Item 2A: Approval of City Coucnil Minutes

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the neighborhood in question until the council had addressed the same issues citvwide. . . . Mr. Kelly expressed enthusiasm ft)r the design standards and suggested they would be appropriate for most other older Eugene neighborhoods. Mr. Lowe said the standards were crafted specit1cally by the residents for the neighborhood in question and might or might not work other places. He believed that the code could be written in a way that allowed the standards to be applied on a neighborhood basis, but it was a considerable work item and there was an immense amount of work that had been done by the neighbors that made the standards possible. To the extent other neighborhoods could do the necessary work, staff could structure follow-up projects to accommodate that effort. He shared Ms. Bettman's concern that other neighborhoods would lack the expertise needed for such an effort. Ms. Muir added that staff had learned some lessons from the process and believed one-size fits all approaches did not work. She said that working with the residents and asking specific questions of them had been very important. She emphasized the importance of buy in and participation from the residents. Ms. Bettman did not think the design standards were at all stringent and considered them a compromise in many cases that would still result in increased density. She spoke to the issue of the division's work load, recalling a pa.<;t presentation from Peter Wilcox describing a Portland model that involved a high level of neighborhood participation and which resulted in booklet of voluntary standards for new development. Developers realized that if they built to the standards,. they eliminated neighborhood resistance. She said that Portland eventually incorporated some of the standards into its code. She suggested a similar approach could be used in Eugene if the right people could be found to participate. Ms. Beltman asked about the definition of "vehicle use area." Mr. Lowe said it was generally used to refer to a paved area used by automobiles. Ms. Bettman asked if paved open space areas could be used for vehicle parking. Mr. Flock did not think so. Ms. Bettman requested additional information prior to the public hearing about maximum paved areas. Ms. Bettman reminded the council that the process was predicated on the State's requirement to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) within a certain period, leading to the mix<..>d-use approach. The neighbor- hood in question contained one of the mixed-use centers. She perceived the task as being only partly done if the City had addressed only the residential development issues in the area. She asked if the council needed to pass a motion to direct staff to engage the residents in a discussion of commercial issues and to do an opportunity siting study. Mr. Lowe said that would be useful as staff had no direction or funding to proceed. Ms. Muir suggested that the council could discuss the issue during its review of the Planning Division's work plan. Ms. Bettman was concerned about the tinung of that process, which did not occur until mid-year. Mr. Poling called for a fourth round of comments and questions. Mr. Kelly said the lot aggregation prohibition prevented the combining oftwo or more lots into a single lot. He asked the impact of that, as it seemed dramatic to him, and suggested that such a prohibition assumed the current lot layout was ideal. Mr. Lowe said the prohibition was in recognition that the existing lot layout was part of the character of the neighborhood that the City was trying to be maintained. He thought the effect would be developer inflexibility, and it would tend to lock in the pattern of development that existed in the neighborhood now. Mr. Kelly suggested one way to accomplish increa.<;ed density was through row housing. He asked if the project made row housing at an appropriate density more ditllcult. Mr. Lowe said yes, reminding Mr. Kelly that the proposal was predicated on the maintenance of the existing detached housing in the MINUTES-Eugene City Council Work Session October 12, 2005 Page 5