Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Eugene Planning Commission meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Diane Bailing and I am the vice chair of the Eugene Planning Commission. To begin, I'd like to call on Commissioner Bon for the city's land acknowledgement statement. Since time in memorial, the California people have been the indigenous stewards to our region, building dynamic communities, maintaining balanced wildlife, and enacting sustainable land practices. This land acknowledgement is a way of resisting the eraser of indigenous histories and to honor native communities by inviting truth and reconciliation. Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, California people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government, forcibly removed to the coast reservation in western Oregon. As we consider the impacts of colonization, we also acknowledge strength and resiliency of displaced indigenous people. City of Eugene is built within the traditional homelands known as the Calapouya Ilah. Calapouya descendants are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Community of Oregon, Confederated Tribes of the Select Indians of Oregon. They continue to make contributions in our communities here and across the lands. We express our respect for the inherent political sovereignty of all federally recognized tribal nations and indigenous people who live in the state of Oregon and across the nation. Therefore, the planning commission recognizes that what we do today will affect the many generations who will come after us.

Thank you, Commissioner Baston. And thank you to everyone joining us in this virtual meeting format. Today, our meeting will begin with public comment followed by a work session on the city's urban growth strategies, policy, and action updates. Anyone wishing to join the meeting online can do so by following the instructions listed on the agenda for this meeting. Planning Commission meetings can also be viewed by watching the live stream available on our website or the broadcast on Comcast channel 21. For those who join the meeting via computer device or phone, your microphone, webcam, and phone are automatically muted when you enter the meeting as an attendee. If you wish to participate during the public comment portion of the meeting and haven't already done so, please raise your virtual hand now to join the speaker queue in one of two ways. For those viewing the meeting on a computer, laptop, or other device, click once on the hand icon. For those listening to the meeting on a phone, press star 9. Public comment is an opportunity for individuals to speak to the planning commission on any topics except for items scheduled for public hearing or public hearing items for which the record has already closed. As a reminder, your hand must be raised to be added in the queue for public comments. Hello everyone. My name is Crystal Fischer and the planning commission has allotted a maximum of 10 minutes for public comment this evening. To ensure that anyone wishing to speak has an adequate opportunity to do so, each speaker will be limited to three minutes. Uh looks like we have one person in the queue. Um so I will promote you or excuse me, I will allow

you to speak here in just a moment. Uh please do not um unmute until we let you know it's you're ready for comment. I will let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining in your allotted time. When your public comment is concluded, your microphone will be muted. And please note that the use of profanity is prohibited and any instances of profanity will result in immediate termination of speaking privileges. With these instructions out of the way, it looks like we have University Oregon sophomores. Um, you're going to be our public commenter tonight. I'm going to allow you to talk here in just a moment. All right. You should have the ability to unmute and your three minutes will begin when you begin speaking. now.

Yes, we can hear you.

Uh, so I went today to drop off a piece of paper with my comments on them stating how I felt about the process in which is going on in the east uh reconstruction of the university of the dorm rooms. Is this the uh pool of individuals for that exact location? Uh so this is um the planning commission that did have a public hearing on this uh last week. Um if your comments are related to that set of applications um the planning commission is accepting written testimony for that right now. Um but you're not accepting any more oral testimony.

Okay. Yeah. So I So I'm on behalf of a written testimony that was put in today and um again I stand by um the written portion that was turned in today. It's also I'm sorry you have been muted. This we are no longer accepting oral testimony for those that set of land use applications at the east campus.

Your written testimony will be provided to the planning commission if you dropped it off today. Um there's a the the record for those applications is still open. So the first record period closed at 5:00 pm today. The second open record period has begun. And during that open record period, anyone can submit written testimony that responds to issues that were raised during the first open record period. So you have another opportunity to submit written testimony if you'd like. And then there will be another opportunity to speak to the city council when they hold their public hearing on this application January 20th. Um but the planning commission has closed their public hearing and are no longer accepting spoken testimony. So if that is the content of your um public comment tonight, planning commission can't receive it. I am going to allow you to unmute one more time in case you have any other public comments you would like to provide

not related to the east campus applications. Thank you Lord.

