The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-13
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (11,099 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, November 13, 2025, beginning at 9:33 a.m., with roll call confirming attendance. The session opened with a staff update on the Zenith Energy franchise investigation, tracing its timeline from a March resolution through document requests, retention of outside counsel (Cable Houston), and an anticipated final report in January or February. A related legal development was noted: the Court of Appeals reversed a prior LUBA dismissal regarding a land use compatibility statement, remanding the matter back to LUBA. Discussion covered the scope and transparency of the investigation, access to draft findings, and public records availability. Public testimony followed from multiple individuals representing organizations including Reach Collective, Braided River Campaign, 350PDX, and the Democratic Socialists of America, generally requesting greater transparency, timely information sharing, and expanded scope of review regarding Zenith’s compliance history. The committee then considered a resolution directing the City Administrator to study and recommend reforms to the city’s design review process, aimed at supporting housing and commercial development. Presentation and discussion addressed discretionary versus non-discretionary review tracks, historic and landmark district processes, geographic variation in impacts, and potential interactions with a separate Central City Plan amendment project. Public testimony addressed historic resource review’s effect on housing unit counts and building heights. A motion was made and seconded to refer the resolution to full Council with a recommendation for adoption; votes occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned with the next session scheduled for December 15.
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.
0 Have you seen anything?
1 Like. That? Well it's pretty. Impressive. Question.
2 Where's the. Where's the action?
3 Yeah. Bhr. Yeah. That's good. To. I'll see you guys later. Yeah.
4 To me it is the history.
5 It's awesome. Good morning. I call the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee to order. It is Thursday, November 13th at 9:33 a.m. Keelan. Will you please call the roll?
6 Good morning. Avalos. Canal.
7 Here, leo.
8 Here.
9 Ryan. Thank. Commissioner Ryan, are you with us? Novick here. Thank you.
10 Thank you. We have three items on our agenda today. First, we'll be hearing an update from the city attorney on the zenith energy investigation, followed by a separate opportunity for public testimony. And we'll also hear a resolution that I'm co-sponsoring with councilor Zimmerman that takes a look at the city's design review process. Keelan, will you please read the first item?
11 Item number one, zenith energy investigation staff update.
12 Thank you. Good morning, robert. Thanks for being here with us today to provide an update on the ongoing zenith investigation. We've had a lot of outreach from advocates regarding written materials, and I think the feedback we got from the city attorney's office was that part of the reason that wasn't publicly posted is because it's an ongoing investigation. But I think it's important at this time just to for us to get an update about where things are at since it's such a high matter of public interest. So we really appreciate you being here today. So we'll have about ten minutes for you to present and share anything you would like with us and then committee discussion if we have any questions followed by public testimony.
13 Great. Thank you. Robert taylor, city attorney I'm going to go over the the update on kind of where we're at with the investigation. And then I have kind of another legal update I'll share with you. So in March, council adopted a resolution demanding that the mayor investigate potential violations of the zenith franchise. In April, bts sent a document request to zenith. The document request asked for records related to new construction on the property, records related to permits, records related to fuels being delivered through pipes subject to the franchise agreement. In may, zenith responded to the request and provided documents. In June, the city administrator sent an update to council informing them that the administrator had asked the city attorney to retain outside counsel to assist in the compliance review for the zenith franchise. In August, the city attorney retained outside counsel to assist. That firm is cable houston. The review will focus on the franchise agreement, compliance and enforcement permit review, land use and land use compatibility statement review and compliance with other agency rules and regulations. The timeline and deliverables for outside counsel are a review of the legal framework and any recommendations to focus the investigation. They are to make recommendations for further review by subject matter experts, and the review may make recommendations to the work plan that is developed by city staff. The city attorney then will, with the assistance of staff, draft a report summarizing the conclusions of the investigation. At that point, outside counsel will then have full discretion to review that draft, make recommendations for refinement, and note where outside counsel agrees or disagrees with their conclusions. In September, the city sent an additional document request to zenith. The request sought as built documents for existing structures and documents related to work on site, for which no permits were obtained. In October, zenith responded to the document request. Throughout this process, we have been reviewing documents and working on the investigation, along with city staff, and we anticipate a final report will be issued in January or February. So that's the the state of the investigation. Also, just this morning, we got a decision from the court of appeals related to the appeal that was filed by some advocates related to the the lux, the current lux that has been approved. The. As you will recall, luba dismissed the appeal and they found that granting the lux was not a land use decision. The court of appeals this morning reversed that decision and found that granting the lux with conditions, because those conditions were added, that made it a land use decision, and they remanded back to to luba. And we expect further proceedings in front of luba on that matter. But that's just breaking news. We're still reviewing the decision from the court of appeals, but that's the the current state of that litigation right now. And I'm happy to answer any questions.
14 That's exciting. I didn't know we were having this presented on a timely day because we scheduled it a few weeks ago.
15 I didn't either, I didn't I did not either. Yeah.
16 I like it. It's very dramatic, very intense. That's always fun. Colleagues, do you guys have any questions for robert taylor? I think we need maybe a moment to digest it. So sorry for clarity. You said that we're going to be getting the report back to council in February of 2026.
17 I think January or February. Okay. Just just to sort of be candid about the expectations.
18 And yeah, that's I understand you're handling a few things at the federal level right now. So appreciate that. I am curious about if you can talk about how deq's decision from a few weeks ago impacts this at all, or if you're allowed to share that publicly.
19 I think we're still reviewing that issue and the impacts on our on our situation.
20 Okay. Any more questions? Councilor Kanal.
21 Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you for being here. First, I agree with everything councilor Morillo said about the fact that we know you're tracking a lot of things. I'm constantly impressed by your. Okay, we're done with this incredibly complex topic. Here's your update on this incredibly other complex topic. I just wanted to clarify. You mentioned the the document that was sent to us by the city administrator in June, which was an update to council. Does that was that intended to comprehensively satisfy the request in the original resolution from March for 120 days, the update in 120 days, because it didn't. I mean, it was an update, but it didn't exactly have a lot of content at that time, and which is understandable.
