CC Minutes - 02/12/07 Work Session

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five years to do due diligence, during which time he would be engaged in negotiations with EWEB’s General Manager. He said that it would be up to both bodies to approve the sale under whatever terms and conditions and prices were the result of due diligence and the negotiating process. Ms. Taylor said that she was glad that the City Manager mentioned the five years for due diligence. She said that was not quite as urgent as tonight. Ms. Taylor asked how this would fit into the Franklin Corridor Study. Ms. Laurence explained that when the City did the Courthouse Concept Plan adopted in 2002, the City took a look at the area as the length between the university and the downtown. She said that many of those ideas, especially the transportation ideas, were adopted and were being implemented as part of the Downtown Plan. She said that she thought that there was an opportunity to look again at the riverfront and the connections to the university and make a better connection to the Franklin Corridor. She said that in 1999, the City did the Downtown Vision which was actually the downtown and the Franklin corridor vision process. She said that it seemed time to pull those threads together, particularly for this site. In response to a question from Ms. Taylor, Ms. Laurence said that it was a part of the Franklin Corridor. Ms. Taylor noted that a community meeting had been held about the Franklin Corridor and she hoped that the community input from that would not be ignored. Ms. Taylor said that whenever the council adopted plans, it was told that the plans were not binding. She asked City Attorney Glenn Klein if the plans were legally binding. Mr. Klein said that it depended on the kind of plan. He said that parts of the Downtown Plan, in particular those policies related to the master planning process, were binding policies. He said that there were other parts of the Downtown Plan that were aspirational goals. Ms. Taylor asked what parts of the plan were legally binding. Mr. Klein clarified that the Downtown Plan said that before property could be redeveloped, it would need to go through the master planning process. He said that the council had the legal authority to follow the process to amend the Metro Plan and could change the zoning from heavy industrial. Ms. Bettman said that she would like to see the memo that Mr. Brown mentioned that delineated non-public land use as two-thirds commercial and one-third residential. Ms. Laurence said that she had not seen the memo and that she thought that it had come from previous staff giving some assumptions that would be useful in doing the appraisal. She said that the memo was no longer binding. She said that what was binding was the policy in the Downtown Plan that stated that a master plan was required. Mr. Brown said that the memo was from the Planning Director who preceded Susan Muir. He agreed that the memo was sent for the purpose of appraising the property since PL zoned land could not be owned by private entities. Mr. Klein said while he had not seen the memo, he was assuming it was the Planning Director’s guess as to how the property might be able to be redesignated in the Metro Plan. He said that it was not, and could not be, a commitment on the part of the City because the Planning Director did not have the authority to amend the Metro Plan or to rezone inconsistent with the Metro Plan. He said that, oftentimes, appraisers would ask for recommendations on how to do an appraisal, but that it was in no way binding on the City. Ms. Bettman said that even though the Planning Director had changed, Planning staff was the same staff who had worked on the Downtown Plan. She said that she thought that the memo was a very important piece of information for the council to see. Ms. Bettman said that there were two public entities involved and that her objective was to maximize the public benefit from the piece of property, not maximize the profit from the property. She said that she thought having the City manage the master planning process was the best way to move forward since the MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 12, 2007 Page 7 Work Session