Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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exceedingly out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood. The negative impacts of one inappropriate building would be felt for blocks in all directions. The proposed amendment would allow approximately 7,000 new residents in nine square blocks and would keep student housing where it belonged, close to the University, while keeping land elsewhere in the City available for other types of development. Everyone needed to join forces and acknowledge that compact, dense growth could be done well, but must be given careful design and planning, without degrading the neighborhood. This would result in the neighborhood becoming undesirable to families, for without families, the neighborhood could not support the elementary school, forcing residents to move out. She urged passage of all MICAP amendments. Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, member of Friends of Eugene, Southeast Neighbors, Neighborhood Leaders Council (NLC) and ICS Task Team said he supported the amendments. There was an irony with tonight’s hearings with one set of amendments that was about reducing density in residential neighborhoods and the other set of amendments that was about reducing density in a commercial neighborhood. Many people in the community were in favor of MICAP amendments and against the downtown amendments. Density with quality was needed. Quantitative data was not available to enable the community to make informed decisions. Daniel Hill, 4765 Village Plaza Loop, spoke on behalf of his architecture/construction firm, and as a member of ICS. He supported the majority of the MCAs, but Amendments 5, 7 and 8 were not minor, and should be referred to the ICS for further review. Amendment 5 was completely against the desire of the community, the council, the Planning Commission and the staff recommendation. The economic impact would change the values of the properties and the zoning by default. SUN was an appropriate area for the transitions and he did not believe any developer would build a 12 story building in the area. Properties could be tastefully designed under the current code and design guidelines could be implemented to ensure proper transitions would occur. Amendment 7 went against decades of code to limit parking. This amendment was counter-productive to encouraging people to refrain from using cars around campus. The current code dovetailed with the important movement of limiting greenhouse gases and carbon footprints. Limiting parking encouraged students to walk to campus. The two amendments together created the opposite effect of what many have worked on for years. Amendment 8 definitions of drainage way and appropriate or inappropriate filling of those drainage ways was problematic. He encouraged the council to not include Amendments 5, 7 and 8 as suggested by the Planning Commission and refer them to the ICS. th Paul Conte, 1461 West 10 Avenue, thanked the council for its support for Eugene residents and neighborhoods. The council had shown it understood that strategies for a diverse and vibrant city could be based on actions that degraded and destabilized established neighborhoods. Past actions and code provisions had led to damaging infill in more and more areas of Eugene. Density could be achieved with reasonable standards and appropriate design. There was community support for twelve of the proposed amendments as evidenced by support by community organizations and a petition signed by over 300 people. According to the HPB minutes there was no quantitative discussion about the proposed amend- ments. The connection between affordable housing and the effect of the proposed standards was not supported by data, but was rather an emotional reaction. An emotional reaction resulted in tenement housing rather than affordable housing. He urged the council to adopt the proposed amendments. Mandi Butler, P.O. Box 7425, represented Future B Homes and was an HBA Board member. The MCA process was intended to make minor code changes, which implied non-controversial changes that did not affect policy. She found many of the proposed amendments were not minor, were controversial and effected policy. Amendment 5, graduated building heights and Amendment 7, had grave effects on housing in Eugene. Reduced density in R-3 and R-4 would limit if not prevent infill, reduce campus housing and MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 8 Work Session