Real Estate Show with Joe Brett

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Real Estate Show Joe Brett

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, Hey, Southern Oregon. Welcome to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in beautiful Southern Oregon with John Scott Real Estate. I'm your host of the real estate show. And today we're gonna be interviewing Mr. Joe Brett who was one of the original hosts of the show. He is the operations manager of Rogue Valley TV.

They do all the audio video for the public hearings, the conversations that our municipalities and counties have with their commissioners and such for Medford Josephine county, Jackson county, Ashland sometimes. And so, because he's kind of in the room and he has a real estate background. He comes on the show every so often and gives us a peak as to what it was like to be around all those conversations, because there's some interesting things coming down the pike. It's always fun to have Joe Brett on the show.

Before we get to that, let's talk briefly about what happened in our Southern Oregon housing market. This week you remember last week we had spike in number [00:01:00] of listings compared to this time last year. So checking again this week, this year, compared to this week, last year, we have a 63% increase in number of listings in Jackson county. This time, last year we had 549 active listings. This week, this year we have 896 for a 63% increase in Jackson county listings. Our closings have gone down in Jackson county this time. Last year we had 94 closings this time, this year we had 77. So we're doing week to week. So we had 77 closings in Jackson county this week, this year, compared to 94, closings this time last year sets an 18% drop.

So interesting. The number of listings have the number of closings have gone down. Let's look at [00:02:00] Josephine county. Our sister county Josephine county has a 57% increase in the number of listings. This time last year, Josephine county had 247 listings active this week. This year we have 389. That's a 57% increase in number of listings.

Closings in Josephine county are down this week compared to this time last year. They're down 37%. We had 40 closings in Josephine county this time. Last year, this week, this year we had 25 for 37% decline. So number of listings going up, number of sales going down, but there's still a little bit of an edge to this sellers.

We still have a few more buyers out there. Can you believe it then sellers? So it's not a bad time. And we will be talking to Joe Brett Rogue TV. So. Stay tuned for that. We'll be right back.

Well, hello, Southern Oregon. And welcome back to [00:03:00] the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in beautiful Southern Oregon with John Scott Real Estate. And today we're so excited to welcome back, Joe Brett. Hi Joe.

Joe Brett: Hello, Alice. Good to be back. Good to see you.

Alice Lema: Thank you. So Joe is one of the original hosts of the real estate show. I'm actually the second or third string here. But Joe is still actively part of Rogue Valley TV. In fact, he's the operations manager and he goes to all the planning meetings for city of Medford and boy, there's been a lot of stuff happening in the news with what's going on in, in Medford. So welcome back to the show, Joe.

Joe Brett: Thank you, Alice. It's actually, you know, having had a real estate license for 10 years through 2017 those planning commission meetings, as soon as I was involved in real estate doing transactions. Sniffing around for new developments and things like that that were coming down the line. It they've been so much more interesting then just so much as going to them and being a part of my job.

Alice Lema: So, [00:04:00] oh, I bet.

Joe Brett: I, I always try to keep my ears kind of perked and it has been a busy time. I, I sit in on Jackson county land, use meetings and land use land use hearings and land use zoning things for the county as well with their planning commission. And then the Jackson county border commissioners, I'm at their meetings every Wednesday morning. They're televised weekly meeting and the Medford city council and the Medford planning commission.

I see and hear a lot of Grants Pass is one of our partners. And I see some of their meetings and get a little taste of what's going on up there. But definitely Medford is, is the hotbed locally. And just our region is in such an interesting housing situation, not just a market end of things. You wake up and tear into every day or, or they tear to you or how it might work out. And then just the, the whole regional recovery from the fires and the need for housing that was already in place before we lost the units that we did in the Almeda fire.

So there's been a lot of efforts [00:05:00] underway to solve that problem, that that were some that were in the works. I think, you know, cities and the counties, the regional problem solving process that took place, to decide which of the cities urban growth boundaries would be accepted and brought into plan.

That was a 12 year, 14 year March. And, and it's still going on. I'll tell you a little bit about that. Phoenix was the latest one that went before the county and had their U GB approved at the county level and we'll go to the state land use board of appeals for final approval up there. But Oregon is just an incredibly complex land use law state, one of the more complex ones in the nation.

Alice Lema: So yeah, this is when, when land use planners graduate from college, I always get this phone call. I wanna move to Oregon cuz you have the most laws and I, I always thought they were kidding, but it's kind of true.

