Item 1: Ordinances on Infill Compatibility Standards Code Amendments

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why it should be limited to three-bedroom units. He reminded the commission that the proposal was part of a larger package. Mr. McAlexander anticipated the commission would discuss landscaping and open space requirements and more, and requirements in those areas could combine to reduce overall density. He asked the commission to keep in mind the fact that each time the City increased a requirement, something somewhere else was affected. Al Couper , submitted letters from two UO students stating that their decision to bring a car to campus was not contingent on whether they had a parking space. Sam Debow , 2242 Harris Street, supported the efforts of the South University Neighborhood Association (SUNA) to lower maximum building heights and increase parking requirements. Ms. DeBow spoke to the concept that adding more parking spaces in the SUN would cause more students to bring cars. She said that she had a car because she needed one. Ms. DeBow pointed out that students must go to the grocery store for food and because her parents owned the property she lived in, she and her roommate were expected to keep it in good condition, which sometimes required a visit to a distant store. Ms. DeBow also noted that she and her roommates were members of the women’s lacrosse team and must travel to team practice at Papé Field. Since practice sometimes occurred in the rain and after dark, riding her bicycle would be impractical and transit was too infrequent to rely on. She did not use her car to get to school. Ms. DeBow said that she had friends in similar situations; they used their cars to get to work, to shop, and to visit friends and relatives. Ms. DeBow said she had witnessed the problems created by inadequate parking, which included frequent circling of the block for a parking space. Her decision to bring her car to Eugene had nothing to do with the availability of a parking spot. Her car was a necessity, not a luxury. Kaityln Pasko , 2242 Harris Street, said she used her car frequently for normal living. Her friends used their cars for grocery shopping, trips to and from the airport, to reach practice, to reach part-time jobs, and for other errands. She said her friends were in the same position. They were often on a schedule that was not supported by a bicycle or transit and needed a car for convenience and safety. She would not feel safe riding her bicycle to reach practice and the bus took too long and cut into study and class time. She did use her bicycle to get to class. She had familiarity with a situation where parking was inadequate, and one had to waste time looking for parking or park a long way from home. Ms. Pasko said that one car per unit was not sufficient. She suggested that if there were more cars, it was because there were more students. Richard Shugar , 3110 Beech Street, said the ICS Parking Strategies Team tried to work toward consensus about parking requirements because parking was such an issue in these neighborhoods. He did not think that providing a simple increase in parking stalls was the answer. He thought the language in the current proposal was limiting and it would make accommodating extra stalls more challenging and infeasible for some projects. He called for more flexibility to allow designers to accommodate more parking in small infill lots. Mr. Shugar suggested that this was an opportunity for the community to reduce its car dependence and suggested “if you build it, they will come.” Providing increased parking enabled a car- dependent lifestyle. He recommended the commission consider other options, such as a car-share program, to reduce the number of cars and the required parking. He said that while additional parking stalls may improve parking conditions, he found the quantity extreme and thought a more incremental approach was more appropriate. Mr. Shugar recommended a change to the proposed method of determin- ing the number of parking stalls, which was to modify the parking spaces for additional bedrooms beyond bedroom dwellings from .5 to .25. He reviewed a spreadsheet comparing two projects under the ICS proposal and his alternative. th Steven Baker Avenue, supported the recommendations before the commission. He referred , 360 East 15 DRAFT MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 20, 2008 Page 8