitigation banks. Title 24 requires that it occur in the same special flood hazard area, but the biological opinion requires mitigation to occur in the same lot or parcel that loses floodplain function, unless there's geomorphic constraints that make that infeasible. So title 24 really should be modified to make clear that the first priority should be to make mitigation occur on the same lot or parcel. Additionally, I also want to just direct counsel to appendix 2.8 c of the biological opinion, because there are additional requirements regarding mitigation that title 24 does not incorporate, again, such as that requirement to use mitigation as a last resort and to make sure that mitigation occurs either prior to or concurrently with that development. That should that should at least be the first priority. Additionally, there's just issues with mitigation banks in general that I would like to mention as national marine fisheries service has stated, quote, mitigation banks tend to relocate and concentrate well distributed functions into discrete sites, which may be problematic if the result is a series of well functioning sites separated by large reaches of severely degraded habitat. That's something that my friend up here also noted. Additionally, there's an issue with the grandfathering clause as as it's written right now, anyone that has their permit, which is good for ten years, which is my understanding that those developments wouldn't be subject to these pick'ems if they weren't in effect when that permit was received. But that's a really long time for this grandfathering provision to cover. And nymphs anticipated that only for those projects for which the start of construction had not begun. Within six months of the rollout of the bio op, that only those would be exempted. So we'd like the council to revisit that as well. Thank you.
25 So much. I oh, sorry. How many more folks do we have signed up?
26 We have six more. Oops, sorry. Six more individuals signed up.
27 Okay.
28 It's a point of order.
29 You have a point of order. Okay, go for it.
30 Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. I'm just curious. I don't see anyone from legal, but I'm in. Your testimony is great. It's not a comment about that. But usually when attorneys come with a case, they say they're registered lobbyists. Are you a registered lobbyist?
31 No, no.
32 Okay. We'll just have to look into that. I'm just used to hearing that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony.
33 And if you're available to stay for afterwards when we have discussion, just in case we have questions for you. That'd be fantastic. Thank you. Please call the next testifiers up.
34 Michelle emmons, jan zuckerman, micah meskell. Both michelle emmons and micah meskell are joining us virtually. Michelle, can you hear us? All right.
35 I can thank you so much for the q my name is michelle emmons, and I serve as co-director of Willamette riverkeeper. Our office is located in Green anchors, which is an eco industrial cooperative located at 8940 north branford street in the saint john's neighborhood. I'm here today because I care deeply about the future of the Willamette river and the communities and ecosystems it sustains. In response to fema's mandate requiring the city of Portland to adopt interim pre-implementation compliance measures for floodplain development to remain eligible for participation in the national flood insurance program, the city has chosen to adopt fema's model code, which is the most limited and least protective option for floodplain development. While this option may meet fema's minimum bar, it falls short of meeting the requirements in the endangered species act because it is designed solely to minimize flood risk to property and human life, not to protect or restore the habitat functions of endangered species like salmon, it allows development in floodplains without requiring assessments of how that development will impact riparian habitat connectivity, water quality, or ecological function, and all of these are essential under the esa to prevent further harm to listed species and their critical habitats. We also know that migrating salmon cannot survive in piecemeal habitat. They need continuous connected riparian zones that function across the landscape. The proposal that's currently being adopted fails to deliver that. And we also know that mitigation banking cannot replace what is lost when floodplain functions are paved over or filled in. What's most troubling is that this choice ignores the decades of work, community investment, and planning that have gone into the north reach plan. This is a vision that represents decades of investment in a balanced vision for ecological restoration, public health and resilient urban development along portland's working waterfront. The north reach plan wasn't just a set of ideas. It was a commitment to restore habitat, to strengthen portland's identity as a livable Green city, and to confront our climate challenges head on. At the very least, the city should be reviewing development proposals with a habitat lens aligned with the environmental protections and enhancements outlined in the north reach plan. This decision today is not just about compliance, it's about protecting the investment Portland area community members have already made in our river's future. It's about honoring our commitment to habitat equity and to resilience. And it's about preserving portland's legacy as a national leader in Green urban planning, rather than taking the path of least resistance. Willamette riverkeeper urges the city to revisit this decision. You have a chance to ensure that Portland leads and not lags when it comes to protecting our river and the greater health of our community. Thank you.
36 Thank you michelle, please proceed. Okay.
37 Thank you. My name is jan. Mike, are you going next or am I going? Am I next?
38 I'll follow you. You go ahead.
39 Okay? Okay. My name is jan zuckerman. Thank you for having me here today. When the sci hub was built upon infill and liquefiable soil, man thought that he could control nature for profit. The results of this mindset are unsustainable and devastating. We have not only given the Green light to burn up our planet, but we've decided that 16 salmon species and the orca that make up our food web should be sacrificed. I'm reminded of a film I used to share with my middle schoolers about cigarettes and cancer. In the film, a man who is suffering from throat cancer has a tracheotomy to breathe. Yet he is so addicted to cigarettes that he continues to smoke through his trachea tube. Are we so addicted to discriminatory heavy industrial zoning and the havoc that it causes that we are willing to sacrifice any chance of healing, any chance of a common sense floodplain plan that addresses the climate crisis? Are we so addicted that we are willing to ignore the science that clearly spells out the need for a healthy riparian zone and wetlands to keep water clean and cool, protect our endangered species, and make our communities more resilient during flooding events. Are we so addicted that we turn a blind eye to the tribes who have lived on this land and these waters long before? We came and dredged and channeled the river, putting everyone in harm's way and violating their treaty rights? We need a floodplain plan that understands that the Willamette river is a continuous force of nature that is home to many species, first and foremost, before industry, these species cannot simply hold their breath when they arrive at the north reach and swim as fast as they can through purgatory, with hopes that they'll make it to the other side. Migrating fish require a consistent riparian habitat. So do we. The city cannot continue to smoke through their trachea tube and expect to break our cycle of doom. Please send these floodplain amendments back to the city and insist that they meet their legal obligations under the endangered species act, and put our best interests at heart. Thank you.
