06/24/1987 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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be retired by year 20. He added that the Downtown Commission and staff went through the exercise of determining how rapidly the Renewal Agency could e retire its existing debts and completely get out of the urban renewal business. Mr. Hibschman said this would take six or seven years. Mr. Byrne said the agency could decide to do this at any time. Mr. Rutan said it is important to realize that the City is trying to generate an economic inertia--a situation in which the development of downtown property is economically feasible; an environment in which private citizens can make money. He said this is what capitalism is all about. He sa i d the Urban Renewal Plan1s emphasis should not be on the public sector playing the most active role; rather, the plan should emphasize that the public sector's role is to encourage and facilitate private sector redevelopment of the downtown. He said Mr. Holmer had informed him that 14 percent of downtown office space is occupied by government or non-profit organizations. He said government has had to become a tenant in many cases in order to make property deals financially feasible. Ms. Wooten mentioned that another reason behind this statistic ; s that government should be located in the city center. Mr. Rutan said that at some point, the public sector cannot take responsibility for making deals economically feasible; at some poi nt, an economic environment has to be achieved where the private sector can make money on its own. Mr. Bennett agreed. He added that a major issue is: What kind of deals can be made that require the least amount of public involvement? He said that in the e housing area, for instance, so much public support is required to develop an economically successful housing program that this has not been achieved in the downtown. Ms. Wooten said one should consider the downtown redevelopment efforts of other cities, such as Portland. Although these cities may have resources to attract development that Eugene lacks, their level of investment in joint public-private downtown redevelopment has been greater than that of Eugene. She said Eugene will not achieve its goals for downtown without continuing some level of public investment in downtown redevelopment. D. Process for Discussion of Urban Renewal Plan Issues At the suggestion of Ms. Bascom, the council decided to move to a discussion of another Urban Renewal Plan issue. Ms. Ehrman suggested that the lengthy discussion of the Willamette Street redesign and reintroduction of traffic from 8th to 10th be deferred to the meeting on July 8. Not being able to attend the July 8 meeting, Mr. Holmer said he would like to mention that the redesign recommended by the Downtown and Planning commissions accords wi th his own view of what downtown needs. However, he said the Willamette redesign issue is so important and controversial that the redesign e MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 24, 1987 Page 11