Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Councilor Bettman said she had issues; there were some portions of the ordinance she could support and some portions she could not support. She opposed calling the question. Roll call vote; the vote on calling the question was a tie, 4:4; councilors Pryor, Solomon, Clark and Poling voting in favor and councilors Taylor, Ortiz, Bettman, and Zelenka voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in opposition and the motion failed. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delete the proposed change to EC 9.2161(5) in Section 2 of the Ordinance to retain the last sentence of that subsection. Councilor Bettman averred that without this amendment people would have an incentive to tear down buildings and develop surface parking lots. Roll call vote; the vote on the amendment was a tie, 4:4; councilors Taylor, Ortiz, Bettman, and Zelenka voting in favor and councilors Pryor, Solomon, Clark and Poling voting in op- position. Mayor Piercy voted in favor and the amendment passed. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delete the proposed changes to EC 9.4530(3)(a) in Section 3 of the Ordinance that reduce the FAR from 1.0 to 0.65 and delete the references to Map 9.4510 and Figure 9.4530(3) in Section 4 of the Ordinance. Councilor Bettman remarked that this affected a specific boundary with the Transit-oriented District, TD/ Zone. She felt that without her amendment the code changes would allow lower-density single-floor development in the urban core. She said this had been cited in a letter from the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), which had called this “suburban development densities in an urban environment.” She averred that they had a limited amount of land in the urban core and could not afford not to have it developed as densely as possible. She felt her amendment would help the urban core meet the City’s sustainability goals, land use goals, and growth management policy goals. Councilor Zelenka asked Ms. Laurence to respond to the letter from DLCD. Ms. Laurence stated that staff had conversed with DLCD and pointed out areas in which their letter was not correct. She noted that DLCD did not have regulations regarding what the City had to have as a certain FAR, though they wanted the City to comply with growth management goals. She clarified that this change applied to the area outside the urban core considered the greater downtown area. She underscored that much of the area that would be covered by the 1.0 FAR was actually within neighborhoods other than the downtown area. She said the change they were looking at would change the floor and not the ceiling – a development could be as dense as economics allowed. She noted that the Newman’s Fish Market building block had been developed to a .4 FAR; a .65 FAR would add 50 percent more density to blocks like that. Councilor Clark asked when the original changes to the code had been instituted that had brought in the 1.0 FAR in the greater downtown area and 2.0 FAR in the core. Ms. Laurence replied that the 2.0 FAR had been in place since 1993 and the density had been increased from a .65 FAR to a 1.0 FAR in the Land Use Code Update (LUCU) of 2001. Councilor Clark remarked that the market was not getting there. He acknowledged that it was the goal to get more density but he felt that moving the FAR to 1.0 begged the question of why they should not move it to 5.0. He thought it would be equally impossible to get development done at the higher FAR. While he MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 14 Regular Meeting