40 Thank you so much, micah.
41 You're up next.
42 Thank you, city councilors. My name is micah meskell, and I am the urban conservation director for bird alliance of Oregon, and representing them today as an organization, we have been engaged in advocating for the city to improve its implementation of fema's national flood insurance program for nearly two decades, as has substantial impact on the city's natural resources along the Willamette, columbia, columbia, slough, and johnson creek. The process that led to these pre-implementation measures in front of you today was started back in 2009, as you heard from staff, when my predecessor, the late bob salinger, helped lead a lawsuit along with several others present today against FEMA, asserting that their national flood insurance was violating the endangered species act protections for legally listed salmonids. It's important that we remind ourselves of the decision that that came through that process, that highlighted that the city and FEMA were in jeopardy, which is an extremely rare decision and indicative of serious the seriousness of these violations. The ruling included a list of reasonable and prudent alternatives that FEMA should incorporate into its program, and we've taken iterative steps over the years to reach what we have today. As you've heard, the plan in front of you is an interim attempt to come into compliance, but has implications for many long term plans. The three pathway options that FEMA offers. We would have preferred that no new development in the floodplain option, as it takes us in the direction of best safeguarding people, property and environment in the city going forward. This draft makes some significant improvements from the city's past efforts in this place, but still has a lot of places that need to be improved. We really want to lift up the testimony of mary from any dc and chelsea from center for biological opinion, and urge this committee to direct staff to work with the with those litigants towards a better option. We're really concerned about how the policy would allow projects with certain land use approvals to be vested under the requirements in effect at the time of approval, which really perpetuates bad land use decisions. This we have concerned about the grandfather clause as as I noted, it perpetuates bad land use decisions in centuries past. We have concerns about the ability to allow alteration of building interiors, provided there's no expansion, even when there's no expansion of the footprint. As that continues to put those people at risk, I mean, the property at risk. And lastly, we have significant concern about the project's about projects being approved under separate federal consultation, especially concerning the current administration that is rolling back or ignoring bedrock environmental protections. Lastly, I want to touch on the mitigation banking aspect of this. If the city is to move forward with this mitigation bank proposal, it needs to fund the design and build out of additional mitigation banks. And this council in this committee needs to support those efforts. Thank you.
43 Thank you. Micah.
44 Cherise boch, marty glickman.
45 Good morning, councilors. Good to be with you this morning. My name is terry spock. I'm the climate policy director for 350 pdx, and I'm glad to be able to speak today about the flood hazard areas similar to others. I'm concerned that this amendment to the flood hazard areas are is not going to fully be adequate to address the adverse impacts on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead and other species and habitats identified as that potential risk. I'm also concerned that this amendment and the original plan do not seem to take climate change into account. I recognize the time constraints that we're under and appreciate the hard work that the staff has done to get us to the point of trying to be in compliance with FEMA so that portlanders don't lose their flood insurance, which is obviously really important, and we need to make sure that happens. But I think this plan needs to be strengthened to ensure that threatened and endangered species are restored, and to mitigate and take into account the challenges that we face with climate change. So I would hope that we can do that through amendments now and keep working on going beyond just compliance with floodplain requirements to actually address climate change and endangered species. Others have talked about the endangered species and impact on tribes and communities living near the river. So I'll focus on climate change. So first, this plan discusses the 100 year flood level, but doesn't seem to incorporate what might happen as climate change continues to impact rainfall, snow melt, and other changes to water systems. With climate change, storms become more frequent and severe, with more concentrated amounts of precipitation falling at once. And so we need to build a floodplain that can withstand these massive influxes of water. And we need to not build in areas that are likely to have more frequent floods due to climate change. So along with micah, I would say it would be a better choice to have no new development in flood plains. It doesn't really make sense to build in a floodplain in general, but especially when the 100 year floods may happen much more frequently. It's also important to use our floodplain to mitigate climate change, not only to keep our buildings safe, but to make sure that that habitat contributes to mitigating the impacts of climate change. The more water that can be absorbed into the land, rather than rushing away quickly downstream, the better for the river ecosystem as well as for reducing drought and therefore fire risk. Retaining the water helps cool the region, which is necessary for fish to survive and is also important for people. So we don't experience heat domes and more intense heat waves. So let's build in places that are not going to flood, and let's create a safe and healthy river that will be good for salmon and steelhead and ecosystems that rely on them, and that will mitigate climate change to keep Oregon a wonderful place to live now and into the future. Thank you.
46 Good morning. My name is marty glickman. I'm a resident of district two. Thank you for taking the time to listen and consider amendments to improve this proposal. I'm here to share the support of many community organizations for improving this proposal. 350 pdx braided river campaign breach collective extinction rebellion Portland Portland harbor community advisory group, Portland harbor community coalition, and tank the tanks, we join northwest environmental defense center, the center for biological diversity, Willamette riverkeeper, and the conservation angler in urging you to improve this proposal. You have heard from so many of our experts today, and just a sampling of the community leaders who believe that we can and must do better for portlanders. Please make sure the city complies with its legal obligations under the endangered species act. We know floodplain protections provide an important buffer to protect people, businesses and wildlife from floods, earthquakes and wildfires. This current proposal also continues discriminatory heavy industrial zoning and continues the legacy of environmental injustices and dangers in north and northeast Portland. The good news is that we can improve this proposal before bringing it to full council. Thank you so much for your consideration.