22 You know, that's a great question. I think you'd have to ask the city administrator about the intent of that. I do think if I'm recalling that correctly, the the final statement in there was a further update to follow. I think that for me, what that was important because that was where the city administrator informed council, hey, we're going to go hire outside lawyers to help with this review. So just in terms of the timing of and the decision to do that and then the timing of that. So that's why I mentioned that email.
23 Thanks.
24 Thank you, councilor Ryan. I know you didn't get to hear the presentation, but do you happen to have any questions for robert taylor regarding the zenith investigation?
25 I'm good. Thanks.
26 Okay. Great. I don't see any other hands up right now. So thank you so much, robert. Appreciate you giving us that update. And I think now we can move into the public testimony portion. If keelan you'd like to read the next item. Thank you.
27 Item two public testimony on zenith energy investigation staff update. All right.
28 Keelan, how many people are signed up this morning?
29 We have six people.
30 Great. We have plenty of time for folks to come and testify. So we're going to give everybody the full three minutes. If you want to start calling the roll.
31 Thank you. First up we have nick. Caleb, diane meisenhelder benjamin platt.
32 Good morning. Thank you for being here. Please state your name and any affiliations for the record.
33 Good morning. My name is nick. Caleb. I'm the climate and energy attorney at reach collective, also a registered lobbyist for the same entity. Yeah. Thank you first. And vance, nice to see you all. Thank you for providing this forum for an update already. I am very happy that it happened because I learned some stuff that I didn't know before, which makes me very excited. And I mostly today want to just kind of read a little bit of information into the record that I think is relevant for the investigation and hopefully is being considered, as has been mentioned in the past, we don't have a ton of information. We don't have a written scope of work about what's happening, which we would love to have. And we now have some more details about how the relationship works with the city and outside counsel, which is important and good. I sent a letter to the mayor on June 20th after the first. Information request was satisfied about the initial design of this investigation, and basically sent a bunch of instances of what we thought were possible franchise agreement violations, including many instances of what under the franchise agreement, I think would be called fraud and deceit upon the city. And there were no replies to that or an acknowledgment of receipt. And so I do have some questions about whether information like that will be shared with outside counsel. And I also wanted to just read into the record a three examples of what I think are areas that the investigation should focus on to investigate whether fraud and deceit happened. So the first is in 2019. Zenith misled Portland mayor ted wheeler staff into believing false information, as reported by the Oregonian. Quote executives of oil terminal operator zenith energy left Portland mayoral aides believing, falsely, that the company's Willamette river facility no longer handled tar sands crude or shipped petroleum products to other ports. Also in 2019, zenith falsely represented to Oregon deq that its expansion of rail infrastructure would result in no new throughput and no new increases in volatile organic compound emissions. As of the January 1st, 2025 zenith work session, zenith presented information that its total liquid fuel throughput had increased for the sixth straight year, directly contradicting that 2019 report, and then also more recently, zenith was fined, as you all know, in December, for using infrastructure illegally, and the details around that are really relevant to this because for three years, the city was denied the full scope of zenith's activities. And under the franchise agreement that concealment denied the city its rights to renegotiate or cancel the agreement. So there are multiple pieces of the franchise agreement that were likely violated. Anyway. We are concerned that this information, based on the first information dump, that this information will not be included in the investigation. I'm a little less concerned after hearing the city attorney's description of things, but would also like to find ways to put this information into the record and make sure that it's considered as a part of a full investigation. Thank you.
34 Thank you, I appreciate that. And if you could maybe bump that letter up for our offices, for everyone on the climate committee just so we can review it again, that would be really helpful.
35 Happy to.
36 Thank you. Thank you.
37 Diane or diana. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.
38 We're disappointed that no information was provided by city administrators to the public before this presentation on the zenith franchise investigation. While they are paid, many of us are volunteers who are forced to scramble our climate work schedules to be able to be present and carve out time to prepare a response. But how can we adequately get, with no information or time for consideration? That's not really possible. We request that this committee should leave the record open. So that and and note that this is not acceptable behavior on the part of city administration. We need information ahead of time. Zenith has a long history of deceit, illegalities, misrepresentations, misleading regulators, operating without the correct permits, and worse and worse, both in Portland and in other parts of the country. This particular investigation has been fraught with concerns from the start over potential conflicts of interest, as well as lack of information about its scope and what types of information would be pursued, and records provided both by the city and the company. For a full, transparent view of all of zenith's actions going back to 2017. Under the franchise agreement, the city has the right to shorten or curtail its contract if there's documented fraud or deceased. So a truly independent reviewer investigation would have access to all records and communications of both the company and the city. Since the started, Portland operations under Portland code section 12 030, the city can require disclosure of information appropriate to franchise compliance, and the city has a right to know that the information provided by cable houston is not filtered by either city staff or zenith, and that zenith's broad pattern of conduct is being reviewed. The public is still reeling a bit from city administrators not following city code. During the last process and sidelining and sidelining you, our newly elected council. So we voted for transparency in the last election and not providing information to the public in a timely manner. Or if there are limits on the scope or the information provided for a supposed independent investigation. It was suggested the city administrators are not getting the message. Portlanders deserve better, especially when it comes to health, safety and our critical climate goals. Thank you.
39 Thank you so much.
40 I also have a couple seconds. I want to say I got here late because I had an international climate meeting that I just couldn't change, so my testimony may not totally be relevant, but I, I want to get these things on the record. And I also would just say right now the cop is happening in latin America, and we need to be under understanding our role in all of this in terms of how it's impacting people all over the world. And I'm right now just really heartbroken about what's going on in africa and latin America. And I just wanted to say that thank you.
41 I appreciate you being here so much. And for that international solidarity as well. It means a lot to me as someone who is from south America. So thank you.
