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1992-05065-Minutes for Meeting January 22,1992 Recorded 2/20/1992a I 92-0 f)(;5 MINUTE LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT 0� 08 1489 B,f� WAI* DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS�� January 22, 1992 ; Chairman Maudlin called the meeting to order. Board members in attendance were Dick Maudlin, Tom Throop, and Nancy Pope Schlangen. Also present were: Bruce White, Assistant County Counsel and George Read, Planning Director. Chairman Maudlin said one of the issues which received the most testimony was light pollution, but he wasn't sure how the County would enforce restrictions on lighting. George Read said this meeting was part of the process to complete the periodic review addressing the landscape management corridors. Commissioner Throop felt that the language before the Board had been "balanced out" at the Planning Commission level and a lot of compromises had been made since the process started. He was surprised at the reduced attendance at the Board's public hearing compared to the turnout at the Planning Commission public hearing, so he called a number of people who had participated at earlier stages but did not choose to participate at the County Commission level. He said the people who had been in opposition to changes, said they had been concerned about earlier drafts, but that their concerns had been addressed in the Planning Commission recommendation to the Board. There wasn't public access in the proposal, and it was a pretty good product, and probably included the standards needed to protect the river. The people who had been in support said they had not come, because they felt the right balance had been struck and they were satisfied with the product. He said with a couple of exceptions, he could support the package before the Board today. He felt there might be instances where someone had a small lot, but because of set back requirements etc., they might have to apply for a variance to build which might trigger a conservation easement with public access. So he wanted it made clear, that unless the property owner was subdividing, partitioning, or developing in some fashion, that public access would not be required. His second concern was that the County would be determining what color structures should be. He felt the County should not be in the position of controlling the color of homes and barns. Commissioner Schlangen agreed that house color should not be dictated by the County and was concerned that the exceptions process would be so unwieldy that it couldn't be used by anyone. Chairman Maudlin said he was in favor of leaving the set back from rimrocks at 20 feet, because he felt the current process had worked. He was not opposed to widening the landscape management PAGE 1 MINUTES: 1-22-92 ;YtIC P��TILM�. EYP H �I FE -P ' 0108 1490 zone. He couldn't find anything in the record to support that a 50 -foot set back would have less of an impact than the 20 -foot set back. George Read said the cumulative impacts analysis had been deferred to the Planning Commission. In 1986, the County adopted an ordinance which said that the Planning Commission was the citizen involvement committee and one of their duties was to analyze how the planning program was working and make reports to the Board of Commissioners. The Department of Land Conservation and Development had told the County that the County's implementing measures were neither consistent with nor adequate to implement the decisions made under the ESEE analysis in the Rivers Study. The River Study recommended that the rimrock setback be 100 feet, then without any explanation this recommendation had been reduced to 20 -feet in the County Comprehensive Plan. Chairman Maudlin said he felt that if the 20 -foot set back was enforced properly, it would be adequate. In 1986, he understood that the 20 -foot set back was from the "highest rimrock." George Read said there was a 100 -foot set back when the Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 1979. That was in effect until it was changed to what was being proposed today through an application from Eagle Crest in 1982. Chairman Maudlin said he did not understand what the problem was with the 20 -foot set back. George Read said the question was whether the County was minimizing the view of dwellings from the river with a 20 -foot set back. The Planning Commission's answer was "not really" because of the slope above the rim. The present standard of where the rimrock ended was a 45 degree face, and it's the top of the upper -most rock ledge. Commissioner Throop felt that 20 feet was not an adequate set back from the rimrock. Commissioner Schlangen said she had mixed emotions about it, and that it really depended on the shape of the lot and how wide the canyon was at that site. If they agreed to 50 feet, she wanted to make sure there were enough exceptions so that people with a hardship could get an exception. George Read explained the exceptions criteria to the Board, one of which was that an exception would be granted if adherence to the 50 -foot setback would prevent a structure from being sited on the lot. He felt a standard needed to be set for the size of a structure in such an instance. New lots created after this ordinance was adopted would have to meet the 50 -foot