47 Thank you.
48 That concludes testimony.
49 Thank you so much. I appreciate everyone coming here and testifying. I hope you'll stay in the room in case we have any questions for you at this time. If staff could come back up so that we can have some discussion, and I believe that we have a city attorney online as well to assist with some of these questions. So I want to start off by saying that, yes, there is some timeline pressure to ensure that this is approved on time so that people don't lose their flood insurance. It also sounds like there are some potential different options for reviewing amendments to this proposal. So one option would be that we bring this back to the next committee meeting, putting you on the spot. Councilor Novick. But he's nodding at me, so I think he's okay with with it when he chairs the next one to potentially have more time to review amendments in case there's not enough time today. So I want to ask a few questions of staff. I don't see anyone else's hands raised. We received an advocacy letter from nedc, among other groups, suggesting a number of amendments. So first, I was curious, did you receive that letter and would you be able to talk through some of the amendments and what their implications might be? And I can read those off after you answer my first question.
50 Good morning. Councilors patricia diefenderfer, chief planner. For the record, I we did not receive the letter with the amendments.
51 Is it during the public review draft letter we did receive from nedc and other the other environmental groups? We haven't received anything, as far as I know.
52 More recent than.
53 More recent than that.
54 Okay. Well, I'm happy to forward that letter to all of you after this because I'd love to see your thoughts on it. It was a letter that was dated on March 25th, it looks like. Okay, it sounds like you're not familiar with the letter. Slide 27 talks about the outreach that was done. And we've heard from a number of people that there wasn't. It sounds like there maybe wasn't tribal consultation. I didn't see tribes listed as well. Were tribes notified? Were they consulted, and if so, what's their position on this plan?
55 Councilors patricia diefenderfer.
56 And can you speak a little more loudly?
57 Sure. I'm trying to. Okay. The. Given the short time frame associated with this project and trying to meet this deadline, there was not specific outreach to tribes or tribal governments. I would imagine that the tribal governments are also. Jason, would you like to speak to that?
58 Jason butler browning in with Portland permitting and development. So when FEMA made the announcement that the requirements were going to be required as part of the national flood insurance program, they hosted a number of webinars and workshops. And during those webinars and workshops, they did notify those participants that they were consulting with the tribes separately. So I don't know what level of consultation they had with the tribes. But I did want to share that FEMA at least had announced that they were in consultation with tribes regarding the pick'ems.
59 Okay, I appreciate that answer. It doesn't sound like they're I mean, it doesn't sound like there was very thorough consultation with tribes for this. So that's a little bit concerning to me. And I know that we're trying to make some improvements to our tribal relations team at the city of Portland, because they haven't had the support that they've needed for a few years. And hopefully that will help with this type of thing. I, I'm going to quickly read off some of the proposed amendments to the amendments that are brought here today, just to have it on the record, and then we can send you all a copy and get some review on that in case we're able to bring it back to the next climate committee, so that we can have a thorough review before we decide to send this to full council. It's going to be a tight deadline, and it will probably have to be done through emergency ordinance in order to meet the timeline. But I think if we're going to make amendments, we have to do our due diligence. So the first amendment that would be proposed would say mitigation should be on site unless spatially impossible. It is spatially. If it is spatially impossible, it can be off site. The second amendment would be there should be a prohibition on development in the riparian buffer zone. Unless the development is a water dependent use, a habitat restoration activity and activity that results in beneficial or activities that have no adverse, as defined by footnote 149 in the biological opinion, and then proposed a permitted construction for which the start of construction hasn't occurred. Must comply with the mitigation ratios. So we'll forward all that information to you. Those are some of the questions I had. And I'll start passing it off to my fellow councilors. So we have councilor Novick and then councilor Kanal in the queue.
60 Yeah, actually, based on the letter from the center for biological diversity and others that we received in March 25th, another potential amendment might be to define flood storage habitat as the volume of flood storage within the sfha that provides both fixed access, accessible and accessible space. So that's something I'd want to explore in the next couple of weeks as well. And I also just just want to do we have Eric shafter from the city attorney's office. Yes we do. I just wanted to ask, is it true that we can adopt more stringent requirements than are in the FEMA model rules and still and still be consistent with FEMA requirements?
61 You muted Eric.
62 You're muted. Because you're not muted. But we can't hear you. Nope. Still can't hear you. This happened to me yesterday. My computer microphone doesn't work anymore. So my sympathies Eric.
63 There was an update that didn't like the audio.
64 Okay, we will put that question on the record and maybe give Eric some time to figure out his microphone then. Do you have any other follow up questions? Councilor Novick.
65 I was actually just thinking, if we can't hear from Eric, if he could just give us a thumbs up or a thumbs down, is it true that we could have more stringent requirements?
66 Okay. Eric. Yeah. Can you can you turn your camera back on and give us a thumbs up or a thumbs down on that question? That 2025, everybody. This is our technology. Okay. Eric, can you hear us? He can hear us. Okay. Do you want to thumbs up or thumbs down? Councilor Novick question. And then I'll announce it for the audience.
67 Thumbs up. Meaning, yes, we can adopt more stringent requirements and be consistent with FEMA.
68 Yeah.
69 Counselors.
70 Okay.
71 I see we're stressing out the attorneys. Eric. We'll give you more time to maybe get that figured out. It sounds like we have some more legal question follow ups from councilor Kanal as well. So. Oh, yes.
