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<br />Planning Commission <br />September 15,2006 <br />Page 2 <br /> <br />As indicated at page 1 of the Eugene Downtown Plan, the "central <br />themes" of the Plan were to reinforce downtown as a strong regional <br />center and strengthen downtown as a cultural center, a center of <br />community life. <br /> <br />Chapter II of the Plan, entitled "Building a Downtown," contains a <br />section, "Facilitating Development," where it is stated: <br /> <br />"... All zoning regulations for downtown should be <br />reviewed to look for ways to simplify and expedite <br />development downtown. In addition there. are underused <br />and vacant sites throughout downtown. Some of these <br />parcels are not designated for commercial use in the Metro <br />Plan, or are desig'nated commercial but not commercially <br />zoned. These sites, which include surface parking lots <br />downtown, need to be redesignated or rezoned to allow for <br />the commercial development envisioned in this plan." (p. <br />13) <br /> <br />Consistent with this statement, the Plan adopts as a Policy the <br />following: <br /> <br />"3. Facilitate downtown development by re-designating <br />and rezoning underutilized properties, such as surface <br />parking lots, to a commercial land use designation and a <br />commercial zone such as C-2 or C-3." (p. 14) <br /> <br />The "State Motor Pool site" is specified as area 3 on the map of A <br />Dozen Downtown Development Opportunity Areas at page 45 of the <br />Downtown Plan. As stated by the staff (staff report, p.15), "there is <br />strong policy basis fora commercial designation, as noted in B- D <br />Policy 2...." (Citing the above quoted Policy 3.) <br /> <br />It must be recognized that the new Eugene Downtown Plan is a <br />somewhat unusual refinement plan in the sense that, unlike most <br />refinement plans for a specific geographical area, the new Dowptown <br />Plan did not include a plan diagram. In that respect, it is more similar <br />to the 1992 Commercial Lands Study. It directed the redesignation of <br />certain sites but there was no land use diagram that redesignated <br />those sites, as there usually is in a refinement plan. [See discussion of <br />the Gravilte Properties case holding regarding the effect of direction in <br />