Okay. Yeah. And I that's exactly what I wanted to do. I know that the um there was scheduled dates and I do hope that there's going to be information provided at the end of this one. I'll be watching this fully uh all the way through. I did turn that paperwork in before five o'clock, but but what I'm stating is um is that does that mean since there are more dates like in November, does that mean uh we stack on the same comment that has already been provided or is one enough or do you turn in all three of them at the same time or as the time uh progresses? So, um I would encourage you to reach out to the planner who is assigned to these applications, Bray Black, and her information is available um in a lot of different places on the planning commission website on uh it was in the material for the public hearing. Um and she'll be able to walk you through all of the open record periods. Thank you. Okay. I do not see any other hands for public comments this evening.

All right. Thank [clears throat] you for your comments. As always, feel free to contact staff if there are comments you're not able to provide or wish to get us get to us in a different manner. Um, per the instructions you've just received. I will now close public comment. Do any members of the commission want to respond to public comment in any way? No. Moving on to our next agenda item, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Terry Harding to begin the staff presentation on the city's urban growth strategies. Following the staff presentation, the commission will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Thank you, Chair.

Give me just a moment while I share my screen. The first p portion of the meeting this evening is going to be um an update on our 2025 community engagement and Stuart has the presentation and some guests. So, I'm just trying to get it.

You want me to Okay. And it looks like it's working. Yeah.

Sorry. I don't know why it's not I'm gonna see Well, first Thank you. [laughter] Nothing like doing that on the fly. Um, thank you, Stuart. Um, so good evening, commissioners. I'm going to take us to the next slide. Ste is um to tell you about the agenda for this evening. So, we have um I'm Terry Harding. I'm a principal planner with the city of Eugene's community planning and design team. and Stuart Warren is going to be presenting this portion of the meeting and as I said he'll introduce our guests. Our plan is to take a little break after that portion of the meeting and have a discussion and then we'll swap out presenters for the second half of the meeting. Well, that's kind of a flow for the main. Um the second half will talk about housing actions and including micro village housing and housing production incentives and then we'll have a second round of discussion. Um next slide please. Um, as a reminder, urban growth strategies has four project phases. Um, there are community engagement, policy

development, housing and jobs actions, and the land supply studies. And we'll be touching on the first three this evening. Go on to the next slide. How that fits into the overall project timeline. And this is a little hard to see, but the main point of this is that this is in your pocket. we care to look at um this a little bit bigger and that our project work has been going on for about two years. Research analysis and engagement has been underway for a number of years and we're about to begin the formal adoption process for the components that are ready to be adopted in 2026. So in that dark green bar under 2026 you see three adoption um arrows relating to the comprehensive plans, the comprehensive plan map and housing and jobs actions. So, um, we're bringing in an update on some of those this evening and I'm going to hand it over to Stuart to go into the community engagement portion of the meeting.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Stuart Warren. I'm associate planner on the community plan design team. I get the pleasure of introducing you to this year's 2025 community engagement summary tonight and also we'll get to introduce you to our two guests as well. So before I jump into the community engagement summary, I just want to give you a quick overview uh through pictures of what we did this year and just remind you that all the work that we do with urban grow strategies is built off of what we hear from the community to the extent possible and we really try to share that inspiration with you um through our 25 community engagement summary which is attachment C in your packet and a lot of our meetings with with the community serve as inspiration for us too. It helps us to kind of guide the work that we do and understand what the community needs and also just gives us general inspiration um as a reminder of the importance of the work we do. So in the community engagement summary uh you will find an executive summary which is kind of your go-to easy to access place for information. It's a a really high level summary of what's actually in the overall engagement summary. Uh you'll also find a letter from the youth advisory council uh front and center in that which is kind of exciting. You'll also find an overview of all of our community engagement activities for the year. U and that's kind of wide ranging and it goes into each individual activity we did. And you also see that some of those activities have an additional link to another summary. So if you want to find more information about that specific activity, there's often a link that will take you uh into a uploaded summary from that specific event with more detail. And lastly, you'll find a whole list of our key takeaways, which I think is on page 14 off the top of my head. [clears throat] Those key takeaways are staff's interpretation. 15. Thank you, commissioner.

