Item 5 - PH on Laurel Hill Plan - Laserfiche WebLink

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Eugene Planning Commission September 14, 2004 Page 2 of 4 informed you and the City Council that all they were doing was engaging in the methodology mandated by the current Metro Plan to interpret what the plan designation is for each property. They are, in effect, changing nothing. Whether those interpretations are then put into a Metro Plan diagram is irrelevant at this point. The interpretation remains. And the City Council's interpretation, consistent with the current Metro Plan's methodology, was that the subject property is plan designated Commercial. Why should staffs present interpretation, made using the same methodology, differ from the City Council's interpretation? We ask you here to interpret the Metro Plan designation for the subject property and to conclude that it is Commercial. There is another aspect to the City staffs Metro Plan designation interpretation that we find troubling. In the recent Knutson zone change application for property along Coburg Road, the Hearings Official concluded, the staff supported, and you agreed that the Metro Plan Diagram trumps diagram designations provided by refinement plans where the two conflict. Now, with this application, staff explains that when the Metro Plan diagram and refinement plan diagrams conflict, the refinement plan controls. That position is inconsistent with the approach recently taken in the Knutson case. We cannot explain, nor understand, that shift in approaches. We ask the Planning Commissioners to interpret the current Metro Plan diagram and conclude that the proper plan designation for the subject property is Commercial. With that interpretation, the requested amendment to the Laurel Hill Refinement Plan diagram should be approved and the requested zone change approved as consistent with the Metro Plan designation for the property. Approval Criterion EC 9.8424(2) Approval criterion EC 9.8424(2) provides that a refinement plan amendment address one of several criteria, which includes: "(c) New or amended community policies." Staff noted that the applicant's explanation submitted with the application materials referred to a provision included part of the recently adopted, but not acknowledged, Metro Plan amendments. Consequently, staff concludes that positive findings regarding this criterion will be difficult to make. Staffs analysis is correct based upon the information provided with the application. That information, however, contained errors. The "new or amended community policies" are not policies that are new and amended with the recently adopted Metro Plan amendments. Those amended policies are the result of amendments to the Metro Plan made between July 1997 and February 2002, after the adoption of the Laurel Hill Refinement Plan. Attached as Exhibit A is a copy of relevant excerpts from the July 1997 printing of the Metro Area General Plan 1987 Update. That version of the Metro Plan contains no provision concerning residential lands being unbuildable if it is within a 230 KV powerline easement. Attached as Exhibit B is a copy of excerpts from Metro Plan replacement pages, dated December 1999, for the Residential Land Use and Housing Element. Finding 5 on page III-A-2 explains IV-12