standard, however the existing lots could get an exception to the 50 -foot setback if it met certain standards. He said there was very little difference between an automatic exception for pre-existing lots, and the proposed exception criteria except in those cases where the property sloped above the rimrock. PAGE 2 MINUTES: 1-22-92 0108 1491 Chairman Maudlin proposed that existing lots be allowed the 20 -foot set back standards, if they met the siting requirements. George Read said the Planning Commission had wanted to conduct an extensive study of the rimrock setbacks and view management area - by -area, and then develop a much more comprehensive package than was currently before the Board. However, the time necessary to accomplish this was not available, so the staff came back to the Planning Commission and suggested a 50 -foot set back. The Planning Commission then went forward trying to solve the problems they and staff had identified as completely as possible in the time allowed. He said the staff already had to go out and visit all of the rimrock sites to set a stake, and therefore had a lot of experience in what had and had not worked. The Planning Commission had also gone out and looked at sites on their own, which was how they came up with the determination that a 50 -foot set back would work. Commissioner Throop said he would support the Planning Commission recommendation; however he could support the middle ground of 50 feet for new lots but an automatic 20 -foot setback for existing lots and the exceptions criteria would apply. George Read asked about the height of the structure and set back from the rim? Commissioner Throop said that would be part of the exceptions criteria. They decided to set this issue aside and go through the ordinance page by page. On page 4, Commissioner Throop said 18.84.080(3) should be deleted. The Board decided that rather than delete the language, it would change the language to "recommend" that muted earth tones be used. George Read said he would need some findings and basis for this decision since the landscape management/open space section of the Comprehensive Plan and the Rivers Study referred to these types of things which could be used to minimize impact. Commission Throop suggested that the Board find that the other siting criteria provided adequate protection from the view shed, and that a mandatory regulation of muted earth tones was not necessary to achieve the objectives under state law, the Rivers Study, and the Comprehensive Plan. Bruce White proposed to take out (1) of the section which referred back to the site plan review criteria which he felt went beyond the purpose of the landscape management zone. The purpose of the landscape management zone was to protect the view from the river and the road, not to protect the neighbors view of the property across the fence. George Read agreed and said that the references to the LM zone need to be removed from the site plan review standards. Bruce White wanted a clarification that an "agricultural structure" was anything which was considered an agricultural structure in the building code. The Board agreed with this definition. George Read said DLCD recommended that the County include a standard which said that Deschutes County would not accept a land PAGE 3 MINUTES: 1-22-92 0108 1492 use application for a use within the boundaries of the scenic waterway until the State Parks and Recreation Department's notification and review process was completed. He said that was contrary to the current coordination process where concurrent review was done. DLCD also was concerned there wasn't anything to insure that once there was screening that someone wouldn't take the screening out. Bruce White suggested deleting the second sentence on the exterior lighting since it referred to protecting a general area and not just the river. George Read said it could be made clear that if a dwelling were allowed, and they were going through a site plan review because of the LM zone, there would not be public access in the conservation easement. Commissioner Throop wanted to make sure that any Landscape Management review would not trigger a conservation easement with public access. George Read said the Rivers Study and the Comprehensive Plan said that public access was a major issue and that the County would put it in conservation easements. Therefore, if the Board wanted to change that, the County would have to go back through a process to amend the Rivers Study findings and the Comprehensive Plan and explain why. Commissioner Throop said it was clearly not the intention of the Board to change the language for properties subject to development. He suggested that the Board just want to close any loophole where LM zone review could trigger another process which would require a conservation with public access. George Read said it was unlikely that a variance would be used to resolve these problems, because the variance criteria generally couldn't be met. He continued that currently the planning staff was not imposing public access where there wasn't a reasonably nexus. He felt the current language already explicitly said that the LM zone could not trigger public access. Commissioner Throop said he felt that if the people in this community were asked, an overwhelming majority of citizens would say that public