42 Thank you. Benjamin is joining us online.
43 Hi. Good morning, city council. My name is benjamin platt. I'm a district three resident here in southeast Portland. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I appreciate chair Morillo and the committee requesting this update, as I think it's been about nine months since the initial resolution passed, and zenith represents an urgent, consistent and escalating danger to our community as their throughput constantly increases. I understand the sensitivity of this matter and the need to proceed thoroughly, but I'd also just say that zenith is a ticking time bomb for our city and our whole state, frankly, and their consistent track record of violating regulatory measures, including the most recent cited violations that triggered this review, shows that this investigation needs to intensely and fully scrutinize their whole historical behavior and consider whether they're an entity we really want to partner with as a city. Thank you for this update. Please ensure that zenith is held accountable for all of their past violations and their current behavior, and the current and future risks they pose to our community. Thank you.
44 Thank you benjamin.
45 Next up we have lynn handlin, stephanie mcmahon, marty glickman.
46 Are the other folks online okay, great.
47 Okay. Do you want me to go first?
48 Yes, please. Thank you.
49 All right. Sorry it took a little while there. So first of all, I'm I'm very glad that the city is, is is is doing this review. I echo everything that diane and nick both said and they said it much better. I am I'm certainly frustrated that we had like nothing yesterday even to like look at. And I feel like if you're able to like tell us stuff this morning, then surely you could have told us stuff last night even though there's this ongoing investigation. So I'm really confused about that process. But I don't, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't, I don't I don't know these things. So yeah, I obviously need time to digest what was said this morning. I'm interested in the luba decision, but I'm way too confused. I need to read that. But it sounds, I don't know. Anyway, zenith has been deceiving the city and the deq and violating rules and laws for years and years. They've been fined numerous times, and of course, fines mean absolutely nothing to a giant, you know, huge multibillion dollar corporation. They do not care. So the only thing that we can do, since fines are useless, is to stop them. And I feel like surely they have violated their franchise agreement. Unless a franchise agreement says, sure, you can lie to us and do stuff illegally and increase your throughput over and over and over and over and over again, despite all along saying, we're not going to do that, we're not going to do that. And the deq finally said, yeah, we don't do anything about throughput. That's not our that's not our bailiwick. So surely it's somebody and I'm assuming that it's y'all. So I'm hoping that that will factor into this. And obviously the federal government is not helping in any way in terms of climate, community safety or anything good. Which means like it's all up to you guys and us. It's up to, you know, our, our local people. You're our last line of defense, our only line of defense. So I appreciate this process. I'm I'm hoping it it will produce some real action. And I'm also hoping for a little bit more transparency in the future. Again, if we're able to put it out, if you're able to like give this information to us this morning, why couldn't we have had it? You know, yesterday, even at the end of the day, that would have been nice. Appreciate all that you do. Thank you.
50 Thank you, lynn. And certainly hearing the calls for transparency here so we can while it is an ongoing investigation, I think there are some things that we could probably provide publicly earlier. And as chair of the committee, I'll make sure to push for that. Could you call up the next person, please?
51 Stephanie is joining us online. Stephanie you're muted.
52 Hello. Thank you. Sorry about that. My name is stephanie marin I'm a member of the democratic socialists of America. I appreciate the update on the investigation. But like the rest of the other people here would like to urge council to keep the public well informed of your tangible progress on that investigation. If city corruption has truly allowed zenith to operate duplicitously, it has put portlanders at tangible risk of chemical harm for the sake of profit. The public trust has been negatively impacted by this possibility, and we deserve to have that trust restored by the right to directly review communications between zenith, the and the investigation itself. These should be publicly available parts of the final report. If we are not able to review these, how can we restore our trust in the city and its operations? Zenith is a chemical company based in houston, texas. They do not care about us. They do not care about our well-being. We have to put our trust in the city and its staff to care about us and our well-being. Regarding their operations within this city. If we can't trust the city and their staff any more than we can trust zenith, then the citizens are the last line of defense on acting on this matter. So I urge the city, I urge the staff, I urge the investigation, and frankly, I urge zenith energy to publicly release these materials and provide them for citizen review. Thank you. I appreciate the update. I see the rest of my time.
53 You, stephanie. Marnie.
54 Good morning councilors. My name is marty glickman. I'm the executive director of braided river campaign and a registered lobbyist representing the braided river campaign. I'm also a resident of district two. We've heard a lot today about the topic of my testimony, which is transparency. We believe transparency and accountability are essential to healthy democratic government, climate justice, and economic justice. Transparency is also important because of zenith's increasing oil throughput. Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil through its bulk fuel terminal at the cei hub. I'm going to bring three requests to you today, but before I share them, I want to repeat a quote that I know all of you have heard before. Us supreme court justice louis brandeis wrote in harper's in 1913. Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Electric light, the most efficient policemen. That said, number one, we would like you to publicly disclose cable houston's full mandate. That means releasing documents describing the scope of work timeline and reporting protocols for the investigation to ensure true independence. Two please remove document gatekeepers. We would like you to ensure cable houston has direct and unsupervised access to all relevant city records going back to 2017, removing the filter of staff whose past actions are under scrutiny. And third, we ask you to authorize cable houston to expand the scope of the investigation. If needed. The inquiry must be broadened to examine xena's pattern of conduct since it began its operations in Portland, and to use the broad authority under Portland city code 7.12.030 to compel disclosure of information, including zenith's internal communications that may reveal intent to mislead regulators or conceal outside of the scope of the franchise agreement. Thank you.
55 Thank you so much.
56 Our last testifier is sherry spock.
57 Good morning, counselors. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm sherry spock, the climate policy director at 350 pdx, and like others have said, it would have been nice to get a little bit of information so we could prepare our testimony. But we appreciate that there's time for public comment anyway, and we appreciate that there is this somewhat independent investigation that is going on, because there's been a lot of broken trust between zenith, the public and city council due to what feels like backroom deals because of a lack of transparency. So as others have said before me, we would like this investigation process to continue in a way that is clear and transparent and is truly independent, so that we can get real and solid answers so that we don't have to go through this process again and again. But we can actually come to a great decision on this, and we're glad to hear about the court of appeals decision this morning about the lux sending it back to luba. So we think that's a good step in the process. The organizations who have shared this morning and many others have consistently raised hundreds of public comments and filled the room for hearings and other events over the years, not because we think it's fun to show up for all of these things, although it's always great to see you all, but because we are actually incredibly concerned about the health and safety of our climate, our river, and the people who live here in Portland, there the dangers that you know of, of the c.e.hubb that you know, from the cascadia earthquake, potential spills and explosions, toxins in the air and the water on an everyday basis, and climate harming greenhouse gas emissions. Zenith is not transitioning, transitioning to lower emissions or toxic or lowering its toxic liquid fuels, but is still expanding. So while the deq patted itself on the back for reducing zenith's air quality permit a little bit recently, it still allows the expansion of emissions beyond what zenith is currently emitting. So we need the city to step up and make sure that it's keeping us safe and healthy. In the seven years since their arrival, zenith has quadrupled the amount of oil trains traveling through the Portland metro area while deceiving regulators, violating permits, circumventing the democratic decision making process for our city government, and endangering the health and safety of every community member who lives along its train lines and facilities. Zenith keeps doing things that are out of compliance with its with its agreements with the city, and they receive fines. But, you know, at what point does the city do something to enforce the laws and make sure that they're keeping oregon's people, ecosystems and climate healthy and safe? So I encourage you to keep that in mind as we continue through this investigation process and making decisions in the future. Thank you.
58 Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you to all the folks who made time to come and testify with us today. Robert, I have one more question for you. If you're willing to come back up about the cable houston investigation, and then we will release you, because I know you have a ton of work to do. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more, just given some of the testimony, it raised some questions for me about specifically what the city asked outside counsel to investigate pursuant to our resolution, or if we can get some details on the scope of the investigation.
59 Yeah. Thank you. Robert taylor, city attorney. And I really I appreciate the feedback. I think that's that's really helpful. We and just kind of for information of everybody here, we we have been posting public records related to zenith on the city website. And so you can go to the Portland gov qa. That's our public records portal. You can find several instances there where we have posted public records. One of those that's posted is the cable houston contract and the scope of work. So that's available online for folks. And the the the scope of work basically is. We're going to ask for documents, get documents. City staff is going to develop a work plan. Cable houston is going to review that and provide edits on it. And then. And this is I'll just be honest with you, this is one of the challenges of this audit is that the some of the subject matter experts in the city of Portland regarding city code and compliance with city code are city staff people. They just are. That's what they do for a living. They know more about it than anybody else, including outside counsel. So the challenge there is you sort of have to rely on them to go through the documents, do the research, put it all together. And that's why you'll see in the scope of work that ultimately the city attorney's office, with the help of those staff, we're going to put the draft together, say, this is this is what we think the the facts show. And then and this is the critical part, we give it to outside counsel. And what I have told folks and including outside counsel is they have full discretion, full authority. They can go through that thing and say, we don't think you looked hard enough at this. We think you were wrong about that. We think you need to ask for more documentation, and they have sort of full authority to go line by line in that work to make sure they think it's accurate or well done or not. And explicitly in the scope of work, the outside counsel is empowered to say in writing where they disagree, right? So they can give us the feedback, we can take it. And if they disagree with it and think we didn't do a good job or it wasn't thorough, or we just were wrong in our conclusions, they say that. And I think that's important. Transparency for the for the public. So that is the basic way that this is designed both to kind of get the benefit of the subject matter experts that work at the city. But with this outside lens, through outside counsel, who has full authority to pick it apart. So that's the the basic idea.
60 Gotcha. Thank you so much for laying all that out for us, robert. And I actually kind of like this dynamic where you presented we got testimony that was able to help us create more questions, and then you're able to help us again. I see councilor Kanal has his hand raised as well. If you want to ask a question.
61 Yeah. Thank you. And I had like five but you answered all but one of them so already. So I will just simply ask the information that cable houston will provide. And this was raised in testimony. Will we receive that as is or will it go through a filter of either the city attorney's office or other city staff on the administration side before city council can see it?
62 The their their final kind of assessment or or review of of the report.
63 Final, but actually also the drafts because that's I would like to see what their initial reactions are.
64 Yeah. I mean I would I'd be happy to I understand the transparency is important here, and I'd be happy to talk with outside counsel about that. Oftentimes the that's attorney work product for them that that they would not want to disclose necessarily. But I'd be happy to work with them. And. And encourage them to be kind of as fulsome as possible with their disclosures. And also, you know, honestly, I'd be happy for them to come to council once this is complete to talk about it, you know, and then you can ask them that question, hey, what was your initial reaction? What did the city do? You know, what did you agree with? What did you disagree with? I think all those questions are appropriate and important.
65 So that second part is great. Strong supporter of that. Just to clarify on the first part, I'm not saying necessarily that that would be disclosed to the public, but as we are clients as well, I think we're entitled as council to the initial reactions before the city has had the chance to look at it and potentially communicate back and ask for for revisions. Yeah, I think that's that's something that we should have. And if those revisions are required, then so be it. But I think we should know that that process.
66 I got it I understand what you're saying.
67 Thanks.
68 Thank you. And I'm wondering if I don't know if the clerk is able to do this, but are we able to get the Portland gov qa link that has all of the public records for the zenith investigation uploaded to the climate committee, or at least for this item or something, so that it's easy for people to access all those?
69 Yeah, you want that added to the agenda item so that people can get to it? Yes, please. Sure.
70 If possible. I know you're doing a bunch of stuff, but if maybe by the end of the day or something. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, robert. I don't see any other hands in the queue. So final call. All right. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you coming out this morning.
