Item 3: Ordinance on Downtown Code Amendments

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place and leaving it so that an applicant could not get down to a lesser number without the adjustment review process. He said those issues could certainly be part of the “shopping list” for Phase 2. Ms. Kneeland noted that the DLCD had suggested other incentives or measures to promote denser development over time and asked if this was something that could be looked at in the second phase. She wanted find ways to encourage people to densify in the future. Ms. Laurence said she would include some of the points raised by the DLCD but it was important to note that incentives did not fall under the purview of the code. She wanted to outline some of the items that had come up and then bring it before the Planning Commission to allow the commissioners to add to the list. Mr. Carroll agreed with Mr. Lawless that utility areas should be included in the FAR. Ms. Laurence assured him that this was already in the code. Mr. Carroll related that he had some qualms about how the MetroPlan policies were interpreted. He referred to #2, which said it would be consistent with applicable provisions of the MetroPlan, and Policy A(19), which sought to encourage residential developments in or near downtown core areas in both cities. He felt they should be consistent on whether “tinkering” with land use codes constituted encouragement or incentives. He thought policies that addressed those did not apply to reducing minimums in land use codes. He averred that if the aim was to create incentives they would keep the 1.0 FAR and then say if it was met an applicant was exempt from certain requirements or the City would fund certain things. He did not believe loosening baseline requirements was an incentive nor did he think that Policy A(19) would be fulfilled by what they were doing. Continuing, Mr. Carroll referred to the bottom of page 6, in which it suggested that the intent of the code amendments was to implement the Downtown Plan. He noted that the last sentence said the intended purpose of the reduction was to provide a wider range of allowable densities to facilitate desired development given the current economic climate. He found this phrase to be too vague, given that the background and the findings begin with the discussion on how this process had arisen from the adoption of the Downtown Plan and had been going on for several years. He MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission April 28, 2008 Page 10