CC Minutes - 04/28/03 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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City's Growth Management Study policies and provided a small incentive for downtown development. He noted Mr. McVey's comments about the size of the increase, and while he acknowledged that real money was involved, he thought it a bargain in that in exchange, the City supported its growth management policies and continued to provide the current level of parks service for current and new residents as well as a small incentive for downtown development. Councilor Solomon shared Councilor Nathanson's concerns about the geographic adjustment to the transportation and did not support it. She found the agenda item summary somewhat misleading in that the Public Works Rates Advisory Committee had not supported a geographic adjustment. According to members with whom she spoke, staff had not supported the adjustment either, and therefore found no basis for the adjustment. Concerning the parks SDC, Councilor Solomon said she was having a difficult time supporting an interim SDC as she preferred to await the outcome of the comprehensive parks planning effort. She supported the stormwater SDC because of its link to the Capital Improvement Program (CIP). Councilor Solomon suggested that the council vote on the four proposals separately. Councilor Solomon noted a telephone call she received from a small business owner who was assessed $170,000 in SDCs before she even opened her doors. She noted that Planning and Development Director Tom Coyle was working with her and the business owner on the issue. However, Councilor Solomon said, until she could understand how the City could reasonably assess a pet day care business $170,000 in SDCs, she would not support the proposed increases. Councilor Meisner shared some of the concerns about the parks SDC expressed by Councilor Solomon. He said that the increase was very high, and he was troubled by the fact that such SDCs were assessed only to residential construction. He supported the transportation SDC being proposed but was interested in staff comment regarding Councilor Nathanson's suggestion. He supported the wastewater and stormwater SDC increases. Councilor Meisner asked Mr. Klein to comment on the statutory limits on the SDC. Mr. Klein said that the Lane County Homebuilders Association had argued that the SDC must be based on the CIP, but the courts had not ruled to that effect, and the City's legal counsel had concluded that the statute did not require that. The State statute gave the City the discretion to base its SDCs on a CIP or on another basis, such as a level of service (LOS) basis, which was what staff proposed and which had served as the basis for the SDC in the past. Councilor Bettman said that there were essentially only two possible approaches, the project- based, or CIP approach, and the LOS approach. The Public Works Rates Advisory Committee had initially agreed to use the project-based approach to the transportation SDC, but at the behest of development interests on the committee, switched to an LOS approach. Referring to the proposed geographic adjustment, Councilor Bettman said that a majority of councilors had previously decided on the 20 percent reduction in the urban core and an increase of four percent in the periphery to address the clear relationship between longer trips and the need for capacity. She did not think the adjustment would discourage uses such as bakeries outside the core, and further noted that construction of such uses inside a nodal area would result in a ten percent discount of the SDC. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 28, 2003 Page 12 Regular Meeting