Item B: Parks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan

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They were included during all of the public participation process. It is only in about the last month that the seven pages of proposed park projects have been removed from the . plan. It is only in the last month that the colored maps showing future land acquisitions have been removed from the plan. Why is it important to include the capital improvement projects and land acquisition sites in the refinement plan as described in the Metro Plan findings? Because land acquisition and the subsequent use are land use decisions that impact available land supplies and should, therefore, be before the planning commission. By removing the project list from consideration and by removing the maps showing where it is anticipated that land will be acquired, the land use element has been removed from the land use planning process. As noted above, Appendix B, Table B-1, shows an anticipated acquisition of 1623.46 for parks and open space. How much of the 1623.46 acres will be taken from Eugene's residential land supply? How much will be taken from Eugene's commercial and industrial supplies? There is simply no way to know now that the maps have been removed from the plan. (New neighborhood parks would not impact the residential land supply because deductions were made for neighborhood parks in the 1999 Residential Land Supply. Acquisition for other types of park: land (community, regional, lineal, urban plazas, etc.) would presumably come out of residential or commercial land supplies.) The project list and maps will be physically inserted into the refinement plan as Appendix C after the refinement plan and the project list / maps have been adopted through separate processes. There is a great deal of irony in that the very pieces of the original refinement plan that have a tangible impact on local land use are being removed from the land use process. The following analysis provides an example of how a map of approximate acquisition sites allows the public and the commissioners to identify the potential impact on land supplies. The council, when it considers the project list, will receive a map of the Bethel I Danebo Planning Area (attached in Appendix B) which identifies a proposed Natural Area Park Acquisition south of Royal Avenue and northeast of the multi-use path along the Amazon ChanneL On the metro plan diagram, that area has a plan designation oflow density residential and was included in the parcel inventory for the 1999 Residential Land Supply (attached as Appendix C). The acquisition of that land will impact Goal 10 resources that are an adopted part of the comp plan. However, through the process envisioned by staff, there will be no accountability for the loss ofthose low density residential acres. The reason staff has consistently given for removing the actual projects from the refinement plan is to keep the project list as a living, fluid document - to keep spontaneity and flexibility in the parks process. However, loss of spontaneity and flexibility are the expected downsides to our type ofland use system. Ask Eugene Sand and Gravel or Peacehealth how spontaneous our land use system is. As any private developer ifhe or she would like more flexibility than our land use system allows. Our land use system requires that jurisdictions make ultimate policy choices through the comp plan process to identify the best use of every parcel of ground in the state of Oregon. 9