From laura.buhl at state.or.us Fri Feb 24 18:04:08 2017 From: laura.buhl at state.or.us (Buhl, Laura) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2017 02:04:08 +0000 Subject: [LandUse-News] Land Use News for February 24, 2017 Message-ID: Welcome to this week's roundup of the Land Use News! The Land Use News is an electronic news clipping service provided by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). Land Use News emphasizes local reporting and commentary on land use in Oregon and other states. The links to copyrighted news stories in Land Use News are not archived by DLCD, and the archiving policies of these sources vary. The stories, if available, reside on the site of the original news source. Please direct requests for archived stories, or permission to reprint them, to the original news source. Past Land Use News weekly e-mails may be found here: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/landuse-news Anyone may subscribe, unsubscribe, or change their subscription to the free service by visiting this site: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/landuse-news. ________________________________ Unaffordability is a Problem but Sprawl is a Terrible Solution Planetizen Blog Many households spend more than they can afford on housing and transportation, but the latest International Housing Affordability Survey is wrong to recommend sprawl as the best solution. Real solutions must reduce both housing and transport costs. Transit Chief: Build Light-Rail Line, Three Highway Projects Portland Tribune TriMet's general manager says four big projects - only one of them a light-rail line - must be built if the Portland region is to avert traffic gridlock in the next two decades. Neil McFarlane said it might be considered unusual for the regional transit agency to promote highway projects in addition to the Southwest Corridor line proposed from downtown Portland to Bridgeport Village in Tualatin. But he told an audience Monday, Feb. 20, at the Washington County Public Affairs Forum that many of the region's leaders agree. Trimet Lobbies For More Freeways In A Misguided 'Fix' For Portland Congestion bikeportland.org The top executive of Portland's mass transit agency said this week that the Portland region has four top transportation priorities, and three of them are to expand capacity of urban freeways. . . . Why is the head of a transit agency actively promoting freeway expansion projects? San Francisco Updates Planning Code With TDM Measures State Smart Transportation Initiative On February 7, 2017, San Francisco approved an amendment to its existing Planning Code Section 169 that incorporates an ambitious transportation demand management program for future residential and commercial development. Working to manage its transportation system across modes in the growing city, San Francisco will now require TDM measures for new developments for a variety of land uses. Cities and states across the country are taking note of this effort to manage vehicular demand for the transportation network. Traffic Deaths Reach Highest Level in Nearly a Decade The Hill (Washington, D.C.) A total of 40,200 people died on U.S. roads in 2016, the highest level in almost a decade, according to preliminary estimates from the National Safety Council (NSC). The number of traffic fatalities last year represents a 6 percent increase over 2015 and a 14 percent increase over 2014 - the sharpest two-year escalation in more than 50 years, the safety group said. State's Highest Court Holds NYC Liable for Injuries on Streets Without Traffic Calming Streetsblog NYC The Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, ruled that New York City and other municipalities can be held liable for failing to redesign streets with a history of traffic injuries and reckless driving. Developers Just Proposed Nearly 6,000 Apartments to Evade Portland's New Affordable Housing Mandate The Portland Mercury Want to ensure Portland developers build more housing? Threaten to make them offer affordable units. That's one takeaway from new data obtained by the Mercury, which shows that developers applied to build an impressive 5,900 units in the two months before the city enacted a new inclusionary housing policy this month. And that's a conservative estimate. SF Controller's Affordable-Housing Compromise Gets Mixed Response San Francisco Chronicle The question before city officials is how much affordable housing developers should have to rent or sell in new market-rate buildings. That's a huge issue in places like the Mission, where the construction of luxury apartment buildings has dwarfed the creation of housing for low- and middle-income residents. Rosenfield's analysis concluded that developers can afford to rent up to 18 percent of new apartments and sell up to 20 percent of new condominiums at below-market prices without jeopardizing overall housing production. That's less than the current requirement of 25 percent to get approval for new construction, but more than the 12 percent mandated by the city for most of the past several years. Two New Tools for Planning a Healthy Urban Canopy www.deeproot.com Trees are a vital part of urban communities, providing social, environmental, and economic benefits. However, the urban environment is a difficult one for most trees due to the added stresses of soil compaction and lack of available soil, among many other challenges. Once established, their success is often further complicated by infrastructure conflicts and maintenance concerns on the part of planners, developers, and owners. Fortunately, the U.S. Forest Service has developed two new tools to help plan for and manage a healthy urban forest: one that guides designers and tree managers to select tree species likely to survive in the built environment, and another to monitor tree health to ensure trees become an asset instead of a liability. Tree Mortality Epidemic in California Forests Keeps Spreading Capital Press (Salem) - A task force set up by Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking solutions as drought, pests and other factors have killed 102 million trees in California forests since 2010 - Drought, pests and overcrowded forests are contributing to a tree mortality epidemic in the Sierra Nevada that's rapidly spreading, the leader of a state task force says. Aerial surveys by the U.S. Forest Service last year found 36 million more dead trees, bringing the number of trees that have died in California forests since 2010 to more than 102 million, according to the state Tree Mortality Task Force. The mortality epidemic has spread from the Fresno area to Placer County and is continuing to move north, said Gabe Schultz, the task force's Redding-based chairman. Oregon Coast Scientists Warn Warming Ocean Temps May Create Chaos beachconnection.net 20 of the world's leading oceanographic researchers today released new evidence indicating how warming ocean temperatures around the globe will create some chaotic changes in that habitat by the year 2100. The deep ocean floor may see starvation and devastating ecological changes by the end of this century, and this will in turn have difficult implications for the rest of the planet. Among those researchers who were part of the study were Andrew Thurber, an Oregon State University marine ecologist and co-author. This facility does much of its work through the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, on the central Oregon coast. The study's findings were published this week in the journal Elementa. Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read Defends Vote to Sell Elliott State Forest Statesman-Journal (Salem) When Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read voted to move forward with the sale of Elliott State Forest, he instantly became a villain for Oregon's conservation community. The Democrat was the swing vote in the State Land Board's 2-1 decision to approve selling the 82,500-acre forest to a Roseburg-based timber company. He joined Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and split with Democratic Gov. Kate Brown. State Panel Endorses Contentious Eastmoreland Historic District The Oregonian (Portland) A state historic preservation panel endorsed the Eastmoreland neighborhood's bid for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, advancing a contentious proposal that's divided the Southeast Portland neighborhood. The nine-member State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation unanimously approved of the nomination put forward by the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association. That puts it on a clear path toward the register. The nomination also won the endorsement of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission earlier in the week. Company With 'Baggage' Proposes Wilsonville Mental Hospital The Oregonian (Portland) A chronic shortage of treatment facilities has put the mentally ill on Oregon's streets and in its jails in dismaying numbers. So you'd think mental health advocates would be doing backflips over the news of a proposed 100-bed psychiatric hospital in Wilsonville. You'd be wrong. Instead, activists are lukewarm to downright hostile, arguing Universal Health Systems's planned $35 million hospital is the wrong plan in the wrong place from the wrong company. Clatsop County Looks To Identify Mass Shelters The Daily Astorian An assessor will evaluate open areas in Clatsop County over the next few months for possible mass shelters in the event of an earthquake, tsunami or other major emergency. The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday night to approve a $30,000 contract to Stacy Burr to provide the countywide assessment. The county received a $30,000 grant for the assessment last year from the state Military Department's homeland security grant program. Clatsop County Emergency Management reached out to four emergency planning consultants in January, and Burr was the sole respondent. Bill Seeks To Boost Malheur County Economy Portland Tribune A new proposal, first read Thursday in the Oregon House and sponsored by Bentz and Oregon Speaker of the House Tina Kotek, D-Portland, is a gesture to rural Oregon. It was in the works before the snow hit, but has taken on new significance in the wake of the storms, Kotek said. "We're saying to (Malheur County) that we care and we want businesses to stay in Ontario," Kotek said. The proposal would dedicate $10 million in proceeds from lottery bonds in the next two-year budget cycle for a new economic development region in the cities of Ontario, Vale, Nyssa and surrounding areas. As Some Jobs Leave Pendleton, Many Remain Unfilled East Oregonian (Pendleton) Last week, Rocky Mountain Colby Pipe Co. halted production and laid off most of their employees. . . . At a Pendleton Progress Board meeting Feb. 10,, Pendleton economic development director Steve Chrisman told a group of local leaders about the layoffs but added that Rocky Mountain Colby Pipe's loss could be Keystone RV Company's gain, along with other local companies. According to an interview after the meeting, Chrisman put together an informal study on job vacancies in Pendleton in December. Chrisman said he expected the number of unfilled jobs to be significant but not overwhelming. Bringing Back the Wetlands The Daily Astorian - Study looks at invasive species in Youngs Bay watershed - A stern-looking older man pulled up in his truck on Whiskey Road in Warrenton in 2014 to speak with Sarah Kidd, who was standing on the side of the road. "Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked her. Kidd, a National Science Foundation fellow, told him she was surveying a wetland in the area as part of her six-year study of non-native, invasive species in the Youngs Bay watershed. Expecting a negative retort, Kidd was surprised by the man's next question. "Why aren't there any more wapato?" he said. Laura Buhl, AICP, CNU-A | Land Use & Transportation Planner Planning Services Division | Transportation & Growth Management Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development 635 Capitol Street NE, Suite 150 | Salem, OR 97301-2540 Direct: (503) 934-0073 | Main: (503) 373-0050 laura.buhl at state.or.us | www.oregon.gov/LCD/TGM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: