CC Minutes - 04/13/98 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Gregory McLaughlan, 2401 West 22nd Avenue, identified himself as president of Friends of Eugene and a member of the Sociology and Environmental Studies faculty at the University. He urged the council to terminate the riverfront district, Option E. Mr. McLaughlan said that the riverfront did not need renewal. He asked the council to consider the results of the Growth Management Study surveys, which indicated a lack of support for public subsidies and support for additional open space, particularly natural habitat. Mr. McLaughlan did not think it was appropriate public policy for the City to allocate dollars to a project over which it had no control. He noted that more than 150 students and faculty recently signed a petition calling for no new development north of the railroad tracks while preserving the park south of the tracks. Mr. McLaughlan called for a new approach to the research park that preserved the open space north of the tracks for future livability and allowed the use of land south of the tracks to serve the needs of an expanding research university. Peter Barrel, 2240 Agate Street, said that he was a downtown business owner and former Downtown Commission member. He asked the council to support urban renewal. He said that the community could not achieve compact urban growth without providing the tools necessary to make it occur. Land values to develop land in downtown Eugene were higher than in the periphery. As a current Planning Commissioner, he had recently considered an application for the expansion of a surface parking lot and had been told by the applicant that land prices in the periphery were sufficiently cheap to preclude consideration of structured parking. Mr. Barrel said that downtown was Eugene's neighborhood, the heart of the city. It would not be successful without commitment and vision. He did not think the urban growth boundary would be able to remain in its current location if downtown was not vital and larger than it currently was. Linda Fuller, 2401 West 22nd Avenue, asked the council to support Option E and to terminate the riverfront district. She said that tax dollars were being diverted to the district without any public control; the council could not preclude development north of the tracks and unique open space would be lost to development; the park, like many other parks in the country, had achieved few of its goals after a decade of existence; and University faculty and staff had opposed the park since its inception. Michael Roberts, 1919 Myers Road, identified himself as the current president of the Chamber of Commerce. He said that the chamber strongly supported urban renewal as the last remaining tool to complete the projects that remained to be accomplished in downtown. He said that money collected in the district should be kept in Eugene, and dissolution of the district would result in too few dollars to restore lost City services. Mr. Roberts noted strong support for urban renewal on the part of respondents to a recent survey sponsored in part by the chamber. He said that urban renewal needed to be preserved for all the projects the community might wish to implement in downtown. Bill Sullivan, 1958 Onyx Street, ABLE member, said that his organization unanimously recommended that the City use urban renewal to construct a new library and offer residents a chance to vote on the operating costs while saving tax dollars. He said that surveys conducted by his organization indicated support for a downtown library. Mr. Sullivan asked the council to avoid a series of votes or a complicated measure tied to other projects or issues. John J. Naleway, 3247 Lincoln Street, said that he was president of Marker Gene Technologies, located in the Riverfront Research Park. He urged the council to select Option F for the district. He described the background of his company and its mission and said that it currently had nine MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 13, 1998 Page 5 7:30 p.m.