Quarterly Building Department Report – Summer 2018: 

Summer 2018 finally arrived in Sandy after back-and-forth spring weather between wet and cold to sunshine and heat.  So far, this year’s building season has been very good for excavation and building.  At the end of July, Sandy’s Building Department has 73 Active Residential Dwelling Permits.  And 13 permits were issued for commercial work in July that valued at total $2.7M.  At the end of July, the total construction value of permitted work for the first half of 2018 is nearly $16M.

Multi-family projects include the following:

• Sandy Heights Apartments has poured foundations for the first 4 apartment buildings. Framing has begun on Apartment Buildings 1 and 2.
• Ron Hughes completed framing and siding of the garages for his new 9 unit complex on Tupper Hill.
• Vista Loop Apartments has been laying underground utilities and excavating in preparation for foundation work.

Other projects include:

• Palladian’s CHAMPION VILLAGE Townhomes are moving forward again with newly revised building plans and engineering to match. Palladian currently has 33 active townhouse permits.
• The SANDY HEIGHTS APARTMENTS project started off at a quick pace with site work and underground utilities. The plans submitted by the contractor for the first 5 of 13 building plans were in need of revisions to which has slowed the permitting and building a bit.  But IE Construction is working to provide plans must match the actual buildings they are constructing.
• NEXT ADVENTURE has submitted plans to building a 2-story storage building behind their store.
• And finally, the handsome, newly remodeled, SANDY FIRE STATION has been approved for occupancy! Occupancy is conditional that final reports and other non-safety items be completed by the end of August.

Now for a topic that is rarely mentioned, but is a common problem that all Building Departments deal with every year – HOME OWNERS DOING CONSTRUCTION WORK WITHOUT PERMITS.   As our City continues to grow, we are seeing a proportional number of these problems.   Planning and Building department staff have been looking at solutions.   We welcome input from our community and stakeholders.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Building Department,

Terrence Gift, Building Official

Planning items: 

Jacoby Heights Subdivision:  Review for this 31 lot subdivision at 19124 Jacoby is finished and was deemed incomplete.

Bloom Annexation:  A Type A Annexation for a parcel totaling approximately 12.84 acres has been applied for. The proposal is set to go to the August 27 Planning Commission and the September 17 City Council hearings for consideration.  The applicant proposes to zone the property to Single Family Residential (SFR) and Low Density Residential (LDR) within the Sandy Comprehensive Plan Map.

Sandlandia Food Cart Pod:  We are processing the application for a new cart called Teresa’s Home Cooking – currently waiting for information from Clackamas County Health Department.

Pioneer Meadows:  The first six townhouses are almost complete. This subdivision will include a total of 27 townhouses when complete. No more houses can be constructed until the second lift of asphalt is installed on the streets inside the subdivision (University Avenue and College Street).

Thomsen property (Hwy 211 btwn Bornstedt Village and Snowberry):  The owners of this property met with Planning in a pre-application meeting to change the zoning of the C-3 Village Commercial section of their property to R-2.  Pre-application meeting is complete.

Sandy Community Campus Street Vacation: The city of sandy has petitioned to vacate portions of Alt Avenue, Smith Avenue, Hood Street and Park Street.  The total area proposed to be vacated is 72,085 square feet.  Should the proposal be approved, OTSD and Sandy will both be re-plated to make clear the different parcels.  The case is scheduled for the August 27 Planning Commission and the September 17 City Council hearings for consideration.

Sandyplace Apartments:  The second retaining wall for this project was deemed incomplete.  Waiting on mailing labels to do required notification.

Mountain View Ridge (formerly Birdsong Subdivision):  Grading in process.  See below.

Sandy Bluff Annex 6 (a.k.a. Sandy Woods):  The approved subdivision renamed Sandy Woods from Sandy Bluff 6 has broken ground by clearing the approved right-of-ways and easement land. Staff completed a site visit with developers to discuss additional tree retention and expect to hear back from them soon to determine additional trees to be retained.

O’Reilly Auto Parts:  Working on final order for design review.  Should be complete sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Jiffy Lube:  Final order was issued with regard to their new trash/recycling enclosure was issued on August 9th.

Other large reviews being conducted:

• Jewelberry Ridge: Planning Commission approved this 9 unit subdivision at their June 25^th  Final order was issued on July 12.
• US Metal Works: This project is approved.  Staff is working with owners on getting SDCs paid and completing paperwork.
• TSC, Inc.: This project on the Benson property was brought before Planning Commission at meeting on July 30.  Final order is in progress.

Other large reviews being submitted soon:

• Regional coffee retailer: We had another pre-application meeting with a potential franchisee that seemed to go well, but we have not heard back from them since the pre-app on May 31.  This property has a challenging footprint for development, especially considering that their business model calls for locating a drive-thru on this irregular shaped lot.

Internal projects:

• Pleasant Street Master Plan: Staff has reentered into our contract with AECOM to work on a new design for Alt Avenue that does not include the concept to realign the road.  Staff will engage important stakeholders during the design process. We will be working within the existing Alt Avenue right-of-way to accomplish the original goals of the realignment – to recap:
  • Improve the safety of Alt Ave./Proctor Blvd. intersection
  • Improve pedestrian accessibility along Alt Ave
  • Create a visually appealing entryway to Pleasant Street.

Emily will be the new point of contact for the Pleasant Street Master Plan.  Since Planning Staff is already very busy, the completion date for the master plan is unknown at this time.

• Downtown Walkability Assessment: The Downtown Walkability Assessment is in its final stages – staff is currently drafting the final report.  Kelly will be the new project lead for the Downtown Walkability Assessment.   Since Development Services staff are extremely busy right now, the completion date for this assessment is unknown at this time.
• PetSafe Dog Park Grant: Announcements of grant recipients are scheduled for August 2018 so we should hear soon whether we received the $5,000 grant Planning applied for.
• Sadly, Ms. Porricolo is leaving the City of Sandy to pursue a job as an Assistant Planner at Angelo Planning Group, a small planning firm in downtown Portland. She will be working on current planning, entitlements, housing needs assessments, and more.  She tells us she has loved working at the City of Sandy, and that it has been a great community to work for and be member of.  We will miss her dearly, and hope she considers pursuing a career on the public side of the planning world in the future.

 

Economic Development items:

Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):

• Promotional City images, Round 2: A couple of years ago, I hired a professional photographer out of Sandy (UT) to do some photography around downtown Sandy and some of our more photogenic sites (SHS, Tickle Creek Trail, Meinig Park) for use with the City’s website and other promotional forums (social media, brochures, public reports, etc.)  This photographer is coming back in August for another round of promo shots.  This time we will focus more on public facilities and tourist attractions like Sandy Ridge, but we can take shots of anything we need images of.  Send me an email if you have suggestions.  [PS: this photo shoot provided all of the background images currently showing on cityofsandy.com]
• Joe’s Donuts: We have a reimbursement check ready to go and the Vargos have been contacted.  By the time you read this, we will have completed a small ceremony here at City Hall to allow Mayor King present them with the check and to have some photos taken (and hopefully a story written) for the Post.  Stage two of this project will begin shortly…
• Next Adventure: Construction has begun on the two-story Sandy Style storage building behind the current retailer.  When complete, this will be their rental equipment facility and will expand store capabilities by orders of magnitude.
• Regional coffee chain: We have a regional coffee chain that has been interested in Sandy for years that has taken concrete steps toward developing one of our downtown infill lots.  The plan is still evolving, but the prospects for development look pretty good right now.  Watch this space.

Econ Devl – Internal Projects:

• Downtown maintenance:
  • Defunct paper boxes: Found another one at the Sandy Post Office. Casey from the Parks Department is going to remove it in the next few weeks and send it to recycling with all of the others.  If you know of any others within city limits, please send an email to me with the location and I will make it disappear.

• The new AntFarm downtown maintenance contract is in effect. You should begin to see a noticeable difference in the condition of the public rights-of-way in the couplet.  If there are particular areas of downtown that you would like to see them focus on, shoot me an email and let me know.
• By the time most of you read this, the small pool annex building and that horrid play structure behind Bignall Pool will be torn down and removed by our friends at Konell Construction and Demolition. We are also planning to take the back building of Cedar Ridge (where SandyNet is currently located) off of the boiler system altogether and look at other options for heating and cooling that building.  The sidewalks around the pool parking lot will be touched up by our new maintenance crew shortly as well.

• Clackamas County Tourism’s Community Partnership Program grant:
  • Jonsrud Viewpoint: Auto-turn report is currently being worked on.  “Curb-shaving” will be the final step in the project, but N8 Excavation cannot start on that phase until the auto-turn report is complete and shows the pinch points.  We will also be adding some signage from ClackCo Tourism and our own signage (right out only for busses – we used to have some “R out only for buses) signs up at the exit that got removed at some point that we will need to recreate)
  • Meinig Park Entry Arch: This project has stalled out a little bit due to that fact that we are really busy right now.  Will probably schedule this for autumn when Meinig Park is being used a little bit less than it is now.

Econ Devl – Conferences/training:

• Nothing this month.