Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, President, Friends of Eugene, cited several State of Oregon legislative bills regarding greenhouse gas emissions and local sustainability issues, and how they related to downtown. The DLCD sent the City of Eugene a letter regarding reducing downtown density. Construction in downtown reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for the metropolitan area, while construction in the perimeter of the UGB increased VMT. He suggested the City Council should ask staff for documentation of how building permits changed when the land use code was changed and do the regulatory audit called for in the Downtown Plan. Dan Montgomery, 66 Club Road, Ward 5, said in the most active real estate market in this area ever, very few if any new private buildings had been built in the Transit District Overlay (/TD) area. Adjustments needed to be made and for that reason he supported all of the proposed Downtown Code Amendments before the City Council. He recalled the amendments were included in the staff recommendation on code changes eight years ago. The current parking maximum of 20 spaces was not workable and an adjustment review process needed to be available for all properties within the /TD overlay zone. The current code had been a failure and had forced development to go to suburban areas and Springfield, causing more use of more fuels and more emissions. Approving the Downtown Code Amendments would be a step in the right direction. Will Shaver, 3846 Peppertree, Ward 8, spoke in favor of the Downtown Code Amendments on his own behalf, and not on behalf of the Sustainability Commission. He understood the dilemma brought forward by Mr. Matthews wanting to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses while promoting density, which were values agreed on by many in the community. The past seven years had been very lean years from a downtown development perspective. He proposed a new slogan for downtown, Downtown Eugene: Please Drive Somewhere Else, which was what had happened. Development had occurred in the new downtown Eugene on Coburg Road, and in the new Eugene in Springfield, and all around the borders that caused people like Mr. Shaver to have to drive farther or ride his bike a ridiculous distance to procure goods and services. The current 1.0 FAR had been ineffective in accomplishing the community’s goal of reducing parking, based upon the pits and lack of building downtown. To reach the high density everyone sought, there needed to be incremental changes. Parking spaces did not create revenue but allowed people to do business. Eventually, as land values and density increased, parking spaces would be eliminated. In other downtowns with high land values, parking was inefficient use of the land. Lauri Segel, 642 Charnelton, Goal One Coalition, said the plan did not have a factual basis and she felt the policies relied on were the wrong policies to be looking at and the right policies were not looked at. The Downtown Plan should be predicated on other policies and Strategy F of the Downtown Plan related to regulatory audits had not been followed. The proposal was based on non-quantitative information that development did not pan out downtown. Going backwards and ignoring nodal development policies and DLCD direction did not make sense. The TransPlan and Metro Plan had barely been touched on, and adequate analysis had not been performed. She submitted written testimony for inclusion in the public record. Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. Ms. Jerome said there was a written request to keep the public record open through June 30, and staff had recommended this would work with the City Council’s timeline. Mayor Piercy noted consensus of the City Council to keep the public record open until June 30, 2008. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 15 Work Session