CC Minutes - 09/21/09 Public Hearing

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Richard Keeney , Westleigh Street, Eugene, Essex General Construction project manager, stated without the building projects in the University area he would probably be without a job and strongly recommended leaving the standards as they were. Marvin Mang , Calumet Way, Eugene, spoke on behalf of the many construction workers in attendance at the hearing. They were there because they needed jobs to feed their families and were employed now because projects were being built in the campus area. Increased parking requirements had already killed a number of projects and were certain to kill more and with so many unemployed construction workers in the area those jobs were badly needed. He said some families had lost their homes and would starve if not for FOOD for Lane County; many ate at public diners alongside people who were homeless. He asked the council to consider those issues when it made its decision about the proposal to dramatically increase parking required for campus area housing, something that would only benefit a small number of wealthy people in the immediate area. He hoped the council would care more for people than for parking. Jeremy Reynolds , Terra Linda Avenue, Eugene, questioned whether people who purchased homes in the South University neighborhood failed to recognize that the University of Oregon was their neighbor, over 20,000 students got their education there and parking was likely to be an occasional inconvenience. He said that unemployment created worse problems for people than parking concerns. He asked the council to have consideration for those who worked for a living. th Deborah Healy , East 15 Avenue, Ward 3, Eugene, said West University Neighbors supported MiCAP and was supporting the ICS task team parking recommendations. She said that immediate action was important because density was increasing rapidly in the neighborhoods. Despite MiCAP requirements there was no lack of building projects in the West University area that started prior to the remand. She said the neighborhood had a high concentration of bicyclists and pedestrians and parking had always been scarce, but instead of having one parking space for two or three occupants of a unit there were now six-bedroom units being built; one parking space per unit was not adequate. She did not think that more reasonable parking requirements would impact whether people had jobs and it was not sustainable to have people driving around the neighborhood looking for parking. Jackson Hite , Patterson Street, Ward 3, Eugene, a University of Oregon student, asked the council to consider students’ concern. He lived three blocks from campus, shared an apartment with four other people and did not own a car. He did not feel it was sustainable to provide multiple parking spaces and encourage the use of cars but also recognized that business owners and home builders had other perspectives on the matter. He urged the council to take more time to examine the issue from multiple viewpoints. th Stephen Baker , East 15 Avenue, Ward 3, Eugene, encouraged the council to consider the MiCAP code changes in the context of the citizen-driven process that developed them. He had lived in the neighborhood since 1973 and when the residential parking program was originally adopted people often spent 15 to 20 minutes driving around looking for parking. He said there was again insufficient parking in the neighborhood and people were parking illegally, which is why the new parking requirements had been proposed. He was concerned that in the future people would again be driving around looking for parking and wasting fuel. Gordon Anslow , Paddock Drive, Eugene, urged the council not to readopt the MiCAP measures because it undermined the good faith efforts of those working on ICS. He said an eight-unit, 24-bedroom apartment building currently in design would require six spaces under the current code, nine spaces under the ICS proposal and 12 spaces under MiCAP. He said the ICS standards being proposed represented a compromise and the development community supported. MiCAP parking requirements made development on many lots in the University area out of MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 21, 2009 Page 3 Public Hearing