access was appropriate for major developments along rivers and tributaries. However the issue being discussed was whether the LM zone would "trigger public access, in and of itself." The Board agreed that the answer to that question had to be "no." George Read guaranteed that the LM zone could not trigger public access. The Board asked that Mr. Read double check the language before the final came to the Board for signature. Mr. Read said the existing rimrock set backs in the County but outside of the LM zone was 20 feet regardless of how far the parcel was from the river. The Board decided to continue the current language. Mr. Read said there were a couple of issues at the hearing which he felt needed to be addressed. (1) cumulative impact analysis: PAGE 4 MINUTES: 1-22-92 01®8 1493 staff needed to prepare some plan language and some findings to explain how this analysis was done by the Planning Commission. Since the Rivers Study had been done only a few years ago, they didn't feel they needed to spend a lot of time on this analysis. (2) ESEE analysis: the state did not require an ESEE analysis, but said the County's existing analysis met the standards under Goal 5. Mr. Read.proposed that the 3(c) decision being made to allow both conflicting uses be specifically addressed in ESEE analysis. THROOP: I'll make a motion that the set back provisions as recommended by the Planning Commission be sustained by the Board. SCHLANGEN: Second VOTE: THROOP: YES SCHLANGEN: NO MAUDLIN: NO SCHLANGEN: All lots created after adoption of this ordinance will have a 50 -foot set back; all before this ordinance -- 20 -foot set back if they meet the siting standards. Commissioner Throop asked for a clarification. Did she mean the basic siting standards or the exceptions siting standards? Mr. Read said what had been discussed were the exception siting standards for rimrock setbacks. Commissioner Throop asked if the LM standards would apply to the siting of homes if the set back standard was met? Mr. Read said yes. Commissioner Throop asked Commissioner Schlangen if her motion was "that if you don't meet the 50 feet set back, the standard LM provisions apply, but the exception standards also apply if you're inside the 50 feet." George Read said the LM standards "would apply no matter what." Bruce White asked whether the 20 feet would include decks; he said the current standard was not to include decks. Commissioner Throop said that certainly decks and other structures would not be allowed in the 20 feet. Commissioner Schlangen agreed. Mr. Read said he had suggested that they use the exception siting standards. If they adopted a 20 -foot standard, he didn't feel findings could be adopted which would say the County was implementing the Rivers Study and Goal 5 standards which were in the Comprehensive Plan. He said the Board could reject the Planning Commission recommendation based upon evidence in the record, but there needed to be some basis to support that decision. Commissioner Schlangen said what she was trying to do was guarantee that existing lots would be able to meet the exceptions criteria. PAGE 5 MINUTES: 1-22-92 0108 1494 Bruce White said that as the language was currently drafted, existing lots would qualify for an exception. There was nothing to guarantee that the house could be located as close as 20 feet, because it was still subject to a design review which required minimization of visual impacts. Chairman Maudlin asked if people in a subdivision already had houses built at the 20 -foot set back, would a neighboring lot owner also be able to build at the 20 -foot set back also. Mr. Read said that was listed in the exception criteria in the proposed language. Mr. Read asked if Commissioner Schlangen wanted the house to be set back equal to the height? Commissioner Schlangen said yes. Mr. Read asked if she wanted specific siting standards where the application would go through site plan review to try to minimize the impacts? Commissioner Schlangen said yes. Mr. Read asked if she wanted visible decks to be included in the 20 -foot set back? Commissioner Schlangen said yes. She didn't want a built-in guarantee of a 20 -foot set back. George Read said that was essentially what was in the proposed language which staff could clean up to make a blanket exception on existing lots using the exceptions criteria. Commissioner Throop said he understood the motion to be a blanket exception for preexisting lots, each lot would address the criteria which allowed the house to be sited as close to 20 feet. THROOP: I'll second it. VOTE: THROOP: YES SCHLANGEN: YES MAUDLIN: YES George Read said staff would be bringing a package back to the Board for approval which included what had been discussed at this meeting. The Board said this package did not need to be brought back to them until April 1, 1992, at 10 a.m. THROOP: I'll move the adoption of the Planning Commission recommendation on the landscape management combining LM zone with the amendments that were generated by the Board discussion today. SCHLANGEN: Second. VOTE: THROOP: YES SCHLANGEN: YES MAUDLIN: YES PAGE 6 MINUTES: 1-22-92 DATED this � day of Commissioners of Deschutes C AT T: , 7 Recording Secretary PAGE 7 MINUTES: 1-22-92 0108 1495 1992, by the Board of , Ore n. Tom&ThrooDJ COMMiss Naficy Pole, Schl angers, Commisdioner Dick Maudlin, Chairman