Item 5 - PH on Laurel Hill Plan - Laserfiche WebLink

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PATRICIA THOMAS CITY OF EUGENE PLANNING DIVISION September 21, 2004 Page 2 Another parcel is bifurcated by 25~ Street (unbuilt) and owned by a third party. The party does not reside in Eugene and has been unresponsive to overtures concerning sharing in infrastructure costs. The property is not listed for sale, and at this point we doubt that the owner will participate in development of the property; this property will be marketed, if at all, after all infrastructure is constructed without their participation. 2. Need for Tourist Oriented Commercial Property. As noted in prior testimony, this site is the only parcel that two competing motel developers wish to consider. Due to access restrictions, slope and other issues, the other parcels that are zoned commercial are not as desirable to a motel developer. With the reduction of available units from the recent tear down of the Clarion Motel, the lack of available commercial property at the Gateway Interchange as well as the Coburg Interchange, the ever-increasing traffic on 1-5 and other factors have led to unmet demand for motel and tourist services that are freeway oriented in the Eugene/Springfield area. The fulfillment of this demand meets a public need. 3. No Precedent. The neighborhood association spokesman suggested in his oral testimony, that there was the risk of setting a bad precedent by allowing this property to be zoned commercial. Particularly he noted that perhaps all that was needed, was to allege that public need existed and the Planning Commission would be constrained to grant any future rezoning request. We believe this criticism is unwarranted because of the uniqueness of this particular site. There are numerous other criteria involved in addition to public need, each of which has been met by the Applicant and which other sites would have difficulty meeting. With the freeway on the north side, the freeway interchange on the east side and commercial property on the south side, plus high voltage transmission lines efts-crossing the property with a tower on the southwest comer, this site is unique not only in the Laurel Hill neighborhood but in Lane County as well as probably the state of Oregon. No other applicant will ever bring a similar application to the Planning Commission. 4. Trade With Other Commercial Zoning. It was also suggested that perhaps the Applicant should consider trading any increase in the commercial zoning that might be granted incident to this application, for a downgrade to residential of other existing commercial property. To begin with it is worth noting that the price that has been offered by the motel developers is less than one-half the price per square foot, that would be expected for other commercial property. The reason for this deep discount is the problems associated with the high voltage wires and the constraints that this imposes. The fact remains, that the Subject Property has no utility as residentially zoned property; IV-52