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engage in ongoing collaboration between city staff, the University of Oregon, the general public, and the business community. He urged the council accept many of the recommendations, especially the recommen- dation to form an office of sustainability and board or commission. David Hinkley , 1350 Lawrence Street #1, said he had provided initial comments in regard to opportunity siting and infill to the council via email. He asserted that infill was not being built to destroy neighbor- hoods, rather the intention was to provide housing for people, in many cases affordable housing. He noted he was one of the “48 percent” of Eugene residents that rented. He averred that rental housing was more susceptible to market forces than owner-occupied dwellings. He felt that if there was a limited amount of housing available, the people willing and able to spend the most money for housing would have a roof over their heads while “the rest of us end up in cars and under bridges.” He underscored that the City needed to ensure that there was adequate rental housing available to meet the need. He felt that zoning out large portions of the city as “permit-able” places to develop rental housing was not a way to address the problem. He said he was seeing and hearing people who, for a variety of reasons, were worried about the impact infill would have on their neighborhood. He wished to point out that a large number of homeless people might have a greater impact. He added that apartments were residential in nature and renters were people deserving of a place to live. Chris Bush , 495 Covey Lane, a licensed electrical engineer, stated that he had moved into the Quail Run neighborhood 18 months earlier. He noted that prior to being an electrical engineer he had worked as a lineman and that he was an electrocution survivor. He was bothered that the residents were not able to analyze the failed structures. He found the circumstances regarding the remains of the towers that were alleged to have disappeared to be “suspicious.” He read a passage from a chapter entitled Accidents Waiting to Happen in an engineering book that stressed the importance of keeping the discussion of the cause of a failed of a structure as open as possible. He had formerly believed that “[his] industry” would proceed to do the right thing but he no longer had confidence in this. He related that he walked or rode his recumbent bike under the transmission lines every day. He said it was common that the industry was finding that projected lifespans of such structures were compromised by unexpected corrosion of the steel supporting members. He asked why such an important lesson was “destroyed.” Rob Handy , 455-½ River Road, echoed Mr. Bartlett’s comments regarding the City Manager. He restated the recommendation from the Neighborhood Leaders Council for the work plan the council would review on September 27. He related that the council had two priorities: 1) the implementation of infill compatibil- ity standards and 2) the next generation of enforceable neighborhood plans. He said they also had a companion motion that talked about preserving the natural environment, which was a high priority “encompassing a broad spectrum of tasks and projects” including watershed and wetlands protection, stormwater management, tree preservation and more. He indicated he would send the full text of this advisory. Mr. Handy advised, regarding the River Road neighborhood, that first the City should “do no harm.” He said this needed to be kept in mind when looking at how to balance development, heritage neighborhoods, and the protection of the stability and quality of those neighborhoods. He wanted to examine how low- impact development standards could be designed and implemented. He also wanted to look into how the City could preserve its green space. He asked the council to consider how to incorporate things that everyone talked about in the transition project. He felt the “nice things from the framework strategy” should be implemented city-wide, or if not city-wide at least on a case by case basis in the River Road/Santa Clara neighborhood. He asserted the neighborhood was trying to “prove the. . . new culture of trust” and if area residents could see those elements “on the ground” it would be helpful. He echoed Ms. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 25, 2006 Page 6 Regular Meeting