CC Minutes - 01/16/08 Work Session and Meeting of URA

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Mr. Pryor agreed with Ms. Ortiz and Mayor Piercy. He said the council was struggling to understand how the legislation was enacted and responding emotionally to why it was enacted. He felt that good governance meant elected officials had to separate their decision-making from how they might feel about something in order to make decisions that benefited the community. He liked the comprehensive nature of the proposal and appreciated staff's initiative to find greater efficiencies in opportunities to accomplish several tasks simultaneously and coordinate activities beneficial to the process. He supported a Comprehensive Lands Assessment as an opportunity to obtain information on which to base good decisions. Ms. Taylor agreed with Ms. Bettman that the UGB should be established first; otherwise an accurate inventory could not be done. She was opposed to doing more than what was required by law. She felt the actual costs would probably be higher than estimated for the comprehensive inventory and take significant amounts of limited staff time away from other projects. She preferred to do only what was specifically required by the bill in order to use the least amount of money and staff time. In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Ms. Jerome explained that the bill did not relieve the City from all of the State laws that would apply when a UGB amendment was made. She said at a minimum there would need to be a substantial study of residential lands to justify the new location of the UGB along Interstate 5. She said other applicable statutes required significant findings about whether or not the new UGB was sufficient. She said it was possible that existing studies had enough information to make those findings, depending on how individual City land supplies were viewed, but it was not acceptable to simply draw a new UGB down the middle without further action. Mr. Zelenka asked for clarification of the comprehensive assessment that was being proposed. Ms. Gardner replied that HB 3337 only required an inventory of residential lands, but the Planning Commission had recommended the Comprehensive Lands Assessment to consider commercial, industrial, and residential lands as well as natural resources because that information was important to future planning efforts such as infill compatibility standards, opportunity siting, and corridor redevelopment. As an example, she said that a comprehensive assessment could determine there was a surplus of one type and need for another type of land; the information could facilitate redesignating land in order to meet growth management goals. Mr. Zelenka said the process by which the bill was enacted was not in the spirit of regional cooperation, but the council needed to move beyond that issue. He asked how long a comprehensive assessment would take. Ms. Gardner estimated that it would take a one-year period. Mr. Zelenka remarked that UBGs prevented sprawl and protected critical farmland; changes should be based on a comprehensive assessment of lands currently within the UGB and a determination of whether there were opportunities for redevelopment and reuse of those lands. Ms. Gardner said that one of the reasons for the Planning Commission's recommendation was the chance to include redevelopment opportuni- ties. Mr. Clark commented that the council should bear in mind how creating a scarcity in the marketplace drove up the value of property. He asked for clarification of expiration of current inventories. Ms. Gardner cited the agenda item summary (AIS) language that stated the Commercial Lands Study would expire in 2010 and if no inventory was adopted before that expiration it would be very difficult for the City to make findings under Statewide goals 9 and 10 for land use policy decisions after the study expired. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 16, 2008 Page 2 Work Session