Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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downland side was Wendell Lane and its infrastructure. He related that the Environment, Social, Economic and Energy (ESEE) report stated that the property met none of the criteria with the exception of possible contiguous water. He maintained that there was no water, noting that he had supplied the council with pictures of the property. Roxie Cuellar, 2053 Laura Street, Springfield, representing the Home Builders Association of Lane County, requested the record be kept open for a minimum of one week or ten days, if possible. She related that the Home Builders Association's (HBA) big issue was the effect it could have on the buildable land supply. She averred that the City determined the impact on an inventory that existed ten years earlier. She said the City needed to look at the impact it would have on the inventory of today. She recalled that City Attorney Glenn Klein said that running out of buildable lands would not present a legal problem but it would present a policy issue. She asserted that the City would run out of buildable land before it got out of this planning period and if the City ran out of land it would have been due to a choice the City had made. She encouraged the council, on behalf of the HBA, to take a "good look at what the problem is." Ms. Cuellar said that the study completed in 1999 using 1995 data made assumptions that were not true. She said one assumption was that every piece of vacant land would be available and would have a willing seller. She said another assumption in the study was that housing could be built at the same density on slopes as flat land, nearly seven units per net acre. She averred this just did not happen. She noted that Springfield made the assumption that it would build four units per net acre on 25 percent slopes and she felt this to be more reasonable. Ms. Cuellar said another assumption in the study was that single-family detached homes would make up 40 percent of new construction during the 20-year planning period. She countered that such homes consistently comprised 58 percent of new construction. She emphasized that the builders were running out of land and the land available was increasingly sloped instead of flat. She remarked that it took a long time to go from a decision to expand the urban growth boundary (UGB) to the point where there are new lots to build on. Doug Weber, 1330 Flint Ridge Avenue, said he was speaking as a citizen but felt he should note that he was principal engineer for Weber Eliot Engineers. He understood that State law required communities with a comprehensive plan to keep a 20-year supply of buildable lands and keep the inventory updated. He did not believe that the City of Eugene knew how much buildable lands were available. He thought it appeared that staff and council had been avoiding or ignoring this requirement. He averred that simply manipulating density figures on paper was an insult to all of the community. He said he lived in the Ferry Street Bridge area and had been looking for a buildable lot in that area with no success. He asserted that a single builder would subdivide land and keep all of the lots and because of this it was not possible for an individual to buy a lot and build for themselves. Mr. Weber observed that the cost oflots had increased dramatically and attributed this to the laws of supply and demand. He pointed out that as a civil engineer he built infrastructure to serve new housing and currently most of his business was in nearby towns such as Cottage Grove, Junction City, and Creswell. He opined that the City was directly responsible for pushing Eugene workers into outlying communities, which defeated the original intent of statewide planning goals of compact urban growth and a reduction in vehicle miles traveled. He felt the residential lands inventory needed attention and using data from 1995 as the basis for the current periodic review was evasive of public law and disingenuous on the part of the council as holders of the public trust and a "transparent attempt to stamp your agenda on the community." MINUTES-Eugene City Council Regular Session September 26, 2005 Page 6