71 Thank you.
72 And I certainly think yeah, the idea of having the other council come and talk to us is a great idea to. All right. Keelan, would you please call up the next item?
73 Item three require city administrator to prepare a report with recommendations to reform the city design review process.
74 So I'm very excited to announce that councilor, Zimmerman and I are finally working together on something. This resolution directs the city administrator to examine the city's current design review process and identify a potential legislative pathway to reform the design review process in order to increase commercial and residential development in Portland. I think that this is, you know, we talk a lot about housing issues in the city, affordability issues in the city, and there's never going to be a one size fits all solution to these problems. We're going to have to tackle it at multiple angles. And I think that this is going to be one part of doing that. So I'm grateful to have councilor Zimmerman here today, who is going to be giving an overview of the policy, and then we will move into discussion if folks have any questions. Oh, it also looks like we have folks signed up for public testimony on this. So. Yeah, first we will have councilor Zimmerman give a presentation.
75 Great. Thank you to co-chairs Morillo and Novick. I really appreciate being able to come in front of your committee. Extra. Thank you. Of course, to my co-sponsor. I think it's good that we're able to work together on things that sometimes people don't always expect different.
76 Parts of our, you know, political ideology to always to come together. But I think it's important because most of the stuff we do in the city is not particularly divisive. Right? There's a lot that we do that can be collective. You know, on the campaign trail, I often spoke about the city's design review process as being a constraint on some development, and that's important for the person representing much of the central city, where most of these requirements exist. Other cities have struggled with design review and its impacts on development, and seattle city council passed a design review exemption ordinance for some downtown districts for a three year period to help promote housing production. However, design review is just one part of a complex process that affects both housing production and the development and development in general. For us here in Portland, we have a complex system of land use of design overlay zones, design districts and historic districts. So I just want to talk a little bit about what this resolution does. First, you know, we tried to lay out and one of the things I learned on the campaign trail is that design review or design review commission is a term that gets used a lot, but not necessarily with specifics to what it means. It gets used as an overarching enemy to something, whatever person's gripe or problem or concern might be, we will blame design review at times. So educationally, I think it was important to lay out this resolution in terms of where design review came from and what it's doing. Ultimately, this resolution asks the administration to provide an overview of what types of design review are discretionary or non-discretionary for our city, particularly as it relates to state land use laws that the city is obligated to comply with. Ask the city administration to give council an overview of the two track design process, including the three types of design review and their accompanying fee structures. It asks the administration to give council an overview of the design overlay zones, the design districts, and other conservation and historic districts to which design design guidelines apply. It asks the administration to provide an analysis of the short and the long term economic impacts of design, review its processes on commercial and residential timelines for projects within the city during the previous five years, as well as potential impacts on those processes for the next five years. The second set of resolves are more action oriented, with the aim of encouraging residential and commercial development within the city. They asked the city administration to present city council with options to temporarily excuse me, with options for temporary exemptions on design review requirements where legally feasible, and it asks the administration to bring proposed code changes to design review related sections of our code. So overall, this resolution is an attempt for our council to embark on a collective process of diving into design review and the land use requirements with an eye towards identifying areas that can be reformed. Ultimately, I think we are preferring this this process as co-chairs because given the just the the sheer amount of opinions about design review, I think it is best to engage in this process for asking the administration to bring in all of the stakeholders and all of their experience, rather than from our chairs as electeds inserting what we do or don't like about design review, I'd like to see a more collective, collaborative approach from the administration to help us make decisions. And so I think that this resolution, when it's presented somewhat as a menu, but also as a as an overall collective group, will provide this city council with, with code changes that could prompt us to review what we think design review's role is in our community. Should you all vote to move this out of committee? And I hope that you will, and the council adopts it, the administration would deliver its set of recommendations and proposals that councilor, maria and I have outlined in this. And we also put a 120 day timeline on that, on those recommendations to come back to us. And I just want to think a little bit, here are the questions that I hope that the administration can help the council and ultimately help the community answers, you know. When we first off, I want to start with why? Why this committee versus a different committee? And I think that this resolution speaks to the complexity that's involved in this. It's not just a housing item. It's not just an economic item that the bureaus that you all work most closely with from this committee, I think, probably have the most broad and in terms of the way that they do permitting and development. So it made a lot of sense for us to come to this committee. There may be an argument at times that design review only affects a very small geographic portion of our city, and that's certainly true, but it's also our densest parts of our city where a lot of development happens. And so even though it's small geographic, it's large impact where design review occurs. And the question if we pause or eliminate design review, is our city going to be ugly? Right? Let me put it this way. I think if design review was in charge of what I wore to council, I'd probably be wearing the same normal gray or blue suit that I wear when I'm over there because it fits everybody's needs. It's not offensive, it's not flashy. But I'm sitting here in polka dots in a pink shirt. I've got nikes on underneath because that's what I chose to wear to talk about design review. The point being is that we can push the boundaries a little in a way that that meet our needs, but I'm not sure that we're doing it in a way that is meeting portland's creativity. I say this as the guy who represents slabtown and slabtown has been a great development of an area that for a long time was industrial land, kind of a lot of parking lots, and we've built a lot of buildings over there. But I'll tell you a couple of key elements that I'm not a fan of. They all basically have the same color brick. It's kind of grayish or beige. They are all about 4 or 5 stories. It's because the development community has figured out what can get past design review and what can get past design. Review. Saves time and saving time saves money. I think in today's world in Portland, we will never see a coin tower built again. We will never see the wells fargo tower built again. We will never see the rose garden built again. So long as the folks who are trying to build things are trying to figure out what gets past design review. And I think that's a worthwhile conversation to have, because when you look at the timelines, when design review was implemented and how it's been scored, I thought it was interesting that we have a person on the design review who is supposed to there, the art representative. And one of the key things about art, especially public art, is that there's always a strong opinion about any piece of public art that we do. Some people will like it and some people will hate it. I think one of the key elements I learned a long time ago is that that's kind of the point. Art is supposed to be judged, loved and and critiqued, but it doesn't make it good or bad. So we have inserted that and we've said we want a public art perspective in design review, but I think we've probably gone a little too far. But instead of asserting that that's the thing, I want to come change, what I'd like to do is back up, give more space for the competing and different parts of this conversation to make it rich and allow the city administration, the permitting bureaus, overall, the economic service area to come in and say, here are the things we think that can help this conversation be more fruitful, more productive for, for all portlanders, and where if there are reforms to present those reforms as options for us as councilors. So that's why we're presenting today for this resolution, and I'm happy to have a conversation.