Joe Brett: It, it really is. And they, they are pretty complex and. There are some new laws at the state level that are impacting our local planning abilities to [00:06:00] regulate, you know, where things go, how things work.

Alice Lema: So well. So got, lot of ground to cover. Can we just touch briefly on the fire? What let's kind of wrap up maybe up, down what's going on with the fire?

Joe Brett: I think most of that there's been some really good efforts, cities of, of Phoenix and Talent, I think have stepped up their games in their planning departments. And they've worked really hard to get permits and processes going, get them through to get homes built or replace the ones that were going to be or could be, or, or if the owners had the wherewithal to do so. And I think other other uses are being looked at, but that, that is such, you just can't take a loss like that, in, in regionwide like we did and, and easily recover from it.

So I think there's been, you know, some pretty good efforts, especially in those those localized efforts in Phoenix and Talent just to be able to, to move things along. And I know they're, I still read and hear in the local news [00:07:00] that there's still folks in FEMA trailers and there's still some things that, you know, are moving through the process, but all in all that was that we were dealt such a blow there.

That many of the tidbits that I've heard when we, when we talk about Almeda recovery in the meetings have been of the long term, 10 to 15 year range.

Alice Lema: Oh, wow. Oh, well, you know what? That would make sense.

Joe Brett: Truly take us to recover, and for all of those units to be coming back into into play and at a time when we really need them there. So yeah, that, that few hours just ravaged our community for decades to come literal.

Alice Lema: Yeah, but there's been a lot of good that's come out of that. You know, the laws, the laws change, no camping in the, in the green, green way during the summer. Mm-hmm all of that helps. And, and then I guess, as you said, some of our municipalities and other governments are working together in a more team like fashion, and that just helps.

Joe Brett: Yep. And from a real estate standpoint it's gotta be,[00:08:00] it's gotta be hard to find, you know, the, the range of homes that we lost, the, the cost and the range and the affordability of those homes. I know that that's, you know, developers and, and a bit about that game, and that's a really, you know, those are really hard units to replace unless people are, have the wherewithal to do it on their own and with their insurance and things like that.

So, yeah. We are, we're gonna struggle with that and, and work towards that. But hopefully hopefully some of the intended consequences of some of the state legislation that has been approved and has actually come into effect July of this year. This it's intended to loosen up a little bit of where you can create duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.

Alice Lema: Oh, let's talk about that.

Joe Brett: Not, not, not the big apartment buildings or things like that, but those are and, and I'm wondering if the board of realtors or have had much input. Or have had much to say about, well, Senate bill eight and Senate bill 4 58 are the two that that have probably been talked about the most.

And they [00:09:00] are statewide measures that are intended to maybe override local control. So in so far as where you could build Duplex triplex and quadplex the middle housing.

Alice Lema: So this is the law that got passed a few years ago by executive order. Yes. Not being political, just being matter of fact.

Mm-hmm mm-hmm and it allowed in the state of Oregon up to four dwellings per tax slot without subdividing. Right. If the municipalities could set their own rules was kind of the idea.

Joe Brett: Right. And also the ownership could be split on those on the lots and some of those developments could be, it didn't have to be under the ownership of a single owner to have.

Alice Lema: So up to four houses, not splitting the lot and each little dwelling can be sold separately.

Joe Brett: No, and I think that that might even be a different

Alice Lema: Well, I'll let you talk cuz you were at, I'm just asking the question and I'm getting excited here. Oh [00:10:00] my gosh. We could sell 'em separately. yeah, I'll be, I'll be fine you talk.

That's for that's for Senate bill 458.

Joe Brett: Okay. That was it, where local governments can, must approve divisions of real property for new middle housing developments on lots and parcels and in residential zones and cities with certain populations. So 4 58 would establish utilities and land use requirements for applications for middle housing land division.

It also additions, additional conditions, cities and counties may require during the middle house land division approval plan. But there's also Senate bill eight that has just come into play. And that was one that was put forward and championed by Senate president Peter Courtney, let me tell you, Alice, I, my experience even being in the news media since the 1980s, in Oregon and in a newsroom for a lot of those years off and on, and I can't make heads or tails or sense of the multitude of legislation that [00:11:00] comes outta Salem, Oregon.

