Item 4A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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done its job in the area in question. Mr. Weinman said in his opinion, it was more expensive to do infill development. The City might get some inexpensive construction similar to that already done in past years in the West University Neighborhood. He pointed out the council changed the guidelines in 2004 to encourage higher quality development, and the applications that had been received since that time were of higher quality development than other projects built in the West University Neighborhood. Infill development often did not occur in general because the investment did not pencil out. Mayor Piercy asked about making MUPTE available everywhere to “incent” desirable infill. Mr. Weinman said that the City could do that in areas zoned for medium- or high-density development. The boundary was selected at one time because it was downtown and zoned for medium- and high-density development, where the City had a goal for more housing, and included adjacent higher density zoned areas. Mayor Piercy noted the list of qualities the City was trying to encourage, and asked Mr. Weinman if there were things that he thought were missing in terms of what the City was trying to achieve. Mr. Weinman suggested that was a council policy discussion. Mayor Piercy thought staff could suggest ideas to the council. Mr. Weinman recalled considerable council discussion in 2004, when some councilors wanted the quality standards to be stricter and more objective in nature. The council at that time decided to list the standards, ask developers to respond to them, and then decide whether the application met the test on a case- by-case basis. Ms. Bettman recalled the discussion mentioned by Mr. Weinman and said the public benefits mentioned included no benchmarks or weighting, and the council eliminated the weighting for low-income. She further pointed out that the definition of low-income before the council was higher than the definition of affordable housing as defined by the State. Ms. Bettman said she supported the application of the MUPTE in the urban core and to the places it was extended in 2004 because she acknowledged there was an economic disadvantage to building housing in the downtown core. However, she believed the housing around the West University Neighborhood was predominantly student housing with a transitory student population and the associated challenges that population brought. Those challenges created by the student housing placed a heavier burden on the City and at the same time the City was forgoing the taxes from those developments. The last MUPTE applica- tion the City processed in that area resulted in the existing improvements on the property being demolished, and the City lost the tax value outside the land value. Ms. Bettman agreed that if one was trying to leverage higher quality construction, it was not fair to focus on the downtown alone. She disagreed that there was no infill happening, as there was plenty happening, and the biggest complaint she heard was about quality. She suggested that the City focus on where development would not occur without assistance, which was downtown. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved to direct the City Manager to bring back for a public hearing a revised ordinance amending the MUPTE plan boundary consistent with the Downtown Plan boundary that was in place before the West University Neighborhood ex- th pansion, but including the amendments for 13 and Olive and the co-housing project. Mr. Zelenka said that his research indicated that the MUPTE tool was not used as much as he had thought. There had been numerous housing projects in the West University Neighborhood that were built without the benefit of the MUPTE. He thought a focus on the urban core seemed much more critical given that no housing project occurred in downtown in the last 20 years without a subsidy. However, when considering a boundary shift, he did not think the ‘big guys’ needed the exemption, but the most recent examples of the MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 22, 2007 Page 9 Work Session