CC Minutes - 05/30/01 Work Session

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the public and private sector. Mr. Farmer acknowledged no further staff follow-up had occurred on Mr. Kelly's suggestions for Iow-income loans and local improvement districts. Mr. Pap~ expressed appreciation to Mr. Moore for his expertise. He asked if the City's policies related to the cost of parking was establishing the market, or if the City was part of the market. Mr. Moore said that the City had a large part of the supply, but given the economics of surface parking, that continued to work for the private sector. Mr. Moore said that people were generally paying no more for parking in private lots than in public structured parking. He said that the City could charge more, but the market was bigger than the downtown. Mr. Moore pointed out there were private lots in downtown and businesses had the option of relocating to another place in the community. The higher the parking rate, the more the disincentive there was for businesses to locate downtown. Mr. Moore said that much of the discussion about parking was about fairness on one hand and efficiency on the other. He understood Mr. Meisner's concerns about subsidization, but if the City did not subsidize parking, what happened? Did the private market step in? In his opinion, the answer was no. The private sector would walk away because of the economics. He thought the City faced tough choices. While subsidization might not feel fair, the question was, how much did the City want development to occur in downtown. Mr. Pap~ referred to Portland and its parking partnerships and asked if Mr. Moore had a sense of the break off in population before such partnerships worked. Mr. Moore did not. He pointed to the level of density in Portland and said that as development occurred and the land was consumed for other purposes and no surface parking could be built, businesses needed the parking to operate and structures then made economic sense. Eugene was not in that position. Mr. Moore suggested that another way to think about the issue was to consider eastern Oregon; the federal government had built many dams and provided subsidized water to farmers. The subsidy made the desert land economic to farm; in its absence, the land was not economic to farm. The economy was based on the assumption the subsidy was there. If policy changed and the federal government charged the real price of water, it would result in a painful economic turnaround for a lot of people. He said that the issue of whether the parking subsidy was a good idea was a difficult one; however, in the medium term, there would be less development and less density in downtown if the subsidy did not exist. Ms. Bettman said she could not consider the issue of downtown parking without considering the issue of parking citywide. While she agreed with Mr. Moore's conclusions, she believed the City was subsidizing surface lots outside the downtown by financing the transportation infrastructure to get people back and forth quickly so they could access such developments, and surface lots require land that could be used for other purposes. Such land did not generate the tax revenue it would if developed as a more intense use. Sprawl resulted, which cost the community more money. Ms. Bettman said those costs were not reflected in the information presented by Mr. Moore. In terms of the potential that an increase in parking costs or a tax on parking would drive development out of downtown, Ms. Bettman said that development was moving to the periphery anyway. The only way she could justify subsidized parking downtown was by taxing parking outside downtown. She acknowledged the memorandum the council had received about the issue, but said it was not what she had expected; she had expected a range of options that would allow the council to move forward with a tax on parking outside downtown. The staff memorandum appeared to be an argument for not moving forward. MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 30, 2001 Page 3 Work Session