CC Minutes - 09/27/06 Work Session

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Ms. Taylor suggested that the commission begin it work on neighborhood refinement plans by asking the neighborhood associations to review their plans and identify things that should be added or problems with enforcement of existing plans. She asked what would happen if the study determined valuable plant and animal habitat existed in that area and there was an application to use the land for another purpose. Mr. Nystrom said that a full menu of options would be presented to the council, including education, incentives and regulations and the council would have the opportunity to discuss to what degree regulation played a role in that type of situation. Ms. Taylor asked if there were ways to achieve greater flexibility in enforcing the current code when something seemed unreasonable or impractical. Mr. Nystrom replied that there were tools in the current code that attempted to provide a certain level of flexibility to consider alternative approaches or relief. He said that type of question would be raised during the next round of code amendments. Ms. Taylor said her biggest concern was the low priority given to the Land Use Board of Appeals remand concerning Goal 9, Goal 10, and Chapter 6 tree provisions. She observed that at one point it was the top priority but had slipped down the list to Item 38. City Attorney Emily Jerome replied that a number of those provisions were back in place through various measures, but not all of them. She said there were compli- cated tree issues related to the inventories and the item represented a major undertaking; although it could be moved to a higher priority at the direction of the council. Ms. Taylor said she would propose moving the remand to a higher priority. She asked what authority the Planning Division had to spend time, effort and resources on plans for a hospital when the council had been informed it could not express an opinion because of future action it might take. Mr. Nystrom replied that the Planning Division was only responding to land use applications that were submitted to it, including Metro Plan and refinement plan amendments. Mr. Kelly cautioned that refinement plans were critically important to the neighborhoods that had them and the current ones should remain in effect until the next generation of plans was well in place. He urged establishing a goal to have second generation refinement plans for every neighborhood over the next five to six years. He agreed with the need for a scope of work on a buildable lands analysis and advised the commission to take commercial and industrial land first because of the availability of raw data from the joint jurisdictional study and lack of data on residential land. Ms. Ortiz thanked commissioners for their efforts and remarked that the commission itself had been helping the City plan for its future since it was established in 1925. She indicated infill was an issue for her and she challenged the commission to create a win-win situation where infill occurred but people were able to accept it because it was compatible with their neighborhood. She hoped to see the community accommodate growth without expanding the urban growth boundary. Mr. Kelly concurred with Ms. Ortiz’s comments. He said that win-win could be achieved with design review and design standards, possibly mixed with alternate path, and also by bringing a broad spectrum of people to the table to address the problem. He said a point had recently been made about housing and rental affordability in the community. He said that rental housing did not have to mean poor quality and design standards and appropriate siting could help. Regarding the remand and tree issue, he conveyed a suggestion from the Eugene Tree Foundation to look for solutions as part of the minor Land Use Code amendment process. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 6 Work Session