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<br />Mr. Papé supported the idea of a pilot project because it brought focus and initiated the process. <br />Unfortunately, he said, the City did not have the resources to jump in like it should to assemble sites unless <br />it was funded by the Budget Committee next year or existing resources were redirected. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor said the process should start slowly. She liked the pilot project concept and felt the council <br />should be involved. <br /> <br />Ms. Ortiz thanked Mr. Kelly for his comments in clarifying the written material. She liked the idea of a <br />test site because unless the City facilitated development, the private sector would not step up. She <br />concurred with Ms. Bettman’s comment that nodal development never actually happened in the Royal <br />Avenue node. <br /> <br />Ms. Solomon thanked Mr. Papé for his questions because they echoed her thoughts. She maintained that it <br />was important to identify incentives for private development to encourage participation before going <br />forward. <br /> <br />Mr. Lawless agreed that incentives were an important part of the equation. If the market was going to <br />drive development projects, the City needed to provide an environment for the development community to <br />be successful. He asserted that if the council wanted a pilot project, it needed to assist the development <br />community in making the first couple of projects happen. <br /> <br />In response to Ms. Bettman’s preference, Mr. Hledik said it was important to establish a dialogue among <br />the neighborhoods, the developers, and the City to identify what the incentives might be and what the <br />stumbling blocks currently were. For that reason, the commission suggested starting with A. Start with <br />public outreach to explain programs and identify possible opportunity sites before B. Develop strategy to <br />determine how to proceed and where to proceed. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy asked Mr. Lawless if he had seen any models for how this was done in other places. Mr. <br />Lawless replied the Portland Development Commission had been used as a resource in identifying, <br />funding, and shepherding desired projects that were ultimately done by private development. He noted <br />that the City of Eugene did not have the resources or the mechanisms in place to support what got those <br />things off the starting block quickly. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy stated that the City has to develop a model for the capacity it has. <br /> <br />Mr. Lawless said it was important to have mechanisms and protocols in place to evaluate potential sites to <br />ensure that they fit in the neighborhood. He echoed Ms. Solomon’s assertion that it was in the <br />community’s health interest and economic interest to bring some incentives to the table. He added that <br />criteria needed to protect neighborhoods, but should not be so restrictive as to discourage good <br />development. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman expressed difficulty with doing broad public outreach before the strategy was defined. It was <br />important to have a framework to which people can respond. The strategy and the definition needed to be <br />developed before soliciting ideas for sites. She asserted that upzoning to R-2 had resulted in very high <br />densities in some neighborhoods, adding that downzoning could be an incentive in some situations. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman said the problem she had with the demonstration project being developer-oriented was lack of <br />control on the part of the City over the balance between incentives and the standards. <br /> <br />Mr. Duncan asked for a straw vote to determine if the City Council favored doing a pilot project first. <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 17, 2006 Page 3 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br />