02/21/1990 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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~ e e Mr. Miller said that the initiative/referendum process is intended to be a check and balance system, not an alternative to representative democracy. If the threshold requirement for signatures is too low, it becomes difficult for elected City officials to make any decisions. For these reasons, he suggested that the council continue with the Cllrrent signature requirements but proceed with the rest of CICls recommendations. The general sense of the council was that it needed more time to review the proposed recommendations in order to make a decision. Mr. Gleason said that this item would be brought before the council at a later session, at which time the concept of City Attorney's Office ballot measure review could be reviewed more thoroughly. The council extended its appreciation to the CIC for the hard work and effort that went into researching and generating this proposal. (At 12:55 p.m., the Eugene City Council took a five-minute recess.) V. WORK SESSION: LINCOLN SCHOOL REDEVELOPMENT Jan Bohman, Planning and Development Department, provided an update of the Lincoln School redevelopment project. In October 1989, the council selected Lorig Associates, Inc. (LAI), to redevelop the Lincoln School building as apartments. The council directed staff to work with LAI and the Westside Neighborhood Quality Project (WNQP) to develop a plan for siting four community use elements on the site in addition to the apartment project, which include: a neighborhood center, a child-care center, community gardens, and a playground. The council approved a budget of up to $200,000 to provide for those four elements, $125,000 of which would come from LAI as the purchase price of the property. Ms. Bohman said that since October, representatives of LAI have been working on this project with a neighborhood site planning committee composed of representatives of WNQP, the Jefferson Area Neighbors (JAN), City staff, and a historic preservation and site planning consultant. She noted that creating a pleasing site plan that would satisfy all parties proved to be more challenging than anticipated. Several alternative site configurations were considered with the major elements in different locations. Out of this, a site plan has been developed which seems to be gaining approval by a majority of the neighbors and which is acceptable to the developer. This plan locates the Riley House, the neighborhood center building, at the corner of 13th and Jefferson and the child-care center on 12th Avenue. The play area and community gardens are reconfigured on the northwest corner around the child-care center. Ms. Bohman said that a great deal of discussion centered around the code requirement for parking spaces. The citizens were in favor of decreasing the code requirement for number of parking spaces. Although the code requires 1.5 spaces per unit, the developer felt 1.25 would be adequate; the group will seek a reduction in parking spaces through the PUD process. Ms. Bohman noted that the PUD process is well-suited to this project because it involves MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 6 ..