Item B: Parks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan

Home Browse Search

. I . J."~ Eugene Planning Commission PROS Comprehensive Plan October 17, 2005 page two For example, because there is a finite amount of land inside the Urban Growth Boundary the Chamber believes the PROS Comprehensive Plan must be coordinated with other planning activities that have a direct impact on the supplies of available land needed for commercial, industrial, and residential purposes. Even though the project list is not part of this hearing we do know the PROS Comprehensive Plan concludes there is a "future net need" of over 1,600 acres for new parks, open space and recreation facilities. That raises two fundamental questions that we ask you to follow up on: First. are all these acres intended to be found within the existing Urban Growth Boundary? And second, what is the underlying zoning of these lands? In essence, how many of those 1,600 acres are presently in the existing land inventory for commercial, industrial, or residential purposes? Again, we have a finite amount of land inside the UGB and our concern about the limited remaining supplies for commercial, industrial, and residential purposes is well documented with you. So in addition to a potential impact of 1,600 acres, how does the public, including you and the city council, make an informed decision on the PROS Comprehensive Plan if It is not being measured against present day inventories of buildable lands or measured against the hundreds if not thousands of acres that have already been removed from our inventory for other public uses and for uses such as Goal 5 Natural Resources and the West Eugene Wetlands Plan? Those are the type of findings and analysis we believe need to be produced before this plan can be adopted. The standards may be laudable but the question you need to ask is whether they are even practical given land supplies that remain inside the Urban Growth Boundary, including land needed to fulfill the economic and housing needs found within state planning Goal 9 and Goal 10. In summary, the vision of the PROS Comprehensive Plan may very well be admirable. But the plan itself has many land use implications that you cannot ignore. And they need to be addressed during your deliberation. Especially since itdoesn't appear the city council is scheduled to spend much time on this. (Holdlng a public hearing on December 12 and then taking action on December 14 is a rather fast turnaround, too fast for something like this plan). Furthermore, city council discussion on the project list is likely to be more financial in nature. Our fear is at the end of this whole process we end up with a PROS Comprehensive Plan and a project list adopted outside a truly "comprehensive" land use planning process. That would be very unfortunate. Thank you for your time and consideration of our testimony. --- Sincerely, ~ SG~~c?lIv Terry S. i6nnolly t1 Director of Government Affairs