Item B: Parks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan

Home Browse Search

< . fI) D:: - C II.; II. c~ .~ il- ~ I ~ Z~ a 'W I ~ 2::::: 1 ..... ~ ZA< ~ W )I o <:) We won about dJree..quarters our issues in our MWMC LUBA appeals and lost. one piece that is critical enough for us to appeal that to the court of appeals. First let me tell you what we won. On our appeal of the comprehensive plan and the Public Fa~ ci1ities and Services Plan (PFSP)J LUBA agreed with us that the projects described in the comp plan and (PFSP) must be more specific than provided by the jurisdictions. LUBA did not say how specific the projects had to be, but possibly provided a hint when it said that a S10JOOO fiber optic project would pr0ba- bly not have to be identified. LUBA remanded the ~ plan and PFSP amendments back for the juris- dictions to redo. We had also appealed the 2004 MWMC Facility Plan on the grounds that it was a land use decision. The SDC project list was included in the Facility Plan and adopted directly by the elected officials rather than going through the planning process. The circuit court judge had held in our appeal of the methodology that the Facility Plan was a generic plan that had no relationship to the land use process. LUBA disagreed with the circuit court's analysis and $greed with us that the Facility Plan and the SDC project list were in fact related to the land use process. LUBA deter- mined that the Facility Plan and COOlp plan had to be consistent and that projects in the Facility that had to be included in the comp pian and PFSP could not be constructed until they were adopted as part of the comp plan I PFSP. Now to the critical piece we lost LUBA held that nothing in the statutes or adt1'linistrative rules said that funding ordinances (such as SOCs) had to be adopted after the comp plan amendments rather than before. LUBA said in its opinion that it ~ more Iogi- ad to follow the process that we advocated and that in some cases it will be more practical to do so, but, essentially, there is no requirement that jurisdictions act logically or practically. The problem for us is simple. If SDCs can be assessed and collected for significant projects before those projects are actually included in the comp plan, what if the projects are never included in the comp plan and are, t;herefore. never constructed? What happens to all of the money that we paid to the jurisdictions- for those projects? ENGINEERS !~ROJECT MANAGERS ;~t ~:: No one knows.. That situation is already happening across the state and, closer to home, in Eugene. MarionlPolk County HBA is filing a suit against SUvelton's water, stormwater, and. transportation SDCs. In each. of the project lists for the respective SDCs, Silverton has provided dollar antounts and lOoeA. SDC assessments for "as yet unidentified pr0.- jects." If we can be made to pay for unidentified pr0.- jects, how do we know if they are ever constructed? If SDCs assessed for significant projects are derived from the comp plan I PFSP, that problem goes away. because projects in the comp plan have to be identi. tied with sufficient specificity and "as yet unidenti- - fled projects" won't fly. In Eugene, we have the same problem with the de-- veloping park SOC. I was on the mayor's committee tbatlooked at future park projects for over two years. The emphasis of the process was never to narrow the list down or to examine the practicality of having specific projects on the list. Instead, the emphasis was always on whether there were additional projects that should be added to the list. The current project list totals almost a quarter-of-a Bll..LION dollars. Not all of those projects are deemed to be SDC eligible. but most of them are. When I would ask when the list was going to be narrowed down to something that was actually doable. I was consistently told that the . project list did not need to be narrowed down because it represented a "vision". Next month, a proposed. comp plan amendment will go to the Eugene planning commiAAion for a recommended adoption of the parks plan. However, all of the actual projects that were in the plan have been removed. At this point at least. the intent is to provide the Eugene planning commission with the project list as information only, but the plan. ning commission will not be pennitted to examine the project list to recommend that specific pr~ should be removed or added. Instead. the planning commis~ sim will simply look at amendments to the city's goals and policies as they relate to parks. and the ac- tual project list will go directly to the city council for adoption for purposes of determining SDC eligibility. In an interesting t\vistJ the proposed comp plan amendment expands the planning area for the Eugene parks department into rural Lane County. Eugene is contending that the planning area for its parks department includes . an area that extends north of the McKenzie River. west to include the east shoreline of Fern Ridge Reservoir, south to Spencer Creek and the town of Goshen, and east to MQunt Pisgah. Today Eugene has no plans to include PlANNERS \'()j... f JRH 5.~ L.;'L~(15'i~1 t1\RI( IR II P ':IIU I WE ILeUM J .'.\ f4l LARRY E. REED )41.(,{i'i Ill" I HOME BUILDERS ASSOelATION OJ: 1~4N. ~I''''U'I'V