Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

from the Department of Land Conservation and Development stating that the plan met its criteria. Ms. Jerome said the department had been silent thus far, implying that the plan met its criteria. Commissioner Handy averred that the world had really changed and people had learned a lot about some of the assumptions behind planning efforts. More was known about issues such as the price of fuel and greenhouse gas reductions. He asked what opportunities the board had to “tweak” the plan to address some of those emerging issues if it had to be approved by the end of the month. Mr. Doll said the master plan was merely a planning document and no project in the plan was guaranteed to be constructed. Staff analyzed each project before it was constructed to ensure it made sense, and any project involving federal funding had to receive federal approval. Airport staff also submitted their capital projects to the Budget Committee each year, which was another arena for review. Mr. Smith said it was common that an airport master plan was updated every eight to ten years even if designed for a 20-year period. It was also common such plans generated additional planning processes specific to the projects proposed. As issues emerged, they could be considered through a focused process and incorporated into the master plan or could stand on their own. Mr. Doll anticipated another master plan revision process would begin in 2016. Commissioner Handy suggested it was a role of government to incentivize outcomes that elected officials preferred to see society move toward and disincentivize others. He suggested a question to consider was how to “right-size” a project to work for the community and the community’s partners. He cited the Beltline as an example, suggesting that if there was congestion for four hours of a 24-hour day, the answer might be both expanded capacity and other strategies. He suggested that if the challenge in providing parking was in the morning, it would be interesting to know what other communities were doing to address that. Responding to a question from Commissioner Handy about the source of funding for projects, Mr. Doll said the capital improvement program was funded by a combination of passenger facility charges, FAA grants, and local airport revenues that could only be used for operation and development of the airport. The FAA was fairly specific about what the airport could do; it had to be able to accommodate passengers and plan for peak periods. He said that issue was not specific to just the morning rush, but to holidays as well when airport parking lots were full for weeks at time. He said the airport did not want to have a lot of parking out front and would work to phase it in when needed. The airport was already doing what other airports were doing. It had a shared ride service and taxicabs. Some larger airports have train service, but Eugene was not big enough to support train service. He said that the airport would continue to work with LTD to return bus service to the airport. Councilor Ortiz recalled that Police Department used an overflow parking lot for training exercises, and determined from Mr. Doll that the airport could continue to accommodate that use during non-peak times, but he anticipated less opportunity over time. Mayor Piercy observed that the airport was a regional facility that needed to accommodate those who traveled some distance to use the airport, not just local Lane County residents. Commissioner Fleenor asked what provisions the airport had to promote or restrict private “park and fly” operations between the airport and Eugene, similar to those that surrounded the Oakland International Airport, as a means to prevent sprawl and to encourage entrepreneurs to develop the concept locally. Mr. Doll said the airport would prefer having convenient on-site parking for its customers. Commissioner Fleenor was concerned about the expansion of parking onto Class 1 soils and suggested that it would benefit MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials September 14, 2010 Page 5 Eugene & Lane County