CC Minutes - 01/18/12 Work Session

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MINUTES Eugene City Council McNutt Room —City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon January 18, 2012 5:30 p.m. COUNCELORS PRESENT: George Brown, Pat Farr, Betty Taylor, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Chris Pryor, Alan Zelenka. In the absence of Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy, Council President George Brown called the January 18, 2012, work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Envision Eugene — Economic Development The council was joined by Community Development Manager Mike Sullivan and Associate Planner Jason Dedrick, who led the council through a PowerPoint presentation regarding the community's land need as it related to the employment growth rate and industrial demand. Councilors asked questions clarifying the details of the presentation. Mr. Clark suggested that the aspiration goals in the Regional Prosperity Plan (RPP) indicated the region would need to create 25,000 to 26,000 new jobs over ten years and he questioned what growth rate would be required to achieve that given the recent job losses experienced in the community. Mr. Dedrick could not say but reminded Mr. Clark that commercial jobs were also included in the plan forecast. He anticipated the region would grow three times as many commercial as industrial jobs, and a growth rate of 1.6 percent would result in 8,000 industrial jobs and 25,000 commercial jobs. Mr. Clark hoped to see an updated growth rate percentage analysis before the council discussed additional land needs. City Manager Jon Ruiz emphasized the RPP was a regional plan. He also emphasized the goal of increasing the average median income, which often required more industrial type jobs and could cause the City to shift anticipated growth from commercial to industrial jobs, which would increase the overall total percentage of industrial jobs. Mr. Clark expressed concern that Springfield proposed to add 600 industrial acres to its land base while Eugene was balking at adding that number. He believed the City should be thinking about a much larger number. He said the City wanted to increase jobs in the targeted clusters but it was losing jobs in each of the clusters. He wanted to see wholesale shifts in the numbers. Mr. Pryor believed the job mix assumptions were a key factor because some jobs paid better than others. He asked if the commercial category included a traded sector component. Mr. Sullivan said the targeted industries were a mix of commercial and traded sector jobs. Mr. Pryor suggested that mix could result in better quality jobs higher wages and wanted to know what traction the City could achieve in the commercial sector toward the creation of such jobs. He believed the issue could be considered from both a property tax standpoint and a payroll standpoint. In terms of payroll, Mr. Pryor wanted as many high quality jobs as possible for their multiplier effect and suggested that meant it did not matter if the job was in Eugene or Springfield. MINUTES— Eugene City Council January 18, 2012 Page 1 Work Session