72 If I might just provide a little bit of additional context for, for you regarding this. So I want to just make sure that it's clear that obviously, as we've emphasized in the presentation, these measures and these code amendments are interim, as you saw from the graphic where we showed the long work plan that has been associated with coming into compliance with the byop. This has been a phased project for the city over many years. And the next phase of the work that we're doing currently associated with this project is to look at the floodplain regulations in the industrial areas, and in particular the north region, the columbia corridor. And these these regulations do not exist in isolation. The code already has regulations, environmental zones and greenway overlay zones that also have requirements associated with landscaping and habitat. I'm sorry, natural resource protection and conservation. I think generally speaking, the direction here that staff, the approach that staff has taken, has been to get into compliance in the short term through these interim compliance measures and allow ourselves the time to evaluate the range of regulations for the permanent regulations, as we have done in a phased and very deliberate way throughout the work plan, throughout this process. And so the work that we're doing currently to look at the economic opportunities analysis, which is also a requirement of the state and to evaluate the natural resource protection considerations and the floodplain considerations, evaluate them in conjunction with that project to understand more fully what the impact is on the industrial land. And we will we are doing that and we will do that. And the intention is that a package that is the permanent regulations will result from that process, but that this interim measure is required to, as we have noted, to remain in compliance and to allow portlanders to have access to the national flood insurance program. So it really is something that we will look at all of these considerations and all of these recommendations in the context of that project.
73 I appreciate that, and I think none of us up here want portlanders to lose their flood insurance. That would be pretty devastating. That's part of why I think an alternate proposal is that we can bring this back to the climate committee next week, and by if we can thoroughly go through the amendments and then have it go through emergency ordinance to full council, we would still be able to do it on that timeline. While addressing some of the concerns and questions the community has on this, I appreciate that background and councilor Novick were you done with your questions? Okay. Councilor Kanal.
74 Thank you, madam chair. So I have a lot of questions, and I guess the first one I'll just state for the record, even though the attorney may not be able to answer it, miss stites said in testimony that liability would not just be for FEMA, but also for the city as well as individual property owners. And I wanted to know if that was a city attorney's understanding as well. And I would accept a yes or no or let's talk about it offline. If that's a fair question to ask. I think we've talked about certain answers that we should get offline, but that is a concern to me. The possibility of adopting something that would create liability for not only ourselves but for individual property owners. So for staff who's here? Let me start with the local process. I have a couple questions on the federal one, depending on how much time we have, why does title 24 not generally require community engagement on potential changes? And where would I find the place in which that is stated? You mentioned that that when changes are done, that that's not a normal process. Is that just a precedent historical practice, or is there something that says we need to on these things and we don't on those?
75 Doug morgan with Portland permitting and development, that is the historical practice. Some regulations in the zoning code, for example, require a public process. Title 24, the building code regulations don't require it. It doesn't mean we can't do it. We've done that in this particular case to meet with some of the interest groups and prepare and publish a draft of the code. Amendments for public review and public comment. That's not the norm for building code amendments, however.
76 What would it take? Sorry.
77 Patricia defender, for the record, I would just elaborate that land use legislative land use processes are what require, you know, more public outreach consistent with the statewide planning goals. Goal, goal one. And that is something that we do with all of the land use regulations and all of the long range planning projects, but that is consistent with kind of the regulations in state law. It is typically associated or targeted to the land use legislative projects.
78 Okay, more of a rhetorical question, but what would it take to require it here? And frankly, for every change to city code is my broad question, I think it's absolutely nothing to do with the staff in front of us. But but the idea that we would ever change code without doing a community engagement process, in part, is a little concerning to me. Which bureau led the community engagement on it? You mentioned three different bureaus were involved in this.
79 That was generally a partnership between Portland permitting and development and bureau of planning and sustainability.
80 Are you anticipating losing any of your community engagement staff as part of the budget impacts on pp? And.
81 I can't be certain on that. We'd have to look into that and get back to you. Councilor.
82 Okay, a few minutes ago, patricia, you said that we had given the short time frame on the project and trying to meet the deadline. There was not specific outreach to tribes or tribal governments. And then immediately after that, jason mentioned that there was the FEMA announcement as to when the requirements would be included with sort of the start of that process. Was that not a year ago? I thought that was July of 2024. Based on your presentation, is that correct? When FEMA.
83 Webinars were subsequent to that? Correct? I remember happening throughout fall. I just meant that the city, city itself, city staff did not specifically reach out to the tribes. But I would also like to just add that the city city staff and engaging in the projects that are forthcoming, the north reach project, we've already begun to engage with the tribal organizations and native tribe, the native organizations, local native organizations, and we are working with office of governmental relations right now to do formal communications to the tribes on the long range projects that will result in the regulations that will become the permanent regulations. So we're already working on that engagement and communication.
84 That's great. I'm happy to hear that. But on this specific thing, what was the timeframe that you described as short? Was it not from when FEMA first reached out about the minimum requirements, which I believe you said was last summer.
85 July of 2024, and it took city staff many months to evaluate what those options were. And as you noted, probably from the presentation, it wasn't until November of 2024 that we communicated to FEMA the approach that the city was going to take, and that was because the multiple bureaus that were involved in this were evaluating what the options were and trying to understand what the implication would be.
86 So that actually is.
87 A regulations.
88 Maybe I'm just confused here that that confuses me more, because that implies that we wouldn't even think about doing tribal consultation until after the city decided which of the three options FEMA gave us that we would do. Is that accurate? That that wouldn't even.
89 Be a.
90 Very short timeline. We were just trying to understand technically what the what the options were, what the different options represented technically, and what the impacts of them would be. And so given that very short timeline, just to respond to FEMA, because they they did require us to respond before the end of last year. And as you know, many of these processes in this evaluation takes a certain amount of time. It takes a significant amount of time. And so we were trying to evaluate the choices and be responsive to the federal government for their original deadline, which was to let them know what approach the city was taking by December of last year. And then the implementation of that was to be by July 31st of this year.
