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e industry appropriate to the place and supported by the community's desire. Mr. Wood said public testimony exhibited a conspicuous lack of support for this amendment in its invitation to heavy industry. He said the proposal showed a relaxation of sound land-use planning principles and an "abrupt about-face" in the type of industry considered desirable for the community. Furthermore, he said, it encouraged sprawl that inevitably would creep out further over the agricultural land in the valley. He cited findings from the Eugene Planning Commission, that the proposed amendment would result in the loss of agricultural land and would create pressures for further development in the area, thus causing further compatibility problems with agricultural uses. The proposed rail spur would bisect an agricultural area and make it difficult, if not impossible, to farm the southern parcel, the findings indicated. Mr. Wood said the metro update process would provide the best forum for a comprehensive analysis and determination of this amendment issue. He said the Oregon Natural Resources Council strongly urged the council to support retention of the Awbrey-Meadowview 200 acres in the community's and state's agricultural land bank, where it best served the public. e Robert Emmons, 1064 West 5th Avenue, spoke in opposition to the amendments. He said the request for rezoning of 200 acres of agricultural land to special heavy industrial in expansion of the urban growth boundary, which would result in a major change in policy and a reversal of the economic, social, and environmental concerns expressed in the present Metro Plan, almost exclusively had been justified by proponents using recent evidence indicating a demand for large-scale heavy industrial sites with rail access. Mr. Emmons said he had not heard the alleged evidence clearly discussed or analyzed, and he did not believe it bore out proponents' claims. Mr. Emmons cited text changes to the economy element of the Eugene Planning Commission report, pages 6 and 7, indicating that between August 1983 and April 1987, only about 70 (or one-third) of 205 businesses making inquiries had wanted rail access. He also said only 23 or about one-third of those 70 businesses had wanted sites of 25 acres or more, so only one-tenth of inquiries had wanted large sites, and it was not known how many of those were heavy industries, although according to data at hand, it could be as few as one. Moreover, he said, less than one-half of these firms, which might be all medium industrial, needed rail access. The ten firms looking for 40- to 70-acre sites might not be the firms needing rail access, and in fact, most of those that did might be looking for sites ranging from 5 to 20 acres, Mr. Emmons said. "This is pure hokum--a not-so-clever smokescreen, which, far from supporting the owner's claims, rather suggests that the demand, whatever that may be, would be well-served on land within the urban growth boundary," he said. e Mr. Emmons said the study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, referred to in number 15, page 7, implied that because manufacturing jobs had increased in the west, they had increased in Oregon. Yet, no MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 8, 1988 Page 8