CC Minutes - 07/09/08 Work Session

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change. She pointed out that the departure of the hospital from the neighborhood would free up more parking, and hospital employees would be required to pay money for parking whether they drove or not, which was a disincentive for parking on the street and an incentive for parking in the parking structures. She said that she perceived a decline in driving in her neighborhood because of the cost of gas and did not anticipate much change in that regard. Ms. Ortiz wanted more input into the issue of transitions between zones and thought there needed to be more “give and take” in regard to the subject to accommodate development. Mr. Pryor believed the issues before the council were complicated. He had received much good input and could see the logic of all arguments. He did not think that the ultimate solution would make everyone happy because some of the values involved were incompatible. He said that while the council may have been discussing the issue for some time he was not a member when that occurred and was sorry the conversation had to occur again. For those reasons, he supported the referral to the ICS project. Mr. Pryor acknowl- edged concerns that development proposals with a neighborhood impact could arise in the interim. He did not know if those concerns were valid. He had been intrigued by the concept of a sunset because it would allow the council to change approaches if necessary. He acknowledged that the council could repeal an ordinance but said in his experience, that was difficult to accomplish and preferred to renew an ordinance as opposed to repealing an ordinance. Mr. Pryor suggested the two items of concern might have been less controversial if processed through the ICS project, and expressed interest in investigating any legitimate concern about development that might negatively impact the neighborhood in the interim. Ms. Solomon agreed with the remarks of Mr. Pryor. She did not think the council had the data to know if the proposal for items 5 and 7 were the right ones. She believed that for the council to act in a transparent method, the items should be referred to the ICS project for more comprehensive discussion. She thought any changes the council made should benefit the entire community rather than specific neighborhoods, and thought the council was setting a dangerous precedent by singling out individual neighborhoods for benefit. She thought such actions also amplified the City’s reputation as being unreliable to work with. Ms. Solomon commended the work of the ICS Task Team. Mr. Poling said he had walked the neighborhood and gotten a good sense of what the concerns felt by the neighbors were. He expressed support for the positions taken by Mr. Pryor, particularly in regard to the sunset provision and the referral to the ICS project. Mr. Clark also agreed with the remarks of Mr. Pryor and with Ms. Ortiz’s remarks regarding parking. He did not think the council should consider that issue in a vacuum. He was concerned that the council’s actions could make infill development uneconomical to build in the South University area. He did not think the issues involved were minor and wanted to take a broader perspective to see how the entire city, not just a small part of south Eugene, was affected. Mr. Clark referred to item 8 related to stormwater and indicated that he could support that item if the element related to the inclusion of the manual in the code was referred to the ICS project. Mr. Zelenka emphasized his concern about his neighborhood’s livability. He said that profitability was important but “livability was king.” He emphasized the limited impact from the limited area to which the new parking requirements would be applied, and noted the automatic 25 percent reduction allowed by the code. He said “I doubt seriously” that there would be a halt to development in the neighborhoods in MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 9, 2008 Page 3 Work Session