CC Minutes - 06/16/08 Work Session/Public Hearing

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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. Councilor Poling noted six of the seven speakers who provided testimony to the Planning Commission about increasing the number of allowable dogs to provide temporary housing for foster dogs were not City residents. He asked for clarification on what change in the amendment meant for the number of allowable dogs within the City limits. Councilor Bettman asked staff to respond to the quantitative TransPlan nodal requirements and reduction in VMTs. She said housing was the key to redeveloping downtown and she wanted to see numbers. She heard that rents were high downtown in comparison to other parts of the City and overall the property values were brought down downtown by the west Broadway area because the much of the property was owned by one entity that allowed the property to deteriorate for many years thus bringing down the values. She asked to see a copy of the letter from DLCD referenced by several speakers tonight. Councilor Clark had previously asked for the list of properties redeveloped the last seven years. He concurred that much of downtown development was actually redevelopment. He asked for a comparison of permitted dollars for both developed and redeveloped properties both in downtown and outside of MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 16 Work Session