CC Minutes - 09/17/08 Work Session

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M I N U T E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon September 17, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka, Bonny Bettman. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Low-Impact Development – Results of Review Fred McVey, Public Works, reported on the results of a review of Low Impact Development (LID) practices for stormwater management in Eugene. He said the purpose of the review was to identify opportunities and barriers to LID, which he defined as a stormwater management and site development strategy that emphasized use of onsite natural features to mitigate impacts of increased stormwater runoff and pollution through practices and design techniques that infiltrated, filtered, stored, evaporated, reduced and detained runoff close to its source. He said those practices included use of swales, rain gardens, green roofs, pervious pavements and other impervious surface reductions and onsite tree and open space preservation. Mr. McVey said key findings determined the City had a solid foundation in place to support LID principles and a range of regulations and programs that supported the use of those practices. He said the City’s progress in this area was substantial, but a variety of opportunities existed to increase the use of LID and were detailed in the report, as were barriers to LID practices. He said the recommendation was to pursue increased implementation through several avenues: administrative adjustments, additional integration of LID practices with other initiatives, development of proposals for land use code amendments and proposals for program enhancements. He said if land use code amendments were pursued, proposed modifications should be developed within the framework of the Planning Division’s annual work plan and Planning Commission priorities. He said policy questions related to whether LID practices should be required or available as an option that was encouraged and facilitated and how best to balance LID with other council priorities. Ms. Piercy noted that the report did not address trying to maintain the character of the neighborhood in which LID practices were implemented. Mr. McVey agreed that maintaining neighborhood character might be a benefit of LID, but the charge was to look at the issue from a stormwater management perspective so that subject was not addressed. Ms. Piercy asked if LID practices were less expensive for the City in the long-term because there were no curb and gutter maintenance requirements. Mr. McVey said that some financial analysis had been done by other communities and in some cases it was less expensive to construct, operate and maintain LID MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 1 Work Session