They for years have been trying to tack on real estate sales, transfer taxes and things like that, that, that I know the association of realtors is fighting tooth and nail and, and constantly try to fend them off from, from making home transactions more rather less affordable, more expensive. And so yeah, there, there is.

As I read through it, even as I read news reports and multiple news reports on it, it's hard to make sense of it all. But they're trying to encourage the and speed up the building of more housing and, and, and it's our local, not, not of our local folks are really in, in favor of this J Jefferson public radio had a great article on Senate bill eight, where state Senator Pam Marsh, who is a proponent of these changes, you know, talking about the things that it can do and, and might do.

And Matt Brinkley, the planning director for the city of Medford [00:12:00] says it's hard for municipalities like his to prevent them from requiring zoning changes and changes. So if you're gonna override those local zoning regulations and rules that in play, he would think that that process, that Medford uses to evaluate whether sufficient infrastructure for development could be compromised. So they feel like their comprehensive plan for the city of Medford has these considerations in place and will take care of those. Issues as they come forward.

But these state legislative issues that the, the state edicts that come down could override that in certain zoning areas, commercial zoning areas. And it also tries to these two bills in their ways, try to identify and maybe repurpose lands that are zoned more for commercial development, but might be able to meld into neighborhoods or accommodate some of these middle housing needs. And, and the concept of, you know, more housing units accommodating [00:13:00] more people per lot. And the ownership that you could share amongst that. As opposed to laws that we're currently in place. I believe seems to be some advantages there, but your local planners will tell you that those are the folks that I talk to get a chance to hear from as they just, as they report to their planning commissions and to their planners.

They are in a wait and see position. We've not seen any planning actions come forward in Medford anyway, that are trying to take advantage of this or move this forward. And I even heard, I also go to Medford site planning commission, architecture commission meetings, which is kind of a preliminary vetting process for preliminary plans for developments. And I know at least one or two of the commissioners on there are not real happy about these state laws that are trying to get in the way of what they've been working on and trying to do the best for Medford.

Alice Lema: What is their kind of general objection?

Joe Brett: Just the, the fact that the state would dictate to you. This must take place in that [00:14:00] you have no recourse as a local municipality. No, no. Mr. Or Mrs. State, this would not be a good idea in this location, even though from your 10,000 foot view in the valley, it seems like it would be. That don't fly here. There might be some considerations with traffic, sewage, the utility tie-ins all of those types of things that have to serve all those multiple units.

Don't just pop into place. So there're gonna be some incredibly inhibiting expense possibly to, to develop those and to, to put housing units in places where they weren't originally zoned or planned for.

Alice Lema: And we're we're predominantly an agricultural area, you know, people keep forgetting that, that the vibe down here in Southern Oregon is not like that of Portland or Salem. No. And they don't, they're not allowing for that in this legislation.

Joe Brett: I think we are eating up the most fertile farmland all around us in Southern Oregon that marijuana and hemp growers haven't already overtaken. Or there, there is some real trade offs there in Alice, that's part of [00:15:00] those land use laws that are so diverse in the state of Oregon because we deal with mountains, valleys, the valley floor farmland, exclusive forest use land, all of that, just Jackson county.

Alice Lema: Yeah, it's, it's quite quite interesting. We're talking to Joe Brett, operations manager of Rogue Valley TV. Take a quick break, talk to our sponsors and we write back with more information. Don't go.

Well, welcome back to the real estate show everybody. We're talking to Joe Brett today operations manager, Rogue Valley TV. He is in all of these meetings, locally Jackson county, many of the commissions and also city of Medford and Josephine county. So he is our reporter and he's coming back every so often to kind of bring us up to speed about what's been going on. Cuz there has been so much going on even without the fires. There was a lot going on.

Joe Brett: There really has been. And actually I should say I sit in a small closet surrounded by electronic equipment. I'm not actually in the meetings, [00:16:00] but I'm at the meetings.

Alice Lema: You're at the meeting. You're listening, you're watching,.

Joe Brett: Hiding in the background, pointing the cameras at people. If you, if you're going on a little too long, you might lose me. Yeah. But no it's interest interesting process just to watch that happen. And especially with the real estate background. Also aside from RVT and my duties there i, as, you know, I own and operate Tape Rock Sports. And John L. Scott real estate is a partner of ours and big part of how all of that happens. So shout out to the John L. Scott scoreboard and all that.

