01/23/1978 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e hardships and exemption~which must be decided by Council. He said the issue was, simply, should Eugene continue to subsidize new devel- opment without the greater portion of the costs being borne by the new development itself? Mrs. Niven said the Joint Housing Committee of which she is Chairperson, had discussed the issue at great length. She pointed out that a memo from JHC to the Council had been submitted. She said though other factors affected the cost of housi.ng, the systems development charge was in the hands of the public, whereas other elements were not. The charge would affect renters as well as more wealthy home buyers. The principal concern of the JHC was that the charge against new housing would ultimately raise the cost of housing in general. The JHC felt the charge should not be a front-end cost; the charge should enforce the City's compact growth policy; and the charge should not be limited to new construction. e Mrs. Niven continued that the JHC had never said it thought the charge would cause a lull in development, but it did think that it was as bad for Eugene to do something that would affect the cost of housing as it had for Corvallis. The Committee felt there was a way to get a systems development charge without affecting the cost of housing. She read the JHC's recommendations for alternative methods as outlined in its memo to the Council. The Assessment Committee had rejected the idea of the service charge partly because EWEB did not want to collect it. She said the City could collect this charge as easily as it could a Bancroft loan. Alternatives preferred by the JHC included: 1) changing the time of payment to an occupancy charge; 2) a straight-forward service charge; 3) a surcharge based on the dis- tance from the center of the city to encourage compact growth; or 4) considering a larger benefit district. She said policy issues which must be decided were: would just new development be affected? Should compact growth be reinforced? She said the major concern concern of the JHC was that cost not be added to new housing. Mr. Thomas pointed out the Eugene Renewal Agency had written the Council a memo dated January 19, on the subject of exceptions from the systems development charge. He said the three major points of his memo were: 1) that whatever method of including a systems development was chosen, a compact growth be encouraged; 2) within the ERA's Central Eugene Project new development and planned development had already been paid for; and 3) since central city improvements have already been paid for, any future renewal pay- ments would pay for improvements to outlying areas which seem contradictory to the purpose of the charge. ERA was not opposed to the systems development charge. The Assessment Committee had noted its objections and stated that it could incorporate the ERA central project into its proposal. He said since the renewal project would pay for any further improvements to the central city area, not the developer, this area should be exempt from the charge. " 1123178--5 'I&f