11/15/1982 Meeting (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Wooten said she represented the area close to where the Washington Abbey e will be built and she had several concerns. She felt the project was far out of scale with the transition nature of the neighborhood in relationship to downtown. She said it was a huge project in terms of height and bulk, and even though it would probably be attractive, it would dwarf neighboring single-family homes. She said the intent of the tax exemption ordinance was to encourage compact urban growth in housing in the downtown area. Overall, she said she would support the proposal. Ms. Wooten said she had some specific concerns regarding the tax exemption for Washington Abbey. One was a request for a bus shelter for the area as a public benefit, primarily because of the high percentage of senior citizens who live or attend activities in the area and who find it difficult to use the bus system for lack of a waiting area. Ms. Wooten felt it was also time for the council to look again at the criteria for public benefit, keeping in mind the possibility that different criteria might apply to different kinds of housing and should there be a tiered approach to tax exemption according to the kind of housing proposed. Ms. Wooten felt very uncomfortable about the project and hoped that it didn't overwhelm the livability of the entire neighborhood. Mr. Obie suggested that staff provide Ms. Wooten with the minutes of all the meetings held to determine the public benefit criteria. Ms. Wooten said perhaps those councilors who did not participate in those meetings would also like to review and discuss the public benefit criteria. Ms. Miller said questions of scale regarding this project were very serious and she was very doubtful that this project could be said to be in scale with the e neighborhood. However, she felt that was only marginally relevant to the issue before the council and the public detriment related to the scale of the project was not sufficient, in her mind, to disapprove the tax exemption application. Ms. Miller said after participating in the round of discussions regarding public benefit, she had come to the conclusion that the provision of housing was itself a substantial part of the public benefit. She agreed that the housing had to meet certain standards and a certain amount of public benefits had to be included. However, the dominant benefit was the provision of quality and reasonably affordable housing. Mr. Ball said he would oppose the application because he felt this was an inappropriate use of this particular piece of property in the Mixed Use District. He also felt the public benefit argument was extremely weak. He said his major objection was that the tax exemption would be passed on to already overburdened taxpayers. Mr. Lindberg said he believed the benefits outweighed the problems related to this project. With regard to shifting the taxes to other taxpayers, Mr. Lindberg said he favored increasing density in the downtown area and felt it was based on a cost-saving through rehabilitation instead of new construction. He said he was not completely happy with the project's design, but he felt the public benefits were important enough to be recognized. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 15, 1982 Page 7