Alice Lema: Yeah. They're one of our sponsor of the show too. Yeah, they're very good.

Joe Brett: Good friends there. And that's where I ended my real estate career was at the very top of the heap in the rogue valley with the agency that had just come together. Incredible fashion. And so again, that, that just kind of propelled me when, when I sat through my meeting duty, just much, much more interesting.

And as I mentioned early in our first little intro, we had a regional problem solving process. The RPS process, they call it what it was, [00:17:00] was the collective urban growth boundaries of all of the cities in Jackson county, except for Jacksonville, who that was the one city passed and did their own thing. Right? They had a whole different path that they went, but everyone else went through Jackson county as the, they would do their work and do their preparation. Then they would present it to the county and the county could vet it to make sure that it was going to pass muster with the state land use laws.

And we have incredibly power powerful state land use groups like the thousand friends of Oregon in Oregon that are like land use watchdogs. And they watch really closely with really good intent in so far as how our land use laws are structured. Watch really closely that you don't encroach too much on farm lands and critical land and areas like that.

 So it comes through the county so that all of those considerations can be brought together. Those organizations and the state land use people get a chance to preview, look at, [00:18:00] give some input. Sometimes you'll get some feedback on the plans, but that process took, is still in the process of kind of wrapping up.

But the whole regional problem solving process of about 12 years came together. And Medford just about a year ago, maybe 14 months, 18 months, their plan was approved. Went through the county for final approval. They had done an incredible amount of work. I, I sat through council sessions three and a half, four hours long when they plotted out the urban growth out, government growth boundary zones that were going to be brought in. And there was a finite amount of acreage up for grabs in all of these. And it was MD one through MD 10, I think, where the different zones around Medford that would grow, where, where the growth would take place. And in each of those zones, they're planning for schools, light industry, maybe commercial and residential.

Alice Lema: Oh, wow.

Joe Brett: And where are the lands? Where are the available [00:19:00] lands? Where's the infrastructure currently in place to grow out into? Those is a huge, huge process. So Medford a little year ago had, had finished all of that work and there was a huge amount, kind of shuffling in the council, ultimately the city council, after it's vet through the planning commission, it goes through all of the process and the county even weighs it.

It's the city council that finally has to say yay or nay to put it forward and, and they're able to move forward and the trade offs as they worked with developers and everybody like that was an incredible process. There were precious few acres that stayed and some really precious, desired acres that didn't get in through the course of the process.

So that was eye opening to me, that would take that much work, but again, you're planning for the next 40 years 50 years growth for your area. And again, the, the tricky trade offs we have with the mountains and the valley and the rivers and the creeks and all of those [00:20:00] things that play into land use planning made it really, really, really interesting.

So Medford good and Phoenix was just the most recent city and they were doing some, you know, they're doing that planning to recover from the Almeda fire, but the RPS process, the planning process had been in place and been in the works for those many, many years before.

So Phoenix had some really interesting trade offs that they work through. One is that they've got some area on north Phoenix road that goes back towards Medford that has been identified for a long time as a really good area for an industrial park or a large training center, you know, industrial employment training center, that type of thing.

And maybe a number of industries that might play into that. So Phoenix got part of it. And I think Medford has the other part of it or comes right up to Medford's urban growth boundary extension. But that area was approved for Phoenix only because it was worked through as a [00:21:00] regional need that the entire region would benefit from this area between Phoenix and Medford, kind of just north of home Depot there, I guess it would be that open area there, between there and Centennial.

So that will be a, an area that the entire region may benefit from.

Alice Lema: So that's pretty flat. That's mm-hmm that's hay fields right now. Mostly. Yeah.

Joe Brett: Yeah. Some, some kinda cattle. Yeah.

Alice Lema: So they're thinking like a light industrial park?

Joe Brett: And it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem to be farmed or used very heavily there. So I think that's one of the exceptions is that's pretty close to floor, the valley farmland and things like that. So you're kind of walking those little tight ropes and trying to get narrow channels through there. But that area is gonna benefit the entire region. And I think the city of Phoenix, of course, by having that area in their U GB they'll have some tax benefit and things like that. They would probably get from that.

They also did some nice shifting of some industrial area [00:22:00] that should stay that way. And some acreage that could more suit residential uses. They made better use of the lands and they, they got some exceptions to keep some things in place and to move some things over here that would just overall fit the better circuit.

