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2003-851-Minutes for Meeting April 23,2003 Recorded 5/8/2003COUNTY OFFICIAL TES NANCYUBLANKENSHIP, COUNTY CLERKDS COMMISSIONERS' JOURNAL 05/08/2003 08:33:35 AM IIIIIIIII VIII IIIIIII VIII IIII III 2003-0008 1 DESCHUTES COUNTY CLERK CERTIFICATE PAGE This page must be included if document is re-recorded. Do Not remove from original document. Deschutes County Board of Commissioners 1130 NW Harriman St., Bend, OR 97701-1947 (541) 388-6570 - Fax (541) 388-4752 - www.deschutes.org MINUTES OF PUBLIC HEARING DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2003 Commissioners' Hearing Room - Administration Building 1130 NW Harriman St., Bend This meeting was held for the Board of Commissioners to make its decision on proposed changes to Title 18 of the Deschutes County Code and Zoning Ordinance that would, if approved, adopt changes to the County's land use regulations for home occupations (File #TA -02-12). The proposed changes include creating three types of home occupations and standards for each type. These regulations, if adopted, would affect property located outside of the urban growth boundaries of Bend, Redmond and Sisters. Present were Commissioners Dennis R. Luke, Tom De Wolf and Michael M. Daly. Also present were Catherine Tilton and Damian Syrnyk, Community Development; Laurie Craghead, Legal Counsel, and approximately twenty citizens. No representatives of the media were in attendance. Chair Dennis Luke opened the meeting at 5: 30 p.m. Damian Syrnyk explained that relevant documents are on the table and are available to attendees, along with sign-up sheets for anyone wishing to testify or receive future information. He said an e-mail message from Misha Williams was received and forwarded to the Board, and which is now a part of the record. Also available are copies of record and testimony received at the Planning Commission's previous two hearings. Mr. Syrnyk then gave an overview of the issue, referring to a PowerPoint presentation. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 1 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: What is before you is a proposed Ordinance, No. 2003-003, which is called a legislative proposal. We're not looking at applying the law to any kind of a specific property or situation, but are looking at a proposed change to what are the land use laws in Deschutes County regarding home occupations. LUKE: This isn't a state legislative matter. It's a technical term meaning it is a legislative action by the Board of County Commissioners. Before you are changes to County zoning regulations on home occupations. These are changes that, if they are ultimately adopted in some shape, would apply to areas outside the cities of Bend, Redmond and Sisters -- outside their urban growth boundaries -- and would apply to areas that are currently zoned for either farm or forest use, rural residential or in unincorporated communities such as La Pine and Tumalo. One of the things I wanted to talk about at the beginning is what we mean by home occupation. This is a term that is in the zoning code. What it refers to is an occupation or profession that's carried on within a dwelling or a residential accessory structure. And one of the things I wanted to do at the beginning is talk about what this does not include. These proposed changes would not affect bed and breakfast inns, residential homes such as adult foster care, family childcare providers, farm use or commercial activities in conjunction with farm use, churches, or private schools. LUKE: The reason for excluding foster care is that it is covered under state law. SYRNYK: That's correct. Some of the uses that I have listed, such as adult foster care and family childcare, are regulated by the State of Oregon or through another agency. They are simply in our code as a use that we permit outright in a single-family dwelling. Some uses, like bed and breakfast inns and churches, already have regulations in place for how those are sited. So this is really going to be limited to things where you are looking at a zone in the County, such as a rural residential zone, and where you see a home occupation listed as a use that's permitted as a conditional use, that's where these changes will really take place. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 2 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations I'll move into some background about how this process started, and what went on before the Planning Commission. We started this back in October 2002 after setting an initial hearing date before the Planning Commission for November 14. We prepared a notice that went out with the tax bills. It was a two-page notice that also included a background report. We tried to send it with the tax bills to really accomplish two things. One is to alert as many residents as we could; but also there was a possibility of looking at changes that might limit a use in the zoning code. Under state law passed in 1998 under what was called Ballot Measure 56, whenever a local government like a county is looking at making changes to a land use law that might involve limiting it, we have to provide certain notice. One of the things I should state for the record is that we did hear from a number of folks at the hearing before the Planning Commission that they had not received this notice in their tax bill. What we tried to do notify as many people as we can is to create a list of folks on a mailing list. We've also used our website, and with Anna Johnson, the County's communications coordinator, we've released a couple of press releases and notifications so we could inform people of this through other media as well. . The Planning Commission itself held two public hearings on this proposal. The first one was in November of last year, and it was continued to January of this year. The primary reason for that is that the Planning Commission had some other matters on their agenda that were going to take up quite a bit of time, including a proposal for the Oregon Water Wonderland sewer system. They wanted to give people time to testify, and there were a number of people who testified at both hearings. After their last hearing, the Planning Commission conducted what are called work sessions; they had three of them where they actually deliberated over the testimony they heard, looked at our existing regulations, and tried to craft a proposal to address a lot of the issues that they heard in testimony. And that's what I will be presenting to you here in a little bit. IIOJ.4 Are you going to cover how many people testified before the Planning Commission? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 3 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: I believe it is covered in the staff report. I think we had at least ten at the first hearing, and eight at the second. I don't want to be dishonest and say there were a total of eighteen, because I know we had some repeat folks at both hearings. What I want to spend a little time on is talking about the current rules that are now in place for home occupations. In the staff report I mentioned that a certain category of home occupations is allowed in our code in a manner that is called permitted outright, where you don't need to have any kind of permit from the County, provided that you are operating within certain parameters. That's on the brown handout sheet that's located in the back of the room. These kinds of home occupations are limited to someone working out of their home and to the family residing in the dwelling; and the current code limits the amount of floor area in their home that they can use for this business to 25%. It's also limited in such a way that no customers or employees can come to the site, and they really can't engage in any kind of operations that might generate noise, odors, flashing lights, and other things that might impact their neighbors. It is really intended for somebody who might just be, for example, just using a bedroom as an office. IR, 'J4 May I ask a question? It says family residing in a dwelling. So, under current regulations you couldn't have a rental that you rent out 75% of the time, and use 25% for a home occupation. SYRNYK: Right. This is really intended for somebody who gets up in the morning, has breakfast, and then goes to a room in their house to run their business. I do want to mention also that right now under the current code, this category called permitted outright is only allowed in the unincorporated communities that we have in Deschutes County, such as Tumalo, Terrebonne, La Pine and Alfalfa. This is something that is not allowed in a rural residential zone or EFU or forest zones. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 4 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Home occupations are allowed in many of the zones I just mentioned as a conditional use, where someone actually has to fill out an application, write a description of what they are doing, address some criteria, and there is a process they go through to obtain approval. This is also limited, at this time, to folks who reside in the dwelling that they will be working from. They could also use an accessory structure. We do allow customers with this type of a home occupation, but there are no limits or numbers; at this time we look at these on a case-by-case basis. One of the big things that we look at with this type of an application is whether something is going to be compatible with the neighbors. We take into consideration whether there might be, for instance in an agricultural or a rural residential neighborhood, the operating characteristics of the business, the kind of traffic they generate, and whether they might be working inside the home or doing things outside. Related to that, we also look at traffic and access for these kinds of applications in terms of parking, customer vehicles, and how they get to the property. Finally, one of the criteria for this kind of a permit is that they have to demonstrate that they are going to be complying with any other county, state or federal laws. So if they need to get some kind of building permit, that would be required; as well as documenting that they will be able to obtain, for instance, some kind of state license. LUKE: What kind of notice do you do on a conditional use? SYRNYK: There are two ways we handle these kinds of applications at this time. If we handle them administratively, we would notify property owners within a certain distance of the property and give them an opportunity of ten to fourteen days to comment in writing. If there are no adverse comments and the application is complete, and it meets all of the criteria, we can approve administratively. That process might take about six to eight weeks. There is also a twelve -day appeal period after that when we would notify the neighbors again that we acted on that kind of a permit. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 5 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations In some cases where there are a lot of people who would like to be heard from on this kind of proposal, it might be referred to a public hearing before the Hearings Officer. And that process might take twelve to fourteen weeks, depending on the level of input and whether extra time is provided for providing written testimony. Even after that is acted upon by the Hearings Officer, there is also the same twelve -day appeal period where we would notify everybody who had participated before the Hearings Officer on what was approved. So I'm going to start going into the proposed changes. While I am doing this, I will refer interchangeably to the recommendations of the Planning Commission. I'll provide an overview before giving specifics. One of the things that you'll see is a proposal to add a third category, giving a total of three types of home occupations under the code. The proposal would relocate our existing regulations from a chapter of the code dealing with conditional uses into a new section. One of the purposes for that is if some version of the ordinance is ultimately adopted, no matter what zone you are looking at that allowed a home occupation, it would all refer to the same set of rules; so you wouldn't be looking at different locations to see if you are complying with all the regulations for home occupations. In addition, you are also going to be looking at a proposal that would change some of the existing regulations and add some new standards. I'll be talking about those when I start talking about the three types of home occupations. Finally, and one of the reasons that the ordinance itself is kind of thick, is that what is proposed is changing the references in different zones, like EFU, rural residential, and forest, to refer back to this new section. That's so we won't have different references going to different parts of our code. I'm going to start off with this first category that I mentioned, which is type 1. This is the category that's modeled after our current version of home occupations that are permitted outright. One of the things that is going to be the same in your proposal is that this type of a home occupation would be carried on in a dwelling, by members of the family residing on site. LUKE: Catherine (Morrow) mentioned before that those that are permitted outright are only allowed in the unincorporated communities. Is your proposal, then, to allow type 1 in all areas? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 6 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: The proposal before you would add a type 1 home occupation to our MUA-10 and to our RR -10 zones. LUKE: So the short answer is yes? SYRNYK: Yes. But there's a qualification to that. Under state law, home occupations in EFU and forest zones have to be treated like conditional uses. So everywhere that a home occupation is permitted outright currently, it would still be treated as a type 1. LUKE: Except for EFU and forest, this use in the rural residential communities under this new ordinance would be permitted outright. SYRNYK: That's right. One of the changes that you will see proposed for this kind of a home occupation category is the allowance to have some customer traffic come into their site, limited to about five trips per day. For example, a very simply transaction where a client might need to sign a document. One of the things that is retained as part of this category of home occupation is that the operations don't create any kind of odors, glare, or anything that might impact adjacent neighbors. We are also retaining an existing standard that the floor area devoted to the home occupation is still limited to 25% of the total. One of the things that the Planning Commission wanted to add for your consideration is, this calculation not including an attached garage. So if somebody was considering whether they had a business that would meet the criteria for a type 1 home occupation, and they were looking at the floor area of their home, they would subtract the floor are of the attached garage. LUKE: But you could still use the garage for storage or things like that. SYRNYK: Right. Under this type of a home occupation there would be no display of any kind of products or sale of products; no signage to advertise it; and finally there would be no kind of inspection. So there would be no real permitting or inspection required. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 7 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF (hard to hear; microphone muted): Could you give me an example of this? I could give you a good example for a type 1. This could be limited to folks who might be a sole proprietor, for example an accountant. They work out of their home, and might have an occasional client stop by to drop off their materials for taxes. But you wouldn't necessarily know they are there because they might be working out of a bedroom. DEWOLF (hard to hear; microphone muted): If you are limiting it to five trips a day, that won't work around tax preparation time. LUKE: Type 1 could be someone who works on line, maybe a commodities broker, or somebody who does a lot of business on the phone. The customers could be in other places. DEWOLF (hard to hear): And we wouldn't necessarily even know about these. It's kind of irrelevant. SYRNYK: This might be a good way to kind of segueway into giving you an example of type 2. There's a proposal to allow someone to have employees, up to two; for example, the accountant might have a secretary and some help if they wanted to go this route. They would be allowed a little bit more floor area of their home, but the same percentage of 25%, but it would be the combined floor area of their house, including the garage and one accessory building, with a cap of 1,500 square feet. They would be allowed more traffic; up to ten trips per day. One of the proposals for a type 2 is that they would be limited to certain business hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. As a potential condition of an approval for this kind of a permit, they may have to get an annual inspection, depending on the nature of what they are proposing. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 8 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Under type 2, where you can have two employees, those are employees on the site? Let's say it's a building contractor and he has a construction truck there, and the employee just comes and picks it up, and goes to a jobsite. So it's up to two employees actually working at the site? SYRNYK: The ordinance says that this would be two employees who report to the site for work. So it is intended to cover employees who actually work at the site. You just raised a good question about whether that could also be interpreted to cover employees that might come to somebody's home but then leave to go make deliveries, for example. One of the differences between a type 2 and a type 3 is that you are still allowed employees under a type 3; you can have up to two; but that number can go up to five if your property is zoned for farm or forest use and is at least twenty acres in size. Five is the magic number in this case because this is a maximum under state law that you can have in a farm or a forest zone. LUKE: That's state law for anything other than farm use or forest use. You can only have five employees farming your farm? LAURIE CRAGHEAD: For your home occupation building. A farm is not covered under home occupations. It's under ORS 215.448, for the record. And it says that it shall employee on site no more five full-time or part-time persons, whether that be family members or other people. For a farm, forest, or mixed farm and forest that allows residential use. SYRNYK: With a type 3, you are also allowed more floor area, up to 35%. You are also allowed up to twenty trips per day. One thing I should clarify when I'm talking about trips per day is that includes customers and employees. There are no limitations right now on hours; it would be variable and based on someone's proposal, and ultimately would be approved if they could meet all other criteria. For the purposes of home occupations, we're talking about someone who travels to your site, not necessary a trip leaving the site. