04/24/1991 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e e e it did this, it should declare the amount of these charges and set up the funding source(s). Mr. Boles said it was never the intent of the Council Committee on Infra- structure (CCI) nor the SDC Task Force to argue that the council should deal with social good kinds of issues on a case-by-case basis. He said it was assumed that the council might wish to identify a class of activity as crite- ria for having part of the SDCs dropped and not borne by developers in that class. He said that if the council wanted to be true to the principle of SDCs, it should not allow exemptions within the ordinance. Ms. Ehrman asked if a tax exemption on downtown housing could be applied towards funds for SDC exemptions. This possibility was discussed. Mr. MacDonald said that if the council did not plan to provide SDC exemptions for low-income housing, it should develop some other method to help fund this kind of development which was external to the SDC Ordinance. Ms. Bascom said the council's second goal this year was to emphasize low-in- come and affordable housing. She said the City would not be flooded with requests to build low-income housing. She said that when the City attempted to raise Federal funding for housing, it would be helpful if City match money was clearly identified--such as an SDC exemption of a certain amount. Ms. Bascom said that if the City did not exempt low-income housing from SDC fees, it might appear to other local jurisdictions that they were being asked to provide funds the City would not provide. She said John Van landingham, a member of the Planning Commission, found that it was very helpful when seek- ing State funds for housing to be able to show that the City was providing funds for these kinds of projects. Ms. Bascom asked Mr. Boles how SDCs for the Richardson Bridge project would be funded. Mr. Boles said local support could be demonstrated as easily outside the SDC Ordinance as inside it. Mayor Miller summarized that every- one agreed that someone must pay SDCs. He said that if these fees were ex- empted, the City would have to find some other way to replace the lost reve- nue. Mr. Boles said that if there were only a few cases in which a project would qualify for an SDC exemption, it should be no harder to find an overt means of funding these projects than to offer an exemption. He said the principle of the SDC rate-setting methodology was that all development has an impact on the community. Mr. Nicholson said the Downtown Urban Renewal District indexes special funds according to growth and property values. He asked why it would be inappro- priate to set aside funds for subsidizing low-income housing with an index to SDC collections. Mr. Gleason said the Bancroft Program was the original SDC prototype. He said this plan and housing projects in the River Road area face similar prob- MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 24, 1991 Page 8