And the key to that was the traffic infrastructure. Again the sewer is always a big part of it too, but just the traffic and things that were, would have to be implemented to accommodate some of the hillside across the freeway development. Not, not maybe as high a priority and not a realistic priority because the development costs of the developer having to put in the roads to go all a long ways. Not, not just the streets you're gonna build your houses on, but kinda have to build, build the ingress and egress out to accommodate the traffic needs. And traffic studies are also always a fun, aren't they always a fun part of the, even, [00:23:00] especially the commercial developments. You know, around the north gate center, north gate, center's gonna expand some more of some new businesses coming to ,coming the light in there. And I think there's a whole new expansion in the works, maybe of the north case center there. So they've got more room and they're gonna fill up some of it it sounds like.

Alice Lema: So, you know, what's so interesting about that is it appears that there's a general optimism for business growth in our valley. And we're not particularly economically friendly just as a state. And again, not being political. As a matter of fact, the taxes are high. It's hard to get stuff done, but we love Oregon. We don't wanna live anywhere else, but at the same time, I'm surprised that they think there's gonna be that much growth in the business sector. Cause they're allowing for a lot more commercial buildings then.

Joe Brett: Yeah. It surprises me the number of oh, just chains that we see popping up. New additions that are, you know, new restaurants that are coming to the Medford [00:24:00] road valley area.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm well, and thank goodness, cuz we lost a bunch we did during, during the shutdown.

Joe Brett: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's I I'm shocked Medford has grown as much as it has since 1984, since I moved here. Because yeah. Twice the size. Yeah. There're places that you drive through, but for now that you would've walked through hillsides and yeah, grass up your ankles.

Alice Lema: And yeah, that's what the locals, the people that have lived here forever say like those, like Northgate. You know, it's like, nobody thought anything was ever gonna happen out there. And now it's the middle of town. It's so funny.

Joe Brett: It's grassland out there by the mills and the railroad tracks, but right, right.

Alice Lema: Who was not far away . Yeah. So, but you mentioned earlier some of the pockets in Medford that were gonna be expanding. Do you remember what some of those little areas are? We can let our listeners know where there might be some.

Joe Brett: I think MD one and two and three are up like in the Delta waters above Delta waters.

Alice Lema: Oh, okay. Hayden homes are building [00:25:00] out there right now.

Joe Brett: Yes. Hayden's going crazy out there in highway 62. So that's gotta be like the MD one, two.

Alice Lema: Oh, they're gonna bring it like up to highway 62. Fill that in kind of I'm.

Joe Brett: No, I'm not, I'm not sure, but there's areas set aside there that would be. Probably yes.

Alice Lema: And that's for houses that's for kind of that direction.

Joe Brett: Yeah. And all of these MD units, one through 10 there is, I believe in one, two or three, and one of those up there in that area, Coker Butte dump waters area, right? Yeah. Over the foothills, Uhhuh over the foothills right around there. And then I think four and five are more towards the east side of Medford and accommodating some of the east side growth there. But there's also in, one's around Coker Butte there's land that's planned for school and looking so far ahead as to where school would connect in and how it would fit with the, you know, residential development, things like that.

Alice Lema: So they're planning on population growth.

Joe Brett: Yeah, there's a lot adding parks, a lot of schools, there's a lot of parks and [00:26:00] open space that are built into these MDU plans that are gonna be part of it. And part of that is to accommodate the land use laws that require some of those things. But all and, and each one is unique in, in and of itself just with the topography and the area that it's in and it connects to, and things like that.

But I will say that we've seen a real uptick in our Medford planning commission meetings. A little bit in the county as well. I've seen a few county developments, residential developments that are being planned and coming together in the county. But the city of Medford we've a couple of pretty lengthy agendas. Gosh, we had eight items on the agenda. One of 'em we spent three, one item we spent three hours on. Which, which is the cogap is trying to work on the other side of Garfield from the golf course there. And they're also working on their development where the old driving range used to be, those beautiful new multi unit

complexes. They've got their Stewart village. I think they call it right? [00:27:00] Yes. Right. So they have got some , they're hung up on a little issue that they talked with the planning commission about, for about three hours about last month. And that's someone that works about the road block lengths. And the regulations that are tied to it. So Alice, if you can imagine,

Alice Lema: What does that mean? The roadblock one,

Joe Brett: I don't know. So I sat for three hours. trying desperately desperately to understand, and it got really technical in the road engineering and things like that. And that's kind of, that's, you know, couple hours of that. It's hard to keep up, but that can tell you just how one, one item and that had that had a, that was part of a, a pretty large plan. But there, there was still some work to do on that. And they're still gonna have to come back and kind of hash that one out a little more, but there have been a lot, I'll tell you after the break that there have been a lot more applications for subdivisions coming through and they seemed to,

Alice Lema: Instead of multifamily?

