Ordinance No. 20585 - Laserfiche WebLink

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There are two ways to determine whether Eugene has enough residential capacity to accommodate housing growth through 2032: (1) housing need can be converted from dwelling units into acres, or (2) residential land supply can be converted from acres into dwelling units. Eugene's analysis uses the second approach: it estimates the capacity of Eugene's residential land supply to accommodate new housing units by converting the land supply into a number of potential dwelling units. This analysis, sometimes called a "capacity analysis;'43 is preferable for Eugene because it allows the City to account for the differing development capacity of different areas within its UGB. Factors such as elevation, slope, and parcel size can affect the capacity of Eugene's land supply to accommodate new units of housing.44 To take these factors into account, Eugene's capacity analysis utilizes three different methods for determining the capacity of land. These methods are described in Section 4.1.1. The capacity analysis uses different density assumptions for land depending on its land use designation (LDR, MDR, or HDR), elevation (below or above 900'), slope (less than or more than 5%), and lot size (acres located on lots45 of less than 1 acre, 1-5 acres, or 5 or more acres). Although this level of specificity makes Eugene's capacity analysis more complicated than is legally required, it produces more accurate results than a capacity analysis that uses a single method and density assumption to determine the capacity of all vacant and partially vacant land. 43 For purposes of Eugene's analysis, the term "capacity analysis' refers to the estimate of the number of new dwelling units land is likely to accommodate over the 20 -year planning period. It is not the maximum number of dwellings that could possibly be built based on density limits imposed by plan designation or zoning. 44 As discussed in more detail, below, the City imposes more regulation in areas of higher elevation and slope that contribute to lower residential densities in those areas. The areas are still buildable; they simply have less capacity because portions of many sites may have steep grades or are subject to Goal 5 protection measures. 45 The buildable lands model results in a sub -tax lot level analysis. This means that in the geospatial model, a lot or subarea is not identical with a tax lot. Instead, it is a subarea of a tax lot that shares certain characteristics. For instance, if a lot has more than one plan designation, barring any other differing characteristics the tax lot would be split into subareas by the number of plan designations on the site. So the term "lot" as used here refers to the sub -tax lot acre size. Page 118 ECONorthwest Part 11 — Eugene Housing Needs Analysis