Talent planning commission postpones recommendation on residential Buildable Lands Inventory after consultant briefing

Nikki Hart Brinkley, a consultant with Greentop Planning, presented the city's final residential Buildable Lands Inventory (BLI) and described how the dataset was compiled, its constraints, and how post-fire rebuilding was treated.

Brinkley said the BLI uses zoning and the Oregon Administrative Rules (OARs) to identify residential parcels and applies environmental constraints (floodways, 1% annual chance flood hazard, wetlands, riparian setbacks and slopes of 25% or greater). She explained a quarter-acre "safe-harbor" assumption used in the analysis and said the inventory treats public school parcels as exempt. "Today, you can choose to adopt this residential buildable land inventory. It's not a requirement," Brinkley said, adding that the dataset will be delivered to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) by December 31.

Commissioners asked detailed questions about how right-of-way, deed restrictions, wetlands and post-fire rebuilding were handled. Brinkley said tax-lot data are used to exclude right-of-way, deed restrictions are typically not discoverable in GIS and are best corrected through owner input, and rebuilding was flagged as "developed" when permit activity (pre-apps, partitions, building permit activity) made reconstruction clearly imminent. She said net changes since June were small: partially vacant acres remained near 102.1 acres while vacant acres moved from 13.8 to 12.1 after updates.

The Planning Commission debated whether to recommend that City Council adopt the BLI as a comprehensive-plan component (a step required if the city later wants to use the BLI formally in a Housing Capacity Analysis). Some commissioners described adopting the BLI now as "performative," because DLCD will receive the dataset regardless of a local recommendation. Staff and Brinkley clarified that delivering the data to DLCD is not the same as the city adopting the BLI as part of its comprehensive plan; formal adoption would occur later if the city initiates a comprehensive plan amendment tied to a Housing Capacity Analysis.

A motion to recommend adoption to City Council was made but another commissioner moved to amend the motion to postpone consideration to the next Planning Commission meeting to allow more time for review. The commission approved that amendment in a roll-call vote; members recorded all votes in the affirmative (7-0). The effect of the action is to delay any recommendation to City Council; staff and the consultant remain available to provide additional clarification prior to the next meeting.

The meeting closed after commissioners and staff discussed packet timing and access to the interactive map; staff said a sharing-setting error had temporarily blocked access and it was fixed during the meeting. The Planning Commission adjourned following those remarks.