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 9 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations One of the things that we have in our code right now is that current applications for home occupations must have an annual inspection. This is something that the Planning Commission proposed to retain for type 3. One of the major differences between types 2 and 3 is that type 3 could have outdoor storage of equipment or materials. There are a couple of qualifications; it must be twenty or more acres, and you would have to have your area screen. There is a proposal for the form of screening as part of the Planning Commission's recommendation; it could be a fence, existing tree cover, or landscaping. DALY: Why twenty acres? SYRNYK: The Planning Commission wanted to have essentially some separation between somebody trying to do their business and a residence. DALY: If you have screening, what difference would it make? SYRNYK: A lot of it would depend on where the structures are located on the property; for example, if they are using an existing building, and what kind of materials it might be screening. With a twenty -acre minimum, for example, you are usually guaranteed plenty of space between somebody who might be storing equipment or materials and their nearest neighbor. LUKE: You could also screen it by having it inside of a building. SYRNYK: That's true. DALY: If it is in a building, you wouldn't need twenty acres, would you? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 10 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: Under the proposed ordinance you would have to have twenty acres. One thing you can consider when looking at it is whether you might allow storage inside a building or maybe a combination with screening, as opposed to something like a setback. CATHERINE MORROW: To answer your question, if the equipment is in a building, it's not outside storage. And it could occur no matter what size your property is. And it could even be in type 2. So you can have all the equipment you want if you keep it inside. But if you want to store it outside, then those requirements would apply. DALY: They are asking for twenty acres. MORROW: That's what the Planning Commission's recommendation is. DEWOLF: As part of the twenty acres, are they saying where on that twenty acres this would need to be sited? Because if it is right up against the property line, it's not really achieving any purpose. SYRNYK: Right. Right now as proposed there is no setback or locational standards for outdoor storage; just the screening. CRAGHEAD: There's also one further restriction on that in the farm and forest use zones. It cannot be a structure that isn't already normally associated with the uses permitted in the zone. So you couldn't build a garage just for your trucks in a farm zone, unless that was a building that is normally allowed for your agricultural uses. DEWOLF: I agree with Mike (Daly); I don't understand the point of the twenty acres unless we are going to actually have setbacks. It could be right up against the road or the neighbor's property line. Because I can see issues related to noise and dust and those types of things. I can understand a concept of twenty acres but not if we aren't doing setbacks. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 11 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Well, this is a conditional use. And part of a conditional use would be a plan submitted by the applicant on where and how they are going to store things, and then the neighbors would have an opportunity to comment on that. I think that's probably where the screening comes from and how that screening will happen. A person can say, I don't want that equipment right up against the property line because that's where my bedroom is. That's the kind of comments you get the conditional use permit. DEWOLF: But you wouldn't suggest any sort of standards? LUKE: Well, no. I think that through the application process and through staff and perhaps the Hearings Officer those kinds of things work themselves out. If you start to put some standards in, you're not going to hit everybody. The first thing that's going to happen is that somebody is going to want a conditional use on a conditional use, because this doesn't meet the standards. DALY: What you are saying is this could be done on two acres. LUKE: We can talk about that. SYRNYK: That's why we are having the hearing, to have these kinds of discussions. What I'm going to move into right now is to talk about some of the similarities of type 2 and type 3 where we are using some of our existing regulations and have some new proposals. One of the standards that is in our code right now is that we are going to be considering whether someone's business might be compatible with the character of their neighborhood or their area. We look at things like their operating characteristics, and also what kind of buildings they are operating out of. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 12 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations One of the things that's new is allowing on-site sales. For instance, if someone is looking at cutting and styling hair, under our conditional use permit they could have in their stock things like hair care products, shampoo, combs, and that kind of thing. We're going to be looking at access and parking to make sure it will be adequate for customers and employees. One of the things that is in our code right now is our code prohibits any kind of external changes to a house or an accessory building that would give the appearance of a business. DEWOLF: That doesn't make sense to me. If you are talking about having adequate parking for however many cars, if all twenty trips happen at the same time of day, you'll have a parking lot of twenty vehicles. How does that not look like a business? SYRNYK: That would be something we'd be looking at on a case-by-case basis with an application. Somebody might have that allowance of twenty trips per day, but depending upon the nature of what they may be doing, they may be doing things by appointment or may be seeing people only during certain times of the day. Those are the things that we exercise some discretion with in terms of looking at whether they can meet that standard. That's also a good question to talk about, what might be adequate in terms of -- DEWOLF: Maybe I just missed this. The most number of trips on a type 3 is 20? SYRNYK: That's right. DEWOLF: So nothing anywhere is more than twenty trips per day. SYRNYK: That's right. DEWOLF: So if you are a chiropractor who works out of your home -- LUKE: That includes the employee trips, too. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 13 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: That's also a good issue for discussion in terms of how we reconcile those two standards. DALY: Can you back up just a second? I've got a question on that issue, no external changes to give the appearance of a business. In other words, we will allow a business there but we don't want it to look like one. Is that what you are saying? SYRNYK: That's right. DEWOLF: You've got one little sign hanging by your mailbox that says Joe's Chiropractic. But you can't have a big spine up on top of your chimney. DALY: This is type 2 and 3? SYRNYK: Yes. 114 They're talking about some areas that could be larger acreages, but they are also talking about things that could be an acre or two residential lot. What you are talking about is allowing businesses to operate within a residential area, and I think we are trying to stay away from changing the appearance of a residential area. SYRNYK: That's exactly it. The idea is, kind of going back to the type 1 example, that one of the purposes of creating this category is so that if someone working out of their home but they are not engaging in such a practice or with certain operating characteristics that you wouldn't know they are there. So as you are driving through trying to find a business, it will look like another residential or rural residential neighborhood. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 14 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Actually, I'm glad you brought up signage, because one of the things the Planning Commission did propose to change is to allow folks a sign without any kind of a sign permit that would be three square feet maximum, either a ground mounted sign sitting at their driveway or on a wall of their home. One of the things that is proposed to be retained is a standard that says the business itself can't use any materials or equipment that would generate things like noise, vibrations, flashing lights, and so on that would affect adjacent residences. And, finally, I'd like to mention that with our current rules, as part of their permit they still have to comply with any kind of county, state or federal requirements that might be tied to their business. DALY: Getting back to the use of materials or equipment that would affect adjacent residences. We're still talking the actual occupation being on the site itself, not just equipment that shows up and leaves or whatever. SYRNYK: Exactly. That's referring to actual activities on site. DEWOLF: So if someone stores equipment on site, but they are a contractor and their jobs are elsewhere, this doesn't apply. SYRNYK: Well, that's a gray area still. I think it would depend on whether they are actually operating their business from their home, whether they would use it as a place of business, where they do their books, talk with clients, store equipment, whatever. That's something that as a Board you are probably going to be asked to think about and reconcile in terms of what has been proposed by the Planning Commission. LUKE: There was a discussion at one time about a well driller, and of course a well driller doesn't drill wells on his own property, but he occasionally needed to park his truck there. That was a question, and those are the kinds of things we have to work through. But typically the truck is not at his home, but is out somewhere else working, and a lot of times it moves from one job to another. But occasionally it has to come home to be cleaned up or repaired; and is that allowed? It is allowed under this? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 15 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: That's a good question. DEWOLF: And we're hitting gray areas here. SYRNYK: That's one of the reasons we're having the hearing. DALY: I almost think we need another type. MORROW: This issue of parking trucks was talked about quite a lot with the Planning Commission. Say you are a carpet cleaner. You have a carpet cleaning truck with a sign on the side, and you park it there every night. The Planning Commission had a lot of discussion about this, and they said that if it is parked inside, we don't care. And then there are also some requirements I think that Damian didn't actually emphasize in this presentation that have to do with gross vehicle weight. You might want to go into that a little bit. I don't know if I can do the details. It basically came down to that if it's a normal kind of passenger vehicle, even a van, and you park it in your driveway, even if it has the advertising on it, it's okay. But when it gets over a certain size, you either need to park it inside or meet these requirements for parking equipment outside. LUKE: A pickup with a lumber rack and a business sign on the side would be allowed because that's the typical rig somebody drives back and forth to home. But, a log truck that has to start up at 4:00 a.m. to warm up the diesel before they go out in the woods would be a different matter. MORROW: That's regulated. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 16 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: Let me segueway into the two types of conditional use. One of the limitations that is proposed under a type 2 home occupation is that the business could store used vehicles or equipment with a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds or more, or an operating weight of 3,000 pounds or more. So if someone is using as part of their business a small passenger van that says, Joe's Greeting Cards, on the side, that might be allowed as a type 2, especially if they are making deliveries. But if you are using heavier equipment, it wouldn't be allowed under type 2. Under type 3, if they are using equipment like that, they would have to either park it in a building such as a garage or accessory building, or screen it in an outdoor storage area. DALY: When you say using equipment, are you talking about using it on site? We are talking about a home occupation. That equipment normally would not be used on site; it's just parked there at night. SYRNYK: It sounds like you are talking about something that might not be a home occupation. If I can go back to the definition for a second, what our code talks about with a home occupation is, an occupation or profession that's carried on from within a dwelling or residential accessory structure. DALY: That's carried on within. SYRNYK: Right. Let me do this. Let's look at the definition of home occupation again, under our code. What I want to talk about briefly is to kind of summarize the differences between type 2 and type 3. Under the proposal before you, a type 2 occupation would require a conditional use permit. We handle these kinds of permits administratively. This means that someone makes an application, we'd review it, and if it meets all the criteria we would approve it and would give notice to the neighbors that we've approved something like, for instance, a hair stylist. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 17 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: You give notice before you approve it, also. SYRNYK: As proposed, you'd be giving notice of the decision. LUKE: You are not proposing that when the application is made, that you'd give notice then? SYRNYK: Not under type 2, because of the limitations that are under our type 2 home occupation. Under a type 3, we'd be using our existing procedures with either giving prior notice once the application came in, or maybe referring the application to a public hearing. In terms of uses, there's a list of excluded uses that wouldn't be eligible under a type 2 home occupation. Under type 3 there is no such exclusions right now, as proposed. We'd be looking at these on a case-by-case basis, and seeing whether they meet all the criteria. Let me summarize the ones that don't. They include things like the repair, towing or storage of vehicles; appliance repair; and welding shops. These are excluded from type 2. They may be allowed under a type 3. We talked about outdoor storage. Under type 2, any kind of outdoor storage would not be allowed, but storage of materials and equipment could occur inside a building. Under type 3, it could be allowed with screening, if it meets the acreage requirement. That's proposed. In terms of annual inspections, they are required with type 3, as proposed. But they may be required as a condition of approval under type 2. The number of employees is the same in both cases; it's two. But under type 3, you might be allowed more, if you are zoned for farm use or forest use and you've got at least twenty acres. Under type 3, you could have up to twenty trips per day. And in terms of floor area, under type 3 you are allowed more floor area of your home and an accessory building devoted to your business. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 18 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Do you envision charging for inspections? SYRNYK: One of the things that we talked about internally, but I don't know if it is part of the budget discussions right now, is that there is going to be some kind of a small fee, like $20 or $25 just to do an annual review or inspection, just to check in to make sure someone is complying with the terms of their permit. What I wanted to go back to just briefly before we open the hearing is our definition of home occupation. Again, this is part of our code right now, and our code defines a home occupation as an occupation or profession carried on within a dwelling or residential accessory structure. So one of the questions that you are going to be asked to think about is whether someone who simply drives their truck home, parks in the driveway, and maybe meets with an employee to go somewhere offsite, whether that even qualifies as a home occupation. So one of the things that we can consider is maybe clarifying that definition as well. DEWOLF: I guess I don't know how I feel about this stuff yet. I'm looking forward to the debate. A concern I have is that I keep thinking about Joe the chiropractor. And maybe we don't want chiropractors operating outside of a commercial zone. But if in fact what this is going to allow is for Joe to work, or maybe Joelle's Hairdressing Salon, brother and sister, so that's two people, and you have eighteen trips left. That means they can each have nine people come to get their hair cut or whatever during an eight-hour day, Monday through Friday. If we were going to do this, I'm a little concerned about limiting the number of trips on a type 3 to twenty. It seems like under type 3 we'd be so restrictive under what we would allow, but if we are going to allow it, we'd want to be able to see them succeed. Otherwise, why not get rid of it altogether and have these folks be in a commercial zone within an urban area. I struggle with that. If you've got one chiropractor, if an appointment lasts an hour, well that's eight customers a day, with no lunch hour, you fit under the ten limitation. But if they are every half-hour, that's an issue. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 19 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations I0 .1.4 I would point out again, we are talking about placing businesses inside a residential area. And if a person is going to do the kind of business that is being talked about, they probably should be in a commercial area with more parking, better access, and whether they can have the type of building they should have to meet customers' needs. Because if you are going to do things that require inspections, especially state and federal, there are certain restrictions on them that really don't do well in a rural residential subdivision, although it might work in a city subdivision depending on how it is set up. I'm interested in hearing the testimony. We are talking about placing these in a residential area. DEWOLF: And recognizing that there is a fair amount that already exist out there that we are not regulating, that we're not aware of, and that aren't causing any grief to their neighbors. And what we are potentially doing is here is creating grief for people that doesn't currently exist. And that's what I want to be aware of, to remember that the knee bone is connected to the shinbone here. This will have an impact. SYRNYK: One thing, if I could just kind of wrap up before we open this up for testimony, one of the reasons is we heard that people run a home-based business is that a lot of businesses start out of peoples' homes. One of the things to consider is what standards in place would allow them to do that without interfering with the use of the neighbors' property, but also being mindful that they may reach a point where we can't approve it as a conditional use anymore; that they might need to get a better space. It's not just better for the neighbors, but it might be better for them in terms of growing their business. DALY: With an annual inspection, if they get bigger every year? SYRNYK: It will be to verify that they comply with the terms of the permit. LUKE: Again, code violations are complaint driven, so that's always an option, too. If something happens six months into the year that the neighbors find is beyond the approval, that becomes a code violation. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 20 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: Before you open up the testimony, I wanted to point out that we are not under a deadline to finish this project. Staff would support leaving the record open if people want to submit additional testimony, or even continue the hearing if the Board wants to think about things and maybe get input on some changes, too. LUKE: I don't think there is any question that the record will be left open. We will attempt to answer all your questions as you ask them tonight, but if you agree with somebody who testified before you, we would appreciate it if you would say, I agree, and add a couple of items if you want. In this way we can get as much testimony as possible. The record will be left open for additional written comments and to get questions answered if we can't answer them for you tonight. At this time, Chair Luke opened up the hearing for public testimony. JEFF EDWARDS: I live in a rural residential area with all five -acre parcels. SYRNYK: Sorry to interrupt. If folks can be sure to give us their mailing address, if there is another hearing or when we're all finished, we can get you a copy of the final ordinance. EDWARDS: I'm here because we do live in a rural residential area, and we've got a business that had been applied for and denied a conditional use permit, we went through a Hearings Officer. It is the well drilling, as Mr. Luke announced earlier. That type of business, even though you mentioned the noise and traffic and that stuff, even though the vehicles are coming and maybe not being there every single day, there's a number of vehicles. There are two or three large trucks, there are maintenance trucks, there are water trucks, there's Hysters, there's pipe, and all kinds of stuff that comes with that excess baggage. And it's very disrupting at times, in the mornings when they start them up and in the evenings and weekends. DEWOLF: I'm confused. This is your business? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 21 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations EDWARDS: No. I'm opposed to a well drilling business being put right next door to my home residence. Someone else applied, and it was denied. LUKE: So you are using your five acres strictly for residential. EDWARDS: And that's pretty much the way the whole area is set up. If it was a construction truck, maybe for landscaping with a trailer behind it, that's one thing. But when you have large well drilling trucks that are thousands of pounds, you've got deliveries of raw materials -- betonite, pipe, all kinds of things coming in on flatbed trucks -- it's very disrupting. Especially when you live on a cinder road. They tear up the road, and so forth and so on. But there's been a lot of documentation submitted through this whole process, which has been going on for about two and one-half years now. DEWOLF: Are you close to all of this? EDWARDS: There are portions of it. I'm not opposed to somebody that has to make a living out of their home. Like a landscaper or construction guy. DEWOLF: Who has a truck and a trailer, and does his phone calls at home. EDWARDS: And the way that that business is being operated right now, the one I'm speaking of is a well drilling business, they are conducting their telephone calls, everything out of their home because that's where the numbers go to. That has no adverse effect on any of the neighbors; they could do that all day long. It's the coming and going of the equipment, the storage of the equipment, the appearance. And what tends to happen -- and there's plenty of photos and stuff that were submitted as well that the Board can take a look at -- by not only myself but other neighbors as well. There's a place for businesses of that nature, and that's in a business district. People move into the country to enjoy the peace and quiet. And a lot of people don't get to pick where they work, but they do get to pick where they want to live. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 22 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Like I said, I've spent a lot of time and money trying to keep this kind of activity from going on in a residential area. I just would appreciate your thoughts, and at least review the data. Perhaps some of you have done so in the past. And really consider that when you are looking at these different types. Mr. Daly said he thought there should be another type. Maybe there should be, but then again, where do you draw that line. Who's going to police the number of trips and that kind of stuff. DEWOLF: It's typically left up to the neighbors. Most of this stuff is complaint driven. EDWARDS: It is. And when you do submit a complaint, it takes forever to get it taken care of. And then it becomes a major issue. So, I recommend that businesses of this nature and that have multiple vehicles and multiple things going on, stay where they are supposed to be. DALY: As proposed in type 3, if they went through a conditional use permit process before this business was located there, and there was adequate screening and adequate distance from your home and whatever, is that something you could live with then? EDWARDS: No, because you've still got the noise and the traffic, and like I said, if it was a standard vehicle, a standard pickup pulling a trailer, that's one thing. But you've got these things, thousands upon thousands of pounds, coming and going. Maybe they would only come and go two or three times a week, but when there are two or three of them and you've got other operations being done, it tends to be very annoying. DEWOLF: We don't have any limitation on the number of vehicles that can be stored, as I recall, do we? We've been talking numbers of trips. SYRNYK: As proposed, we are looking at numbers of trips and not numbers of vehicles. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 23 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations EDWARDS: And it's very key on how it's set up, too. You brought that up about setbacks and stuff. And even though it might meet a setback, a setback on a five -acre parcel is a lot different than a setback on a twenty -acre parcel. Because the way that this business is set up right now, or the way that the operation is set up, I sit on my patio and I've got to look right at it. But the way the residence of the owner is set up, they don't see it because it's out back. Everybody else has to view it, though. DALY: I understand where you are coming from. I think we are familiar with the case. Some five -acre parcels, depending on how they are configured, can allow a lot of distance between residences. EDWARDS: That may be true, but the way it is set up is very key; and the way that this specific thing is set up affects the view. I go outside, and it's right there. DEWOLF: And we aren't discussing the height of what's being stored. Crane operator, no employees, one crane, but it's 45 feet tall. EDWARDS: You're talking about the size of the building; but you also have to consider the size of the parking area. In this specific case, the parking area is probably a good acre of red cinder -- I'm just guessing -- with a 36 by 60 or 40 by 60 building sitting right there. There's no problem with the building. But it's everything that is left outside. And, like I said, it just tears up the roads, and we've got to maintain our own cinder road. The County doesn't do that. SUE BEBE: My name is Sue Bebe. I live in the Tall Pines subdivision of La Pine. LUKE: How big are the lots there? We have an acre lot. Actually I used to have a home business as an accountant. didn't do taxes for people, but did businesses, and they all mailed me their stuff. So I very seldom had a client stop by. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 24 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: So five trips a day is no big deal with the way that you did business. BEBE: No. But in the same respect, I lived in San Leandro, California, and at the time I had to go around to all of my neighbors who had to sign that I was not causing any problems with them, before I was allowed to do this. Possibly I could have gotten by without that, but I chose to do it the legal way. However, the reason I am here tonight is because, like Mr. Edwards, we have problem in our neighborhood with a car repair business. We live on a cul-de-sac, with nice homes. I believe Mr. DeWolf has seen this area, because he has had some dealings with my neighbor Betty Smith. DEWOLF: Oh, you are off of Bullbat. BEBE: We're on Bullbat, at the very end of the cul-de-sac, past Betty, so we are actually not so much affected as Betty would be, or my father who lives directly behind the property involved. Mr. McConnell here, who is with me, also lives directly behind it. However, a bunch of us neighbors got together and filed a complaint with the County about this. There is traffic. He hauls cars in all the time. He'll have as many as thirteen or fourteen cars at a time on his property. He has piles of car parts in the backyard. There are about forty differentials right now, just piled up in the backyard. He runs his equipment a lot of times at night, and it interferes with my father's television reception. In addition to that, it's only a cul-de-sac, and it's a dirt road, so hauling these cars in and out tears up the road. And it looks junky. We have a nice neighborhood, and we don't want it to look junky. We've met with the County code enforcement, and they only have one code enforcement person. They told us they know he is running a business, and it's not a legal business. But, there's no way they can prove it. It's up to us to prove it. So we're still fighting this after a year. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 25 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: In this particular instance, this individual has been cited. There are a number of difficulties. This is a code enforcement issue, and not a home occupation, because there is no way he would be allowed to have this kind of home occupation. I assume that he has still built up the stacks of wood around those differentials to kind of screen them. Are you the one who is directly behind him? MAN: I'm directly behind him. DEWOLF: Then I was in your backyard, right. MAN: It's not getting better, either. LUKE: We need him now to put his name on the record. Why don't you come on up? DEWOLF: In any case, this is a code enforcement issue, and part of what we are dealing with is that we've got one code enforcement person in Community Development, and we've got one with the Sheriff s Office. And now we are looking at transferring authority the Justice Court because Circuit Court is so limited in what they can do, because of state budget cuts. So it's going to get worse with what we're facing. BEBE: That's true. DEWOLF: But I'm not sure that this applies to the home occupation, because there is just no way that in this particular case he would be given any authority to run a car repair business. LUKE: Please identify yourself. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 26 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DAVID MCCONNELL: My name is David McConnell. What I see happening here is that you are opening a door for a lot more of these cases. And I think enforcement of what you have now, until it comes up to satisfying the taxpayers, is the primary thing you should be looking at. I would like to say that we ourselves have investigated. I went on line and found an advertisement of his business, and he has a separate phone line for that, under High Desert Auto Repair. He's listed in the white pages as High Desert Auto Repair. We told this to the enforcement people, and they said that's good, and we're meeting with them again. The main concern that I have is the same as Mr. McConnell. It is that we are making regulations even looser. If we can't enforce the regulations we have now, why are we loosening the regulations? LUKE: For the record, Mr. McConnell is also from La Pine and has signed up. Why don't you go ahead and testify as long as you're up here, if you'd like. MCCONNELL: My biggest concern is that what you are opening up is La Pine, Deschutes River Woods, Terrebonne, every place, to become totally industrialized and ruined for residential. Just like the gentleman with the well drilling problem. If he has already been denied by the County, why is he still allowed to do it? DEWOLF: I know what you've been facing. Betty brought this to my attention two years ago. MCCONNELL: We're all collecting photographic evidence and all of the other stuff, and keeping a log on what's happening, and we have a meeting scheduled with the enforcement people on May 7`". And we hope that with our evidence they can cite them into court or something. But we're taking six people's complaints, and allowing the man to keep on going with his business. DALY: I think what we are doing here would never allow what you are describing. I don't see it as loosening up regulations that would allow that. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 27 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations MCCONNELL: But if you can't enforce what you've already got, you're adding more. DEWOLF: I think that's what we do need to be aware of, is if this proposal is in fact allowing a variety of new types of business uses in residential zones, you end up pitting neighbor against neighbor who are upset with each other, and then what happens to our code enforcement. I definitely respect the concern there. That's what we need to be aware of, if in fact what is being proposed is just clarifying this, which would tighten up the regulations, that would be one thing. And I'm not sure that's what we are doing here. DALY: With type 2 and type 3, you are talking about the conditional use process, which is a very extensive process anyway. If this person that they are talking about actually went through that process, obviously he wouldn't have been allowed to be there anyway. So, by putting this through a conditional use process for some of these businesses, it possibly could allow businesses that would be compatible with the neighbors, and they have to go through this criteria anyway. So, I think we are tightening up that part of this by allowing some of these things. LUKE: I would like to point out that it's not that we can't enforce it. But property rights are one of the things that everyone has and values, the right to use your own property. The courts are very hesitant to move into that arena unless they can be shown that it is a violation and not just a neighbor against neighbor type of thing. So it takes time. We had a guy with all kinds of cars up on Whispering Pines, and he ended up being in jail and then his wife gave us permission to haul the cars away. But he was in court, and they would give an order and he wouldn't follow it. The laws that we have through code enforcement, and you've seen our code enforcement officer and if he came to my house, I'd do what he told me to do, people don't have to be cited. They often say, I'll take care of that and I don't want a problem and I'll fix that. But you will get people, and I assume this is one of them, where laws mean nothing to them anyway. Those always take longer because of the process involved, the due process. MCCONNELL: One thing I noticed down here, the maximum size of the floor area for the occupation, under type 3, how big is that accessory building? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 28 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: I don't know. There is no restriction like on the other one, where you've got 25% with a maximum of 1500 square feet. There's no maximum square footage on a type 3, and that's a concern to me. SYRNYK: It could be any size. DEWOLF: He's got an accessory building that I think he was attempting to add on to. MCCONNELL: He enclosed it, and his noise is a problem still. LUKE: Is his land an acre? BEBE: It's only an acre. LUKE: Then type 3 wouldn't be allowed in that anyway. Type 2 wouldn't, either. DEWOLF: This is a pure and simple code violation. Absolutely. MCCONNELL: Under type 2, it says one-half acre of land. SYRNYK: Under type 2, you have to start with a minimum property size of one-half acre. But there's no size requirement under a type 3, as proposed. LUKE: Anything else? MCCONNELL: We'll see what happens on the 71h Minutes of Public Hearing Page 29 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Thank you very much. Is there a Frank Pennock here? Are you still president of the Deschutes River Woods Homeowners' Association? FRANK PENNOCK: I'm in my ninth year. My name is Frank Pennock, and I'm president of the Deschutes River Woods Homeowners' Association. And you've just about discussed the same thing just previous, with this thing on the junk automobiles. And I'm told that they will tell you that they are restoring those cars. So I'm wondering how many automobiles are allowed on the property, and if you can ever change the code enforcement to where you could get rid of these things when they are in total violation. They won't even fit any one of the three criteria that you've got up there. How long would it take if you were able to enforce it to evict the guy and the automobiles, and so on. It sounds to me like you've got to change the laws or open up more courts or give every deputy one day off to be a code enforcement officer. One day. DEWOLF: We'll let you talk with the Sheriff about that one, Frank. PENNOCK: Another thing. About the signs, I think somebody mentioned here that someone has a business down the street, let's say a welder. Then I see at an intersection that it says "welding" and an arrow points down the street. And you just go down the street until you find his sign. Are there restrictions on that? Or will there be? LUKE: Off-site signs require a permit in Deschutes County. SYRNYK: Actually, any kind of a sign requires a permit. But the County sign code only allows signs on property where someone is actually advertising what they are doing. So, as proposed, if somebody wanted to have a sign, they could have it on their property, but they couldn't have a sign off-site that said "welder, this way". LUKE: Now, what he is talking about, if there is a sign off-site, according to the home occupation that is already used, that off-site sign is probably in violation of the current code. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 30 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: That's right. PENNOCK: And I've been told by Gary Judd (of the Road Department) when he goes around and cleans up some of the signs, like the old real estate signs and that type of thing, that basically you are stealing them if you pick them up. DALY: Real estate signs are allowed, I'm sure. DEWOLF: They are so often located in the road right-of-way, that it is beyond belief. But it's the same thing with political signs during an election season. They get them in right-of-way all the time. What about if somebody has a sign on top of their car, and parks their car down the road? I mean, right up here there's that trailer where the Thai food is, next to the car lube shop. There's the car with the sign that says, Thai food, enter from alley. Now that is a city example, but in the County, do people do that? They're not pounding it into the ground. It's on top of their car, or a magnetic sign on their car, but they are essentially doing the same thing. Is that allowed? SYRNKY: That's a question that I don't remember the answer to. What I'd have to do is look it up in the code. There is an answer, but I just can't remember it right now. But I can find it. PENNOCK: One other thing on the sign business. If there's a business permitted, can they advertise in the newspaper or on television, even though they can have one sign in front of their property. Is there any restriction on the continuous advertising in the newspapers or television? SYRNYK: There's nothing in the proposal that would restrict somebody's ability to advertise. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 31 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: You could be in the yellow pages or whatever you want. If you violate the number of cars that are coming in because of that advertising -- I mean, if you are only allowed five trips a day, or even ten, it doesn't pay to advertise. That doesn't do it. Why would you do that. DALY: I'm sure we would not control advertising in newspapers or whatever. DEWOLF: I think we ought to start trampling on the first amendment. That would be a good challenge to take on. PENNOCK: One further comment about this. I don't know how many of you people have seen the Deschutes County code enforcement officer, but he could play offensive tackle and guard on anybody's professional team at one time. He's big. And one time we had him as a speaker at our homeowners' meeting, and I said that sometimes I go out China Hat Road and there will be an abandoned car on the side of the road that is getting less and less all the time because the parts are being removed. I said, supposed one of those parts fits in my car, can I take it? And he said that's stealing, even though the car is abandoned. LUKE: Frank, have you had discussions at your homeowners' meeting about this, and what kinds of concerns were raised? Do you think the code needs to be changed, or do you like anything that has been presented tonight? What's your thoughts on this? PENNOCK: From what I can hear tonight, the concerns we have out there now would never take place. They would never be able to put anything in. Like the ones that are already there, and like these people described, with the piles of auto parts. The problem is that there are some, as we know, that are already there. How do we get rid of them, and how long will it take? And as you said, Commissioner, there are people who have absolutely no regard for any law or authority. Something has got to be done, but how are you going to do it? I don't know. I just suggested something, to give every deputy one day off regular work to be code enforcement officers and go see these people. That would probably cover everything in one day. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 32 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations How you would enforce it, that's the question. And how long. And I heard about that one out there where the guy was in jail. That took how long, about two or three years? LUKE: That happened before I came here. Thank you. FRANK BRYAN: My name is Frank Bryan, and I live out on Young Avenue. I'm going to read from prepared text. And some of this would have changed, based on Damian's statements tonight. I was at the first meeting, and I was at the work session on Monday, so some of what is in here has changed, but I will read this to you and give it to you. LUKE: Were you comfortable with the process, and do you believe the Planning Commission took the time they needed to go through this? BRYAN: I've addressed this in here, if that's okay. DEWOLF: Where you live, what size of acreage are we talking about. BRYAN: I live on forty acres. DEWOLF: And is that the standard in the area? BRYAN: No, actually a great portion of what you gentlemen are fighting I am sure is the hodge-podge nature of the zoning that has gone on in the past, where you will have rural residential and EFU and MUA and all of this all stacked right next to one another. And somebody has flatulence and everybody knows about it. So, I mean, it is a real problem. And my first paragraph is to commend you for trying to make some sense out of the current regulations. I can read the words without a problem, but I cannot understand what it means. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 33 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: Welcome to government. BRYAN: That's why I move here. Here we go. (He then read his four page statement, a copy of which is attached as Exhibit A) LUKE: About the notification; was it announced at the first hearing when the next hearing would be, or was it recessed? How was that handled? What I seem to recall, and I'd actually have to check the minutes to know, I think the Planning Commission did announce that they were going to continue it to January 9, and I'd have to check the file, but I thought we sent a notice for the hearing. I know we did not send the notice to the work sessions. In part, we don't normally notify folks of work sessions because they are primarily public meetings where the Planning Commission deliberates. They are open to the public, and we notify the general media of work sessions, but we don't typically notify everybody as a practice. LUKE: This isn't even close to being a final ordinance. This is going to take some work and discussions amongst the Commissioners. That's one reason we are taking this public testimony. BRYAN: And I appreciate it. Part of the reason I am here tonight is so I can voice my opinion about that, and so far Damian has been great. I have no problem with him. s)" It's one of the reasons the Planning Commission has most of its meetings in the evenings, so more people can attend. It's the same reason we started this one at 5:30. Sure. And I appreciate the time that takes away from your lives and all that. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 34 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: Do you put the agendas for the Planning Commission on line, in advance of the meetings? SYRNYK: Usually we do. DEWOLF: There's no question that we can always do a better j ob with communications. We try to keep things up to date and on line. W Honestly, you'd be surprised at how many people I've talked to who believe county government doesn't exist. DEWOLF: Well, that helps us, and we'd prefer that the city be on the front page instead of us. MIKE MCFARLAND: My name is Mike McFarland, and I've been in business for myself for about 23 years. I started out in the trucking business and moved into the excavation businesses, and worked pretty much all over the state. I just got into residential work here eight or ten years ago, in Terrebonne. I run a small excavation business. I don't meet people at my home. I usually meet them on the site where they want the excavation done. My equipment is stored at home, and I do drive a big truck along with a one -ton. LUKE: What's the gross vehicle weight? MCFARLAND: It's 8,600. And the gross vehicle weight on the other one is 80,000. I need this truck to move my equipment and haul rock and stuff. I have a trailer, too. LUKE: How big a parcel are you on? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 35 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations MCFARLAND: About thirteen acres. And it's in the unincorporated Terrebonne area. A building big enough to put my stuff inside, which I'd love to do, is probably $35,000 to $40,000. And I'm not sure it would get all of it inside. I have trees on both sides, a church is on one side, my neighbor sits halfway in and he has thirteen acres, too. There's another seven or eight acre piece on the other side of me, the north side, with a guy with a house on one acre, and then Terrebonne is across there. I've done work for all of my neighbors. I keep the road up, keep it graveled. I'm in and out of there from early in the morning until late at night. A lot of people call me on weekends because that's when they're home. They'd like a load of gravel or a ditch dug, or a big rock moved. I really don't have the hours of eight to five, Monday through Friday. And there's probably no way that that would work. LUKE: Have you had any complaints filed against you? MCFARLAND: Not yet, but that's why I'm interested in what's going to happen here. Because if one of the places sells and my neighbors raised heck about it, I can't afford to move. And I can't afford to go to town and buy some commercial ground to run this business from. I've lived there for fifteen years without a complaint. And I just kind of wonder where this is going to put me. Is there any such thing as grandfathering it in? LUKE: I don't recall that. How can you be grandfathered in if you don't have a permit to be there to start with? That's the question, I guess. SYRNYK: That's a question that Mr. Bryan raised in terms of how this would affect existing uses. If I could digress for just a minute, or I guess interrupt, if someone has an approved conditional use for a home occupation, there are going to be covered by the permit and the laws that were in place when they applied. If somebody came in the day the ordinance took effect, they'd be under the laws that were essentially adopted then. If someone is in business now but without some kind of home occupation permit, that's a different question. We might have to look at whether they were lawfully established or in place as a non -conforming use. But that can be a gray area sometimes. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 36 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DALY: Is what he is describing in any way fit into the type 3? DEWOLF: No, it's not twenty acres. I07:v" I know. If the twenty acres was adjusted to a smaller acreage, I question as to whether or not this is even a home occupation. If you're not really working at home. SYRNYK: That's a question I think the Board should consider. DEWOLF: How do people reach you if they want your services? MCFARLAND: Usually on my cell phone, or my phone in the house. My briefcase is in my pickup. DEWOLF: This is exactly the kind of unintended consequences that I want us to be really aware of. [KOW:: 1 ►I0 There is one other thing I need to say. I applied for a shop building on this, and they will not give you a commercial shop building on a rural residential deal. And they will not give you an agricultural building permit on this twelve acres. So I am kind of in limbo of what I can even do. DEWOLF: What's the zoning? MCFARLAND: It's RR -5. SYRNYK: In Terrebonne there's a five -acre residential district. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 37 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations MCFARLAND: The only other thing I have to say is that for small guys like me, I have no employees, and if I have to go to town and rent a shop or something, they run from $800 to $2,800 or more for an area large enough to park this equipment and stuff. And that is something that I would have to charge to even move. A lot of times it's hard enough just to make your house payment and your business payments, and not be a burden on anybody else. DALY: Mike, how many other folks do you know who might be in the same situation as you? MCFARLAND: Probably thirty in the surrounding area, maybe more. DALY: All of them non -conforming uses? MCFARLAND: Sure. Just like me. But they've been there a long time, too. Thank you. VERN BJURK: My name is Vern Bjurk and I live on Smokey Ridge Road, which is west of town, just two miles past Tumalo. I have just under ten acres. Mainly I'm here to pose a hypothetical question. Looking at the types 1, 2 and 3, they seem fine to me. But let's say you meet the criteria of a type 2 or type 3, and you were actually on the low end of the usage. So you thought, well, I qualify for that, it shouldn't be a problem. But you have a neighbor that thinks I'm too good looking for him or something, and he doesn't like me. And so he is going to create a stir just because of that, even though I meet the criteria that is so far proposed. Just how much trouble can someone make for you? LUKE: Any land use application allows people to use their right to raise objections. Those objections, though, have to be based on the ordinance; the person who does the evaluation will decide if the use meets the criteria of the ordinance. So it will be based on the law. If they raise objections that are violations of the ordinance, then there's an opportunity for those to hold weight. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 38 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations BJURK: Okay. CRAGHEAD: There's also the issue of whether, say it's a type 1 use permitted outright, it would be a matter of code enforcement, simply a matter of you receiving a notice of violation from code enforcement. You would then come in and talk with code enforcement staff. I'm just saying, it's hypothetical really. But in my case, as a small contractor, I'm looking at type 2 and thinking that's not a problem for me. But I'm just wondering, because I went through this on a bed and breakfast conditional use permit starting in 1988 which took until 1995, before any of you guys were here. But Tom Throop was, and my neighbor was a friend of Mr. Throop. DEWOLF: And that didn't help. It cost me thousands of dollars. We ended up winning our case because by that time the ordinances were in effect for bed and breakfast inns. We're the people who opened the can of worms on the use permits for this. But I'm saying, because of this, even though we met all of the criteria after they were established, it still took a long time and a lot of legal costs for us because one neighbor and one Commissioner were friends, and it caused a lot of grief. We ended up getting a letter of apology from the County with an approval, like a month after Mr. Throop went to Wyoming. I don't want this to happen again, and that's why I pose the question. I could foresee it happening, even though we met all of the criteria, just how much grief can be caused if we meet the criteria of the established ordinance. DEWOLF: They have the right in any land use decision to appeal. And they have to appeal according to certain criteria. And if they appeal to this Board, then we have to make a decision about whether we want to hear it. Let's say we don't. It could potentially go to the Land Use Board of Appeals at the state. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 39 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations There's no question that neighbors can cause neighbors a lot of grief, time and money. But within the confines of the law, there's no question that if people think that what you are going to do is something they don't want to see happening, they have the right to appeal that. BJURK: I'm aware of that. I guess that's my question. Because I look at the type 2 and I know that abiding by those rules, we would have no problem getting a conditional use permit. We went to the Land Use Board of Appeals twice before, but there were some mistakes made by the County and some legal counsel, so it took a lot longer. Anyway, that's my concern. I think rules and regulations are good, and these appear to be good. In my case especially, and that's what I'm concerned about. I just wanted to pose that question. That's really all I had, thanks. TINA LYONS: I agree with everything everybody has said up to this point. I live on a half -acre in La Pine. There's an electrical contractor on my street who runs a business, but he goes off-site and just stores his equipment there and has small trucks. And I don't find that a problem. My other neighbor wants to move from a hair salon in La Pine where she does nails to her home. And she has done this before, and for some reason she decided to move back downtown. So she's been there for a couple of years, but now wants to move back home. It's about sixteen cars a day. I bought, like everyone else in a rural area, for the privacy. And I personally have a small business; I'm a massage therapist. I pay for commercial space to do my business, and then I come home to the sanctuary of rural residential. And I really firmly believe that commercial areas should be commercial and residential areas should be residential. LUKE: How big a piece do you have? LYONS: We have two acres. The typical lot is a half -acre. So I was curious why this is being looked at. I personally like the regulations the way they are because when she wanted to open the nail salon next door to us, I told her she needed a conditional use permit, and she came to the County and they told her she did. And that stopped her, and that was good. But now we are enemies. And that's not good. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 40 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Damian, under the current rules, a hair salon would not be allowed? SYRNYK: Under the current rules, it could be. We look at these on a case-by-case basis. Wei 114 On a half -acre, residential lot with sixteen trips a day. SYRNYK: Now, the sixteen trips a day I can't give you a firm answer on. A person could apply, but we'd be looking at these on a case-by-case basis. LYONS: But if she does apply for it, and I do get notified, I have suggested that I would complain to County code enforcement, you really take your life in your hands sometimes if you do complain to the County. Which is unfortunate. That's to keep people working together. I think the way the law is now is very restrictive and makes everyone who wants a home business legally apply for a conditional use permit. That's the proper way to do it. DEWOLF: I'm not sure that I agree with that. And I want to ask you about this. I don't think that what we have now is very clear at all. Consequently, I don't think it's very restrictive. I think that under the proposal I don't think your neighbor would be able to fit into any one of the three types. I think under the current regulations, she could. There's nothing regulating the number of trips in the current regulations, but in this it certainly wouldn't work with a type 1. In type 2, she's limited to ten trips per day; and type 3, she'd have to have twenty acres. LYONS: That's a point I was going to get to later. Let's talk about that now. If you look at type 1, it doesn't say anything about the number of trips. It doesn't say anything about the hours. DEWOLF: Five trips per day in type 1. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 41 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LYONS: Okay. DAILY: Are we talking about the electrical contractor now? DEWOLF: No, the nail lady. LYONS: I guess I stand corrected then. But it doesn't say anything about the hours of operation. I just found the type 2 and type 3 are more restrictive than type 1. DEWOLF: Yes. They are. But there is a limit of five trips per day under type 1. SYRNYK: Let me go over the descriptions again. Under type 2, you can create up to ten trips per day for employees or customers. You are limited to the hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Under type 3, you can create up to twenty trips per day and the number of hours you work would be approved with the conditional use permit. We would ask someone to make a proposal as part of the application process, and we would notify the neighbors and solicit their comments, and see if it would be compatible with the neighborhood. LYONS: I had that discussion with my neighbor about how it adversely affects me, and that's what you have to do on the code enforcement complaint form. And the only real leg I had to stand on was that it's not a rural use, it's a commercial use. She said it's just like having my family come over, one every half-hour all day long. I told her that if it's her family, they have that right, but this is not that. So the type 1 doesn't have any inspections required? And they added on to a 1950's single -wide trailer that has a hitch. They added on twice, and didn't get a building permit for it. And then they put their garage on County land with no setback. And I had every opportunity to complain but I tried not to bother them. was live and let live. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 42 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Is it still on County land? LYONS: Yes. DALY: We own a garage. LYONS: Not a very nice garage. They put a washer and dryer in, and it goes into a dry well. It's not hooked up to their septic. They added on a deck that right on top of the septic tank. With no inspections being required for type 1, there's a lot of illegal things in La Pine like that, that I think if you do go ahead with this, that's something that should be addressed. That type 1 should have inspections. And the hours of operation should be limited. And parking is allowed on County roads; I talked with Gary Judd this morning. He said you are supposed to leave two ten -foot wide lanes. So I guess if they can't leave those lanes they can't park on County roads. But our road isn't that wide. That brings me to another issue, which is -- DEWOLF: If I'm a painter, and I paint at home and that's my home occupation, there are no trips involved, how would anybody even know that I have a home occupation? How would we as a County perform inspections? The point of having a type 1 is to keep government out of the hair of people who are so minimally impacting their neighbors. Say I write for a soap opera, and I use my computer and e-mail stuff out. There are people who do this here. They certainly don't have an impact on their neighbors unless their neighbors watch soap operas. LYONS: I do understand what you are saying. I agree with keeping government out. However, I just think there are going to be situations where they will consider themselves type 1, and then they have more trips than they should, and then the neighbor -- Minutes of Public Hearing Page 43 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: You've nailed it right on the head. Then you want to complain about it, and what you do is create an enemy for life. Here you've got somebody who's doing like six different code violations, if all you said is accurate. All of them are bad, like potential damage to the groundwater that we are trying so hard to protect down in that area, that has nothing to do with the fact of whether they are a type 1 or not. They still wouldn't be allowed to drain a washing machine into a sinkhole. They wouldn't be allowed to put a deck over a septic tank. LYONS: I appreciate what you are saying. I don't want type 1, type 2 and type 3. I'd prefer to keep it the way it is and/or clarify it. When Damian said these are permitted outright, aren't those actually in the code? SYRNYK: they are in the code right now, but they are limited to unincorporated communities like La Pine, Terrebonne and Tumalo, in residential districts, for example, where we allow homes. LYONS: So that is the code now. LUKE: It's not allowed outside of those areas now. LYONS: So she can't right now, because of this. DEWOLF: Not if she is serving clients on site. LYONS: That is the most restrictive it can be. And to keep the rural residential areas rural, that's the way to do it in my opinion. I think it is actually spelled out very well because I already kind of fought it. And the way the conditional use permits are now, it's hard to get and costs about $1,000, and a long process, so someone has to be serious. That's what we want, someone who is going to abide by the law. But I don't think they belong in rural areas. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 44 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DALY: Are we still talking about the lady who does nails? I think you are more concerned about the other code violations. DEWOLF: Plus the sixteen trips per day that takes away her privacy, she says. DALY: What I hear is all of these other code violations are a lot worse. LYONS: No, I have not complained. Not formally to the County. They do bother me, but not enough to make an enemy. I have dogs and sometimes my dogs will leave the yard. And that's illegal. And I need a little forgiveness once in a while, too, and I'm not perfect. I'm trying to get along, live and let live, and not turn them into the County, although I've threatened. Which has stopped her form working at the house, but it's not a pleasant situation. LUKE: You show a post office box here. What's your street? LYONS: We're on Barton Way, but the main road is Rim Drive. It's west of La Pine, across the river, off Dorrance Meadow. There are so many small business people like her, that if it is allowed to go into the rural areas, they will. And we'll lose some of the economic development that we have in town. That's another issue. Regarding the signs in type 2 and type 3, they are required to have a sign permit. So does that mean they can be neon? SYRNYK: No. right now, what's proposed for signs is ground mounted or wall signs, and not illuminated. LYONS: would the neighbors be notified first? SYRNYK: Not a type 1; but for type 2 and type 3. There's no signage allowed for a type 1. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 45 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LYONS: Why was this even addressed if there have only been 57 applications for the conditional use permits have been applied for in the past ten years? SYRNYK: It was at the Board's direction, because of input from folks her participated in some of the conditional use permits you've heard about tonight, like the well driller and the landscaper. DEWOLF: We had so many neighbor to neighbor battles like this that were creating so much turmoil that these rules didn't clarify enough so that people could agree on what was allowed and not allowed. We wanted some clarification of this. I'm not saying that this type 1, 2 and 3 gets where we thought we were going, but that's what started this. LYONS: I almost didn't come tonight because it did seem like maybe it was a slam-dunk. I'm glad you are considering this. I suggest that you have hearings in the various outlying communities. LUKE: We actually do that a few times a year. We'll be down in May for a meeting. LYONS: I missed the notice I got in my taxes. I went to my file and there it was. I guess I didn't pay attention. More people need to know about it; if they did know about it, there would be more here. I think if they voted on it, they would vote against businesses in rural residential areas. LUKE: Sending it with the tax bill made it affordable. It had to go to property owners all over the County. ELISE LOWE: I live just on the outskirts of the Bend city limits, east, someday to be annexed in. My lot is two and one-half acres. Just for some background, we're operating illegally. We have one employee, which I didn't mention last time I was here. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 46 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations However, we are moving to Sisters, and Sisters allows one employee. I'm going to fess up now, because I'm telling you, right now, unless you want to be rural and poor, if I lived next to any of these people, these code enforcement issues, my money that I make in this town and pay taxes on would partially be spent on a lawyer. They would be in court, and it would have never gone on this long. We run an invisible business. We do virtually no client or customer stuff here. We work nationwide, and have a seminar and education business that teaches advanced massage therapy techniques and treatment routines to people around the country. We also publish books, and have been published; we have a newsletter; and we all do this out of our garage which, when we built our home, we added on. We simply built into the attic of the garage. The house is completely permitted, but we don't have a home occupation permit. And the reason that we did this, and probably the reason why you've only had so many permits requested in the last ten years, is because the gentleman back here spent eight years. You don't have the money to enforce and you don't have the money to get CUP's processed in an orderly time; so do we wait for years to do this? Nobody even knows that we function. We're on two and one-half acres, but quite honestly we could function on a small lot in downtown Bend, and nobody would know. That is something I'd like to talk about. I just wanted to let you to know that. Because what we bring to this town -- what is happening to Central Oregon unfortunately and fortunately in a lot of different ways is that we are moving from a farm, agricultural environment or history to a young, rural, professional coming into town. And gentlemen like this who have legitimate businesses, and twenty years ago Joe the farmer next door with his trucks didn't bother anybody. Quite frankly, he wouldn't bother me. But we are in this transition period. I think some public meetings on this would be really good. Because what you are getting, everybody who had a complaint tonight had legitimate complaints, but they were code enforcement issues. There hasn't been one complaint about these tonight that would have not met a code enforcement issue here. But we don't have the money to do that. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 47 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Which brings me to my first issue. Basically when you are talking about home businesses, what you are most concerned about, if you just put the water on and let the silt regurgitate down to the bottom, you would have, what is the neighborhood impact. Period. How are we impacting the people around us. Their values in the property, their ability to enjoy their property, or sleep at night in some cases; that goes down to everything. The noise, dust, odor; there's a code, pretty clear. Maintaining neighborhood appearance and values; controlling traffic and vehicle storage. If you just reduce this whole thing down to that, and include a few extra things, you would have all of the code enforcement rules you would need. What we have here -- and I really want to applaud the people who put their time and energy into this, because I'm not knocking it completely -- I'm just saying, it's a lot. And when you start saying that you're going to do inspections, CUP's, how many people want to pay more taxes? None of us do, right. So, let's get to enforcement, then. Let's spend our money on enforcement. One of the things that you can put in an enforcement code is language like this -- and I spent the last three months since we had the last meeting doing research on the web, out of my home business -- studying what other counties and cities around the country have done. And here's some language. Reactive enforcement: responsibility of the homeowners to bring offenders to the attention of the planning and zoning department and homeowners' associations for determination enforcement. You could do that anonymously; you don't have to be in a war with your neighbors. DEWOLF AND LUKE: Actually, you can't. DEWOLF: That's one of the problems. LUKE: They are anonymous in most cases until you have to go to court. Once you are in court, it then becomes a public record. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 48 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: It's not logical always, but it's the law. There are times when we do our best to try to protect those relationships. I've actually filed complaints for people for the code enforcement people to go check something out. Our code enforcement people, if they drive by and see something that is obviously an unpermitted building, it's not like they wouldn't react to that. IIlE;i�i If a building inspector is going down the road, and sees a building going up that he knows is not permitted, he cannot enter that private property. Government officials cannot enter private property without permission or a warrant. DEWOLF: He can still turn that over to code enforcement. memo Who still can't enter that property without permission. LOWE: Let me get down to some of the specific things I had. I think smoke, vibration and heat need to be added to type 1-C. I did notice that in this one versus the one that I took off the website did include that. So that may be redundant. DALY: Smoke, vibration and heat? LOWE: Who knows, somebody who does smeltering or something. That was on a lot of the county codes that I saw around the country, believe it or not. Smoke for sure, because if you have somebody who decides to do something and basically burning every single day, that could be a problem. And vibration may have taken care of the driving in and out, the traffic. If you have a property where you are getting a ton of people coming and going, and perhaps they meet all of the other type 1, 2 and 3 qualifications, but the noise produced from that traffic is enough to be bothersome to the neighbors, then that is a code violation. And vibration, because road noise produces vibration. DALY: You are saying that we ought to add all of this stuff? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 49 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LOWE: Vibration and heat and smoke, to the noise, odor, yeah. DALY: How do you measure those? LOWE: I don't know what you are asking me. DALY: Well, I mean, vibration that bothers you might not bother me at all. LOWE: How do you measure odor and noise? DALY: Same thing. How do you? LUKE: The City of Bend did that. LOWE: You know what, all of this is, I mean if you want to talk about that, then this is all tossed out the window, because all of this is subjective. DALY: I mean, if you are going to put it in the code, then there ought to be some way to measure it. DEWOLF: That's what she's saying. But how do you measure odor? We're not putting a certain number of decibels for noise and we're not going to go buy a decibel meter. LOWE: I'm just suggesting these are other problems that someone could have a problem with, and not be able to come back to the County on. I think the acreage divisions between a lot and a half -acre are confusing. I don't understand them. Somebody who is living on Reed Market Road on a half -acre has -- Minutes of Public Hearing Page 50 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: Reed Market is in the city. LOWE: Okay, a half -acre on Bear Creek Road. I mean, we have a lot of small subdivisions going in on county land. DALY: Not any more. LOWE: Is that going to be limited? Is the County going to change the rules? DALY: We haven't done that for years. LOWE: You're not doing any half -acre or any lower than half -acre lots? LUKE: The County will not divide any more ground for subdivisions except La Pine and unincorporated communities. All subdivisions outside of urban growth boundaries have already been created. LOWE: Okay, then, what does type 1 refer to then? SYRNYK: Somebody working out of their home, and there's no minimum acreage. LOWE: So anybody can apply for that. SYRNYK: They wouldn't have to apply; it's an outright use. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 51 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: If I want to be a painter and paint at home, and that's where I do my business, and I don't generate any trips because I mail to a museum and do my business on line and through the mail, I don't have to get anybody's permission. DAILY: It sounds like your business is a type 1. LOWE: We have an employee. This is something else that my husband is going to discuss, the employee issue. Can somebody explain to me how an employee makes less of an impact on the neighbors than a family member? DEWOLF: I can't. You've got one employee who shows up at 8 in the morning and leaves at 5. I mean, my kids used to come and go twelve times a day, with their friends. So, I don't know. LOWE: But I could have an eighteen year-old playing rap music loudly in his car. When I first made these comments, my employee could be my housekeeper, and be there all day long, and maybe not answer my phones, but there's nothing limiting the hours that person spends at my home, right? Or, if they were somebody caretaking, because I had a physical disability. There would be no limits. So, are these not employees? SYRNYK: As is proposed? LOWE: I mean, just in terms of what is an employee. I think that limiting type 1 to having no employees, my biggest issue is that it is discriminatory. If there's a medical reason that you haven't had children, you are going to be punished. And then you are put in this CUP drama, permits for type 2. Personally I think it should be completely deleted out of type 2. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 52 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations If you want a CUP for ten or more acres so that this gentleman and other people who have a business like that can function, then do that. But I think quite frankly that you should merge type 2 and type 2. And then reduce the acreage size so that this gentleman can operate legally, just like he was able to do fifty years ago. And rely on basic codes, like does not produce odor, dust, glare, flashing lights or noise, as your enforcement codes. I'll submit this. There are numerous problems in type 1. I have 5 pages where I have addressed this. (A copy of her written statement is attached as Exhibit B.) LUKE: If all code violations that we handle were based upon complaints -- if you completely converted your house to some business and were not living there, and a neighbor complained, there would be an inspection, with permission or a warrant. Again, as we mentioned when we first started, there are people who obey the law. If it's written down, they do their best to obey the law. There are some people who simply do not obey the law, and then there are some that try to go a little bit each way. So, you have to rely -- there aren't enough police in the world -- most good citizens follow the rules as they are written. LOWE: Which makes me want to question numerous items in here. DEWOLF: You've got to wonder. The one employee, we're going to find example why this doesn't work all over the place. I don't know why 25% of the dwelling is in type 1. What do I care? If it's not an intrusion on the neighbors, and I'm a writer, and I have a laptop and one day I feel most comfortable in my back yard, and the next day I'm in my kitchen, then my office off my bedroom, and so on, what do I care that my whole house is my space for the kind of work that I do. It doesn't intrude on anybody. And what do I care if, as part of being that writer, I have a proofreader, an employee, who comes to my house and works. How does that impact anybody? SYRNYK: That's a valid question. LOWE: Minutes of Public Hearing Page 53 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations I think starting this diatribe with enforcement is what it all melts down to. Because if we want to reduce bureaucracy and impact on people, what today has shown is that the people who have complaints have legitimate, current complaints based on the code today. And if we only added a few more little things, instead of making it so complex, I think the vast majority of people, and in terms of your time and certainly the people who work for the county, in terms of their time, it just seems streamlining it would be a lot easier. Regarding rural residential. There's no reason why this person should have to move to a farm. I think we are seeing more and more smaller lots. Maybe there isn't supposed to be a reduction of lot size, but we are seeing that all over the place. And I think the next ten years we will lose some of our farm zoning to residential rural land zoning. LUKE: Not unless there is a major change in the legislature. I was there, and I'll tell you that that is one of the hardest things you can ever do. LOWE: It looks like it's on its way, though. LUKE: I wouldn't count on it. LOWE: Really. I don't know. It's pretty scary. DALY: Possibly we might get some kind of designation on this side of the mountains. LOWE: I'm not necessarily for that. But I think in a case like this, EFU -- LUKE: He's a very good neighbor. He takes care of the road and does things for his neighbors. But we've had a person who had a log truck. And that log truck cranked up somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00 every single morning in a rural residential area, and had to idle for a half-hour or more. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 54 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Now, my question is, why do you even have zoning if you let those kinds of things happen. Why do you have a rural residential zone if you are going to allow commercial uses there? And so we have to look at both sides of this. That is their home. If they choose to live on a one -acre site instead of a little, dinky lot in the city, where that stuff wouldn't happen, that's their choice. But they shouldn't be subjected to commercial activity that is not regulated. LOWE: And I agree with that completely. I think if in the language of your definition of home occupation, commercial uses such as that were more defined perhaps, but also because we live in a rural area where land use values are extraordinarily high right now, the reasonable expectation that somebody like this gentleman can go out and rent space is ludicrous. He's already living in Terrebonne. But, I think, again you go back to the meltdown. Noise, vibration, dust, odor, what is the impact on the neighborhood? Certainly as a home occupation, we are extremely sensitive to our neighbors. We're an advantage to our community, too, because we care and we live there all day long, and we know who's coming and going, and we're part of a little neighborhood watch. But I think by limiting the EFU that type 3, is a problem. Because there is more and more acreage that isn't EFU. That's all I have today. SYRNYK: Could I ask you a quick question? When you talk about type 3, is it the number of employees? LOWE: Yes, thank you for adding that in. Because I'm with you. Who cares whether there are five employees on EFU. LUKE: State law does. LOWE: Yeah, okay, up to five. Two to five, whether it's rural residential ten acre or EFU ten acre. Limiting employees is limiting occupation allowance. If we didn't have our employee, we wouldn't be renting space. We'd just cut back on our business. We won't pay $120 a square foot. Thank you very much. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 55 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations WHITNEY LOWE: I live on Scottsdale Drive in Bend. Most have my issues have been addressed. I just have a few short additions. First of all, I think it's really good that that County is looking at trying to tighten up some of these restrictions that are listed in here. That's because I think there are a lot of special conditions because of the way this was brought from a number of the cases that have happened in the past. I would like you to encourage you, however, to not go overboard in attempting to make the regulations and guidelines here. That's one of the things I see in the way that it is currently put together, and I think we've heard a number of different examples in ways in which these proposed changes may be very difficult to accurately interpret. To give one other example, we heard tonight from a couple of people who gave examples of businesses that would fall within in the type 1 category, who might be a private person doing some kind of consulting activity, and perhaps having eight people come to their house during an eight-hour work day, or something like that. If they have a neighbor who doesn't get along with them and who is counting car trips, and there is no other impact on what is going on, they are going to fall outside that five -trip rule. That could become a serious problem. I would encourage you to try to look at these things and see where you need to get more specific with the regulations, and where also might you be getting too specific with this. You should allow a proper degree of flexibility in this for interpretation, for the wide variety of home occupations that we have here. That's all that I have. BILL KUHN: I live in the Tumalo winter deer range, which is a forest zone, between Bend and Sisters. I have been an investment adviser for thirty-three years. My type of business is scrutinized by many different levels of government. I have operated out of my home for thirty-three years. I spoke with Community Development back when we were applying for our landscape management plan. Both my wife and I spoke with CDD, where you give your design of your house and all. And we specified that we both work out of our house. And in our plans we clearly identified a portion of our house as office space. We asked both Mark Shipman and Denise McGriff, who were the CDD staff members at that time, if any permits were necessary to have a business out of our home. We were told that there were none. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 56 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations I do believe that the documents we received from Denise McGriff at that time did say something about conditional use for home offices. But, as I said, nothing was indicated to us as to what was required. We didn't have to apply for anything, whatever. LUKE: May I ask you, Bill, do you have any employees? KUHN: I have had employees; I do not at the present time have employees. LUKE: Do you have customers coming to your residence? KUHN: I will be covering that. In 1997, in January, we began having difficulties with a land partner. And one of our neighbors at that time suggested that I go back to the County and again ask if there were any problems with my business. I cannot afford to be doing something that is illegal. When I did ask at CDD in January 1997, I was gain assured that there were no issues regarding a home office. Because my wife and I both work out of our home, we generally generate zero business trips per day. The only reason we leave our property is to spend money, to participate in various non-profit benefits to the County -- my wife is a SMART reader and I have been involved in various non-profit organizations during my many years in Bend -- and to, of course, attend public hearings. I have received calls as late as midnight, and because the markets open roughly at 5 a.m., I sometimes get calls that early. We were operating our businesses before there were any neighbors. In depositions regarding two civil cases that we have been involved in with our land partners, our land partners had counter -claimed that our businesses didn't have proper permits. When asked during the deposition process what the objections were, they couldn't come up with any. Hence, those particular counter -claims were dropped from there case. We generate no lights, no signs, no smoke, no vibration, no noise, no heat, no odor. As I said, we have had employees, but do not have employees at the present time. I do have a contractual arrangement with a gentleman who lives in Missoula, Montana. He does do work for me via electronic transfer of information. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 57 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: Can I interrupt for just a second? There's a clarification that I'd like, Damian. That brings up an interesting point. It says maximum number of employees, only members of the family residing in the dwelling, under a type 1. If you've got an employee in Missoula, Montana, who has zero impact, but is not a family member residing in the dwelling. KUHN: Legally he's not an employee because he's on contract. DEWOLF: I'm just trying to raise this example. This is another issue that is a little unclear. SYRNYK: It is unclear. It raises a good question. I don't think it was intended to eliminate someone from being allowed a type 1, even if they had a business partner who worked off site. It's something to keep in mind. KUHN: My clients are located throughout the country. I have a total of roughly thirty-five clients. During the seventeen years we've been in the Bend area, clients have come to our house, our office, our residence. But these people have been my clients for over twenty years. They are not just clients; they are friends. They stay at our house. As I say, we generate zero business trips per day. We very much appreciate the statements of Commissioner Luke, especially when he said that there are people who abide by the law and respect their neighbors, and there are people who don't. If there were some way to simply wave a wand, and say, you're disrespecting your neighbor, shame on you, we would like that. We would very much appreciate it. During the course of time that we have been residents in the Tumalo winter deer range, there have been numerous times when tenants in the structure next to us have had semi -trucks in the driveway that they run, it seems like all night long. This in the Tumalo winter deer range. Wildlife is supposed to be protected there. I don't want to go into that now. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. DEWOLF: I do have one question. Are you under the impression that currently you are at risk of not operating legally, your business in your home, or that this may impact that? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 58 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations KUHN: I'm here to give testimony so that you will take into consideration what I'm saying. Whether or not I'm at risk, I don't know. I believe that there needs to be some way of respecting the neighborhood, of respecting neighbors. And I don't know how else to do it. I would prefer to have fewer laws, fewer regulations. I would prefer having neighborhood associations that could help deal with this type of situation. If we all had neighborhood watches or neighborhood agreements, we probably wouldn't need this kind of a law. BRADLEY THOMAS: I currently live in an RR -10 zone. I live on an acre of land. My problem is, because right now I'm a type 1, a sole proprietor, no employees, everything is done off-site. I move everybody in town. I do nothing on my site. The only trips that I generate are when I leave and come home. The discrimination that I feel is that if I'd like to have an employee, I would have to go to type 2, apply for a conditional use permit, and that's probably fine. But what's not allowed on type 2 is businesses that store or use vehicles or equipment of a gross vehicle weight of greater than 10,000. I need you to clarify that for me. DALY: You have a moving truck? THOMAS: No, not yet. Let me just bring this to you. (At this time, he showed some photos of trucks to the Commissioners.) This is what they sell at Bob Thomas every day. It's 3500 crew cab pickup, dually. It's going to weight more than 10,000 pounds. It weights 11,500. And I'm going to be out of the box no matter if I drive a regular fleetside pickup with a one -ton motor; if I go to the extended cab, it's 11,400. Same with the crew cab. If it's only 10,000 pounds, I'm toast. I can't operate, so therefore I can't work. If a contractor puts any kind of equipment inside that truck, he's illegal. If I put my butt in that truck, I'm illegal. Right now I've been working inside Deschutes River Woods for eight years. We've never had any complaints generated by our neighbors, and we've never had any problems. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 59 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Three years ago I constructed a building in my backyard so I could my vehicles inside so they wouldn't have any visual impact on my neighbors. Now, because I can only have a building that is so big, part of that isn't going to be able to be used for putting my vehicles inside. LUKE: Currently you are a type 1. DEWOLF: But that gets back to this whole thing about having an employee; what does that one or two or five matter. It's the kind of impact that they'd be having on their neighbors. And if they are having none -- THOMAS: The only impact I have on my neighbors is when they come to my house to ask me to help them move a refrigerator or something. That is the only thing that I would refer to as a negative comment, because I'd like to be home with my family versus over there hiking a refrigerator into their house, for free. It's kind of hard to tell your neighbors that you get paid for this. LUKE: What would you like to see done? THOMAS: I'd like you to allow a little bit fatter vehicles. Something a little more than 10,000 pounds. I think whoever investigated the vehicle weight did no investigation whatsoever. Because any of the crew cab pickups that you have, if you have a dually, you're in violation. If you have a single rear -wheel drive pickup, that's a 3505 if you put a lumber rack on it, you're in violation. If you put tools inside, you're in violation. I checked with each and every vehicle manufacturer here in town, Dodge, Chevy, Ford, any of them. If you drive a one -ton, if it has dual rear wheels, you're in violation of type 2 and 3. If I go to type 3, then I have to have twenty acres. You're telling me that in order to have a vehicle that size I must have twenty acres. It's all I could do to get the acre I live on now. DALY: I'd like to ask staff a question. Damian, the 10,000 pound weight limit, how did that come about? Was it just arbitrary? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 60 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations SYRNYK: That's something we investigated with a standard in Clackamas County. I understood that the goal was to prohibit big equipment in an area, such as a crane or logging trucks. DALY: The pickup I drive is a Ford 350, and is probably over 10,000 pounds. DEWOLF: Especially when you're in it. (Laughter.) DALY: Thanks, Tom. DEWOLF: You opened that door and walked right into it. DALY: I agree; the pickups have gotten much bigger. THOMAS: And the way the tax laws are written, the small businessman gets a discount if the vehicle is over 6,500 pounds. That's the only way to get the big exclusion where you can write off $18,000 or more the first year. So I think this is discriminatory to guys like me who provide a service, who are picking up heavy stuff. DEWOLF: We'll fix it. LUKE: We appreciate you bringing this up. DEWOLF: And I think if you did a survey here, the size of vehicles has got to be triple the average size of a vehicle in Clackamas County. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 61 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations THOMAS: We used to live on the west side. And the reason we moved to Deschutes River Woods is partly because of the length of the driveway. My truck wouldn't back into the driveway and make it to from the garage to the street without sticking out. So we moved to an acre. And to build exactly what I have in my back yard, on a commercial site here in town, would cost me $212,000 just for the land, not counting the building, and another $208,000 for the building. To do the same thing that I'm doing from my house right now that isn't making an impact on anyone. DALY: Biggest mistake I ever made. I built my garage, and then I measured my truck. That actually happened. (Laughter.) LUKE: There's only one more person signed up to testify. I think Frank had one more question, too. ROBERT FISH: First, I'd like to commend you on your integrity in the way this seems to be going tonight. There has been a lot of testimony on specific instances, but we have to look at this with a large view of everything. It would be really easy to micromanage and try to fit every little instance into a code, but as you guys know, we can't do that. We have to keep it pretty simple and so it allows people to use their property that they own, that's part of their identity. Part of American is actually owning property and being able to utilize it as we can. DEWOLF: What size lot do you live on? And what kind of property? Or is that even relevant? FISH: It's really not. I have a fairly good size lot. I've got an office and a small pickup truck. I'm not doing this as a personal thing. We need to make sure people can still utilize their property, and there are enough regulations and requirements already, like landscape management, like height restrictions. Let us do what we can. We can't live in a utopia where everything is happy and nobody is going to affect me. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 62 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Just the other night I opened my window to sleep and there was smoke. I don't know if it was from my neighbor's house or from controlled burns down south, but I had to make a decision. Do I have the window open and live with the smoke, or close the window? So, it was a choice. There are things that we have to do, and we have to give a little bit sometimes. We can't all be happy all of the time. There are going to be things that inconvenience us, there are going to be drivers who don't use their turn signals, there's going to be people who don't start quick enough from a stoplight. But we can't regulate everything, and we've got to be able to allow us to do the things that we can do on our properties. I'm sure there are things that go on in my property in a normal day that could offend some people. I've got three boys, and the youngest is five and is very active outside. I guess I'm just trying to let my words be heard that as a property owner, we need to have rights and freedoms and abilities to utilize our properties to a point to where it is not limiting our potential for the American dream. Being an entrepreneur, being an independent businessman, being able to pursue the dream of someday having to move from my home business to a big business place because my business is just too big now. That's about it for me. LUKE: Any thoughts on the ordinance, on how it could be improved or changed? FISH: I think it's too wordy. I think the whole goal was to -- I'm guessing at this -- clarify some of the wording in the current ordinance. And it just kind of snowballed, and got too complicated. We're unique here. We've got a mindset of people who have lived here for a long time that it's mine, let me do what I want to do. DEWOLF: That's true, but all day long we hear from people like the folks earlier, where "let me do what I want with my property" ends up with piles of differentials and seventeen cars. And I'm getting telephone calls from someone who has a neighbor who thinks he can shoot his rifle off at 5 a.m. There's got to be some balance here. If you want to have washing machines in your backyard that don't work, yikes. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 63 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations FISH: You're right, the word balance. And I feel like the County is going pretty well towards balance, especially with this meeting tonight. And just encourage that this be in the forefront of everyone's minds, the balance. It would be really easy to go overboard on the restrictions and regulations. LUKE: This proposed ordinance is actually easing regulations, allowing things that aren't allowed now. FRANK PENNOCK: Should all of these things be ironed out to everybody's satisfaction, these rules and regulations, would the people who are in total violation be required now to come in and get a permit, and would the permit be denied until they clean up their act? It probably still comes under code enforcement. LUKE: Absolutely. It would be a code enforcement issue. PENNOCK: Now would you put a closed sign on their door right now? LUKE: Not without a court order. PENNOCK: That would be my question, it might be the way to get rid of some of these eighteen differentials piled up. TINA LYONS: The County road that we're on is privately maintained by the people who live on it. Can you have commercial activity on a privately maintained road? LUKE: There are different types of roads. We have County -maintained roads, which are typically asphalt. We have roads that are dedicated to the public inside subdivisions, which are public roads but not necessarily maintained by the County. And then there are private roads. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 64 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations CRAGHEAD: If it's a public road, there's no restriction on what can go across that road. LYONS: But is it fair to have commercial activity on a road that's privately maintained? DEWOLF: Fair isn't the issue. DALY: The road doesn't really matter. It's the zoning for the property. DEWOLF: There are lots of things that are legal that don't seem fair. I don't know if you are familiar with the west side of Bend, out where the Mt. Bachelor parking lot is. The Hearings Officer designed traffic control devices because neighbors were so vocal about not wanting traffic down Columbia Avenue, they created this monster of a thing out in the middle of the road so that people can't make a right turn out of the parking lot. They still can, and I can't believe someone didn't appeal that. It makes no sense, but it's there. It's not logical or fair, but it's legal. LYONS: Well, then, perhaps we should include road maintenance as a part of having commercial activity. LUKE: If it's not type 1, if it requires additional use, sometimes that would be part of the input on a conditional use. LYONS: The bigger the rig, the harder it is on the road. There are only five people on our road who pay now. DEWOLF: Then you've got the guy with the seventeen -year-old son, spinning his wheels and causing more problems than the guy with the heavy rig. LYONS: This can be a problem for the local residents, though. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 65 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations BRYAN: I have a comment more than a question, and maybe a request. And that is that maybe you are aware, or maybe you don't want to be aware, of how many businesses actually operate in the County that nobody knows about or cares about. Most of them are pretty benign, and many of them provide a tremendous service to the local community. I do want to suggest that you take those into consideration. The impact on those businesses could be life-threatening for those folks. DEWOLF: I want to assure you that my interest is to watch out for unintended consequences of what we do here. I respect the process that has taken place so far, and what the Planning Commission has come up with. The three of us will argue and hassle and yadda yadda and come up with something. That's why we get elected, and this is where the buck stops. When we pass something that people are upset about, they aren't going to call the Planning Commissioners; they're calling us. So we do try to be very careful and place close attention on how things impact folks, and try to anticipate for folks who aren't here and the impact that it could have on them. BRYAN: I also noticed the other day when I here that with some of the questions you had for the young lady who was sitting here, you folks actually take the time to read all this stuff. Thank you. ELISE LOWE: Could it be a zoning permit instead of a CUP, maybe for type 2 and type 3? SYRNYK: That's a good question. I think this is something that the Planning Commission considered for type 2, instead of going a gradation of permitted outright, CUP. They might look at something that under our code is called a development action, where essentially you fill out a form, if it's clear you meet all the criteria you get your permit, and that's it. There's no public comment and no appeal. But there's a record that you described your business operating a certain way. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 66 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: I wondered, too, this sort of one size fits all deal. Is there some logic to looking at different types within different zones. I mean, how different is EFU from RR -10? I don't know. SYRNYK: That's why we're having the hearing; to try to get all of these questions on the table. DEWOLF: Now that they are all here, how are we going to answer them, Damian? SYRNYK: That's also a good question. (Laughter.) LUKE: The problem is that people currently have home and businesses by and large weren't there when they bought them, and you're asking to change the code to allow people to move in with a different type of activity than was there before. And that's the dilemma we're facing. Small business runs this county; there's no question about that. Less than ten employees, it's a great base, and does a lot better during a recession usually than larger businesses, and provide good jobs and good income. But you also have people who have property rights of their own in the homes and neighborhoods. So we have to weigh those things. DALY: On the reverse side of what he just said, we also have a lot of existing businesses that are out there, and they could be illegal now and may be illegal when we pass this. But at least this is an attempt for them to become legal, as long as they aren't causing a big problem. My biggest fear is that we pass something that puts people out of business. That's not what I want to see happen. SYRNYK: Is the hearing closed now, or is the record being left open? Minutes of Public Hearing Page 67 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations LUKE: We need to leave the record open in case somebody comes up with another question or other ideas. SYRNYK: What would you like to do? LUKE: Has everybody signed up who wants to have things mailed to them, about meetings or whatever? If you want to be notified of future meetings or decisions, please put your name and mailing address on the sheet. DEWOLF: If anyone has suggestions, please, let us know. As you can tell, we are far from convinced that what is presented here is what ought to be. LUKE: Testimony should come to Damian (Syrnyk); he's the maintainer of the record. He will share e-mails or written testimony with the Commissioners. SYRNYK: Do you have a deadline of when you'd like comments in? CRAGHEAD: May I get a clarification? Are you continuing the hearing, or are you closing the oral testimony but leaving the written record open? LUKE: I don't believe we are done. DALY: I don't either. DEWOLF: I kind of don't even think we're close. LUKE: I wouldn't mind continuing this. I'm not going to close the oral testimony, no. iviinutes of rublic Heanng Page 68 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations CRAGHEAD: Do you want to set a date certain for the next meeting? LUKE: We are meeting two weeks from Wednesday. DEWOLF: I'm just not sure about this. If we can get together in a couple of weeks and consider any additional testimony, it may be that we want to maybe not go back to the drawing board, but maybe modify things enough that we'd want to have additional input on the next version. The difficulty is, since this is impacting so much, we need to keep continuing this to a date certain so we avoid having to do the full notice to every taxpayer or property owner in the County. LUKE: Right. Again, we have a list and there's some from the Planning Commission meetings. When we're ready to put out something we have modified or worked on, we could have another evening hearing like this, and allow people to see it before we move on it. Even though we will meet two weeks from Wednesday, we'll discuss it and it would come back out for a public hearing. You would be notified before the adoption. SYRNYK: Let me ask a question about timeline. In two weeks, you'll be meeting the week of May 5th, and I'll be on vacation that week. DEWOLF: What about May 12th, a Monday? The work session? LUKE: Two Commissioners might not be in town that day. MORROW: You can have a discussion without Damian being present. I can cover for him. Since it's apparent that you will be having considerable discussion about this, you don't have to adjust your scheduled around Damian's vacation. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 69 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations CRAGHEAD: Regarding your comment about noticing everyone, that's what has been called the Measure 56 notice. I don't believe that it has to be done on a subsequent hearing because it talks about needing to do it before the initial hearing, before the first hearing of the ordinance, to do the broad mailing. LUKE: So mailing to the people who have signed up and participated is adequate? DEWOLF: How sure are you of that? CRAGHEAD: Right here in the statute, in ORS 215.5031, it talks about the notice needing to go to twenty days but not more than forty days before the date of the first hearing on the ordinance. The Planning Commission hearing would have been that. LUKE: If we close the written record for May 12th, and have a discussion on the 14th, will that work? DEWOLF: That's fine. It kind of depends on what else ends up on our agenda. But my guess is that at our next meeting what we are going to do is kind of see where we're at and how we'd like to proceed. LUKE: Why don't we meet at 9:00 a.m. on May 14th, before the regular meeting, to discuss what has come in. No decision would be made that day; it would be just a work session. DEWOLF: It would be a work session for us to kind of gather what you all have put in. And we'll decide at that point where we go from here. It won't be a matter of us making a decision that day. That's a ways off. LUKE: The next meeting that the Commissioners will discuss this is 9:00 a.m. on May 14th. It will be a work session, and you can sit through it if you want. