The city council is holding a hearing on a proposed text amendment to the city's zoning ordinance.  The proposal permits temporary emergency shelters as conditional uses in the code.  The proposed amendment inserts this use into the conditional use provisions for the city's light industrial and heavy industrial zones.  

The proposed text amendment was initiated by motion of the city council on April 27, 2020.  Two work sessions were held to consider the amendment.  One was held by the city council on June 8, 2020 and one was held by the planning commission on June 10, 2020.  The planning commission held two public hearings, one on July 8 and one on August 12 to solicit public input on the text amendment.  As a result of the public hearing process, the planning commission recommended that the proposed use be expanded to include the Heavy Industrial zone as well as the Light Industrial zone. The initial version of the ordinance included only the Light Industrial zoning.  The planning commission recommended that the M-2 Heavy Industrial zoning be added to help add more potential sites to the land supply.  Requiring a spacing of 1,000 feet from parks and schools greatly limits the buildable land supply.  Staff has prepared a map of the 1,000 foot buffers and industrial sites for the council's reference.  This map is attached to this report.

The industrial zones have the largest ratio of total land to developable land of all city zones. Additionally, placing shelters in industrial zones does not have a long-term impact on the city's Goal 10 residential buildable land inventory. Since a temporary emergency shelter does not provide permanent housing, it is not considered in the city's buildable land needs and does not require any special accounting in land use forecasts. By requiring temporary emergency shelters to be placed only on land which already has a permitted industrial use in place, the city also does not need to consider future reductions in available employment land in the Goal 9 inventory as a result of shelter development.

The ordinance as drafted creates several design standards that a temporary emergency shelter must meet. Among the notable requirements in the proposed code are:

• Must be sited with an existing permitted industrial use, cannot be sited on vacant industrial land
• Must be at least 0.5 acres and no more than 1.5 acres in size
• Each shelter unit must be furnished with a door and exit window and a smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector
• Showers and restrooms must be provided
• A sight obscuring fence of at least six feet in height must be provided
• Must be at least 1,000 feet from a school, park, or other shelter
• A pet area must be provided
• All shelters must be approved by the planning commission as a conditional use permit and operations must be reviewed by the planning commission
• Density shall be no more than one shelter per 1,400 square feet of lot area

It is important to note that incorporation of this ordinance into the city code does not confer approval to any shelter to locate or operate in the city's industrial zones. Any future shelter proposal will be required to submit a conditional use permit application to the city and obtain approval from the planning commission through a public hearing process. The city will use the conditional use permit process to further refine operational requirements. This code establishes physical design parameters for a temporary emergency shelter. The city will also require financial documents, a security plan, and business plan be provided by the applicant as part of a land use approval.

The project file for the proposal contains substantial supplemental information.  Staff recommends that the city council make a motion to incorporate the project file into the record.  

Findings of fact in support of the ordinance and detailing the compliance with the statewide planning goals, Oregon revised statutes, the Hermiston zoning ordinance, and Hermiston comprehensive plan are attached to this report.

The city council may choose to:

• Adopt Ordinance 2308
• Recommend amendments to Ordinance 2308 and reconsider
• Reject Ordinance 2308

• Motion to incorporate the project file into the record
• Motion to adopt findings of fact
• Motion to adopt Ordinance 2308