Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

B. WORK SESSION: Parks and Open Space for River Road/Santa Clara City Manager Taylor introduced Parks Planning Manager Carolyn Weiss to present a progress report on the River Road/Santa Clara parks issue, particularly the Santa Clara community park. Ms. Weiss used a slide presentation to present an overview and describe future plans for parks and open space in River Road/Santa Clara and maps to illustrate potential acquisition areas for a Santa Clara community park and projects identified for the River Road area. Ms. Weiss said that significant progress had been made in acquiring neighborhood park sites, including Loan Oak Park, Filbert Park, Rosetta Place, Wendover Park, Terra Linda Park, and Ferndale Park. She said that neighborhood park service areas were those within a one-half mile walking distance of a neighborhood park or playground without crossing a major barrier. She used a map to illustrate service areas and pointed out that even with the new acquisitions, there was still a significant amount of unserved areas within River Road/Santa Clara. She said there were plans to acquire additional neighborhood park sites and improve access to existing parks as well as complete the development of acquisitions. Ms. Weiss used a map to illustrate service areas for community and metropolitan parks throughout the community. She said a community park service area was a two-mile distance to the park site and there was currently no community park service in the River Road/Santa Clara area, particularly north of Beltline. She said that criteria to identify and evaluate potential park sites had been developed in conjunction with Santa Clara citizens. She said the criteria included the size of the parcel, cost, transportation infrastructure, flood zone, inside or outside of the urban growth boundary (UGB), ownership of adjacent properties, existence of natural resources, and willing seller. She reviewed a map that identified a number of potential community park sites and described each site, including whether the owner was willing to sell. She said securing a community park site was the first priority. Continuing, Ms. Weiss stated that the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Project and Priority Plan identified the following Priority 1 projects for the River Road/Santa Clara area: ? Acquire three neighborhood park sites ? Acquire a community park site ? Stormwater corridors that linked with existing parks ? Acquire additional Willamette River frontage ? Development of two neighborhood park sites ? Development of a synthetic surface playing field Ms. Weiss also noted that within the 20-year planning window were acquisition of an urban plaza, development of the community park site, development of six additional neighborhood park sites, implementation of the Rasor Park master plan, construction of an additional boat launch on the Willamette River and access improvements to all park sites. Mayor Piercy called for council questions and comments. Mr. Papé said he asked for the work session because while most of the 52 projects in the 2003 parks and open space measure had been completed or were in progress, the exception was a community park in the Santa Clara area. He noted that staff had been working on the issue and hoped that the council would provide additional impetus, perhaps through consideration of eminent domain to assemble the parcels necessary for a park site if other approaches failed. He was willing to consider eminent domain to assemble the necessary the 30 to 40 contiguous acres. He said north Eugene was the only area still lacking a community park. He asked if sites outside of the UGB could be used for parks and if that would require an expansion of the UGB to MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 19 Page 7