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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 11/22/10 Work SessionMINUTES Joint Meeting of the Eugene City Council and Eugene Planning Commission McNutt Room — Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street — Eugene, Oregon November 22, 2010 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Mike Clark, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Alan Zelenka, George Brown. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Heidi Bierle, Chair; Jeffrey Mills, Vice Chair; Randy Hledik, Richard Duncan, Jon Belcher, Lisa Warnes, William Randall, Planning Commis- sioners. A. WORK SESSION: Joint Meeting with the Planning Commission – Envision Eugene Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the November 22, 2010, work session of the Eugene City Council to order. Planning Commission President Heidi Bierle called the November 22, 2010, meeting of the Eugene Planning Commission to order. City Manager Jon Ruiz, Assistant City Manager Sarah Medary, Planning Director Lisa Gardner, Planners Terri Harding and Carolyn Weiss, City Attorney Glenn Klein were present on behalf of City of Eugene staff. Community Resource Group (CRG) members Don Kahle, Ann Vaughn, and Pat Farr were also present. The following is a summary of statements collected from Eugene City Council and Eugene Planning Commission members responding to each person's worst and best outcomes for Envision Eugene. The statements also include those from staff members and the three CRG members who participated in the session. Assistant City Manager Medary facilitated the session. Worst Outcomes No decisions are made in February. Envision Eugene cannot find a vision and uses continue to stay in conflict because of the lack of decision. The council will not feel able to provide a clear direction on how /where to accommodate Eugene's population and employment needs. Our plan fails to account for the residue of our unresolved land use issues. We never adjust our unsuccessful existing plans. We'll be stuck, and all the work will have resulted in failure. Each tactic will require three work sessions to enable decision making. The two planning commission meetings, two council meetings, and one public hearing are insufficient to inform the players as well as provide ample feedback to sufficiently develop a viable plan in February. We go too slowly to accommo- date the anxious, and too fast to develop sufficient wisdom and clarity in order to meet the February deadline. Framework does not meet expectations for information needed to make clear policy choices. Bad on -the- ground assumption data (ECLA) leads to unrealizable strategies. The framework does not have enough information/choices to make specific decisions that we can agree on to move forward in a timely manner. MINUTES —Joint Meeting of Eugene City Council/ November 22, 2010 Page 1 Eugene Planning Commission We squabble about the data being incorrect, not allowing a decision. Too much focus on numbers and assembling a menu that totals xyz —this could take forever. The options may not be realistic or come with so much opposition down the road. Our tactics are not rich enough in realistic transportation infrastructure (read capacity) planning as to realize our strategies. This process becomes a mechanism to never expand because we plan unrealistic tactics for our strategies (like nodal development, which did not solve transportation). Unrealistic projections of what can be expected (or possible) utilizing the three (or subset of) strategies with insufficient tactics to accomplish the projections, leaving us with insufficient land use choices to meet projected needs (we failed). Recom- mendations will be too vague to have an impact in guiding growth. We create solutions that are not feasible for economic reasons. We spiral into perpetual reset of the plan, supplanting other planning needs. We spend too much time and money debating philosophies about growth and end up with a plan that is either rejected by the Land Conservation and Development Commission or remanded by the Land Use Board of Appeals, and by the time we get a plan adopted, it is outdated and we need to start the process all over. The urban growth boundary (UGB) may end up needing to be expanded further. We expand the UGB to include prime farm and forest lands. We have a closed process with only " "experts" controlling the outcome. The process chokes off the opportunity of completing/reaching solution to the UGB question. We reach conclusions and decisions rather than broad consensus. The City Council modifies the critical components of the plan so that the final version barely resembles the collective thinking of the CRG. The process does not generate broadly supported solutions. CRG members do not support group decisions and positions outside the group structure with their peers and the public. People will be angry and disap- pointed, creating a setback for the entire community, with no shared vision. Every participant and decision -maker reverts to his or her old way of thinking and speaking so the conversation in the end is not at all a new one. Strong voices overpower, and after all the work to bring new perspectives into the process it is the same (squeaky wheels characterizing) the process. Innovation and agreement in the community is not supported, desired results do not occur. Eugene fails to fulfill the