77 Thank you so much, councilor Zimmerman. Appreciate getting to push this forward with you. And I didn't know we were coordinating on quirky outfits today, but big day for quirky outfits. So that's exciting.
78 One does not present with councilor Morillo in a gray suit.
79 So yeah, true, I would have given you a hard time about that. So it looks like we have two folks signed up for testimony. Do we have any more? No. Okay. Councilor Zimmerman, I don't know if you want to stay in the room. We'll have testimony and then we'll move into discussion for any questions. And I know we have director engstrom and director hausen here to answer any questions as well.
80 Great. Thank you. I want to just close with one of the questions I've gotten previously from from my constituents, as I've brought this up, is a deep desire to be involved because I've had to tell them, no, I'm not bringing reform items like bullet points, but rather we're starting the process. And from both sides, those who love and those who who hate. And I think that that's important to to underline here is that this resolution doesn't have any new sets of parameters for design review. It just starts a process so that we can make a decision at a later date. Thanks.
81 Thank you.
82 Okay. First up we have heidi hart joining online.
83 Hello, counselors. Thank you for your opportunity to testify. My name is heidi hart. I'm a resident of the buckman neighborhood and a board member of Portland neighbors. Welcome. I am also a registered volunteer lobbyist. I am testifying today to advocate specifically for parameters around reducing building size and unit counts by the landmarks commission. So this is something that has historically happened and that has basically reduced the number of homes for portlanders living here today. I have a couple of examples that I'd like to talk about. One of them is the grand belmont housing proposal. This is actually right down the road from me. It is on belmont and grant. The council approved height for this parcel was 200ft. So that is something that was determined in the comprehensive plan through large amounts of public feedback. And the proposed height for this building was originally 158ft. It was proposed to have 193 units. After historic resource review, it was reduced to 121 units. That would be 72 homes that are lost. This is not only significant for me, because that means that, you know, I have fewer neighbors, fewer people you know, are able to live in this place. But also that is a significant, very, very significant change that can severely impact financing for a project and can even kill a project, frankly. And that is something that is done without the sort of public input and council input that goes into the process for setting the zoning for these parcels. Another example is the omni tower proposal. The council approved height was 425ft. The proposed height was 170ft. The proposed housing was 135 homes, which included 10% affordable at 60% ami and after historic resource review, the project died. Certainly there were other reasons for the project dying, but also going into a process where the height of the height and overall size of the project is basically indeterminate. And at some, frankly, at the whims to some extent, of the people who sit on the historic resources commission or the historic landmarks commission is a serious source of uncertainty. And that's the sort of uncertainty we want to be reducing in the billing process. And the third one is the susan emmons housing proposal. Council approved 65ft, proposed at 65ft, and it was 165 homes, all affordable at 60% ami. And it was reduced to 149 homes. That would be 16 homes affordable at 60% ami. We can't afford to be reducing 100% affordable homes. Thank you for your time.
84 Thank you. I appreciate you being here. And we have experts in the room who I'm sure are taking that feedback seriously as they look into some of these changes.
85 Next up we have michael anderson online.
86 Thank you, councilor and cochairs. Michael anderson with sightline institute. We're a regional sustainability think tank. We think that people should be able to live closer to each other if they want to. And I'm here in support of the resolution. Personally, I endorse the great analogy from councilor Zimmerman and Morillo. I think design review, if you ask me personally, is sort of a flawed concept. Good design is not something enough people can agree on for it to be achievable via regulation. That said, reasonable people can disagree about the best way to attempt to regulate design. If we really want to. Discretionary review is a particularly problematic version, so I'll talk a little bit about that. The cost of discretionary review is not the risk of a includes the risk of appeal. It's not just the design process itself. Anytime it's a discretionary review, there's a reasonable chance for appeal. And then that leads to a lot of risk. That's then hidden inside the cost of everything else. That said, the design commission could be worse. Portland's design process could is not as bad as a lot of cities, and one reason it's not is that under the city ordinances, the council prevents the design commission from doing de facto down zones during its review. The sort of height reductions that heidi just talked about are not allowed under design under design commission review. There's no such restriction on the landmarks commission, which is why each of the cases that heidi described was able to happen. It was a de facto override of the council zoning through this discretionary process that never said, oh, you need to make it a shorter building, but it seems a little out of character for it to be so tall. Come back with a new plan. It's never explicit. It's always implicit. We could solve this problem by applying the exact same language that we currently apply to the design commission. To the landmarks commission. There is a bill about this at the legislature this year. I spoke to the one of the developers of the evans place project. There's an affordable housing developer. They said they will never again propose a project within a historic district, even if the zoning seems to allow it because of their experience in that case. And this is bad, not just because it kills the projects, but also because it further encourages people who are motivated by nimbyism to co-opt the historic district process, which is bad for historicism, right? Bad for protecting historic resources when people are using these methods for other reasons. So even if the city does nothing else as a result of this good idea, good conversation, I would hope that it should extend those design commission rules on discretionary down zoning to the work of the landmarks commission. Thanks.
87 Thanks for being here with us, michael. I think that was all really valuable and helpful. Colleagues, do we have any questions that we would like to ask? We have director Eric engstrom and director david kronhausen here in the room. But I don't see any hands.
88 In the q.
89 Oh, I see, counselor Ryan.
90 Yes, thank you, chair. I would love it if they came up and if we could get a brief update on what the current process is, I thought that would be part of the presentation.