91 Okay. I'm going to move on from the tribal consultation piece. It sounds like to me, though, that we had five months to decide to review and decide and chose not to bring in tribal governments to that process. And then we've had six, five ish, almost six months where at the end of may to look at the second stage of it and didn't bring them in here either. And that's concerning to me. You mentioned that we have to in the timeline that July would be the full council consideration timeline. So at that point, if July at the end of July being the deadline, we would have to do an emergency ordinance anyway because that would bring it to this point. Did you reach out to and maybe I missed it. Maybe my staff missed it. Was there a request to reach out to us and have a briefing with councilors before this that I missed to get us more information on this.
92 Doug morgan, thank you for the question, councilor. I think with the new form of government, we were all trying to navigate what the new process is in our previous packages that we brought forward, most recently in 2023. We did do a commissioner Staff briefings on those packages. This time around, we were expecting something similar might be available to us, but through our, you know, administration that ultimately was not offered as an as an option for us, we're happy to provide that as a follow up, if that's desired.
93 Yeah.
94 It's kind of the same idea. It's when we get brought in, when tribal governments get brought in before the fact or after the fact. This process is very concerning to me. I'm going to stop here because colleagues may have more questions. I have a lot more, but I will stop here for now.
95 Thank you. Councilor Kanal. And yeah, it sounds like we are going to have the two weeks between this committee and the next committee to get some briefings maybe. I know it's a busy time, but I think it would be helpful for all of us. I received a briefing. It was, I think a few five weeks ago or something and a, you know, with budget season, it feels like 10,000 years ago. Councilor Ryan, I see you in the queue.
96 Thank you.
97 Thank you, madam chair. Jeff and team, it's good to see all of you. Thanks for the. Thank you for the thorough explanation. And I appreciate the vulnerability of saying that the new form of government is confusing in terms of we're building right now. And so it was helpful just to hear that honest candor. I know I'd like a briefing between now and the next meeting. I'll just say a big picture comment. Thank you for those who testified as well. I must say, the two educators were the ones I could understand the best. So thank you. Sarah, taylor and jan, I think you speak to the heart of the matter in a way that I could comprehend over the lobbyist, and I also think you might have landed this well, because we're getting complaints from both industry and the those who could be labeled as environmentalists. And I think in the complex work you do, this is probably boring and very politically not exciting that when things land like that and there's upset on both sides that maybe we landed it right. But I would like the briefing to dig in a little bit more. There are great questions brought up, obviously, about process and I'm not in your shoes. It sounds like it was really hectic and complex for you as well. Was there one? Sometimes I feel like we don't talk about because we're talking about the state of our our beautiful river, which is the soul of the city. And there's I'm on the river a little bit lately because I'm on a dragon boat team, and I'm always surprised how many like, abandoned boats are out there. I can't tell if they're abandoned, and it doesn't look like it looks like they're polluting the water based on what you can see when you get close. So maybe I'm off topic, but do any of those concerns come up with the FEMA folks about portland's issues that we're dealing with in terms of some new pollution that's been created, connected to our humanitarian crisis? I'm just curious. Asking for a friend like it came up. Often when you're campaigning.
98 I would say what caitlin appears to maybe have something to say as well. Jeff cottle, with your sustainability. Yeah. I mean, we had a lot of conversations about those issues, especially in the south region. I'm sure we haven't really gone out on the north reach too much to see what kind of issues, but it is something. I attended a number of meetings at a sort of regional Multnomah county level to try to figure out a strategy, because we recognize those issues, along with other issues on land specific to, you know, trash and things like that that were happening. And I'm sure it's still happening. Unfortunately, it really to me, it seemed at that time it came down to funding. I think there has been some greater funding at the state level to try to address these issues, but it still exists, and I think maybe there was a little bit more Multnomah county sheriff patrol to try to manage and identify these different boats and things like that, as far as I know. But that's really out of the realm of what we do at the city, although it clearly was as part of the south reach, a lot of the discussion and the concern that was raised.
99 Thanks for affirming that it is a conversation because it's really apparent when I do any activity along the river now in the river and south reach is where we're paddling, so it makes sense. Anyway, I look forward to our briefing. Thank you.
100 Thank you councilor Kanal see you put yourself back in the queue and it looks like we're fairly on schedule. So right after this we can discuss some amendments, budget amendments that are related to the climate committefinition of flood storae habitat? Councilor Novick did as well. Can you speak specifically to why fish accessible but not fish accessible would be include spaces would be included in that definition or not like what the specific thought process was on that?
101 Jason butler brown so the definition.
102 Of start by explaining what that is for people.
103 Who don't know.
104 Portland public, Portland permitting and development. Sorry about that. So flood storage habitat in our proposed amendment means the volume of flood storage within the special flood hazard area that provides both fish accessible and fish egress, flood storage. So what we then do is define flood storage. But in that definition of flood storage habitat, we are identifying that the available volume must be both accessible and egress able. During the 100 year flood stage. And I can read that definition of.
105 But I think the assumption is that from a layman's term, and this is another thing in terms of the question about the process, in terms of how we were evaluating what our options were, I think FEMA was not totally clear. They did a lot of that as we were talking about the workshops. And there was a lot of, you know, they released different number of drafts. It was very kind of haphazard in terms of the how things were released and how things were communicated. But one of the issues was about this fish accessible and accessible. The idea is that in a flood, a fish has to get to the floodplain. So that is the first step to say that it will be using that space. And then the egress is that it has a way to get back. So one of the ways in which, you know, you can think about like a basement or something that allows flood water to get in, but then they can't, the fish somehow get in and aren't able to get out of that. In the same way, when we're talking about when we're talking about really flood storage, you're cutting, it's essentially for the amount of volume that you put in, either through fill or buildings or things like that. You're doing a cut. And the idea is that you design that cut so we can get back to the water so it can be accessible as well. That's really the terminology. And jason can talk to, and doug can speak to more about the details of how it is specifically in the code accessible. That's the that's the concept. And so in theory, which is another question that we had for FEMA is how exactly was that defined? How are we to determine what is accessible and accessible in that way? And we would never, I don't think, very happy with our response to that. But we understand in theory that concept. But again, I think a lot of the communication from FEMA was a little less than desirable.
