Item 5: Public Hearing on Ordinance Establishing Chambers Special Area Zone

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TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF THE PROPOSED CHAMBERS SPECIAL AREA ZoNE November 4, 2005 Dear Mayor Piercy and Councilors, As we reach the end of our year-plus effort, I wanted to share some final thoughts about the personal contributions made by my neighbors. Although the proposed standards we helped produce do an exemplary job of addressing difficult issues in a balanced and flexible way, the larger accomplishment was the enthusiastic and constructive participation of so many citizens in the research and discussions that led to the standards. As you know, Eugene has a well-deserved reputation for contentious and polarized political processes. Our public planning processes, as well, all too often seem intended to fit public involvement into frameworks that are preconceived by staff and do little to educate and engage citizens in a truly effective way. Not surprisingly then, many ordinary citizens don't believe that getting involved is worth the time or distress. And more than once, Council has had to deal with a hornet's nest that resulted from a failed planning process. The work done by CAFHN stands as an encouraging exception to these problems. Throughout the year, scores of citizens have been deeply involved in the "Chambers Revisited" project, and the proposed code has widespread public support from across the political spectrum. But CAFHN's success didn't happen overnight or without a lot of dedicated residents' hard work. Early in the process, a small group of residents spent hours on the phone and visiting door-to-door to overcome many other neighbors' suspicions that the "Chambers Revisited" project was just another "for show" exercise by the Planning Division with a predetermined outcome meant to further ramp-up density in an area already experiencing the damaging effects of inappropriate infill. I wish more City staff and the Council could have witnessed how dramatically many residents' attitudes towards the "Chambers Revisited" project and a potential Chambers MUC were changed by the outreach and education work done by this original small group of neighbors. As the CAFHN organization coalesced, it was inspiring to see how people took up the enormous task of inventorying every residential parcel in what came to be called the "East Traditional Neighborhood" (roughly, the S-CIR-2 subarea). This "grass roots" research produced the database that was essential for accurately assessing the need for, and impact of, various types of standards. Notably, residents didn't simply accept that there was no project money or staff time to conduct this inventory, but instead stepped into the breach and got the job done.