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ECC UGENE ITY OUNCIL AIS GENDA TEM UMMARY Work Session: Minor Code Amendments Meeting Date: October 10, 2007 Agenda Item Number: A Department: Planning and Development Staff Contact: Steve Nystrom www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 541/682-8385 ISSUE STATEMENT This work session is to provide an update and check-in on the Minor Code Amendments process. No formal action is needed at this time. However, the council will hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance addressing potential minor amendments to the Land Use Code in the coming months. BACKGROUND A few years ago, the City Council directed staff to undertake a process to amend the land use code in order to address a variety of discrete and, for the most part, minor issues that were emerging. Staff split this task into two phases. Phase 1 was completed over a year ago and focused on minor “clean-up” items aimed at clarifying ambiguous or conflicting language in the code. These amendments addressed issues primarily identified by staff as problematic, yet minor in nature. As this phase concluded, the council directed staff to focus the next phase of amendments on issues raised by the community. This second phase is the subject of this work session. With funding provided by the council, the City hired the consulting firm of Angelo Planning Group to serve as the project managers of Phase 2. This phase of the minor code amendment process began early this year with a focus on soliciting input from the public on how to improve the land use code. Several workshops and community forums were held over this period. One of the initial challenges of this project was the recognition that the number and intensity of suggestions would exceed the limited scope of this project. That expectation was realized as over 220 amendments were suggested by the public. Although it was clear that a small percentage of these suggestions could be addressed in this round of amendments, the project team did not want to lose or diminish the valuable input received by the community. As such, a library of suggested amendments has been created as a data base for future code amendment efforts. It is staff’s intention to continue to use this library as a clearinghouse for future suggestions that are made. In order to develop a manageable list of amendments that would move forward in this process, the Planning Commission, project team and community devoted substantial effort in prioritizing this library of suggested amendments to a manageable list. On August 29, 2007, the Planning Commission selected 20 potential amendments as the working list of amendments. Before moving forward, staff felt this milestone provided a good opportunity to apprise the council of the project status and direction and to hear any feedback from the council before proceeding with the next steps. F:\CMO\2007 Council Agendas\M071010\S071010A.doc