Oregon will consider amending its municipal code on planning and zoning to adequately provide notice to the public on applications for zoning actions involving a change in property use and to clarify the manner of providing the notice.

Changes to the notice were recommended by the Oregon Planning Commission during its review of the 2025 Master Plan, including a recommendation to post notice on properties requesting a zoning change, Oregon Administrator Ken Filipiak said at a committee of the whole meeting last Monday.

“They looked at the manner by which we provide notice to the public for certain actions by property owner on zoning changes, special use permits, and conditional uses,” said Filipiak. “These are significant changes that typically require the city to provide written notice. And in some cases in the past, we have provided notice in the newspaper.”

The Planning Commission is recommending the city require “on-premise notice, or the posting of a sign on the property that is to be rezoned or considered for special or conditional use permits, said Filipiak.

Other communities, such as Toledo and Springfield Township, also require on-premise notice, he said.

“I imagine it’s fairly typical in other communities,” he said.

“Oregon has probably a notice requirement that surpasses most other communities in the area,” said Filipiak. “We have, as a rule, required that properties within a 300 foot radius of the lot in which some application has been made for a change to be notified of the nature of that change. All of you have been in this room where someone has stood up and said they didn’t get the notice, or it went to the wrong address. We changed that. We’ve done everything we can over the years.”

A year and a half ago, the city started sending notices to the resident of a dwelling rather than a named individual, he said.

“What we found would happen is, if we sent it to an individual whose name is on the auditor’s tax records as the owner, but ownership had changed and that person had moved leaving a forwarding address, it would be forwarded on. So we make sure whoever occupies a particular dwelling on a property that is within 300 feet of a property that is requesting a change in zoning or permit status be notified. That’s worked out pretty well for us. But this is an extra step. It would tell people in the neighborhood, or anyone driving by the area. It would be posted on every lot frontage that would indicate the nature of the change. If you receive something in the mail, or if for some odd reason you didn’t receive it, at a minimum, you would be able to visually see that some changes are being considered for that property,” said Filipiak.

Council forwarded the matter to the city’s Economic Development and Zoning Committee for further review at a committee meeting on Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the municipal building.
 

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