106 Sure. So you're.
107 Talking about from the perspective of replacing and I just want to read the sentence here by using the definition as it's currently written, these areas, meaning those areas that are defined as both accessible and accessible, would be excluded from protective standards. Despite being important to flood floodplain function and connectivity, and the number of spaces where these standards would would apply would be reduced. Can you speak to that side of it?
108 I don't think that's correct. It's those are the areas that would be applied where the regulations there's a world where you would, if they are not accessible or aggressive and accessible, you would not apply the requirements. But if they are determined to be accessible and accessible, you would they would apply there.
109 Right.
110 So the sentence is saying that the, the areas you described as a basement, the areas that are accessible but not accessible would not be protected under this definition. That's that's what I believe the sentence is saying.
111 Yeah. So jason butler brown Portland permitting and development. So if we're looking at a proposed new building, that new building would be placed in a flood hazard area. The building code requirements require that the building be elevated so that it's safe from flooding. And in doing so, we're building a foundation around that, that building that foundation effectively eliminates that volume of storage that's available for fish to occupy. And so that loss flood storage would require compensation at the ratios described in the table. So the creation of a basement doesn't necessarily change that requirement. In fact, if we put in flood vent, which allows flood water to enter that space so that the flood waters don't push on the foundations and knock it over, if those foundation flood openings have screens, then those screens prevent fish from entering that volume space. So effectively, what I'm trying to say is that those requirements for the enhanced flood storage or the higher ratios would be applicable to a building development. The way that we're looking at this is that the flood storage habitat means the. Well defines fish accessible or fish egress during a 100 year flood. And so the flood waters are basically being looked at under a steady state condition or they're always occurring.
112 And in.
113 Your opinion.
114 I pause for a second. Colleagues, do you have any amendments that we need to discuss for the budget before we continue this? Because if people don't, then we can continue this discussion. So I guess raise your round of hands if you have amendments, you have some budget amendments to discuss. So does councilor Novick.
115 I think ours.
116 Are the same. No, no.
117 Okay. I'm going to give us till 1105 on this, and then we're going to move on to the next section. So we have time to discuss budget amendments. And the next climate committee is going to be on the 12th, June 12th, which means that that's where we're going to have a full discussion of the amendment. So if your team sorry, now, you're going to have to brief all of us a bunch more. But if you could give all of us briefings and for the folks who showed up today as well, if you want to bump it in our inboxes knowing that we are extremely underwater right now, we would love to hear from you as well about your perspective. But you got two more minutes.
118 Last question then you mentioned a steady state condition. Miss bakken testimony brought up that that that we're not necessarily taking into account the increased frequency or degree acuity. I don't know what term you want to use of floods. Can you speak to if those two. I lost my train of thought here, but I think you see where I'm going with this. Can you can you speak to that?
119 Yes. Jason butler browning rp and Portland permitting and development. Part of the biological opinion directed FEMA to update their flood hazard insurance rate maps, which define the boundary and the elevations of the 100 year flood to reflect climate change. And so the responsibility of mapping the 100 year flood falls to the federal level or to fema's level. So the city doesn't necessarily have a direct ability to regulate to that or to create the flood map is what I'm trying to say. Our floodplain regulation does recognize that there is a likelihood of flooding events that could be greater than the 100 year flood, and so we've adopted a minimum freeboard standard, which is a height above the base flood, that buildings are required to be developed to. That doesn't necessarily get to the question about, you know, where could a 100 year floodplain reach, given climate change? And you know, what is that? What does that area look like? However, we have been working, the city has been working with the us army corps of engineers to look at updating of flood model on the Willamette river, and that is making good progress. So we're excited to see the groundwork being laid for what we hope to have as a future floodplain development or future flood insurance rate map for the Willamette.
120 Thank you. Councilors.
121 I might just add, patricia diefenderfer. For the record, I would just add that locally and in the region that we also regulate development within what's called the 1996 flood area, which has different boundaries, the one than the 100 year floodplain. The reason we haven't mentioned that too much in this presentation is because these the pick'em requirements only apply to the 100 year floodplain, but the city does regulate and have requirements similarly for compensating when you put additional fill in the floodplain that you remove a certain amount of fill and to compensate for that. And that is a regulation that does exist in an area that is defined as the 1996 flood flood area that you saw, the maps, the picture of the area that was flooded at that time. So that also informs where we apply regulations.
122 And one other quick item I know you want to move on. Jeff cottle again, planning sustainability, but we also as a part of the floodplain resilience plan, we work with beis and developed to try the 1996 flood as it is defined right now. It's a metro requirement. The regional government, it was based on aerial photos just in extent. The day after the morning after the peak of the flood, we did update using the preliminary sort of early modeling by army corps of engineers. Environmental services developed a new run of the 1996 like event so that we could know what it would actually look like, given current building patterns and topography and things like that, because things have obviously changed over the last 30 years. So to try again, sort of in the interim before we were able to get a new FEMA flood map, we wanted to try to characterize that 1996 better as well to because we think that is more of a what we would likely see in the future as a result of climate change.
