CC Minutes - 01/25/06 Work Session

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In response to a question from Mr. Papé, Mr. Klein stated that the Metropolitan Service District (Portland area) was looking into something akin to the first option but the fee or tax would be triggered by urban growth boundary (UGB) expansion. He affirmed, in response to a follow-up question from Mr. Papé, that a property brought into the UGB despite the property owner’s opposition would still be taxed. Mr. Klein said property experienced approximately a five-fold to ten-fold increase in value when it was moved inside the UGB around the Portland area. He explained that Metro was looking at a number of options, such as overlooking the first 100 percent increase in value and taxing a percentage of the increase above that. Mr. Papé added his kudos to staff for the clarity and thoroughness of the materials in the AIS. He noted his agreement that some tax reform was needed in the state. Ms. Solomon, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved that the City take no additional action on a givings tax at this time. Ms. Bettman thought it unfortunate that the word ‘tax’ was being used. She said the fees were supposed to create a fund to help enable the City pay for Measure 37 claims. She believed the proposed fees were not so much to pay claims that would come to the City as they were a way to enable the City to regulate develop- ment in the future. She did not think the City could ignore the impact that Measure 37 would have on planning. She averred that the issue was to have the resources available so that as the City moved forward in planning, it would be known that the City had the resources to pay claims that could result from land use changes impacting people in a negative way. She felt it was future-thinking and pro-active to do so as the outcome of the Measure 37 litigation was not known. Mr. Kelly disagreed that action would be premature given the length of time it took to work on the underpinnings of an ordinance. He maintained that doing nothing at this point was not an option. Mr. Kelly, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to amend the motion to direct the City Man- ager to study options 1 and 3 in more detail, including completing a proposed analysis of the tax/fee amount and economic consequences and that the City Manager would return to the City Council with focused decisions to be made around implementation of such an ordi- nance. Mr. Kelly suggested staff look at what the council had done since the Land Use Code Update (LUCU) was enacted and review what sorts of things would fall under the third option and how they would be affected. City Manager Taylor explained the rationale for his recommendation. He underscored that there were always more weighty things to accomplish than there were resources to accomplish them. He took the council’s priority setting as a way to ascertain which tasks should rise to the top. He said when looking at the administrative costs and the time and resources to implement a fee in the face of the likelihood of litigation, it seemed more prudent to wait. He averred that the City wanted to be “on the leading edge and not the bleeding edge.” He pointed to the issues of smoking, Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) reform, and telecommunications as examples of the City taking the lead on issues. He felt that the Measure 37 issue could wait until staff and the council could get clarity with regard to the legal environment before putting the time and resources into fleshing out one of the two options preferred by council. Ms. Taylor also wished to commend staff on the materials. She said she was less opposed to the third option after hearing discussion of some kind of triggering mechanism. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 25, 2006 Page 3 Work Session