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that the current and previous councils had, through plans, urban renewal districts, incentives and visions, put <br />the ground work in place for such a development. He strongly supported the motion to develop a more <br />detailed proposal related to the West Broadway development for the council to consider. He thought that <br />facilitated negotiations between the City and unwilling sellers could be a good alternative to eminent domain; <br />but the City should retain eminent domain as a tool and carefully weigh the needs of the unwilling property <br />owner against the rest of the community. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Kelly, moved to extend the discussion by ten min- <br />utes. The motion passed unanimously. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman proposed a friendly amendment to add the following language: This <br />motion in no way endorses the concepts of the proposal. Mr. Poling and Ms. <br />Solomon accepted the amendment. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman pointed out that the proposal indicated it was the developers’ expectation that the City would <br />acquire all of the listed parcels and sell those parcels to the development team at no cost. She asked what <br />was meant by “all of the listed parcels.” Mr. Sullivan said the development team was involved in discus- <br />sions with all of the private property owners and had not provided a list of individual properties yet. He <br />assumed that the statement meant those properties that the developers were unable to acquire. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman asked if amending the urban renewal district to increase indebtedness meant that the <br />development proposal would consume all of the available funds. Mr. Sullivan replied there was very little <br />room in the existing debt cap for the downtown urban renewal district. City Attorney Glenn Klein explained <br />that what was called “maximum indebtedness” in the urban renewal plan was really a spending cap and the <br />library used most of the spending cap. He said it was the spending cap that would need to be increased. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman said that in terms of using eminent domain to achieve a public benefit, she questioned whether <br />consolidating a huge chunk of downtown in the hands of one property owner was a public benefit. She said <br />a diversity of ownership was a good thing. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé agreed with the need for public input and said that if the council entered into a development <br />agreement, it certainly had the right to define the type and extent of public input that would be part of the <br />process. He said when the agreement came back to the council it should describe in detail the type of public <br />process in general as well as the specific process for each phase of the project. He asked about the history <br />of the Atrium Building’s ownership and whether it had seismic problems. Mr. Sullivan said the City <br />purchased the Atrium Building in 1998 at a good price and had significant equity in the building, which <br />represented a substantial amount of cash as a liquidated asset. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé stated that he would not be in favor of subsidizing the project with a decreased sales price as had <br />been done for other downtown developments. He said the City should receive market price for that asset if it <br />was sold. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling asked if the proposal language about the City acquiring listed parcels and selling them to the <br />development team at cost meant the purchase price plus any legal fees if eminent domain was necessary. <br />Mr. Sullivan said that staff assumed that “at cost” was a fully loaded cost that would include the costs of <br />any acquisition process. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 9, 2006 Page 8 <br /> Work Session <br />