123 Thank you all so much for being here today and for sharing that information. We look forward to some follow up briefings for my fellow climate committee councilors, and with any of the other folks who showed up today who want to share more information. We really appreciate your expertise. We're very lucky in Portland that we have community members who are so engaged who want to share their knowledge and wisdom with us as well. So just very lucky to have all of these experts all around. And with that, we're going to move into our next budget item. So. Diego, do you have to read the next item? Okay. Thank you.
124 Item two committee discussion on climate resilience and land use budget priorities.
125 All right. It sounds like we have two councilors here who have more budget amendments to bring that would implicate the climate committee. So whichever of you would like to go first, councilor Novick, let's start with you.
126 Councilor Kanal said. I think that what we have to say might be somewhat duplicative, but I am planning to bring forward a slimmed down version of the proposal. I had to allocate $3 million to the Portland bureau of emergency management by cutting council office budgets. I've had some conversations with pbem about how much better prepared we could be for a disaster involving the sci hub if we had two additional planners plus a training person, and I'd like to ask jordan wiley to come up and address that issue.
127 Thanks, councilors. I'm jordan wiley, deputy director for Portland bureau of emergency management, and I'll actually introduce richard narwal, who is our chief resilience officer, and calling him first.
128 Thank you. Thank you, jordan, for the record, I'm richard narwal, chief resiliency officer at Portland bureau of emergency management. And thank you, councilors, for giving opportunity to talk about the gaps that pbem have in its current current line of efforts. So with $689,000 that council Novick said, that would give us approximately three emergency management positions that we could utilize to improve city's overall preparedness and response functions. These three positions, two would be directed to specifically for planning, and I've covered it in past few council sessions that these planners would be responsible for coordinating developing both strategic and operational emergency plans. This could include cei hub as well, but I have highlighted in past that sci hub is a very complex project, so it required more dedicated attention long term. So with that, I would like to highlight, while these planners may be able to assist with emergency response planning for the critical energy hub, this the scope, complexity and interjurisdictional interjurisdictional coordination required for effective planning in this area suggests that the city would benefit from from full time ftes dedicated to this particular issue. Currently, the city has one dedicated planner position. However, this role has been eliminated in the current version of the proposed budget the previous year, the city's only dedicated planning positions had also been eliminated. The third fte, as councilman Novick said, we could use every plan that the city creates. It needs to be validated and tested so we could use that support for testing the plans that come out of as work products from these two positions. So that includes cei hub hazard response planning as well.
129 And I just highlight. Thanks, richard I just highlight. We could absolutely use psi hub as a focal point and dedicate resource to that. We do need to adjust expectations though, because we're we'll get out what we put in if we have 1 or 2 fte. This takes a lot of time to bring those plans together. There's a lot of jurisdictions, as richard mentioned, a lot of complexity, so don't have any false hope that in a couple of months suddenly we'd have a beautiful, perfect plan. These things usually take years to build. And then of course, the other side of that is the exercise element, where you have to bring all the players together and say, does this plan actually work? Is it actually feasible? What do we need to change, update, etc? So happy to elaborate on any other points.
130 I just want to note that and apologize for the fact that I've been laboring under the misimpression that the 689,000 to the good that the city budget is right now in terms of overhead money, could simply be used to for pbem. I'm now informed that actually there has to be the overhead. Money has to be accompanied by discretionary money, and we don't. We have a very limited amount of discretionary money that we have right now. So I think that I'm going to be compelled again to bring forward a proposal to cut council budgets, which include both overhead and overhead mone, by approximately $52,083 apiece, in order to pay for $625,000 worth of two planners and one exercise person. And I also want to note that I will bring up the fact that I've now taken a look at what other cities have in terms of council budgets. And in denver, councilors get $750,000 apiece. In seattle they get $900,000 apiece. So I'm going to sort of make a point of saying, if we want to be somewhat better prepared for a disaster in the sci hub, we should be willing to have council budgets that are only several hundred thousand dollars higher than those in our sister cities.
131 Thank you, councilor Novick. Actually, a quick follow up question for you. Do those other cities have committee structures the way ours does?
132 I don't know and I don't care.
133 Okay. I'm just curious. It was a genuine question. No need.
134 To doubt.
135 It is a good question. I will look into it, but I will look it up. I think it's a good question, but I don't think that my position would change.
136 Okay, great. I was just asking everyone relax. Councilor Kanal if you want to bring forward your amendments or.
137 Ask a follow up question.
138 Oh yeah, sorry. Go for it. Councilor.
139 Thank you, madam chair. Councilor Novick. Thank you for what you just said. I have a question about. There's another one that we just passed right with those the council president's rightsizing, if you will, of our budgets.
140 Yes.
141 That was less than yours.
142 That was. Yes. I propose cutting by 300,000. She proposed 200,000. We wound up cutting by 120,000, which means we now have 1.38 million apiece.
143 Got it.
144 Thank you very much.
145 All right. Councilor canal.
146 Yeah. I will.
147 Just start by saying I'm actually speaking to the same amendment, but I want to note two things. One is there's also a another amendment that I think does not conflict with this, but actually would help bolster it, which is clerk two, which would provide some support for cei hub specific staffing on the bureau of planning and sustainability side. I don't think that that mitigates the need for this in any way. At pbem. I don't want to be super clear about that. I'm just saying I intend to support that and help hope that they will have good partners at pbem, because we manage to staff them up to the amendment that that councilor Novick was referring to, I think is currently in as Novick three. I am going to not focus on the funding side right now. I disagree with some of the premises of it, but I'm I'm not necessarily opposed to the specific 52,000. I'm going to look into that. But I do want to talk about the what it would fund. And there may be other funding sources that could complement this. I think we talked about $704,000, most recently, of what is available in the existing funds. If we gave it, if we allocated it to pbem based off of the additional, the revenue that we generated that had not yet been allocated to an expense and was put into contingency at the end of the approved budget process. So that would cover a lot of this, but it wouldn't cover anything in several of these categories of 24, seven watch capacity and things like that. I'm interested. The three positions that we're talking about just a moment ago, two of them would fall into the planning side, if I understand correctly, what is the category that you used in your previous memo that the third one would fall into?
