Huge parking lots like at Heritage Mall might not be allowed under new rules Albany is working on.
The Heritage Mall parking lot is not usually as empty as it was on a Sunday afternoon in March 2020, the start of the Covid pandemic. But it’s not often completely full even during normal times.
Now the City of Albany is working on new rules that would eliminate most parking requirements for new developments, leaving it up to owners to decide how much off-street parking they want to build.
The proposed rules also would set new limits on how much off-street parking is allowed at new developments. They also would require a certain number of charging stations at new parking lots, along with enough trees to shade half the surface after the trees are 15 years old.
The city council and planning commission held another work session to talk about these ideas on Monday. And the size of the mall’s parking lot came up.
Public hearings on the code changes are planned on May 1 before the planning commission and on May 24 before the council.
The changes in how much parking is required — or allowed — are part of Albany’s effort to get in line with state orders to designate “Climate Friendly and Equitable Areas” in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The orders are the result of an executive order signed by Gov. Kate Brown in March 2020. After Republicans in the Senate blocked the legislature from adopting a greenhouse gas reduction program, Brown ordered state agencies to launch such a program anyway, hoping to reduce emissions 75 percent below 1990 by 2050.
Following orders, the Land Conservation and Development Commission last summer adopted rules forcing cities including Albany to make changes in their land use codes, including parking requirements. The basic idea is that less parking space would result in less driving. Or less driving would require fewer parking spaces.
At Monday’s work session, Albany Area Chamber of Commerce President Janet Steele said the city was spending money and effort on something that wasn’t likely to happen. She urged the council to wait for the outcome of lawsuits that challenge the state agencies’ authority to order these changes.
Councilwoman Matilda Novak agreed, but no other members spoke up. Albany has made no move to push back on the state orders.
Thirteen other cities and Marion County went to the Oregon Court of Appeals last November. They asked the court to review the state’s land use orders and delay them until the judicial process is complete. Among the cities filing the suit were Medford, Grants Pass, Springfield and Keizer.
Previously, 12 business and trade groups including the Oregon Farm Bureau sued the Environmental Quality Commission over its climate program, which ordered fuel suppliers to reduce emissions from their products 50 percent by 2035 and 90 percent by 2050. That suit, too, is pending at the appeals court.
At the root of all this is a question: Without action by the legislature, does the governor or her appointed commissions have the authority to order fundamental changes in the development pattern or economies of cities, or in the lives of the people of this state? (hh)
And how times change! I think of that when taking a short cut through the Regal Cinema parking lot to park at Fred Meyer’s garden center. Just that vast swath of concrete and the mall parking could be re-purposed.
The mall parking does get repurposed! From April to June the Plant Warehouse sets up to sell garden plants and vegetable starts at reasonable prices. People come and park in that area (including myself). I’ve seen special car sales there. I’ve seen beef steaks sold in the parking lot on the Waverly side.
I’m glad the mall is open to this type of use for the parking lot. Yeah, it’s pretty slow at the moment but April is around the corner and I will be heading over for plants…
The Governor does not have the authority to create new laws. Her work to circumvent the legislature with her own version ot green house gas reduction law by executive order should be challenged in court.
It’s funny you post about parking matters today. I was just at the Corvallis hospital to visit a family member and had a heck of a time trying to find a parking spot. It made me contemplate on the way home, why does Linn and Benton counties typically spread out for parking instead of going up? For the hospital, a parking garage seems like it would create a ton of space for new medical buildings and parking to support them. I’ve always advocated for a parking garage for downtown Albany and think it’s necessary if downtown reaches it’s expectations of being a cultural hub. I am aware of the parking study that deemed a parking garage unnecessary but also believe that study was a huge waste of money and not done during actual high traffic volume times. C’est la vie
Unfunded Mandates. Tell the governor where to stick them!
