Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

was at odds with the GMPs. Amendment 8, related to RR/SC stormwater issues, took poorly written language from the Stormwater Manual and placed it into the code and would result in a reduction in the City’s buildable residential land. It would also raise the cost of housing and make it difficult for families to buy a house in Eugene. The amendments should not be passed at this time. Amendments 5, 7 and 8 should be referred to the ICS for a more comprehensive review. Lloyd Tolbert, 83 Centennial Loop, Suite 1, had worked with the City’s land use code as a local land surveyor for 15 years, in doing infill partitions, property line adjustments, and subdivisions. He currently was monumenting the exterior boundary of the newly acquired Ridgeline Trail. He had been involved with the MCA and supported those amendments that went through the entire process, but had issues with Amendments 5, 7 and 8. The original 200 proposed amendments were ranked based on criteria that included consistency with GMPs, level of concern, cost, public involvement, complexity, intensity of impact, environmental impact and controversy level, as well as other criteria. The Planning Commission, interested community members, and the consultant reduced the number to approximately 20, with a focus on those that were less controversial due to the necessity to get the first round of the MCAs passed for the good of the public. Amendments 5, 7 and 8 were not housekeeping items and needed a closer review. He asked that Amendments 5, 7 and 8 be forwarded to the ICS or separated into their own bundle. He thanked the City Council, the Planning Commission and staff for their work. Dan Neal, 1361 Pearl Street, said Amendment 7 would increase the amount of required parking for multi- family development in the Agate Street to Hilyard Street corridor (corridor), which amounted to “downzon- ing in disguise”. The SUN concerns about height did not address parking because they were aware of the affect increasing the parking requirements would have on meaningful multi-family development in the area next to the University where thousands of students wanted to live in quality housing. In recent years, some of the eyesores in the WUN and the corridor had come down and been replaced with high quality housing projects. He displayed photographs of his recently completed Coho project, that contained many th sustainability features on 14 Avenue between Hilyard Street and Patterson Street for which he had received accolades from the City of Eugene and the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. In order to do this project with the proposed increased parking requirements it would be necessary to have 23 parking spaces for which there was insufficient room on the standard city lot on which the project was built. Dale Deason, 1527 Charnelton Street, said the issue was not one of density and sprawl. The need to increase the population in the city core had been recognized and accepted for many years by the community and the neighbors. The question was not whether but how to densify, and managing the process was an issue. Changes in the code that relaxed requirements had resulted a doubling of allowable density in his neighborhood in 20 years. He was concerned this had been done in bits and pieces over time rather than through careful planning with almost no involvement by neighborhood residents and no one thinking of unintended consequences or how to avoid turning a thriving neighborhood into a slum. The City had targeted his neighborhood for radical transformation. All but one house on his block was single family but this would change with the City’s goal of doubling the population over the next 20 years. The outcomes would not be good if done with care and involvement by the residents. This was not an urban renewal project in which everything was torn down and you start over. The neighborhoods were full of middle class families who took care of their property and patronized local businesses. They were great places to live and were thriving. The proposed code amendments were from the grass roots and were not radical. They added balance to the process. He urged the Council not to follow the notion that the issue was density versus sprawl. The issue was how to do densification right and by approving the amendments the Council MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 9 Work Session