Item 7: Action: Ordinance on Infill Compatibility Standards Code Amendments

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÷ËÎÐ Laura Potter [mailto:laura@hbalanecounty.org] êØÏÉ Monday, November 23, 2009 1:52 PM éÎ *Eugene Mayor and City Council êÈÛÓØÚÉ ICS proposal Mayor and Council, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to submit comment on the ICS issues before you in response to the public hearing earlier this week. have had a number of members on the committee and on various implementation sub committees. Members of the HBA have sat down with members from each of the ICS subcommittees to discuss issues, ideas and recommendations and to provide feedback. I would like to first address the Parking ordinance.This ordinance is one that we at the HBA have spent a lot of time with. Many HBA members were involved in the process and have put a lot of effort into it. At the end of the process I am very pleased to say that we support this ordinance with the alterations recommended by the Planning Commission. We believe it is a fair compromise between the current code and the MICAP standards. We strongly support the allowance of tandem parking in encourage the use of it to be broadened. We believe this ordinance offers a great deal of protection to the neighborhood while still allowing needed housing projects to be completed near the University of Oregon. I was surprised to hear so many negative comments at the public hearing regarding the car share program. The HBA strongly supports the exploration of this program. We feel that incentives such as parking space credits are a good way to promote the program. The way the code is written if the program fails properties must produce the full number of spaces as required before the credit. They may do this by leasing spaces, limiting the bedrooms that are rent out or adding additional spaces. Most importantly we feel like the car share program could provide a long term solution to some of our parking demand near campus. Building Height: As with the Parking standard the HBA has spent a lot of time on this issue as well with members participating in the ICS implementation process. This has been a hard issue for all involved. The neighbors are greatly concerned about the quality of their neighborhood and I think we can all sympathize with their concern. However, dramatically decreasing building heights still causes a lot of concern to many in the development community. That being said, many have worked tirelessly to implement some protection for the neighborhood. Given the ordinances before you tonight, we strongly urge you to pass option B rather than option A or C. Option B allows for 90 designers and buil come close because a 90 foot building requires a different type of construction that is quite costly. However, we feel strongly that the allowance should be in place for high buildings on