Joe Brett: Yeah. Into these MDU units, the new U GB areas that have come [00:28:00] on board are now in the development phase, in the planning phase.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know we need more housing and multifamily solves a lot of that, but predominantly folks want their own digs. They, and they want a yard. So we'll be right back with Joe Brett, the operations manager, Rogue Valley TV, and used to, you know, newsman extraordinaire will be right back after word from our sponsors.

Well, Hey everybody. Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott back at the real estate show, talking to Joe Brett. He's the operations manager, Rogue Valley TV, but he is also anchorman. He's got a news background. He's got a real estate background. He worked for John L. Scott for years, and he was the host of this show for a long time.

So we have Joe back every so often cuz he watching and listening to a lot of the commission meetings county hearings, city of Medford and Joseph county stuff. And so we were talking a little bit about the different little spots in the Medford area that might be added in the urban growth count urban growth development [00:29:00] boundaries recently been changed. So you had a couple of other things you wanted to add onto that thought, Joe,.

Joe Brett: Just that and I, I'm sorry, I fell into whining about the length of that one item that we had at the planning commission meeting. There were seven other items on the, on the agenda that night and several now each meeting, some will get push back for a couple of weeks as they continue to work on it.

But we're having two or three new subdivision developments it seems like come thru every two weeks when we have our new round of final meeting in Medford. So it seems to be kind of a robust you know, no dirt is turning yet on any of those. No sticks are going up Alice. I know that's when you're gonna be more excited when, when the framing starts to go off.

Alice Lema: Yeah. So they're starting to plan on building more homes. That's, that's incredible.

Joe Brett: And, and some of those not all, but some of those are in the new U GB expanded boundaries. And we've also got some pretty good activity that's going on pretty close to my home. I'm [00:30:00] over just south of Columbus on Aspen street. I've lived here for over 20 years and there's a lot of activity down the Garfield Kings highway. There's a huge amount of development that has been in the works for quite a while. The property's been acquired. They're going up in phases, but I I've seen the phase work now for it slowed a little during the pandemic, but they were up at actually building. And they were doing a lot of that infrastructure work right as we came up to the pandemic. It tailed off a little bit, but I see the construction over there all the time driving by.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's so exciting.

Joe Brett: And, and there's a there, those are going to be, and, and it's hard to say, what is an affordable home? What for a first time home buyer, especially, or a young guy, maybe that's gotta be a hard answer, question for you to answer when you talk to some people these days. Because it's shocking to me what these new homes are going to cost. It's shocking to me what the value in my 1976 built home has has come to in the last year and [00:31:00] a half or so.

Alice Lema: And that's, that was the first quote unquote inflationary sign yeah, was, was housing. We were all so excited. Never occurred to us that it was gonna like keep going into all the other economic sectors. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's interesting just so they're gonna build 'em and it's gonna. So are they building houses? Condos? Yes.

Joe Brett: Yeah. You know, houses, I don't know specifics, but I am seeing plans. I did just see one at planning last week where we had some single family, but there was also in the development, I think some duplexes and maybe triplexes.

Alice Lema: So they're, they're doing mixed.

Joe Brett: There's a little bit of a mix. Yeah. I've seen, I've seen some that are gonna be mixed, you know, 20 acre, 10 to 20 acre lots and development, where they might be able to accommodate single family and some more mm-hmm plentiful, you know, units in the same area there too.

Alice Lema: And you know, that little subdivision on the Cedar [00:32:00] link golf course. Yeah. Well, there's several on the Cedar link golf course. Yeah. The, the cottages at Cedar landing, John Clauson. So he did the single family and there's less than 30 little single story houses. And then they have an apartment complex and a townhouse complex, and they've got a little retail coffee shop..

