CC Minutes - 02/22/99 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Taylor pointed out that Ms. Nathanson's remarks were related to a topic of long-standing interest to her, inclusionary zoning. Mr. Kelly suggested that the City consider a process whereby foreclosures could be called to the attention of City departments to ensure that the organization could take advantage of those that could benefit City services. Mr. Kelly said that the City should give nonprofit agencies a chance to purchase surplus property at favorable terms. Mr. Svendsen pointed out the precedent established by Station 7. Responding to a question from Mr. Kelly regarding the status of the Natural Resources Special Study, Mr. Farmer said that he would provide an update to Mr. Kelly on the status of the study's funding. Mr. Rayor said that it would be advantageous to speed up the progress of the review of systems development charges and the Land Use Code Update. He said while those processes were pending, the issue of growth paying its way was delayed. He asked why those processes needed to take so long. Mr. Rayor said he questioned the parking program downtown if it used resources that could be diverted to core services, such as public safety. He suggested the City could leverage the location of the federal courthouse to its advantage in terms of requiring the federal government to permanently fund parking. Mr. Rayor said that he questioned how responsible the City should be for parking downtown, and how many dollars should be put into parking given the investment that already occurred. Mr. Torrey observed that if the federal government chose to build a courthouse in Eugene's downtown the City lacked the ability to mandate anything from it. The City would instead need to convince the federal government that the construction of parking could benefit both it and the community. Mr. Farmer said that to maintain a dense downtown with a mixed use area, the City needed to ensure that it minimized surface parking. Regarding the issue of the City providing downtown parking, Mr. Farmer said that downtowns were the most efficient place in any region to do business, and some amount of parking was necessary to bring people downtown or they would go to places where they were guaranteed parking. He said that his department would attempt to quantify the benefit of parking downtown and its impact on vehicle miles traveled. Mr. Meisner agreed with Mr. Rayor about the amount of time it was taking the City to implement the Growth Management Study. He believed that the Land Use Code Update and SDC review were proceeding too slowly. Mr. Meisner believed that the extensive public process that had accompanied the Growth Management Study had raised expectations among citizens. He pointed out that while the Planning Commission had requested more time to complete its review and recommended that no items in the Land Use Code Update be "fast-tracked," the council had agreed to reserve the right to fast-track specific items of interest to the council. Regarding the issue of facility disposal, Mr. Meisner said he hoped that staff had considered both the use of facilities and whether the facility was in the best possible location for a City service. He was particularly concerned about further dispersal of City services. Mr. Johnson pointed out that urban watershed management was an emerging issue that would have an impact on the community. He said that the council would hear a guest speaker on that topic later in the week. Mr. Johnson anticipated that two species of salmon would be listed, and MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 6 5:30 p.m.