CC Minutes - 07/15/08 Joint Elected Officials

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Commissioner Fleenor said Lane County was contemplating “doing a Lane County coordinated population forecast” and was looking at the MetroPlan to see whether it needed to be updated due to the passage of House Bill (HB) 3737, Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 221.222, and the new Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 660. He questioned if this was a good time to take a look at the TransPlan given these activities. Mr. Inerfeld responded that there were elements to the TransPlan update they could take a look at. He said the important thing would be to do things in a coordinated way and to be flexible. Commissioner Fleenor asked if a population forecast would have “major ramifications” on the transporta- tion infrastructure moving forward. Mr. Inerfeld responded that he was providing the shape of what kinds of changes could come out of the land use planning effort. Commissioner Fleenor opined that with increasing gas prices there would be fewer people on the roads. He wondered if that would have an impact on transportation needs in the future. Councilor Bettman asked if there had been an opportunity for the jurisdictions to weigh in on the whole project list. She did not think the Eugene City Council had done so. She averred that when discussing an individual versus a joint update, it seemed they were already doing individual updates. She asked why they would move to a joint update and if they did move to a joint update would it not mean that they would have to have a regional priority setting process. Mr. Inerfeld reiterated that one of the directions staff was seeking was whether to pursue individual TSPs or a joint TSP. He said from a staff perspective it made sense for each jurisdiction to have its own TSP. Councilor Bettman declared that since the City of Springfield had pursued having a separate Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) they had already split the land use component. She opined that two projects in Springfield were being elevated and offered primarily to serve the expansion of the UGB. It seemed to her that they were already moving in an individual direction and this decision had already been made. Mayor Volta stated that the City of Coburg had an individual TSP though it wanted to work collaboratively. She said to involve Coburg in the process that Eugene and Springfield go through would put a big strain on Coburg and did not represent what Coburg wanted to do. She thought there would come a time when each jurisdiction would have its own plan, but she wanted to see it expedited as much as possible. She would not want to have the transportation planning process held hostage due to the population growth forecast that was being redone, something she was not certain was necessary. Springfield Councilor Ballew clarified that the two projects Councilor Bettman referred to had been included in the TransPlan since 1986 and were at least one mile away from the UGB. She wished to dispute misinformation that was being disseminated. In response to a question from Councilor Ballew, Mr. Inerfeld said rough projections indicated that the regional population would hit 296,000 in 2023. He said if they did a full TransPlan update they might want to use 2035 as the horizon year instead of 2015. Commissioner Fleenor disagreed that the population forecast could be considered unnecessary. He averred that there were contradictory interpretations of the forecast by the DLCD and local jurisdictions. He felt that doing another forecast would provide certainty. He predicted that if the jurisdictions did this individu- ally they would be faced with multiple Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) “claims” and multiple lawsuits in the Circuit Courts. He said HB 3436 gave jurisdictions an option to use safe harbor. He had extrapo- lated that the legislature knew that this would be contentious. He opined that if they moved forward as a MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 3 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils