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Councilors ask staff to remove a few downtown parcels from Climate Friendly Area after landmarks review
Summary
Councilors and landmarks commissioners discussed whether parcels near the Monteith and downtown historic districts should remain in a newly adopted Climate Friendly Area; council signaled direction to staff to consider removing two small clusters of properties from the CFA and return with a boundary amendment.
Anne Catlin of the City of Albany's Community Development Department told a joint work session that City staff had received concerns about the downtown Climate Friendly Area (CFA) boundaries because a small number of historic properties fell inside the CFA's boundary.
"There were some concerns about the boundaries of the downtown climate friendly area, including some historic buildings in the Monteith or Hackleman districts," Catlin said as she showed a map of the CFA and the downtown historic districts. She identified three properties in the Monteith area (circled in purple) and one property in the downtown district (circled in green) that drew the most comment.
Councilors and commissioners discussed the potential impacts. Councilor Robinson asked whether inclusion in the CFA would change historic-review obligations; Catlin replied that it would not: "All of the properties that are currently regulated, meaning they're in a historic district or on the local inventory, Article 7's standards still apply. The only thing [a CFA] does is that there were some uses that we need to allow. But because these properties are already zoned downtown, most of those uses are already allowed."
Councilor Smith and Councilor Newton both said they favored removing at least the purple cluster from the CFA; Councilor Newton proposed removing both the purple and green circled parcels from the downtown CFA. Councilors indicated there was sufficient direction to staff to prepare a formal boundary amendment and return with the necessary ordinance language and public-notice steps.
Catlin said the CFA boundaries had been reviewed during the ordinance adoption process and could be amended; she offered to bring a mapped amendment back in the fall following additional review. Councilors noted the concern that future state-level actions tied to CFAs could change local control, and several members said carving the few contested parcels out of the downtown CFA would reduce uncertainty while preserving the larger CFA.
Ending: Staff will prepare a proposed boundary amendment that removes the small, circled parcels from the downtown Climate Friendly Area and return to the council later for formal public-notice and ordinance consideration.
