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HomeMy WebLinkAbout220608 WSMINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session Eugene, Oregon 97401 June 8, 2022 12:00 p.m. Councilors Present: Claire Syrett, Matt Keating, Jennifer Yeh, Mike Clark, Randy Groves, Emily Semple, Alan Zelenka, Greg Evans Mayor Vinis opened the June 8, 2022, work session of the Eugene City Council in a hybrid in- person/virtual format. 1. Work Session: Growth Monitoring City Manager Sarah Medary introduced Heather O'Donnell, Senior Planner, who presented the Growth Monitoring Report Overview. Council Discussion: • • • Mayor Vinis -stated appreciation for the presentation and excitement for the information provided. Councilor Clark -expressed appreciation for the amount of work that staff put into this report; asked staff if Envision Eugene Technical Advisory Committee or Planning Commission did any comparative data gathering for surrounding communities to compare population growth in Springfield, Coburg, Creswell, Veneta or other communities; asked if surrounding communities outpaced Eugene in growth for the monitoring period; stated affordability of housing has a large impact on the population growth in surrounding areas; stated that neighboring communities should be considered in Eugene's growth monitoring process; noted a desire to have conversations about the character of the community, more families, fewer single people, etc.; asked for the percentage of residential land within the current buildable inventory that is currently unserved by utilities; noted a report that stated 48 percent of that inventory is unserved by any kind of pipeline or wired utilities; emphasized that half of the residential buildable land cannot be built on due to lack of utility service. Councilor Zelenka -thanked and commended everyone involved with creating the report; asked staff for the definition of a dwelling and whether it is determined by number of bedrooms or complete living units; noted that in the single family /multi- family dwelling split is a metric that was previously used when considering whether to expand the urban growth boundary and the split was decided at 55 percent single family and 45 percent multi-family; noted that the real multi-family dwelling percent between 2012-2018 monitoring period was 72 percent, or 1.6 times the 45 percent; asked staff how this split impacts what is moving forward into the next round of growth monitoring and analysis; noted the deficits in medium-and high-density residential multi-family dwellings; asked if the expectation is that the multi-family increase will create a bubble and then balance back out; noted a deficit in affordable and middle housing and that the median rent is $1,100 currently; stated he was surprised to see that income and rent paralleled each other in the monitored time period; asked staff if MINUTES -Eugene City Council Work Session June 8, 2022 Page 1 the unserved land utilities and services are built to demand or built out in advance; asked staff to expand on and explain the buildable land snapshot in the presented materials. • Councilor Groves -commended staff for the tremendous work on this large report; said he is concerned that nothing in the report will help Eugene to develop or achieve affordable housing; noted the material says 57 percent ofremaining buildable residential land supply is located on steeper slopes which are more expensive to develop; stated it seems that Eugene has a very small percentage of available land in the inventory that can be developed into affordable or low-income housing; asked staff to elaborate on what appears to be low land inventory for affordable housing development; asked about the potential for using a small portion of wetlands for housing development; noted the cost savings of utilizing land that is already surrounded by infrastructure services is advantageous for developing affordable housing; said he is interested in hearing more about a balance between wetlands and development of housing; noted concern from a fire chief standpoint about building and expanding into the south hills because the hills are harder to serve and harder to protect from fire danger. • Councilor Evans -asked if Eugene has a projection from University of Oregon for anticipated enrollment growth and what the development plan is for the north campus; said he would like to know what University of Oregon anticipates needing for infrastructure support for fore casted enrollment; asked if the City of Eugene is looking at the Lane Community College basin area and what the potential for expansion is in that area in terms of affordable multi-unit multi-family dwellings; asked if the Lane Community College basin is still in the county land inventory. • Councilor Semple -asked staff to explain the differences between R2 minimum, medium, and high density and how that fits in with Rl that is phased out with HB2001; asked how a landowner would know what density class their property is; asked if unannexed land in Santa Clara and River Road area have utilities and if they would be better places to annex than places that do not currently have utilities; asked if staff has an idea of the cost to add utility infrastructure to unserved land; asked how much of the 43 percent of land inventory that is sloped and the 40 percent that is unannexed are the same or overlap; noted that sloped, unserved land will likely never be developed and should not be considered viable inventory. • Councilor Syrett -asked staff to confirm that Eugene is keeping pace with population growth and housing but not gaining ground on the housing deficit that Eugene has had for several years, since the recession; noted that not all housing being built meets the needs for standard individual households; clarified that the staff presentation showed that neighboring community housing costs increased more than Eugene's housing costs did in the monitored timeframe; noted that 55 affordable housing sites were forecast and 154 were actually built; observed that many things influence these reports and that the employment part of the report was probably impacted by the pandemic; noted that new ordinances and bills, like those around climate change will add new layers of work to the growth monitoring process and Council needs to be mindful that numbers will be impacted on future reporting by these things; noted that new dwellings on vacant or partially vacant land was at 54 percent and new dwellings on developed land are 41 percent and asked where the missing five percent falls. MINUTES -Eugene City Council Work Session June 8, 2022 Page 2 • Councilor Yeh -expressed appreciation for everyone involved in the creation of this report; asked when the next report update will be. • Councilor Keating -echoed the sentiments expressed by Councilors Semple and Groves to focus on developing flat, unannexed lands and not the south hills area; noted that he would also like to see the overlap of sloped and unannexed, unserved land previously discussed; noted he is vehemently opposed to expanding the Eugene Urban Growth Boundary into the south hills area; noted that the natural wooded areas and wildlife are important aspects of quality of life in this area; asked what, if any, incentives are being offered for mixed student/senior citizen housing; noted his preference to have a work session to discuss the option of incentivizing mixed use housing for students and single family or seniors. • Councilor Clark -asked staff if the unannexed lands in Santa Clara and River Road have services piped in that have not yet been connected; noted his desire to invite unannexed land owners to annex into the city and existing infrastructure; asked staff if the majority of land that is not served by any nearby utilities are near Bertelsen and Crow Road areas into the south hills; noted that Council has work to do to figure out how to develop the buildable lands that are unserved and/or sloped; noted that in the early 2000s a lot of new students arrived and moved into the neighborhoods and those students may start to move back closer to the university, freeing up housing; stated concern that the middle housing developments may reduce affordable housing throughout the city. • Councilor Zelenka -asked staff to explain who is responsible for providing utilities to a property when land is being developed; noted that there are a lot of positives in the report: jobs grew twice as fast as forecasted, the poverty level decreased, cost burdened households decreased and rents and incomes increased at the same rate. • Councilor Evans -noted the staff comment regarding wetland mitigation trade-off in the Clear Lake area and asked what the 27-year agreement that was previously created would look like. • Councilor Clark -asked if the City of Eugene has a state-mandated obligation to provide major trunk-line infrastructure; asked staff if they foresee HB2003 causing issues with this report. • Mayor Vinis -recognized that this is the first of many reports to come on this topic; noted that local demographics are changing, and it is not yet known how middle housing will impact existing land and redevelopment. MOTION AND VOTE: Councilor Syrett, seconded by Councilor Keating, moved to accept the Envision Eugene Growth Monitoring Comprehensive Report 2012- 2021. PASSED 8:0 Mayor Vinis adjourned the meeting at 1:33 p.m. MINUTES -Eugene City Council Work Session June 8, 2022 Page 3 Respectfully submitted, Katie LaSala City Recorder (Recorded by Sara McKinney) We beast of meeting available here. MINUTES -Eugen e City Council Work Session Jun e 8, 2022 Page 4