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

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Page 1 of2 LOWE Allen D From: Esther Foss [esther@pringle.hm] Sent: Sunday, November 06,200510:14 AM To: *Eugene Mayor and City Council Cc: LOWE Allen 0 Subject: Support the Chambers Special Area Zone November 6, 2005 City Councilors Mayor Kitty Piercy City of Eugene 777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon 97401 RE: Seeking "Chambers Special Area Zone" support Dear Mayor and City Councilors, It is with great anticipation that I look forward to November 14th and your vote on the amendments proposed for the Chambers Special Area Zone (CSAZ). For over a year, a multitude of citizens within and outside the CSAZ have investigated, defined, analyzed, discussed, and considered the current terms before you. The Planning Department and its Consultants and CAFHN have gone to great lengths to compose standards that are not only thorough and thoughtful, but ones that address the many issues that confront the planners and implementers of urban growth. The detractors are concerned that this might happen and that might happen and all sorts of negative things might happen if the amendments before you are adopted. It is merely speculation that adopting this proposal will 'set a precedent', 'bust the urban growth boundary' and 'reduce density'. The current growth guidelines focus squarely on the preservation of the line that delineates the growth boundary. Is it such a terrible precedent that defines the quality of growth within those boundaries? If such precedent takes root, we ought to consider what message our populace is trying to convey. Can the maximum densities that the city hopes to achieve in the CSAZ in the next decade save the urban growth boundary from expansion? Since there is no mechanism that requires all land owners in the area to meet those densities levels, it is wishful thinking that each and every one of us will develop our land to meet the density goals and "save" the urban growth boundary. As has been explained numerous times, the proposal before you meets every legal density benchmark AND does is with thoughtful parameters that keep our neighborhood livable. Rather than focusing on all the possible negative scenarios that COULD arise if the amendments are adopted, first try looking at all the negative realities that HA VE occurred because the only standard that defines how density goals can be achieved is an accounting number on a sheet of paper. There is far more to reaching density goals than meeting a density percentage and without some basic design standard, we will continue to see hugely inappropriate developments that merely balances the density 11/7/2005