CC Minutes - 07/08/09 Work Session

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MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street — Eugene, Oregon July 8, 2009 12:00 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Mike Clark, George Poling, Betty Taylor, Alan Zelenka, George Brown, Andrea Ortiz. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Jennifer Solomon. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy convened the Work Session of the Eugene City Council. A. WORK SESSION: Urban Renewal Mike Sullivan, Director of the Community Development Division, showed a supplement to the Register - Guard from 1972 that introduced the downtown mall to the community. He pointed out that this demonstrated that the City had been talking about the downtown for many years. Amanda Nobel Flannery, Loan Analyst for the Community Development Division, stated that the presentation was a follow -up on the City Council discussion of May 20 on downtown urban renewal projects, financial requirements, and the plan amendment process. She stated that these topics were part of a larger discussion on local economic development. She underscored that actions taken to encourage development and redevelopment in the downtown boosted the health of the urban core and contributed to the economic health of the community. Ms. Nobel Flannery said the May discussion had also included a plan amendment to increase the spending limit and the council had asked for specificity on such projects. She stated that staff had put together two potential projects as a "test run" of the type and scope of information they could provide before the plan amendment process was initiated in August. She noted that they would also review the timeline and the draft public involvement plan in order to garner feedback from the councilors. Ms. Nobel Flannery provided a PowerPoint presentation entitled Economic Development & Downtown, hard copies of which were provided to everyone present. She began with the list of the potential projects, which included the two examples to be used for the present work session: Park Blocks improvements and local business assistance. She noted that the details she intended to review were included in Attachment F in the Agenda Item Summary (AIS). She explained that the Park Blocks projects were those on the list of improvements from the Park Blocks Master Plan that were not yet implemented due to unavailability of funding. She underscored that the list of improvements would not come before the council for approval until future conversations with the council, the community, and stakeholders had been undertaken. Ms. Nobel Flannery stated that the Park Blocks projects also had a boundary issue that the council would have to address, as the East Block was not within the urban renewal district boundary. MINUTES— Eugene City Council July 8, 2009 Page 1 Work Session