CC Minutes - 05/28/03 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Nathanson believed that solutions were often a combination of trying to do what was best for all parties with different interests and what was possible and practical. She asked Mr. Bj~rklund to speculate on how the Planning Commission might react if the council chose a combined approach. Mr. Bj~rklund said that the Planning Commission had briefly discussed the safe harbor approach but had not discussed a combined approach. He noted that staff had introduced an alternative for the commission's consideration that included the standard inventory process with revised criteria so the inventory would be somewhat smaller. Ultimately, the Planning Commission decided it did not want to shrink the inventory at this stage of the process and decided to recommend all the sites go forward to the ESEE analysis stage. Mr. Kelly, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to extend time for the item by ten minutes. The motion passed, 6:2; Ms. Nathanson and Mr. Meisner voting no. Mr. Pap~ solicited a second round of council comments and questions. Ms. Bettman acknowledged that people needed certainty about the future of their properties but pointed out that to this point, no property was tied up or protected. She asked if staff knew the percentage of the original Goal 5 inventory that had been developed. Mr. Bj~rklund said not precisely, as the original inventory was hand-drawn. He said that when one contrasted the old map to the new map, one would be able to identify the land that had developed since the late 1980s. He estimated that it was a relatively small percentage of the entire inventory of sites, totaling about 200 acres. Ms. Bettman said that in the meantime, people could do what they wanted with their properties until the sites were protected, and she believed that protection was a long way off. Ms. Bettman did not think residents supported intensive boundary-to-boundary development and believed that they recognized natural resources as an amenity. She reiterated that the process to this point had not resulted in the protection of a single acre. She said that, given the time the process had taken to this point, she began to wonder if the amount of land that would be protected by the safe harbor approach would be the same amount that would be protected by the standard inventory approach. Ms. Bettman requested information on the progress the other jurisdictions had made with their approaches and how close they were to adoption of an inventory. Mr. Kelly spoke to the issue of certainty for property owners, saying he agreed that was needed and the next steps in the process were intended to provide that certainty. He thought changing the approach would add to the time line as well as the levels of community uncertainty and anxiety. Mr. Kelly recalled that many councilors had recently praised the City's professional staff and Planning Commission and urged others to honor their work, and now the same councilors were suggesting that the approach supported by staff needed to be reconsidered. He said that either one did or did not have trust in staff. With regard to the safe harbor approach, he noted that the council had voted unanimously to use the standard approach in 1997 and in 2001. Staff had implemented the council's direction, and he questioned throwing that time and effort out of the window. He asked what had changed since 2001. Mr. Kelly also asked City Manager Dennis Taylor to comment at some time in the future about the value of some continuity in policy versus the value and challenge of switching between policy approaches. MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 28, 2003 Page 5 Work Session