Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Gordon Anslow, 1953 Garden Avenue, Ward 2, was speaking as co-chair of the ICS Task Team a co- owner of a design/build business, and a private individual. The ICS had been asked to review everything in the Eugene Code related to building new dwelling units which had been a daunting task. With the MICAP provisions inserted by the City Council, certain neighborhoods would be allowed to cut in front of the ICS process. Although he objected to the MICAP process running parallel to ICS work, the City Council inserted items that represented use of the MICAP process to Trojan Horse the will of a few in the process, as a means to side-step the process, and have the merits of their desires weighed by the ICS, balanced against the interests of other neighborhoods and interest groups and integrated into a set of rules crafted for all of Eugene. This undermined the ICS work and did not sit well with him. Mr. Anslow and Steve Baker of the West University Neighborhood (WUN) were on the ICS multi-family committee which was discussing ways to ultimately address legitimate parking concerns in the resident parking program areas near the University of Oregon (University). These would require more parking and make changes to Chapter 9 that would allow designers and developers more creative ways to provide additional parking on site-specifics that would be pursued if given to ICS. Under the present form, ICS would have no say on the issue. As a member of the design/build community, many of the MICAP proposals, taken as a whole, would stifle affordable housing in existing neighborhoods. Amendments 5 and 7, were not minor, and should not be adopted. He had studied eight recent projects and none could be built due to requirements for large new parking lot areas. The amount of land required for parking limited the amount of remaining space used for outdoor living, circulation and landscaping, thus reducing the amount of achievable density. As a private citizen, he was appalled that the City of Eugene was willing to give wealthy homeowners whatever they asked for without concern for the effect on the lives of students and people on low- and fixed-incomes. Eugene was on its way to becoming a city for the wealthy, while blue collar families, elderly and disabled people struggled to find decent, affordable housing, and had to live in outlying areas. As currently written, MICAP was moving in the wrong direction. st Joan Dunbar, 1234 East 21 Avenue, Ward 3, was concerned about Amendment 5, and urged the council to adopt the MICAP version. The current code was broken and she urged the council to act quickly and use common sense with all of the amendments. She understood the need for affordable housing and the need to increase densities. The code also talked about livability. Eugene had a history of allowing buildings that violated the surrounding neighborhood she said, citing YA-PO-AH Terrace and Prince Lucien Campbell as examples. The proposed code changes provided an opportunity to change the codes before buildings went up. Amendment 5, transitioning building heights, provided a win/win situation and was a compromise solution providing an example of what people could do when constituents worked together. th Mike Westervelt, 853 East 20 Avenue, had attended a recent Planning Commission meeting and was dismayed by the proposals of some contractors and the HBA’s proposals to degrade the healthy, compact, close-in neighborhood of the South University Neighborhood (SUN). The neighbors had recently been portrayed as those who would deny various building contractors and real estate agents a way to make a living, which was not true. The neighborhood was already 50 percent rentals. The proposal would afford developers and others involved the opportunity to build structures ranging from three to twelve stories. Fortunately, most builders stopped at three or four stories, but the neighbors were trying to prevent the renegade builder who wanted to build the inappropriate ten- or twelve-story building. This would take place in an area that could still easily add thousands of residents. Single-family residences should not be subject to the negative repercussions of twelve-story buildings. The R-4 loophole in the neighborhood was th designated in the 1940’s to accommodate fraternities and sororities on 19 Avenue and clearly did not mean what R-4 meant today. South University residents had made it abundantly clear throughout the MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 6 Work Session