91 Good morning.
92 Good. For the record, this is Eric engstrom and director of planning and sustainability david king, interim director of Portland permitting and development. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about design review.
93 I'm sorry. One second. Is your mic working?
94 Maybe not. Now it is. There we go. All right. I'll just repeat. This is Eric engstrom. I'm the director of the bureau of planning and sustainability. Appreciate the intent of the resolution. Just speaking from the community and economic development service perspective, we we fully embraced the mission of regulatory improvement and simplification. And and just we know there's more work to do in the zoning code and just development regulations overall and the processes. And looking at Dan Ryan, because I know that he has been involved with that mission for quite a while as well, too. It's something the bureau is it's one of our top priorities to continue that work and continuing to look at design review as well within the scope of that overall mission. So I'll just I just wanted to start out with with that, we listening to the discussion, I guess I would have a couple brief things to say, and then I'll ask if david has anything else but one thing that is important to understand in this whole history of design review is that the city did do a fairly comprehensive overhaul of design review in 2022. The process went on a couple of years before that as well. So whatever we're doing now, we should just look at that history and the context. Some of the anecdotes you hear about design review are things that happen prior to that pretty substantial overhaul. And as you know, we haven't had too much development in the last five years to sort of prove the new system. So I appreciate that. Also acknowledge the comments from public testimony today. This is something we've heard a number of times. And frankly, the that's I, I that's a policy decision that is well within your your realm of, of deciding whether you want to apply that, that standard to historic districts. It's a proposal that we have heard. As the testimony indicated, we did make changes a couple of years ago to further restrict the design commission's ability to reduce density. And frankly, we did not choose to to go down that path with historic districts simply because it's a smaller number of of projects that are affected. And it was part of an overall package. We were prioritizing reforms that had bigger impacts than that. So but personally, I have no objection to to considering that change. That's that's really a policy call that you all can make. There was testimony, obviously, from historic advocates about that proposal previously.
95 Thank you. I see councilor or do you have any more questions?
96 Yeah. No. He was david was about ready to speak.
97 No, I'm sorry if there's a question I'm happy to defer.
98 Like you hit on Eric. I knew that we passed this in 2022, so I was actually eager to hear an update on how the implementation has been going and then how this resolution could amplify that is supportive of that process that you were already in motion on. I appreciate that you said we haven't had a lot of developments since 2022. So the, the, the outcomes of that have has been difficult to find.
99 We have been monitoring the results and and some of the information that's requested in this resolution we have today and some of it will require more work. But we do know that one of the bigger changes that happened with the it was called dosa, the design overlay zone amendments. It it reduced the number of discretionary reviews and put more projects into that non-discretionary standards track. There's essentially three tracks with with this kind of review. There's some things are just exempt. Some things are just handled through permit in clear and objective standards, and then some things go through discretionary track. So we do have numbers over the last five years or so of what number of permits and units have gone through those different tracks. And we're happy to the resolution calls for us to come back. So we're happy to talk in detail about that.
100 I think what I recall, the Portland neighbors welcome lobby being happy with 2022 movement towards having less discretionary and and developers as well. So we had like people from all sides coming to applaud that. And so today I just wanted to hear I'm supportive of this resolution, but I think it's important to know what type of capacity we're already building towards this. So I think this is a friendly amendment to what happened in 2022 to continue the work forward. So I'm trying to just listen to those who are the experts that are implementing this work and hear from you how this would be additive to what you already are in motion with from the 2022 legislation, which was similar to this.
101 Yes, I want to echo eric's sentiment around the appreciation for councilor, Morillo and Zimmerman to work with us. I know design review is complicated. There's a lot of details involved. There's a lot of different tracks. As director engstrom mentioned, dosa was one improvement project that we went through housing regulatory relief project, sb 13 or I'm sorry, 1537. All of that speaks to our desire to continue to work on improvements to this process. As I mentioned, it is complicated and there are varying opinions on how to improve that. And happy to to move through the resolution. There's nothing in there that I have concerns about. I think it is appreciated by staff for council to to get knowledge or to get educated on all things design review. So just want to thank you all on behalf of ppd staff who oversee this process.
102 And Eric spoke to this briefly, but I thought the testimony from michael was was always helpful. And the crosswalk between the design review and the historic landmarks, what is there? What's that relationship like? Explain that to all of us. Do those two commissions ever? Do they meet? Do they? Do they overlap?
103 I don't believe there is any. I would I would ask staff if there is to correct me if I'm incorrect here, but I don't believe believe there is overlap in terms of meeting staff internally are working with those both those commissions to ensure that there's not any sort of conflict between what's being proposed. But I don't believe and again, staff can correct me, that they those two commissions meet formally in, you know, together. Okay.
104 I thought it was daylighted for good reason. So I just wanted to make mention of that.
105 I'll just add that we also did a fairly substantial overhaul of the historic design review process subsequent to dosa, and that was also adopted in the last couple of years. So there have been changes, but not the change mentioned in testimony.
106 And my final question is, have any builders or architects been in touch with either of your offices or the two of you, since this was put into the agenda?
107 No.
108 I see councilor Zimmerman aggressively nodding.
109 I just remember 22 vividly how many of them showed up when we were doing the 22 work. And so I want to make sure that we're eyes wide open on this journey. Yeah.
110 To to a person from the development community that I've told about this resolution coming forward. They responded with excitement and they acknowledged that some changes had already happened. There is, I think, and I'll also say, and I've had I've had at neighborhood meetings when I've started introducing this concept, I've had members of the community who expressed concern about getting rid of design review, and those are the types of conversations that led me toward an idea that it was better if we have a a working group on this, rather than a set of, you know, zimmerman's values on a piece of paper that I try to convince everybody to pass. Right. And so I think that those constituents of mine, those developers who who are building in my district, those conversations showed me how many darn stakeholders there are on this topic and to that point about public art. I take that very seriously, and I think that there is excitement about being able to engage in this. And I think if it passes, I think what will work with the staff to get an idea for how do we want to set this up in terms of going further, now that we've taken steps like an sdc waiver for three years, what are the other things that we can do to signal the on switch and the. Let me take another look at Portland decision making.
