Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

Mr. Clark asked about the relationship between items 11 and 17 and what the City would be able to address in regard to those items. He also found some of the items on the list less important than the issue of drainageways, and asked staff to discuss the rationale for its recommendations. In response, Ms. Weiss clarified that while staff recommended items 1 through 13 it did not believe it could accomplish them within the current timeline. They would require a timeline extension to accomplish them all. Staff would address the legally required items, 1- 5, to the extent they were legally required within the current time frame. She said in regard to drainageways, staff could develop a timeline for addressing that issue and return to the council. Ms. Ortiz recommended that Planning Commission meetings be broadcast on Metro Television throughout the Envision Eugene process, and requested the cost of that. City Manager Ruiz commended the suggestion and said that unless the cost proved prohibitive, staff would figure out how to make that happen. Mr. Zelenka wanted to know the cost of addressing items 1- 5, beyond the minimum legal parameters and also wanted to know the cost of addressing the items that staff did not recommend. He thought it was very important to do the process right and pointed out the council was working under a self-imposed deadline. City Manager Ruiz indicated staff would return with a recommendation on June 14. Mayor Piercy acknowledged the conflict between the desires of those who wished to do the process right and those who wished to do it quickly and wondered if there was a way to accommodate both interests and give them confidence in the process. Ms. Gardner indicated staff would provide a response to the question on June 14. Mr. Clark expressed disappointment about further process delay, which he said would serve the ends of some but not all residents. He agreed with Mr. Zelenka it was important to do the process right, and suggested failure to address natural resource protections in Santa Clara would result in a divided community, with people working to stop projects using the regulatory system. He thought the City could have avoided that by preparing intelligently. Mr. Clark asked if the City had done any analysis to determine if its infrastructure was sufficient to handle a higher level of density. Ms. Jerome said yes, as it was legally required to do so. The City must demonstrate that it could provide the infrastructure needed for more dense development. Speaking to the triggers mentioned by Ms. Jerome, Mr. Zelenka thought it was bad policy to make irrevocable decisions based on wrong numbers, and he thought the numbers would be wrong. Such triggers would allow the City to make adjustments along the way. He suggested that the City approach the 2011 Oregon Legislature to seek an exemption that allowed that to occur and to modernize the planning rules to recognize that planning had become more complex since the law was written. Responding to a question from Ms. Taylor about the source of the figure attached to the anticipated demand for housing, Ms. Weiss said the number came from the ECLA project. ECLA suggested that 15,000 homes would be required over the next 20 years; 10,000 of those homes could be accommodated within the UGB. Of the 5,000 that could not be accommodated within the UGB, past trends suggested that 4,000 would be provided in the form of single-family houses and 1,000 would be provided in the form of multi-family housing. She said the City had the ability to reexamine those trends. Ms. Taylor was disturbed by the use of past trends and thought the State requirement that the City project housing demand in 20 years was outmoded because there could be a lot of change in 20 years. MINUTES—City Council April 14, 2010 Page 6