quality of life that we all expect of Eugene. We will get, or stay, so entrenched in linear thinking that we will miss the opportunity to really achieve some wonderful direction and livability for Eugene. Best Outcomes We agree on a new UGB by February 2011 (as a council). Having time frames and trying to speed the process along, we progress as a community to implement the plan at lightning speed. We come up with a strategy to address the UGB issue and shaping Eugene's future that is agreeable to almost everyone's original deadline. A plan acceptable to the vast majority of Eugene citizens gets adopted and implemented in a timely manner. MINUTES —Joint Meeting of Eugene City Council/ November 22, 2010 Page 2 Eugene Planning Commission We realize that these are tough choices. We understand the council decision is sovereign. We (City Council, Planning Commission, community) take responsibility for the decision we make and own making our collective decision happen. We have a ready -made implementation plan that has community political support. Everyone is comforta- ble and able to agree to framework and choose strategies and tactics. Framework will be so brilliant that will result in 8:0 vote in one 45- minute work session. We have broad community support or at least acceptance. All CRG members fully support the outcome /solutions generated by their efforts. Council collectively and confidently identifies the ways to accommodate Eugene's population and employment needs. We provide data and options that enable us to choose well thought -out ways to meet 34,000 in new population growth that protects what we value, helps create what we need, and gives us direction for our future - and we do it together. We find the sweet spot of sufficient specificity to define the product that most Eugeneans support while providing enough room to fill in the details as they become clear to us. People understand what tactics we'd be pursing toward strategies. The plan is specific and comprehensive enough to successfully guide future growth and livability issues in Eugene. The CRG develops a set of real potential solutions. CRG outcomes and recommendations are practical for implementation. We ensure reality based tactics. We have a new UGB. We create a shopping list of tactics within the strategies that allows filling our basket with acceptable land use choices within the existing UGB and leaves us with a real and well defined amount beyond existing UGB to accommodate the balance. We achieve near consensus agreement about the strategies, and at what level they should be employed so we create a UGB. The planning runs smoothly and UGB expansion is limited to a minimum so Eugene can continue to be a beautiful and livable place to reside. We make the five -year update a " "maximum of five years" to allow flexibility to do updates as needed. We focus on infill and brown field development. We actually focus on things that will truly affect lives - jobs! Opposites attract. We will realize that everything is connected and that we need to get beyond linear thought and think and dream of the "whole," resulting in an amazingly better Eugene than we have now. This larger framework gives people room to see why and how others view things differently. All intelligent citizens with constructive ideas get a chance to be heard, competing ideas are discussed in a civil and objective manner. People disagree with new respect for one another. We find a new place to land. We reshape Eugene. Eugene prospers and provides healthy and vibrant living spaces for all of its residents. Decisions reflect human nature in balance with revolutionary ideas. This all works and we live happily ever after. We create community for all. We become the Eugene we all want to be. Advice We prepare the City Council for future decisions. We begin listing strategies now. We have the comfort to trust, share your thoughts, and listen with an open mind. Listen to all sides. Tolerate negative comments. MINUTES —Joint Meeting of Eugene City Council/ November 22, 2010 Page 3 Eugene Planning Commission Let the CRG complete its work, let staff evaluate and synthesize, take it to the general public, and let the City Council make the decision. Check in with people who obviously have specific needs of remaking good decisions and reaching agreement —make sure they get what they need or show them reasons that they agree with as to why they don't need all the information they thought they did. Stop talking about how big we're going to be. Talk instead about how we'll be dressing ourselves — Italian tailored good looks or relaxed fit comfort jeans. Provide high /medium /low levels of tactics (toolbox) that we can use to build up strategies and thus meet the land requirement. Be aggressive with our strategies and tactics that can be adjusted up /down at the next update (five years). With each adopted strategy, identify which aspect(s), if any, will be checked at five -year check -in. Don't force assumptions of 34,000 or more people. Consider the possibility of population decrease or stability. Mayor Piercy adjourned the Eugene City Council meeting at 7:50 p.m. Mr. Bierle closed the Planning Commission meeting at 7:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, .t� Jm_-�t Beth Forrest City Recorder (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES —Joint Meeting of Eugene City Council/ November 22, 2010 Page 4 Eugene Planning Commission