CC Minutes - 04/11/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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council and neighbors. Grocers usually locate where there was other retail uses to attract customers. Mr. Yeiter said there were about two acres zoned for commercial use on the east side of Garden Way that might be suitable for a grocery store. Staff had discussed the potential of rezoning more commercial land but would then have to replace the lost residential land. Ms. Bettman said the smaller footprint for the grocery store she had preferred was not intended to limit the size of the grocery store but rather was intended to limit the footprint of the first floor. She wished the City could have found a site downtown for the proposed medical use, but acknowledged that such infill development would be a challenge. Ms. Bettman suggested the City Council needed to discuss what it was willing to do to help facilitate infill development. Mr. Yeiter noted that most of the City's existing incentives were focused on downtown. Ms. Bettman recalled that the council adopted a ten percent discount for transportation SDCs in nodes, which was a form of an incentive. Mr. Yeiter concurred. However, he was unsure the medical development in question was eligible for that incentive as such a development must have nodal characteristics to qualify. Ms. Bettman sympathized with the immediate neighbors and other residents in the community similarly affected by development near them. She said the City Council could only address such issues on a policy basis. It could not act to stop individual applications. If City polices and regulations were not working out, the council should revisit them in a comprehensive way. Although she believed the nodal development policies the Land Use Measures Task Force had originally considered had been eroded to a minimal threshold, she believed the area in question had some characteristics that met those standards. Ms. Bettman pointed out the use would create employment in the node and redevelopment opportunities remained for the future. The surface parking lot may eventually redevelop. A multi-story office building was proposed to front onto the street and take access to the sidewalk and parking, and those were two of the criterion established by the council. The most negative thing Ms. Bettman could say about the proposal was it had 20 more parking spaces than required. She was not willing to entertain a moratorium to try to retroactively change the standards. Mr. Poling thanked the residents of the Harlow neighborhood who worked to address the issues associated with the development, as well as the firm W&G, which worked to find common ground with the City. He encouraged staff to continue to work with the neighbors and developers to ensure further compromise occurred in a way that was consistent and predictable with the City Code. Mr. Poling stressed that when he had requested the work session, it was not his intention to attempt to stop the development. He asked if a motion to proceed was required. City Manager Taylor said that the City was obligated to respond to the developer's application and no motion was necessary. Ms. Solomon asked Mr. Klein if the City was in danger of a Ballot Measure 37 claim as it related to the development. Mr. Klein said that if the City adopted a moratorium and changed the standards so they diminished the value of the property, there was the potential of such a claim. Ms. Solomon agreed with Ms. Bettman's comments about the potential nodal aspects of the proposed development. She said there was no market for a grocery store in the node now, but the presence of the medical facility could trigger the development of a grocery store in the future. Ms. Ortiz was not supportive of a moratorium. She said that the small local grocery stores that were in MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 11, 2005 Page 11 Work Session