Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

Ms. Piercy noted that the City had received letters and petitions from local merchants regarding downtown public safety and urged the council to review the suggestions and feedback presented therein. WORK SESSION: B. Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment (ECLA) Planning Director Lisa Gardner noted that while the July and August council work sessions to consider ECLA data were associated with determining the demand facets of the ECLA, the current presentation would be devoted to the supply side and the City's buildable land inventory. She further recognized that the council had raised questions during the July and August work sessions regarding the next steps of the ECLA process with particular emphasis on how public outreach and community dialogue issues would be addressed. Associate Planner Jason Dedrick presented data and statistics from the ECLA process to the council and noted that the data was intended to prepare and inform the council for their October work session where the next steps of the ECLA process should be discussed. Mr. Dedrick presented information regarding the buildable lands inventory and briefly described the various components of the ECLA process overall. He further provided a brief overview of the community advisory committee (CAC) process used to develop the various methodologies involved in determining the buildable lands inventory. He noted that expert opinions had been used to develop the buildable lands inventory in addition to the CAC processes. Mr. Dedrick briefly described the differences between the committed, protected, developed and vacant classifications used in the buildable lands inventory for the benefit of the council and further described how those classifications had been determined. Mr. Dedrick, referring to graphs from his presentation, demonstrated the percentage breakdowns of the current land base in Eugene and noted that Eugene's urban growth boundary contained 34,446 acres. Mr. Dedrick summarized that, when subtracted from all currently non-available land areas within the UGB, the City's current available vacant buildable lands inventory contained 2,774 acres or approximately 8% of the land in the UGB. He then proceeded to describe the residential, industrial and commercial breakdown of the buildable lands inventory. Mr. Dedrick stated that land in the buildable lands inventory contained tax lots with improvement value less than $1,000, not committed or protected under any established parameters, and deemed developable within the next 20 years. He noted that the majority of the lands in the buildable land inventory were located on the periphery of the UGB and that any re-development of lands not part of the current buildable lands inventory would be addressed in a separate part of the ECLA process. Mr. Dedrick provided a brief summary of the partial constraints that characterized certain portions of the lands in the buildable lands inventory. He further noted that after taking into account those available lands with partial constraints and in conjunction with the respective land demands for employment, housing and public use, there was actually a surplus of available industrial land and a deficit of available commercial land. He summarized that detailed analysis regarding the precise amount of available land was ongoing and that more accurate figures regarding the same would be provided at the council's October work session. Mr. Dedrick briefly listed the next steps involved in the ECLA process for the benefit of the council and further described the City staff plan for the final ECLA product which would assume the form of a motion presented to the council affirming that the City of Eugene had met the requirements of House Bill 3337. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 28, 2009 Page 5 Work Session