Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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parking. Additionally, the intent was to allow surface parking only when associated with a building, allowing one space for every 1,000 square feet of building. Councilor Bettman said under the proposed changes the Heron Building would allow for a shorter building. She asked if under the proposed standards the square footage of basement garages would be included in the surface parking calculation. Ms. Laurence said the proposed language had been carefully developed to indicate basements could be used for the purposes of calculating the square footage for density, but that did not apply to calculating the square footage for the amount of building and therefore surface parking. Ms. Jerome stated that the provision had been moved into the definition of floor area, and the only area that referenced counting basement areas was in the definition of floor area, which described how FAR was determined. Clarifying language indicating basements shall not be counted could be added. Councilor Bettman did not support it either way. A FAR of 1.0 was modest for a downtown area and .65 was the wrong direction. When LUCU was adopted in 2001, a 20-parking spaces lot was considered generous, with anything more needing to go into a parking structure. If people drove downtown they could park once in a parking structure embedded in a building. Nothing was stopping development—it was occurring. Responding to the statement that development was happening, Councilor Clark asserted downtown was not developing appropriately. While it was true that FAR and other code issues were not the only issues about what was developed or not developed downtown, it was also true that while the council could create rules about what was and was not built, it could not dictate to people how they would be comfortable about how use their downtown. Giving consideration to what encouraged people to use the downtown area needed to be considered. He opined a majority of the community did not use the downtown, and what the council did was not working. He was happy to see adjustments made to create more balance. Mayor Piercy said it was a “chicken and egg” situation, because East Broadway was a successful model under the current code. West Broadway had been problematic but the City seemed to be moving forward with the Beam development. Hopefully the Centre Court building and the pit behind it, as well as the pit across from the Eugene Public Library, would be redeveloped, indicating activity. Councilor Zelenka said the map included in the AIS showed two downtowns, with one area being successful, and the other less so. He asked why Eugene Code 9.4530(7) “Adjustments” was proposed, noting it opened a door for many adjustments. Ms. Laurence responded the adjustment review process was difficult. It had not been used since it was a land use application requiring more time than the discretionary review process with a less certain outcome. It was thought that the adjustment review process would allow the City and the developer to have a chance to work out any issues that could be a win-win for both and encourage higher quality design. She noted that the Eugene Public Library barely met the core area 2.0 FAR requirement and the U.S. Bank building at eight stories was 2.0 FAR. Staff wanted an opportunity for discussion if a building met the intent but not the exact technical language in the code which the adjustment review process would provide. The requirement was only for the regulations within the /TD overlay. The 20-space surface in the C-3 limit was totally separate. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 4, 2008 Page 5 Work Session