CC Minutes - 07/14/03 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Ms. Taylor said she had not favored funding the partnership at all, and she did not favor allocating more money to the partnership. She noted that a recent opinion piece by Bob Doppelt of the University of Oregon had mentioned the folly of using incentives for businesses. She wanted to state that she was opposed to business recruitment. However, facilitation was another matter. Ms. Taylor thought the partnership's function should be to look at underused land in the community and to help existing businesses to relocate when they wanted to expand. Ms. Taylor did not think it mattered if a business was in Springfield or Eugene, or if Springfield had more industrial land than Eugene and Eugene had more commercial land than Springfield. She did not perceive that the community had received much in taxes from businesses such as Sony or Hynix. It was her perception that businesses that were recruited with incentives remained in a community until their tax breaks expired, and then they leave. Ms. Solomon supported the proposal and did not perceive it as an infringement on the council's policy prerogatives. She said that without the information generated as a result of the study, the council would be unable to make good policy decisions. Ms. Solomon supported the three- jurisdiction approach, suggesting that should resonate with the council given its recent discussion with the Planning Commission and its general agreement that there was a need to take things to a more regional level. She did not think the discussion was one about incentives, but merely putting on the table what was out there. Mr. Pap8 agreed with the comments of Mr. Meisner and Mr. Kelly. He found them very appropriate. Responding to a question from Mr. Pap8 about when the City last inventoried its land supply, Ms. Childs reviewed the information included in the Agenda Item Summary provided to each councilor, which indicated that the Metropolitan Industrial Lands and Eugene Commercial Lands studies were adopted in 1992. The Metropolitan Residential Lands Study was adopted in 1998. Springfield had recently completed an inventory of its commercial lands as part of periodic review. Ms. Childs suggested that the council also needed to consider the impact of the natural resources protection measures on the buildable lands inventory, and the City did not have that information at this point, although the partnership could do some preliminary work with the information that was available. However, she suspected that work would have to be redone when the extent of regional protections was established. Mr. Pap8 hoped the two jurisdictions' inventories could be done in common with common criteria in the future. Responding to a question from Mr. PapS, Mr. Roberts said that the partnership proposed to take the information that had been gathered in both communities and analyze whether there was an adequate supply of commercial and industrial lands. Mr. Roberts believed that the points made by Mr. Meisner and Mr. Kelly were well-taken. There was available land inside the urban growth boundary that was underused or may not be "ready to go," and that needed to be examined as well. He said that an inventory would allow the elected officials to make decisions with up-to-date, comprehensive factual information. Mr. Pap8 solicited another round of council comments and questions. Mr. Meisner was not interested in doing an inventory in isolation. He said that the mechanisms that were identified to remedy any land shortage were as important an issue to him as the MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 14, 2003 Page 10 Work Session