You can’t have it both ways, Hering. Throughout your career you’ve covered State Legislative activities closely. You are oftentimes at odds with what the Legislature was up to. You are often irked when the State House chamber enacts this or that bill…you would shout, “Legislative overreach,” and demand that the State House “listen to the people.”
in this screed, you are angered that the previous Executive branch overreached. Decisions instituted by visionary governor, Kate Brown fall strictly under the Legislative domain if I read you correctly.
By your thinking, when the legislative branch acts, they are overreaching. And when the governor acts, she is overreaching. The political Right claims that their ideology is superior.
Logic asks, since you’ve condemned both branches of State government when it is run by duly elected people, then why haven’t you and your fellow travelers on the Right been able to convince the broader electorate of our state of that. The last Republican to sit in the Oregon governor’s seat was Vic Atiyeh and he was so moderate he couldn’t win the GOP primary in Oregon today.
State executives and U.S. presidents are not duly elected to issue executive orders. Legislatures and Congress are elected to do their job as assigned by their constitutions. It’s up to them to pass laws to punish executives for such gross violations by mandatory impeachment. Waiting for eventual court decisions is not good enough.
Mr. Hering notes that a number of Oregon cities have filed lawsuits against these requirements or objected to them in some other fashion, but Albany has done none of the above. How and when did the City of Albany make this decision?
There seems to be a lack of transparency here, even though the City Government’s stated values promise the highest levels of transparency, openness, and engagement with citizens. To be clear, I am not talking about a legal requirement; I am talking about the City Government keeping its word with respect to the core values that it stated would guide all of its work.
This Liberal City Council will do anything to support this governor. They haven’t given a damn about the people they represent. It’s extract every $ possible from the citizens to pay for their blunders and Liberal agenda.
So tell us Bill, how would you acquire your City Council that would abide your wishes – if not for the type of government we currently have? It sure seems to me that you have been unable to persuade enough like-minded folks to run for office, or better yet, try running yourself. It’s a very simple process…
Putting any kind of taxation (franchise fees in particular) measures up for a vote of the people. HOW MANY hidden fees have the recent councils stuck to us. You were never forthright about any of those until Hasso pointed it out 5 years ago. EXAMPLE- the 5% that was hidden in our electric bill under one of those questionable additional fees. (what in the hell is “public purpose” when the public is kept in the dark about it?) that are also added.
Not being able to afford a car, I’m unable to attend city council meetings. Besides, when I started calling BS, I’d get Rick Kellum’d.
well its their job to discuss fees that’s why we elected them
so you want to have an election to vote on any and all “fees”?
that would just cost taxpayers more
rights and responsibility come from living in a democracy and 1 of those responsibility is to accept that you don’t always get your way
@Bill Kapaun Liberal city council? In Albany, Oregon?!??!
Go back to watching the Fox News Net feed you lies they don’t even believe. LOL
I can’t afford cable. I quit watching network news back when Dan Rather was lying.
LOL ok..yah……
Sleepy yawn eyes…
Maybe you could quit being a coward and stop hiding behind your idiotic moniker?
We do have global climate change, and we have to do something about it.
Those huge expanses of paved-over earth for parking lots are not good for the planet. The Albany Cinema near Fred Meyer sure as heck doesn’t need a big parking lot. It no longer is ever full of cars.
But, we live in the “wild” west, and we have very little public transport, so too many cars are on the roads and will be for the foreseeable future. so we need to build up, not out, as Rachel La B. says, but not downtown. In the 20 plus years that CARA has operated, Albany downtown has not become a “cultural hub.” And, Albany and the world today have far greater problems to deal with than culture in downtown Albany. (I’m glad you can’t hear my “guffaws” as I type this.)
So “they” reduce the number of parking spaces. Will those former parking spaces become landscape areas such as the Santiam/Pacific Blvd. area that is used by the homeless for camping? Or will they be turned into small commercial buildings? Bureaucrats have developed rules that fit the times those rules were established and will change them again to fit the times.
Not saying I agree but it is a fact of life that will continue into infinity.