Very much like what you were talking about. I wonder if that's the new idea that Oregon has, or these little, almost bubble like communities where they're self contained. Yeah. Huh? Yeah.

Joe Brett: Where, where they're trying to keep people from taking and making more trips further out and about from where they live. And downtown Medford there is a lot of effort, you know, to make downtown Medford more livable. And my gosh, you you'd asked me 10 years ago. I had thought it's a great idea.

Alice Lema: But I know street by street, people are gussying up their homes. The youngers are moving in. You see a lot of baby strollers. The elders are, are downsizing, [00:33:00] and they're able to walk, you know, to some of the stuff downtown. It sounds exciting, but it's definitely street by street.

Joe Brett: Downtown Medford has potential. I look at Stewart village cuz it's right across the street from a golf course. I'm starting look, you know, I'm trying to think, Hey, when am I gonna taking care of this place?

Alice Lema: Uhhuh thinking about down downsizing?

Joe Brett: When I land in Medford and, and by gosh, you know, 15 or 20 years downtown Medford might be a viable option down there. There's gonna be more housing and living opportunities built in down there. There was a really cool project that didn't quite get through the planning process. Alan Sandler and Mark McKenney were the developers on it, where they were gonna be across from the library and they were gonna build a multi-use complex, mostly housing. And it was gonna be one story up. It would start. So there would still be the open parking spaces underneath there, Uhhuh and the parking, the tightness [00:34:00] of the parking requirement. Oh yeah, they couldn't, they couldn't make it pencil for enough units and they couldn't get enough parking spaces, but that was like five years ago, six years ago. That could be serving Medford residents.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Yeah. That would've helped a lot too.

Joe Brett: Yeah. And it was a great plan. It was kind of like a jet, it seemed like kind of a Jetsons type of thing, they were , you know, that the building was up off the ground and but it seemed really, and, and who knows that that opportunity may or may not come back. But I thought that's, that's the kind of thing that if they really wanna make it livable down, down. That's the kind of thing they'll have to have and everything that you would want or need in walking or biking distance or short walk. Right there that that's really gonna turn the tide. And there's some great, great new little businesses downtown that are helping turn the tide as well.

Alice Lema: So when I think Ashland does a really good job of that, some of their new construction downtown. Yes. It looks like it's been there forever. It has the retail on the bottom. And they've got these beautiful townhouses or condos on the top with views and, and balcony. And you can walk or bike to everywhere. [00:35:00] So, yeah, I was kind of surprised to hear that that one in Medford didn't fly, but parking, I mean, if you could figure out parking in Ashland why can't you figure out Medford?

Joe Brett: Yeah, it was a difference in there, just like, couldn't get it done. But Tom Humphrey was the city planner out in Central Point. Central Point has done a beautiful job of that too in revitalizing their downtown. They did yeah. Commercial and then the residential on top. And they were real, i, I remember talking to him, gosh, he came down and did some shows at RBT 20 years ago, where they were that far out in front of that concept and really on the edge there.

And they made some beautiful improvements and Twin Creeks and, and yeah. Yeah, the great Central Point has done really, really well. They've managed and provided for their citizens and a bunch more beyond their own. And they still are, they're still building, they still are continuing to do so and keeping it in a really, kind of a hometown feel.

Alice Lema: Yeah, they've done a good job of that.

Joe Brett: Really nice job. Interesting.

Alice Lema: So in the minute we have left, can we talk briefly about Josephine county?

Joe Brett: Yeah. Grants Pass city council has, [00:36:00] it just has not had as much. And we don't do their planning commission meetings. Darn it. So I don't get to Snoop in as much on Josephine county, but I do know they are, they've worked and been briefed on some of these state legislative things that they're gonna have to possibly just be aware of.

Or we're gonna have some developments come. They're gonna try to take advantage of that.

Alice Lema: Well, we'll have to reach out to them, Joe, Brett.

Joe Brett: I have, I have, yeah, I could give you some juicy tidbits from the , but they don't relate to housing in the real estate show.

Alice Lema: Well, it's just such a joy to have you back. Joe Brett operations manager, Rogue valley TV. Formerly real estate agent at John L. Scott anchorman, newsman extraordinaire, and he checks up on all the goings on in our community. We'll have you back again. Thanks Joe.

Joe Brett: Thanks Alice. Always good to talk with you.

Alice Lema: Have a beautiful weekend folks. See you next time. Bye now.