Talent consultant presents draft buildable lands inventory; public feedback open through August 1

Nikki Hart Brinkley, a geographic information systems analyst with Green Top Planning, presented a draft residential Buildable Lands Inventory to the City of Talent’s council and planning commission during a joint meeting. The BLI, produced under a grant from the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), measures how much residential land the city currently has and how much remains available for housing given zoning, comprehensive-plan designations and environmental and development constraints. Brinkley said she will accept public feedback on the draft through August 1.

Brinkley said the inventory uses city zoning as the primary source for assigning residential density—low, medium and high—because Talent’s comprehensive-plan designations do not consistently specify density. She described the state guidance thresholds she applied: low density generally up to eight dwelling units per acre, medium density roughly 8–16 units per acre, and high density above 16 units per acre. The consultant stressed these are working classifications used for the inventory, not changes to local zoning.

The presentation detailed environmental and local development constraints that the BLI removes from buildable acreage, including the regulatory floodway and a 35-foot buffer around it, the 1% annual‑chance flood hazard (FEMA-designated), the City of Talent local wetlands inventory with a 50-foot wetland setback, a 50-foot riparian buffer measured from top of bank, and contiguous slopes of 25% or greater across one acre. "Everything in red gets removed 100%," Brinkley said, explaining that the layers are combined to avoid double-counting constrained acreage.

Brinkley demonstrated an interactive map on Talent’s community development website that allows users to click individual tax lots and see ownership, zoning, acreage, which constraints apply and how many acres were deducted. She explained the inventory’s approach to occupancy: for each home present, one quarter of an acre is deducted as developed; tax lots with more than a quarter acre remaining after constraints are removed are counted as partially vacant or vacant depending on remaining acreage.

On preliminary totals, Brinkley said most residential tax lots are fully developed, with roughly 40 partially vacant tax lots and 82 vacant tax lots that together account for approximately 13–14 acres of vacant residential land; she cautioned the figures are preliminary and likely to change as recovery permits and recent transactions are reflected. She added that the greatest concentration of available acreage—vacant or partially vacant—is in the railroad district. "BLIs are some of my favorite things to do because I think they're really valuable," Brinkley told commissioners, and she encouraged landowners to use the survey links on the website to flag errors or provide local knowledge.

Commissioners raised several follow-up points. A commissioner asked whether removing the 1% annual‑chance flood hazard from the inventory would prevent redevelopment. Brinkley responded that the BLI’s removal is an analytical choice for counting capacity and does not change what owners can do under local building or land-use codes: "This does not supersede anything involving Talent building or land use code." Another commissioner asked about discrepancies between zoning and the comprehensive plan—Brinkley and others traced those differences to past decisions (including how manufactured-home areas were classified) and suggested a targeted cleanup of comp-plan or zoning language during later phases.

Several participants said an employment-land inventory and an economic (market) analysis should follow the BLI to assess whether light-industrial or commercial parcels could yield housing capacity if rezoned or redeveloped. Brinkley said an employment-land analysis and a city-level housing capacity analysis would be natural next steps and that she had shared GIS layers and the draft site with the consultant doing the railroad-district feasibility study to coordinate those efforts.

Brinkley said she will preserve the draft and provide a final version in Talent’s GIS; the final BLI will incorporate public feedback and updated permit data. The presentation concluded with an invitation to residents, staff and stakeholders to review the interactive map and submit corrections via the survey links on Talent’s community development web page. The BLI and related GIS layers will be retained by the city for future planning work.