Item B: Ordinance Concerning Goal 5 Natural Resources Study

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The Honorable Kitty Piercy, Mayor of Eugene Eugene City Council 777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon 97401 931 Lorane Highway Eugene, Oregon 97405 26 September 2005. Below, please find our concerns about the Goal 5 process. RECEIVED c:r::p 2 6 2005 \..!L CITY OF EUGENE PLANNING DEPARTMENT Dear Mayor Piercy, Dear City Councilors, Over the years, in an effort to provide relevant and effective testimony, we have attended every Goal S meeting we were aware of. Yet we still have no clue why the City of Eugene wants 80' of protection, almost half of the protection allowed for the Willamette River, around a 1-2'-wide backyard drainage ditch that already has 30' of protection and that, according to the State of Oregon, does not require any protection at all. At this point, we feel we are trying to provide effective testimony in response to an almost incomprehensible verbal morass, an opaque process, and what appear to be agendas outside the intent of Goal 5. We do not feel the Goal S process has been conducted in a climate of clarity and inclusiveness of the affected property owners. Please ask yourselves, as we do, · can you identify exact locations of setbacks on private properties? Until we heard about individual maps during last Wednesday's work session, we had no idea updated maps existed. None of our neighbors was aware of them, nor did any of us know that changes had been made. Attached, please find maps of the setback locations provided in 2003 (attachments 1-2) that we assumed to be accurate, and new maps provided within the last few days (attachments 3-4). Do you find it acceptable that maps were so drastically redrawn without notification to affected property. owners? · can you read the ordinance and definitively decipher which of the two "top of the bank" definitions applies to each setback? · can you determine precisely what .conflicting uses. means for an individual property? We wanted to know what that means for our property, and we received the following response: >>>"Umit conflicting uses" is a term from the Oregon Administrative Rules for Goal S [OAR 660-023- 0040(S){b)]. It refers to the situation where some conflicting uses are allowed, but others are not allowed. The draft regulations allow limited conflicting uses within the /WR conservation area Q.e., the protected area) through a review process called Standards Review. The othertwo options under Goal S are to prohibit all conflicting uses, or to allow all conflicting uses. Conflicting uses are land uses which have the potential to adversely affect the GoalS re50urce.<<< From that response, are you able to decipher what "conflicting uses" means for an affected property? · after asking for specifics in the September 21 work session, it is now clear the setbacks do not require existing structures be tom down. But do you know with certainty what happens if a structure bums down? Can it be rebuilt? Or can a food garden be established? · after asking for specifics in the September 21 work session, do you now clearly comprehend how the city will address setbacks so extreme that lots can no longer be divided? If we would like to add the small cottage we now have the right to build, can you say with certainty whether we will still be able to do so? And if we do retain the light to build a second dwelling, will it have to be one of those wretched .infills. - an eyesore stuffed onto a miserly sliver of property immediately adjacent the current house - while neglected blackberries and other garbage vegetation are .protected" from our plans for a properly sited little cottage? · during the September 21 work session, staff claimed one Goal 5 intent is to provide outdoor experiences for those who cannot afford them. Do you believe that is appropriate for overlay zones on private properties? · can you explain how overlay zone restrictions are supposed to increase our property values? Would you be interested in purchasing a property bogged down with overlay zone after overlay zone and ##/M/i