CC Minutes - 05/18/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

not allow the City Council to "shape or tweak" the application. He thought that not having a local context was both beneficial and detrimental for bringing in a team of help from elsewhere. He noted that the language said the City needed help in identifying and removing barriers and reinforcing and reshaping. He opined that the application should have listed the 19 Growth Management Policies and stated that the City had mixed-use development as a goal and then asked for advice as to how the City could better get to that goal. He felt the words 'remove barriers' were both denotative and connotative senses of "let the flood gates open" and did not speak to the positive elements of the growth standards. Ms. Bettman said she staunchly objected to both of the grants. She thought the grants were not related to adopted policy and, therefore, should not be moved forward. She asserted that the EPA grant was based on "morphed" policy that she thought was a direction that staff wished to go in though the council had not given that direction. She alleged this was articulated in the last section of (4), which she found "very troubling." She quoted a portion of the application which seemed to indicate that support for the City's mixed-use development strategy was the long-term answer to the challenges the City was facing and called the strategy the embodiment of "the heart of 'smart growth' philosophy." She agreed that the council had worked on nodal development, but said it had not held the policy discussion wherein mixed-use could be substituted for nodal development. She asserted the application was questioning the City's Growth Management Policies and pointed out that they had undergone a very extensive public process. She called it "astounding" that the grant could be construed to say the City was questioning those policies. She said when the council had discussed nodal development it had been determined that the real problem with the strategy was that it was too "one-size-fits-all. She felt the dynamic in both of the applications was code- centered and would create a city-wide situation when what was really needed was to examine specific areas and determine how best the goals could be met in those areas. Mr. Poling stated that he had reviewed the draft earlier in the morning and had seen nothing in it that suggested that action would be required as a result of recommendations. Rather, he related, the grant would provide a team of experts that would come in and review what the City was doing and suggest ways to address some of the problems the City was having. He averred that some of those problems were due to past regulatory and procedural changes to the code. He called the application another "piece of the puzzle" to help the City reach what it seemed the City wanted to do for many years, which was to develop "smart growth" and nodal or mixed-use Development. He thought experts from across the country would have more experience and expertise than anyone at the table and would be able to provide suggestions, guidelines, and recommendations based on what had been done in the past and what had and had not worked. He opined the council would be missing a golden opportunity. He pointed out that a broad-based local team would help the EPA team and the results would go back into the public process. Mr. Pap~ concurred with Mr. Poling. He asked if it would be possible to "tweak" the direction of the team. Mr. Yeiter replied that he believed the parameters for the local team would be flexible. He added that the City had not used this EPA program before and he was not sure how rigid its team would be with its procedures. Mr. Pap~ reiterated that anything the EPA team would come up with as a recommendation would be subject to review by the public, the Planning Commission, and the City Council should it so choose. He asked what resources the EPA grant would require from the City. Mr. Yeiter responded that the main work would be staff hours for the educating of the EPA team on the City's land use code, its development standards, infrastructure standards, and financing mechanisms. He said once that work was done it would be primarily MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 18, 2005 Page 6 Work Session