148 So there's been several different communications back and forth, all at different price points. So we started at 10 million. We were at 3 million. We kind of danced around depending upon what you know. And each one of those price points have different priorities. So all told just to zoom out for two seconds, all told we would if we money was falling from the sky, we'd ask for 55 positions, about another $10 million to really do all of our what we consider mission essential functions, to break it down into smaller chunks. I think we could allocate as enrich it. You can you can chime in here as well. But two planners, probably an exercise person to exercise those plans I think makes a lot of sense. Those go kind of together hand in hand. You develop the plans and then you need somebody to develop the exercises to test kind of with some level of autonomy. Does that plan actually work? And so that's that's a piece of it. Richard, if there's anything you wanted to highlight specifically, please go ahead.
149 Yeah, I the only thing that I would add is so right now the Portland bureau of emergency management, everyone's kind of wearing multiple hats. So we have 0.25 fte dedicated to exercises. And that gives us maybe one exercise a year that we can efficiently do anything else. We either rely on state resources or we just have to say no. So with that, I also would highlight that in terms of the cycle of emergency management, exercise comes after a plan is documented. So will we start with hiring and training exercise planner specifically for sci hub? Maybe not. We can wait a little bit on that until the plans are written and documented, but we can use in training and exercise personnel to focus on other citywide needs. One such need is what you just heard on is in support of the flood exercise plan. That's an annual requirement under FEMA, and this year we don't have resources to do that exercise. We did it last year. And there are other other similar examples across the city where we just don't have resources to do it. I would also say that we are also working on bringing improving our information sharing platform, something called crisis information information management system. This year, two years ago, we were allocated budget for it and we are in process of on getting that system to the city. And I would say that's also a high priority for us to make sure that all city bureaus are at the same platform. They're sharing information in a standard way and then training and exercise on that as well. So I just wanted to give you kind of a broader perspective.
150 Yeah. Thank you. So I was hoping that would be your answer. That exercise would be the third one. So I'm glad to hear it. To the degree that you just, you know, gave context to that. My interest in going above and beyond what is already available, and there are some other funding sources that we're exploring the exact amount of to understand what's available is, is to get that additional position for the citywide incident management system as well. I know that we did allocate the money or the mayor proposed, and it has not. It is still in the approved budget. The software for the citywide incident management. The other thing I'd like to just note is the coordination and response side. And I believe you're gaining one a person or losing one person. Sorry for the eoc. Is that correct?
151 So currently we're in the current budget. We have one planner that our last remaining full time planner is cut. We'll also highlight, though, that there's some federal funding that's also likely going to go away to the tune of $160,000, which will mean at least one and maybe additional two fte that we'll have to cut for the coordination person. That's a position that has been vacant for some time. So if it's specifically that eoc person, I believe we have one position. Correct me if I'm wrong, that could cover, as richard mentioned, it's kind of like 25% here, 25%. There's not one dedicated eoc person. Correct? Okay. We're all sort of triaging like what's on fire and what can we let burn. And so that's one of the positions that we don't have as much dedicated to.
152 Yeah.
153 So that's a scarcity I'd like to help you get out of at least in part specifically. And I use the acronym emergency operations center is eoc. And to get at least one person, I know that the ideal would be three for that. But to at least start that process, that's that's where I'm looking. I think the 24 over seven would be the next thing if money fell from the. Sky for me, but it is a larger ask and I think we're just I'd rather do something correctly and fully than sort of, you know, the word I want to use here, the partially complete the, the other, the other function.
154 Thanks.
155 Thank you. Councilor Kanal did you have anything else to add online?
156 No, I think jordan covered it. Thank you.
157 Okay.
158 Great. Councilor Novick I see your hand is back up.
159 Yes. In response to chair murillo's excellent question, to which I give a grumpy response. Seattle. And for which I apologize. Seattle has. The seattle city council has nine committees and denver has six.
160 Boy, we thought we had it bad. Thanks for thanks for following up on that. Appreciate you. Councilor Novick colleagues, is there any further discussion on amendments that we plan to bring forward for the budget that are related to the climate committee? Councilor Kanal I see your hand is up again.
161 I just wanted to ask. I mentioned.
162 We've talked a bit about Novick three or what it may become, but I just wanted to ask if anyone had thoughts they wanted to share beyond what I mentioned on Clark two, which is the cei positions for the bureau of planning and sustainability. I'm curious if there was any thought on that, because I, I want to make sure that they can both happen, and I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I also want to make sure that we're I want to I personally prioritize the pbem side more. But yeah.
163 I if I could councilor I would. I agree with you. Those are two separate things that should coexist and could coexist. There needs to be a strong connection between the two groups. Arguably reporting structure, but that. But that aside, they can both coexist and I think would be. Biotics related. Yeah.
164 It looks like folks don't have any further comments at this time, but all right, I think we might actually have some time back. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your expertise. Our next meeting, as I stated earlier, will be on Thursday, June 12th, and we're going to be considering the appointments of two advisory committees, the parks board and the planning commission. And we will also now be discussing the floodplain amendment again, and we're going to try to have a good chunk of time to do that. So expect briefings on that. And also, I will say that we're going to be really up to the deadline at that point. So we're going to have to if we want to amend it in that committee session, and then it's going to have to go by emergency ordinance to full council so that we can vote it through on time so that people don't lose their flood insurance. And with that, I adjourn the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee.