Milwaukie planning commission approves meditation group's community service use with limits on attendees and overnight stays

The Milwaukie Planning Commission at its regular meeting approved a Type 3 community service use allowing a meditation group to operate from the house and barn at 8835 Southeast 40 Second Avenue, with conditions limiting on-site participants to 30 at any time and restricting overnight stays to no more than 20 days per calendar year.

The approval formalizes use of a property designated a significant historic resource in the Ardenwald-Johnson Creek neighborhood as a base of operations for the Ringer Moss meditation group. Brett Calver, senior planner for the city, told commissioners that staff had reviewed the proposal against Milwaukie Municipal Code criteria and recommended approval, saying the activity is “a quiet one” and the expected attendance “seem[ed] to be low enough to not warrant greater concern.”

The nut graf: the commission approved the conditional use while adding numeric limits after neighbors raised concerns about parking, access and how overnight retreats would be handled. The limits are intended to allow the group to operate while preserving a clear enforcement trigger if activity exceeds what was presented.

Commissioners and staff summarized the proposal and the anticipated scale. The property is a roughly three-quarter-acre, double-corner lot near the Roswell Market and Ardenwald School; it currently contains a primary house and a detached barn. The applicants said the house would remain a primary residence initially and that the barn may be renovated to host more of the group's activities over time. Applicant Andrew Mason identified himself as the property owner; Jane Lawson, identified as the group’s moderator, described the organization’s history of meeting in private homes and its current pattern of meetings.

Lawson said the group meets regularly (twice weekly during much of the year) and conducts occasional multi-day intensive retreats. “We currently do 2 5-day and 1 8-day,” she told the commission, and the group does not expect routine large-scale events. She said lodging and meals are included in retreat fees and described the operation as akin to a religious or practice community rather than a commercial short-term rental: “It’s what that experience is. I guess people aren't sleeping over at church, but that’s sort of the nature of meditation,” she said.

Neighbors who testified, including Alexandra Howard (an adjacent resident) and James McGaha (a neighborhood resident), asked the commission to add conditions or clarifications addressing parking, circulation and safety near the school. Howard noted that on-street parking is limited on nearby 40 Second and that a loading zone on Roswell affects available curb spaces. Public commenters asked how overnight participants and retreat parking would be managed.

Staff responded that current state and local law no longer allows the city to require minimum off-street parking for most uses, and that while the city can pursue remedies if an approved use exceeds approved conditions, it cannot impose a traditional parking minimum as part of the Type 3 approval. Calver said the city could require a revisit of the approval if the approved numeric limits were exceeded and noted the city’s enforcement options and the potential to bring the matter back to the commission.

During deliberations commissioners discussed whether the proposal resembled a religious or institutional campus rather than a short-term rental operation; several commissioners said that framing made short-term-rental rules less applicable. Commissioners also suggested the city examine the posted Roswell loading-zone hours with traffic engineers as a local mitigation option.

Votes at a glance: The commission approved CSU-2025-002 as amended; roll-call recorded six ayes (Commissioners Garvey, Penick, Sherman, Hess, Lowther, and Chair Greatrick), zero nays. The motion approved the application subject to a condition that the site not host more than 30 participants at a given meditation event and not have more than 20 overnight participant days in any calendar year; exceeding those limits would require the applicants to seek a modification or trigger enforcement review.

Context and next steps: Staff noted one outstanding technical item — whether the barn parcel is explicitly included in the property’s 1992 historic designation — and said the city is working to clarify the record before any future exterior alterations to the barn would proceed. The commission’s decision can be appealed to the city council as provided in city rules; staff will mail the notice of decision and inform the applicants and neighbors of appeal timelines.