Ordinance No. 20460 - Laserfiche WebLink

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By April 30,, 2011, the City shall initiate a process to evaluate the land use category of "University or College "to better define which uses are permitted outright. In preparing the report, city staff shall consult with representatives of the Fairmount Neighbors Asso- ciation and the University of Oregon. This study shall be completed by October 30, 2012. The neighborhood is also interested in remaining an active participant in the walnut Station Specific Area Plan as they have been in the Fairmount/University of Oregon Special Area Study. Any future amendments to this plan will necessarily involve the neighborhood. However, it was important to the neighborhood that the following policy from the Fairmount/University of Oregon Special Area Study be included here. This policy is adopted in this Plan: The City shall encourage applicants who desire amendments to this plan to involve the collaboration of the City and the Fairmount Neighborhood in the review and revision process. Considerable efforts and analysis went into crafting a form based code that would address con- cerns as dicsussed herein, but it is recognized that this is a new tool and there has been some concern about applying a new tool without knowing exactly what the development impacts may be. The local chapter of the Americal Institute of Architects (AIA -SWO) did a peer -- review of the form based code by applying the draft code to a number of different types of projects to a variety of sites within walnut Station and generally found that the code functions well. However, there will likely be minor tweaks and edits to the code to improve it once it has been in effect for a pe- riod of time. To ensure that review and amendments, if necessary, will occur, the following policy is adopted in this plan: After three years or 50,000 square feet of development (cumulatively) has been ap- proved, whichever comes first, staff will provide a report to the Planning Commission regarding the status of development in the Walnut Station mixed use center and the potential impacts from the reduced parking allowances. Parking Parking requirements significantly impact the way an area builds out. Appropriate parking requirements can be one of the most significant elements in creating walkable communities. Too much parking restricts the amount of land that can be devoted to restaurants, re- tail spaces, offices, and residences. Parking facilities are expensive to construct, impose environmental costs, contradict objectives for more livable and walkable com- munities, and tend to increase driving and discourage use of alternative modes. Parking re- quirements also impact housing affordability, congestion, air and water pollution. Inadequate parking supply also causes problems including frustrating users and increasing the potential for spillover impacts into adjacent neighborhoods. For this reason, it is not enough to simply reduce or eliminate parking requirements without looking closely at the impacts, and creating a program to adequately ad- 24