If an annexation application moves its way through the Planning Commission and the City Council, Philomath will grow bigger geographically by just shy of 2 acres.
The applicant, Gregory Phelps, wants to annex a 1.99-acre parcel into the city and has requested that it be rezoned as high-density residential, a move that suggests plans for duplexes, triplexes or an apartment complex. Annexations typically come into the city as medium-density residential.
The property is located on the east side of North Ninth Street north of Quail Glenn Drive and opposite of Marilyn Drive.
“On the surface at this point, I’m not seeing any big obstacles,” City Manager Chris Workman said during an interview last week while putting a staff report together for the Planning Commission’s June 17 meeting. “We have water, we have sewer, Ninth Street is a minor (traffic) collector.”
System development fees will offset the expense of needed capacity improvements.
The annexation and zoning change request are actually separate applications but city officials will consider them at the same time.
A public hearing is scheduled for the Planning Commission’s regular meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall. The applications and related documents can be viewed online in the commission’s meeting packet. According to the city, the hearing’s purpose will be to determine if the application conforms to the applicable criteria set forth in municipal code and either deny or approve the request.
Related to the annexation is a request by Benton County that the adjacent portion of North Ninth Street be included in the legal description of the property.
The city manager anticipates no issues involving traffic on the road, a subject that’s often questioned by citizens when a housing development could ultimately be involved.
“There’s a stoplight at Main Street already … Ninth Street is narrow, it’s a county road but it’s not congested,” he said. “There’s some safety concerns with line of sight but that’s kind of up the hill from where this property is and adding more vehicles on that street is not necessarily going to make it any less safe or add to any congestion or functionality of the street.”
Workman said there would be some improvements needed on the street but those would be done during the time of development.
Phelps submitted a conceptual development plan of approximately 35 housing units. With such applications, however, the city always calculates the most intense use of a property and in this case, that adds up to 57 units of studio or one-bedroom apartments.
“Realistically, it’ll probably be something less than that because it does have the Rock Creek intertie (running through it) and it’s got some area for parking and some other things that’ll chip into that number,” Workman said during an interview last week. “But from the city’s standpoint, we’re looking at the question of does the city have the infrastructure in place to support the maximum density of this property at full build-up? And that’s the criteria that’s within our development code to look at.”
As indicated, water, sewer, storm system, roads and parks are among the areas that are considered from the city’s perspective. Other considerations involve capacities involving the school district and fire district.
“What we don’t look at during annexations is the conceptual development that they presented,” Workman said. “It’s required by state law and it’s required by the city’s code but it’s really just to give the neighbors an idea of what type of development could go there. But it’s not an accurate representation of again, what the greatest impact could be.”
The property currently has an unoccupied home and a couple of outbuildings, Workman said. A manufactured home that had been at the site was removed.