Item 4: PH on Ordinance Adopting PROS Comprehensive Plan

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ATTACHMENTB CITY OF EUGENE INTEU.-}lEPAR'I'lVIENTAL MEMORANDUM CITY ATTORNEY - CIVIL HEl> ARTMENT To: Mayor and City Council Date: Oecember 6, 2005 Subject: Adoption of the I)arks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan .At the November 28, 2005, City Conncil Work Session our office was asked to provide Council with a mernorandum addressing the following issues: (1) the legal significance ofthe policies set forth in the 1989 Eugene Parks and Recr(.~tion Plan and the consequences of repealing those policies and replacing thcm with nothing or replacing them with the "strategies" contained in the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Comprehensive Plan; (2) whether the PROS Comprehensive Plan needs to he adopted as a refinement to the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan) and the consequences of the City adopting the PROS Comprehensive Plan as something other than a refinement plan; and, (3) the process the City must follow if it decides to adopt the PROS Comprehensive Plan as something other than a refinement to the Metro Plan. We address each of these issues helow and set out some options for the Council to consider based on our discussion herein. J. 1989 Eugene Parks and Recrc~ltion Plan The 1989 Eugene Parks and Recreation Plan (1989 Plan) consists of findings, policies and goals and is divided into roughly live sections: (1) General Goals and Policies; (2) Communitywidc Resources, Policies and Proposed Actions; (3) Planning District Proposed Actions; (4) History of the Eugene Park System; and, (5) Park Inventory by Planning District. By resolution, Council adopted the 1989 Plan as a refinement to the Metro Plan, stating that the Plan "provides further policy refinement and implementation of and is consistent with the Metropolitan Plan policies which regulate land use decisions or processes. . .." The resolution provided that Council adopted, as polices to be used in making land use decisions, "those policies of the Parks and Recreation Plan which directly implement polices of the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan regulating the development and llse of land." Council adopted as guidelines the other polices and goals of thc 1989 Plan that llecd to he "considered in making administrative and budgetary decisions about parks and recreation acquisitions, development and management." Lastly, Council adopted the proposed actions as a "list of public facility project and program opportunities and m-c not intended to be the exclusive means of implementing Parks and recreation policies and goals." As part of the land use code update process, the City incorporated some of its adopted refinement plan polices into Chapter 9 to be used in evaluating applicahle adopted plan policies pertaining to subdivisions, partitions and site review. The 1989 Plan policies that were added to Chapter 9 are set fOlth at EC 9.9550. Not uU of the policies contained in the 1989 Plan were added to Chapter 9. Although they arc now in the code, due to their nature, the 1989 Plan polices incorporated in BC 9.9550 have no practical effect on suhdivision, partitions or site review applications for a number Attachment B