CC Minutes - 10/31/07 Work Session

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important part of which was that the City was not in the practice of initiating non-voluntary annexations. He stressed that this was very different from the practice of many communities. Mr. Nystrom stated that the “checkerboard or Swiss cheese effect” of the annexations in the River Road/Santa Clara area had made the City of Eugene situation very different from the situations of most other communities. He explained that it led to a higher volume of smaller scale annexations. He under- scored that the City Council would be the sole decision-maker for all annexations to be proposed; the council would have sole discretion to decide whether to approve them or not. He highlighted the process as stated in the draft ordinance, as follows: ? A two-track process was proposed; ? Any application that came in for annexation would be evaluated by staff; ? Staff would make a recommendation to council in the form of a resolution; ? The council would have the option to act on the resolution or it could pull any particular annexation applications from that list and set public hearings on them; ? The second track would be to hold the public hearing; ? Staff would provide the required notices for the first process, and in the case of a public hearing would provide the second round of required notices. He reiterated that the City had mostly seen smaller annexation requests and the majority of those had been processed without controversy. He noted that the controversy that had occurred had largely centered on the inclusion of street annexations with the annexation requests. He acknowledged the council’s recent adoption of policies regarding annexations and stressed that they would still be in effect. Continuing, Mr. Nystrom said staff would try to batch the annexation requests when they could. He noted that it was the Boundary Commission’s practice to batch annexation requests as it convened every other month. He added that in addition to annexation requests, the commission also heard petitions to withdraw from special districts and for extra-territorial extensions. He noted that the latter was rare. Mr. Nystrom stated that the draft ordinance had gone to a public hearing with the Planning Commission, which had recommended approval of the ordinance. He said staff would convey the Planning Commission’s recommendations, which included additional noticing requirements particularly in terms of ways of noticing residents and the times for extra notice. He related that staff hoped to wrap up the item by December so that the process could be set up in January. Mayor Piercy suggested that the council not be presented with a large batch of annexation requests initially. Mr. Clark related that the Santa Clara Community Organization (SCCO) Chair, Jerry Finigan, had expressed concern to him about a perceived lack of communication. He asked how the changes would be communicated to concerned neighborhood organization members. Mr. Nystrom responded that under current provisions, with the process entirely falling under the purview of the City of Eugene, it would be easier to “map out” the communication process. He also felt that this was the concern expressed by the Planning Commission. Mr. Clark asked how the changes would affect the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the County. He noted that currently people had to de facto annex in order to obtain a building permit. City Attorney Emily Jerome replied that the City and then the County had adopted Urbanizable Development codes that controlled how building permits were issued and how development occurred on properties within the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 2 Work Session