Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mr. Bjorklund noted that the City received an application for a planned unit development (pun) on the Joe Green parcel earlier that day. Ms. Bettman perceived the motion as creating expense and process without accomplishing anything as State law would still give the property owners time to submit an application to develop the property. She said that she was inclined to vote against the motion. Mr. Pryor said the intentions of those who wanted to protect the property were good, but he did not think the motion achieved the desired goal. He said the motion appeared to be broader than what was needed, and Mr. Klein's remarks indicated that the motion would not have the desired effect. He said most troubling was that the passage of such moratoriums required the council to have a good solid basis in fact, law, or science. He was concerned that the motion seemed to reflect an "I don't want this to happen because I don't like it" as opposed to "I don't want this to happen because it's not supportable." He acknowledged those points were debatable but the debate needed to occur. Until it did, he did not think the council should adopt a moratorium. He was also inclined to oppose the motion. Mr. Kelly asked Ms. Taylor if her reference to Sites E37 encompassed the stream corridors and adjacent riparian areas, or the entire site, including the upland habitat on the draft inventory until removed by the council in 2003. Ms. Taylor said the motion was intended to preserve the entire site until the City secured the scientific evidence that justified its protection. She said the language came from the attorney working for those who wished to see the property preserved. She continued to support a moratorium as a means of delaying development on the property. Ms. Taylor did not think the property should be developed at all. Mr. Kelly referred to Ms. Taylor's statement about waiting for scientific evidence, and noted that under State law a moratorium period was for 120 days and it could only be extended up to six months. He asked if the council could get through the upland inventory in time to beat that moratorium deadline. Mr. Bjorklund recalled that at the July work session, staff provided the council with a timeline that indicated the inventory and recommendations for the upland sites would take 18 months to prepare. If Goal 5 staff was working on the moratorium, it could not work on the uplands inventory. Ms. Taylor suggested the site could be separated into smaller pieces for the purpose of completing the uplands inventory earlier. Mr. Bjorklund did not think that work could be done by the time the morato- rium expired. He said that field work for the study could not start until spring because of the need to identify the location of flowering native plant species of concern. Ms. Taylor thought it important to do anything that could be done to postpone the development of the property in question. She said the cost cited by Mr. Klein for the preparation of an ordinance was not large compared to City expenditures on other, less important items. Ms. Bettman agreed that expense would not be a consideration if the objective of the motion could be realized. She questioned to what extent the riparian areas and setbacks could be protected through the PUD process. Mr. Bjorklund indicated that while he had not reviewed the recently submitted application, he had seen prior drafts, with the most recent setting aside virtually the entire riparian corridor included on the City's inventory. He said that projection of the riparian edge could also be addressed through the PUD process. Ms. Bettman asked if staff would use its discretion to ensure that protection occurred. Mr. Bjorklund said yes, not as a Goal 5 resource, but as an important element of the site in the PUD process. The motion failed, 7:1; Ms. Taylor voting yes. MINUTES-Eugene City Council Work Session September 26, 2005 Page 5