Woodburn Independent Online

City forms focus group to study WDO

• By: Rachel Cavanaugh  
• Published: 11/3/2009 9:33:07 AM

WOODBURN — A focus group has begun examining architectural standards for an update to the Woodburn Development Ordinance (WDO).
 
The ordinance, which establishes detailed standards for building and development in Woodburn, has been criticized in the past as being too rigid. The goal of the nine-member group is to simplify the ordinance and make it more “user-friendly.”
 
Members have been working through the document section by section.
 
“We’re concerned about landscape standards,” said Jim Hendryx, community development director. “When new buildings go in, what do they have to plant? How pretty does it have to be?
 
“Now we’re going through the architectural standards. When you build a building, what does it have to look like?”
 
Eventually the group, which was appointed this spring by the mayor and confirmed by council, will get into land use.
 
The idea of the update is to change existing standards to meet the city’s current needs.
“Right now, to build a house in the community … you have to meet (a number of) design standards,” he said.
 
“You have to have the roof which has to be a certain pitch. You have to have so much of the house glass. You have to have a front porch that has to be so big. You’ve got to have some articulation in the building, like in dormer windows and things. You can’t have a flat roof.”
 
The group may decide to change standards around the edges of the city or in new subdivisions, he said.
 
“So if they want to do a flat roof, for instance, they could,” he said. “Currently flat roofs aren’t allowed it the city, period.”
 
The bottom line, Hendryx said, is the group must come up with a way to make the document easier to use.
 
“The WDO is a very complicated ordinance and it’s difficult for the public … to understand,” he said. “… You can’t pick it up and read it a go, ‘oh, I can do this?’ You have to read multiple sections of it.”
 
In some cases, he said, people have to read two or three chapters to get the answer to a question.
 
“And then when you get the answer, I’m scratching my head going, ‘is that (really) the answer?’”
The document is separate from the Downtown Development Plan, which is also being updated.
 
Besides being broader in geographical scope, Hendryx said the WDO is an immediate document covering specific details. The downtown plan, by contrast, paints a general picture of the future and outlines ways to get there.
 
He called the latter a “vision document.”
 
After the WDO group completes its review, a period of community outreach and public feedback will begin.

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