111 I will be supporting this. I just want to make sure that I uncovered the fact that we're building on something that happened in 2022 and that we keep that momentum going. And I appreciate this dialog. And my last one curious 120 days. What was is that a magical number? Should we all start using 120 when we send resolutions?
112 It was intended to be enough time to get a coherent, logical conversation completed. But not but, but also not giving up the window in which we're in this. Also the sdc waiver time frame, so that we can look at a set of recommendations early in 2026 instead of dragging it out further.
113 I like that, and you all seem fine. There's no indigestion with the staff leads. All right.
114 I've got an alka seltzer.
115 Thank you. I'll be supportive.
116 Thank you. Councilor Ryan councilor Novick.
117 I'm just going to channel councilor Dunphy. Actually, my staff reached out to his staff knowing that he was working on something related, and he had some observations in one question that I thought were worth airing at this point as much as any other point, his observations were one. In general, it would be helpful to get geography into the conversation. Early design review touches the layout of windows when building a giant tower downtown. It also touches installing fencing in front of a business in Lents town center. These are really different conversations and problems. Two maybe should not have a design overlay at all, but downtown should have a carve out for commercial residential conversions or a change to the timeline. We'd appreciate early socializing. The different areas might need different reforms. And the question he asked, which I think part of the purpose of the resolution is to get the question answered. But I'm curious if. David and Eric have some initial answer to it was, how does state law impact our ability to amend or suspend sections of title 33 by ordinance?
118 Well, we certainly do have state law that we need to take into account. And I think that's part of the resolution is to make sure that we are proposing changes that we have the authority to make. I can't speak specifically to those state laws right now, but absolutely, part of the conversation and something that we've dealt with internally, as we've looked at other process changes and things that we were looking to implement or changes we were looking to implement and what we actually have the ability to do.
119 Just one more thing. Councilor Zimmerman, I would never underestimate the value of having an overarching enemy, but I would agree that in the context of public policy, anybody should be informed by facts. So thank you.
120 Thank you. Councilor Novick councilor Kanal.
121 Thank you, madam chair. I just wanted to cosign. I guess the point that that councilor Dunphy made through councilor Novick about geography and say explicitly that if this should pass, I would love to see explicitly explored the possibility of exempting residential conversions office residential conversions from this process entirely. Should this pass, and I'll leave it there. Thanks.
122 Thank you. I see councilor Ryan has his hand up again.
123 Thank you. Two things. Well, would updating height limits be considered in this process?
124 I hope so, but I think there's a lot more legal and zoning laws that matter. But as the downtown guy, I have that desire. And I know it's different in every district where I think the geography question is important.
125 In this is Eric engstrom bts again, we do have a separate project that's currently underway that involves a bundle of amendments to the central city plan. We're on the verge of publishing our first sort of tire kicking draft discussion draft, I believe, next month. And so that draft does include some height limit changes in the central city, so that that's one vehicle for for the council to discuss that. I think we're we're in the discussion phase in December. That draft should get to council in by mid 2026 I think.
126 So it sounds like those dots. Thank you for your coat today councilor Zimmerman. Those would connect okay. Yes. That yeah. I think that's it. I had something else but I can't remember now okay. This is exciting clearly. And I'm glad that you guys I'm glad that you brought this forward. Yeah. I know, I know what it is. You brought up conversions right from. Okay. I think we talk a lot about conversions from a business executive style towers to housing. Very expensive. It sounds so good. It's too good to be true. And I think some could work, but I don't think we're talking about another conversion, which would be to make it like more makerspace type environments. Portland is a leader in makerspace industry. We we manufacture more knives than any other city in the country, and we're so in desperate need of creating living wage jobs in our city and also getting activity downtown. So I hope we go beyond just housing conversions, but we look at makerspace type activities in those buildings as well, which I think could probably pencil out a little bit better. So I've just been wanting to say that. Thanks.
127 Commissioner councilor. I'll, I'll just say I agree with you and the central city code amendments that we're going to be bringing forward do include some provisions to make that easier.
128 Good. Those are the kind of communities that could create more of a walkability. And we have jobs nearby. Thanks.
129 Thank you so much. I don't see anyone else in the queue, so I think we're done with questions. Thank you for your presentation. Councilor Zimmerman, thank you for being here to be the experts from the bureaus on this. And I think because I'm co-sponsor of the resolution, I'm going to have councilor or chair Novick actually move it.
130 Any further discussion. I would like to entertain a motion to move the resolution document number 2025 446 to the full council with the recommendation to be adopted.
131 Thank you. Councilor Novick moves the resolution to.
132 Councilor I. I think that my job as chair was to entertain a motion. So we should now have somebody make the motion and second it and then.
133 Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Is that right? That's confusing. I've never had to chair and move my own.
134 Yeah.
135 Move it.
136 Who wants to move it? I move it second. Can I move my. Great. I move my own resolution to the full council with a recommendation that it be adopted. And councilor Canal has seconded it. Is there any further discussion? No. Will the clerk please call the roll?
137 No.
138 Thank you both for the work on this. I vote aye Ryan.
139 I Novick.
140 Really appreciate this.
141 I Morillo. I motion to refer the resolution to city council with the recommendation it be adopted as approved.
142 Awesome. Thank you so much. Really appreciate doing that work with you councilor Zimmerman. And excited to bring that to full council. Our next meeting is going to be on Thursday, December 15th. And at that meeting we'll have a presentation on large strategic projects like amc, lloyd and others in development. We'll also hear an ordinance on a property annexation that will include an overview of the annexation process. And with that, I will give everyone some time back this morning and adjourn the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee. Thank you.
143 All right.