CC Minutes - 09/08/03 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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community, it was clear that some areas were under-served, and there was only so much money dedicated to parks acquisition. He said that staff analyzed all the surplus school properties to evaluate their potential, and in the case of this site, staff did not recommend it for acquisition as a mini neighborhood park. Mr. Kelly expressed frustration that the discussion was not a conversation on how to work with the districts on maximizing the reuse of its properties. He said that the conversation was not about making the entire property a park or an apartment development. Mr. Kelly wanted to do density right, and he wanted to know what tools the City had to accomplish that goal. He said that SDCs were an important tool but they were not spent in a site-specific manner but instead were allocated to projects through the community. The SDC did not support neighborhood building. Mr. Kelly asked if there was anything in the City Code that required a planned unit development overlay to be placed on the part of the property that would be privately developed. He noted that the code counted things such as parkways and landscaped areas as private open space, which was not necessarily suitable for recreational uses. Mr. Coyle said there was no code requirement for a planned unit development. In terms of recreational uses, he said that hardscape was considered a recreational amenity. It was walked on and provided access. People used hardscape to walk to, for example, their barbeques. He said that open space requirements were embedded in various parts of the code, sometimes in the form of floor area ratios and sometimes in the form of setbacks. The goal was to provide a certain degree ofnonbuilt area that represented open space. Mr. Kelly said that if he pointed to a sidewalk and asked the man on the street if they considered it open space, he doubted the answer would be yes. Ms. Nathanson spoke to the Parks and Open Space Plan update process, saying that the advisory committee formed for the update had inventoried what the City already had and discussed what it wanted in the future and would soon discuss what the community could afford. She anticipated that the committee would discuss funding issues in light of the recent Parks and Open Space bond and examine various funding opportunities. The committee had goals for open space to relieve density and for riparian values. There was a need for neighborhood parks and play areas. She was concerned the wish list would be very long and the City would need to look carefully at the distribution of resources and meet the needs of each neighborhood. That was a matter of both distances and the locations of streets and parks. She said that a meeting was scheduled this week and the committee would continue to meet in the future. Mr. Pap6 acknowledged Mr. Kelly's concerns but said he thought the council needed to consider the site in the context of the existing plan. He wished to ensure that all areas of the community were fully served. He did not want money that could benefit his under-served ward to be used for a park in the area in question. Mr. Pap6 suggested that the City could consider code changes that reached the goal of having private open space, but he did not want to over-regulate what a private developer might do in terms of amenities on their properties. Mr. Pap6 pointed out that the school district had a different mission than the City. The school board had a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers rather than a responsibility to forward City policies. That was the council's job. He said that the two districts were squeezed and needed to maximize their resources. MINUTES--Eugene City Council September 8, 2003 Page 9 Work Session