CCMinutes - 12/06/04 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Bettman noted staff's comment that the City had no resources to process a refinement plan amendment, and if that was the case, she questioned why the City had invested money on the refinement plan to begin with. If the City did not have the resources to change the plan, she questioned why it would circumvent it, which she perceived as a waste of the tax money invested in the refinement plan. She reiterated that the property owner was aware of the zoning when the property was purchased. Mr. Meisner indicated he would likely oppose the proposal because he also concluded it did not meet the criterion of demonstrated public need. However, he had some discomfort with the neighborhood associa- tion's recommendation for a limited study. The association recommended that ;;the scope of the task be defined as reexamining the geographic area included in the commercial node." He said that language presented only an opportunity to reduce the node in size, rather than the commercial applications in the area of the node. He urged that any study look at the best possible location for a commercial node, not how to reduce the size of the existing commercial node. Mr. Pap~ thought it presumptive of the council at best to suggest what the property owners want to do with their property. He believed they understood their situation and had gone through considerable expense to seek the redesignation and rezoning. He was persuaded by the Planning Commission's recommendation that the council approve the proposal. He quoted from the October 25, 2004, Planning Commission meeting minutes, where retiring commission Adell McMillan recommended the commission use the process before it rather than attempt to amend the refinement plan due to the length of time involved and because it was not practical to amend a refinement plan each time such a situation arose. Mr. Pap~ determined from City Attorney Jerome Lidz that the process and action before the council was legal. Mr. Pap~ thought the council did the community a disservice by refusing to recognize that things change. Things were changing in the area in question. Unless the council could guarantee that the refinement plan could be readily amended in a reasonable time, he thought the proposal should be approved. Ms. Taylor objected to making a change for the benefit of a single developer. She did not think the council should even be considering the issue. Ms. Nathanson said she attempted to consider the issue from a common sense perspective, and had been struck by her examination of the map of the area. The area of the request was oriented toward the freeway, not the residential part of the neighborhood. It was adjacent to commercially zoned property. Ms. Nathanson did not understand why the property in question was designated as it was because it was almost isolated. She regretted staff was unable to track the history of the designation decision as it was difficult to tell whether it was unintentional or somewhat of an oversight due to the property's isolated nature. Ms. Nathanson asked the City Attorney to what degree the council's decision had to be based on the criterion of need. Katheryn Brotherton of the City Attorney's Office indicated it was one of several criteria that the council must find were satisfied by the application. Ms. Nathanson said that several neighborhood leaders had expressed concern that the City was not proposing to amend the refinement plan. She pointed out that most refinement plans were developed when the City had money, and the City no longer had the funding for that purpose. In practical terms, it was not feasible to amend either small parts of a plan or do major updates. Ms. Solomon was also struck by the marginal nature of the property and questioned what could be done MINUTES--Eugene City Council December 6, 2004 Page 7 Work Session