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 70 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations DEWOLF: Whoever signed up tonight or previously, when we establish another hearing date, if that's what we do; we'll mail that out to you. CRAGHEAD: Since this is a legislative matter, ex parte contact is not a problem. You can receive contact from the public at any time, on an individual basis. LUKE: We are requesting that letters come in by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, to Damian, who will provide copies to the Commissioners. On Wednesday, May 14, at 9:00 a.m. the Commissioners will have a work session to discuss what has come in. We'll try to clarify things with staff and review what has been presented already and what has come in. SYRNYK: And maybe at the work session you might be able to come up with a hearing date so we can give notice. LUKE: That might happen, but it may also provide an opportunity for another work session. DEWOLF: So we're continuing this right now until May whenever, right? WIK" No, we're closing the public hearing and leaving the written record open. We don't have to renotice; we'll just mail to the people on the list. CRAGHEAD: And you'll just have another hearing. LUKE: At the advice of legal counsel, I'm going to close the public hearing and leave the written record until May 7th at 5 p.m. Minutes of Public Hearing Page 71 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations Being no further discussion or comments offered, Chair Luke adjourned the meeting at 8:50 p.m. DATED this 23rd Day of April 2003 for the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. Dennis R. Luke, Chair Tom DeWolf, er 4NM!i�fia-el ATTEST: M. Daly, C issioner Recording Secretary Attachments: Exhibit A: Frank Brian's written testimony Exhibit B: Whitney and Elise Lowe's written testimony Minutes of Public Hearing Page 72 of 72 Pages Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Proposed Changes to Code and Zoning re: Land Use Regulations for Home Business Occupations FRANK BRIAN 21255 SW YOUNG AVENUE BEND, OR 97701 (541) 389-4120 **Also Presented Orally at Hearing** On April 23, 2003 at 5:30 P.M. April 23, 2003 Deschutes County Board of Commissioners 1130 NW Harriman Street Bend, OR 97701 Subject: Ordinance 2003-003, Proposed Changes to County Zoning regulations on Home Occupations (File No. TA -02-12) Re: Staff Report Dated April 16, 2003—Planning Commission Recommendation to Board of County Commissioners Gentlemen: I commend you on your efforts to clarify a very murky situation in your desire to consolidate 17 zoning districts into a single one -size -fits -all Home Occupation Ordinance. As you are well aware, our society generates wealth (money) via the means of some occupation. Almost no wealth is produced through the harvesting of that elusive natural resource—money trees. Everyone has to work somewhere in order not to be a burden on society. By the application of their occupation, an individual then contributes to society. Participation is through the exchange of their wealth for the goods and services of another and the payment of taxes. Our country was founded on a bedrock of freedom and the ability to profit from one's own hard work. This recommendation has many areas that need further clarification in order to make this a successful cohesive ordinance that when adopted will help to bring harmony to the community rather than being a divisive instrument. This proposed ordinance still does not contain a definition of what a Home Occupation is. How can citizens fully understand its impact without defining who and what it applies to? How can the County enforce it? • Is a home office a home occupation? Page 1 of 4. E_�v L6C t � Exhibit f t Page 1 0f yf • Is an employee driving a work vehicle home a home occupation? • Does advertising make it a home occupation? • Does a business listing in the phone book make it a home occupation? If the County already has criterion that it uses to define a home occupation, please make that clear by including it in the ordinance itself. The recommendation gives no analysis of the impact the proposed changes will have on home occupations with an existing conditional use permit, nor on the impact that it will have on existing business operations within the County. Will these be grandfathered in? Does the County even know how many home based occupations there are currently in the County and under what circumstances they operate? Also, this ordinance is proposed as 18.116.280 of the County Code. Chapter 18.116 is titled Supplementary Provisions. As it now stands, the public does not know which parts of the existing ordinance will be combined with the proposed changes to form the new regulation. This would probably be inappropriate and would add to the public's perception of a misleading stealth County government. The following are a selected few of the obvious problems that are likely to affect the most people. Type 1 Item c of Type 1 of the recommendation states,"Does not produce odor, dust, glare, flashing lights, or noise." Is thisa zero tolerance threshold? How can you do an)9hing that does not produce air odor, dust, glare, flashing lights or noise? Is a professional photographer taking flash pictures in violation of the rules? Does this mean not at the property line? Is it possible a home occupation that would cause consternation on a half -acre parcel would be appropriate on a five -acre parcel? For example, a sign painter or commercial artist may use paints that give off an odor. On a five -acre parcel this would probably not be noticeable but on a half - acre parcel may be cause for complaint. Item a of Type 1 states that it will be "carried on within a dwelling". Why would it matter whether it was conducted within a garage or an accessory building if it had no impact on the neighbors? This restriction seems intrusive on the owners' property rights. For example an author who uses a computer to ply her craft elects to work in the sanctuary of an accessory building so as not to be subject to the distractions of the normal Page 2 of 4 Exhibit _ A Page off= of P , household. A professional artist paints using the natural sunlight in his backyard. Or an accountant elects to put a computer in the corner of his garage. These would not be allowed as a Type 1 under the current recommendation. And didn't Bill Gates and Steve Jobs start out in their garage? Type 2 Item h states that the operation of the home occupation will be "limited to the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday." A home occupation most likely will offer goods or services to the local community. To limit the hours of operation from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday renders it almost useless to the local working community. It also makes it more difficult for the fledgling entrepreneur who must work elsewhere as an employee to pursue a start-up operation in her spare time. It would be more reasonable to limit the hours from 7 am to 9 pm any day of the week. Item n --iv., v., and vi. specifically exclude appliance repair, catering, welding or machine shops from Type 2 home occupations. These appear to be fairly innocuous home occupations. Why are they being excluded? The Planning Department stated that it was excluded in another county that they had studied. Is that sufficient reason to exclude them here in our county? To specifically exclude any business from Type 2 without taking into consideration the parcel size, the scope of business activity, or the placement of the activity on property adds an unreasonable burden. It also limits its viability by adding to the start up costs because most people will need an attorney in order to not get bogged down in the morass of the Planning Department. Type 3 Unless you are zoned EFU or in a Forest Zone, the maximum number of employees you are allowed to have on site is two period, it doesn't matter if you apply for a conditional use permit and hire an attorney. Many successful businesses in America started out as home-based businesses. Two employees is usually not enough to reach the critical mass required in order to be able to afford the additional overhead of renting space elsewhere. The number of employees should be higher or should be judged on a case by case basis depending on the size of the parcel and where the activity is located on the site. I attended the November 14, 2002 Planning Commission hearing on this matter. Notice of that hearing was sent out with last fall's property tax bills. There was a good turnout for that hearing. At that hearing there was a sign-up sheet for people who wished to be put on a mailing list to receive further information. I put my name and address on the list as did many others. Page 3 of 4 Exhibit A Page 3 of I falsely assumed that I would be notified so that I could be involved in the process of forming these proposed regulations. Wrong assumption! The Planning Commission had another hearing on January 9, 2003 and three different work sessions on this matter! The only notice I did get from having nny name on that list was notice of this hearing tonight. To his credit, Damian Syrnyk, Senior Planner for the Deschutes County Planning Division, has been very helpful in promptly returning phone calls and answering my questions about the proposed ordinance. However, to have your name on a list in order to be kept informed and then to not be notified until it is almost a finalized regulation is misleading at best, and at worst was intentional misdirection. This staff report reflects the Planning Commission's outrageous bias and is an excellent example of why the economy in Central Oregon is so bad. You would think the County would be trying to generate new business activity to increase revenue rather than adding to the burden of those currently employed. Be advised, a raise in taxes affects all citizens not just the taxpayer. Sincerely, Frank Brian Cc: The Bend Bulletin Cc: Lars Larson Page 4 of 4 Exhibit A Page 4 of— q- Whitney and Elise Lowe 21115 Scottsdale Dr. Bend, OR 97701 Community Development Department Deschutes County 117 NW Lafayette Ave. Bend, OR 97701-1925 To whom It May Concern: 4/23/03 We appreciate your considering changes in the regulation of home occupations. We have reviewed the proposed changes to the county code and are providing the following comments. First, we would like to acknowledge the thought and hard work that evidently went into developing these proposed changes. We are impressed with the level of detail and the ideas proposed. We do, however, have some concerns. Thank you for considering these comments. Whitney and Elise Lowe Exhibit 3 Page /of � Comments regarding the new Home Occupation zoning rules: After much research and investigation, there appears to be three (3) primary concerns regarding home occupations. Those three basic concerns are: 1) Disturbance of neighbors 2) Maintaining neighborhood appearance and values 3) Controlling traffic We find that these basic goals may be met simply without overburdening our bureaucratic process and belaboring our county workers. Simply put, we believe these new rules are just too much, too detailed, and verge on micromanagement. Enforcement of these rules will be impossible, costly, and time intensive. Who will go to all these places? How many will wind up in our local courts? We suggest the following: 1) Remove Section Type 2 and merge with Type 1. Eliminate acreage divisions. There is no difference between a lot and a'/z to 5 acre property. Have one additional section for 20 plus acreas only. 2) ncrease employees to 1-3 and specify "equivalent of full-time". 7— ( f o2-- 3) Add "smoke, vibration, and heat" to Type I. c 4) Delete 4 square footage requirement entirely from all sections. This is virtually unenforceable and who really cares? Does this mean a painter who sells paintings should only paint in one room? What is the point? 5) Delete CUP requirement . Again, what does this accomplish except spending taxpayer money. Perhaps a zoning permit would be less burdensome. 6) Virtually all of the detailed itemized things would be addressed by simply making rules based on the above 3 basic concerns. 7) Eliminate vehicle trip counts — again noise and disturbance rules would fix this. 8) Add an enforcement rule such as, "reactive enforcement, ... responsibility of the; homeowners to bring offenders to the attention of the planning and zoning department or homeowners association for determination and enforcement." Exhibit 0 2 Page a of h 1. Type 1. a: Family only employees. We strongly disagree with this limitation 1. Requiring only family members to work in a home occupation is discriminatory. Those of us who for some reason, either medical or otherwise, who do not have families are punished for not having children to work for us. 2. This rule contradicts other home employee uses, such as maids, house cleaners, live-in caretakers, etc. 3. Appears to benefit no one. Who does this benefit? What possible harm could come from, say 1 employee, versus a son or daughter performing home tasks? 4. Since this is the only code that allows a home business on less than a'/z to 20 plus acres, it does not benefit or work to encourage home occupations. umerous county subdivisions are going in that are NOT '/z acre or larger. at about these potential taxpayers and small businesses? �ister's code allows non -family workers, the county should be even less strict. 7 Buying acreage will be out of the financial means of many pretty soon. Does fie county want small internet, mail-order, real estate agents with assistants, consultants with assistants, or other non -impactful businesses to only reside on '/2 acre or more. .'eems less impactful than Type 1. b. section which allows up to 5 trips per day o the site by clients or customers. &Iow is an employee different from a family member in terms of the occupation? 10. Why is having an employee on a small lot more of a disturbance than a family member? . Type.1 b: 5 trips per day to onsite servicing of clients o �t -- Needs more clarification. 1. Are you saying clients may come to the home up to 5 times per day or that the business owner should make trips from the home only 5 times per day? 2. Does this mean one can serve clients in the home? - — "3 Exhibit 1 Page 3 of (( 2. Type 2. General Question: Does CUP approval require neighborhood approval? If so we strongly disagree with this whole section and the CUP requirement. 1. How many on the county board have completely friendly, gracious relationships with their neighbors. 2. Requiring neighbors to approve home occupation approval sets up small businesses for failure. a. Some people would disagree with about anything, even if they never saw you. Our current neighbors have shown themselves to be unfriendly to about anyone around them. Getting their approval would be impossible for us. And I am certain we are not alone. Section needs to include similar language as 1. Type.1 c. "Does not produce odor, dust, glare, flashing lights, or noise." 2. Type 2. a. '/z acre size requirement We disagree with this limitation and believe it has little purpose. 1. What is the purpose of this rule? 2. What does it aim to prevent? 3. 1/2 acre properties, as well as larger acreages, are becoming hard to find and expensive. 2. Type 2. c. 2 employees requirement Needs clarification and purpose. 1. Are those 2 part-time or full-time employees? 2. If only 2 part-time employees, what is the harm in having a third'? 3. Why is having an employee on a 1/z acre lot less of a disturbance`' Exhibit 13 4 Page of (o 2. Type 2. d. Floor area requirement. This is confusing and contradicts Type 1. requirements. 1. Why should an attached garage not be included in floor area requirements in Type 1. d, but IS included in this section. 2. Are you meaning to require that home occupation owners build accessory buildings on their'/2 acre properties? 2. Type 2. e. 10 trips to site by customers Please explain the purpose of this rule. 1. 10 trips per day from customers and employees seems like a lot. 2. A'/z acre parcel is still part of a neighborhood and if we lived next door to someone who had people coming and going all day, we'd be upset. 2. Type 2. j. Materials or mechanical equipment and noise. Needs to include "Does not produce odor, dust, glare, flashing lights, or noise." 1. What if the noise they produce is not from a material or machine? There is no recourse for neighbors in this rule. 2. Type 2. n. Not allowed uses. Please include dog kennels, animal hospitals, etc. here. 1. The notation in the introductory section says home occupations are not subject to the CUP requirements of 18.128 which speaks specifically about dog kennels. Exhibit B Page of L a FA 3. Type 3. b. General comments. We do not understand the purpose of this section or how it differs from Type 1 or 2. (Except in its referral to 20 plus acreages and employees). 1. What are the size limitations for this CUP? The other sections have size limitations, this one does not. 2. Preferential treatment to farms is apparently given. What about someone who has 20 acres but not in the EFU Zone? 3. Needs to specify whom it would apply to. 3. Type 3. b. Employees. We disagree with the limitation of 2 employees on property. Ditto above comments. 1. Why would a farm or EFU Zone be allowed 5 employees but another use, such as a professional artist or mailing service also on 20 acres not be allowed 5 employees? 2. The county needs to be more progressive than this. 3. Type 3. c. 35% area Why the difference? 3. Type 3. e. "nearby land uses" This language is very confusing and extremely vague. 1. Who will decide? A court? 2. What or to whom does "disturbance" relate to? Do you mean to say, "disturbance or inconvenience to nearby" neighbors? Or, must the "disturbance or inconvenience" actually interfere with another's USE of their property — a critical difference. 3. Does this mean anyone on large acreage can have a full blown business and have as much traffic as they want? 4. Please define ""disturbance or inconvenience." Exhibit r(3 6 Page CP of Co