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Ms. Bettman said she supported the second option. She commented that the amount of 170 acres was a <br />reduction from the original CWSMP recommendations for infrastructure acquisition. She regretted that the <br />City had moved toward buying large parcels and using them to create parks instead of simply acquiring the <br />stream corridors for protection. She said once green infrastructure was acquired, there was a 20 percent <br />reduction in the cost of maintenance over pipe and fill. She said it appeared that over four-and-a-half years <br />$1.2 million was spent on 36.3 acres and one-third of that expenditure was for staff time to negotiate. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman asked how conservation easements fit into the discussion and whether they would be a more <br />efficient way to protect the functional value of the waterway without having to spend so much money or <br />create an unbuildable lot for a land owner. Ms. Walch agreed that negotiations were costly; often a property <br />owner preferred to negotiate on the entire parcel instead of just the stream corridor or wanted to get far <br />enough along in the development review process to ensure they could still develop the property in the manner <br />they wished. She said it was one of the realities of the program that those types of negotiations took <br />considerable amounts of staff time. She said options for conservation easements were kept open but every <br />situation was different; in effect a conservation easement meant the same thing to the property owner as <br />right-of-way acquisition in terms of building on that portion of the site. Ms. Medary clarified that the <br />acquisition program had only purchased stream corridors and not large parcels. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé asked if there were any savings associated with a conservation easement. City Manager Taylor <br />replied that it depended on the status of the development review process; if there was development pending it <br />helped the seller know what could be done with the property but also influenced the relative value of the <br />portion the City wanted to acquire as part of the stormwater management program. Ms. Walch added there <br />were situations where the development review process resulted in a certain amount of protection and the City <br />desired additional protection for water quality purposes. She said that might or might not render the <br />property undevelopable, which significantly affected the acquisition price. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé asked if there were instances where 150 feet were salvaged from a development and that <br />development continued. Ms. Walch said that happened more often with the stream corridor was acquired on <br />a vacant parcel and development occurred later. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé asked for information on the best and worst water quality coming from the basin shown on maps 1 <br />and 2. Ms. Walch said she would provide a response based on water quality data. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé asked for clarification of the proposed rate increase. Ms. Walch said that a two to three percent <br />increase, if the average residential user paid approximately $7.40 per month, resulted in an increase of $0.15 <br />to $0.20 per month per residential user. She said the $0.50 increase discussed earlier was a previous council <br />recommendation in 2001 to fund the enhanced acquisition program, but it was never implemented. City <br />Manager Taylor said there was a backlog of funding from the initial implementation and when the time <br />approached to implement the $0.50 for stream corridor access, the City was also facing a decision to raise <br />fees or cut back the program and council’s direction was to make $2 million in cuts. He said a major <br />unknown factor at the time was the impact of permit renewal; that process was under way and the council <br />had agreed to add $327,000 worth of annualized costs. It appeared there would be costs in addition to that, <br />plus the two to three percent increase to maintain the current level of service. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé asked if there were any full parcels of land where the stream corridor could be retained by the City <br />and the remainder of the parcel sold. Ms. Medary said that the only full parcels were those that had been <br />purchased in concert with parks, recreation and open space bond money or donated by a property owner for <br />that purpose. <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 23, 2006 Page 5 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br />