Those key takeaways are staff's interpretation of the things we heard um from a lot of different people. Um and they're broken out into two separate sections uh this year. The first one is kind of a more general highle summary of what we heard uh across all the different engagement um activities we did. And then the second half are kind of more specific key takeaways. So more uh takeaways from focused engagement events where we had an opportunity to talk to people about some specific action items or policies that we are proposing to move forward over the next year. Some of our highlights from 2025 um we attended 28 inerson events and we spoke with about 400 people throughout the year. Um those events range from everything from um our community advisory panel which was a real highlight for us this year. That's a 12 member uh panel composed of a very diverse group of individuals. We also had the opportunity to work with the youth advisory council for about a year which was super exciting. Youth Advisory Council is about 20 plus high school-aged people um from all over Eugene who bring a very diverse perspective and background and experience as well um which I'll let them talk about um in a few slides here. And we met with a lot of boards and commissions throughout the year including the youth or excuse me the active transportation committee, the sustainability commission as well as you all and uh city council. And lastly, we attended a lot of community events this year and did a a handful or so of community presentations. And community events were things like the Eugene Pride event where we went and tabled and talked to folks who were attending the event, brought them information, asked them specific policy questions this year about centers. And then some of our community presentations are things like going to the neighbor the annual neighborhood conference and presenting a background on what the conference of plan is, for example, or what um urban growth strategies is overall.

Now to the key takeaways portion. So these are our our general kind of high level key takeaways. The first one is that we continue to hear that uh folks in Eugene are having a hard time finding housing that they can afford that the with the qualities they're looking for like qualities that would make it accessible for someone who uses a wheelchair for example. Progress and uh in the locations that they want to lay related to L Garing question.

So, just to repeat myself there, we continue to hear that people of Crossing are having a hard time finding the housing uh housing that they can afford that are in a location they want to live with the qualities they're looking for. Um, some of those could be like accessible for people who use wheelchairs, for example. Um, and then, uh, the last piece there is, um, I think that's it. Sorry, got off track there. Uh we also hear that people want to live in neighborhoods that have access to goods and services consistently. Uh they want to live in neighborhoods that have infrastructure for people who walk, bike, ride the bus and use assisted mobility devices like a wheelchair. Uh we hear that they want to live near transit. We hear that they want to have access to things like parks, schools, and jobs. Not super surprising there. And the last high level takeaway here is uh we heard a lot of support for working towards more equitable outcomes through urban growth strategies project. We heard support for things like um increasing access to housing choice. We heard things like increasing sense of a belonging through urban growth strategies, more regulation of polluting industries, and equitable city investments in um underserved neighborhoods throughout the city. Uh the image on the right uh is a little bit off of our key takeaways here, but this is a a community engagement event that the youth advisory council has signed as part of one of our meetings with them. And this specific event was in uh designed for city staff to use to help increase engagement with uh young people in Eugene. That was kind of a fun little side note there.

Want to get into some more specific key takeaways with you which uh I think will be useful to your conversation tonight. So some of our engagement really was more of a focused approach. So, we were meeting with people, having one-on-one conversations in a place where we could kind of design our questions about some of the specific actions we're considering moving forward throughout the year. Um, one of those um was the opportunity to talk to working group members as well as our community advisory panel about uh just reducing barriers to to housing and we heard general support from both groups that we should be working to reduce barriers to housing through urban growth strategies. We also uh talked to our working group and community advisory panel about citywide housing incentives. And we heard from the working group that housing providers unsurprisingly thought that a citywide incentive would help to increase production of housing. And we heard from our community advisory panel that in that those incentives should be available to folks from underserved um communities. They should be focused on producing housing that for people who need it the most and that there uh shouldn't be a um a requirement in there for only specific um what was it? Income there shouldn't be discrimination based on income through those incentives. And then the last specific key takeaway here is about micro village housing. Uh we talked with our housing developer working group about this specific housing type and we also talked to our community advisory panel about it and we heard broad support from both of them. And the picture on the right here is a tour that our team took of everyone village which is a micro village uh shelter that's operating here in Eugene right now. And the gentleman in the blue there is Gabe. He's an amazing tour host. Highly recommend you get an opportunity to take a tour with him. With that, I'm going to pause and introduce Samuel and Ila. They're uh a former and a current member of the Youth

Advisory Council, and we're going to give them just a little bit of time to talk about their experience with um us working on urban grow strategies. So, Ila, why don't you?

Okay. Um yeah, so hello everyone. Uh you just heard my name, but I'll say it again. My name is Laya Shrop. I am the community ambassador for the Youth Advisory Council in Eugene. Um, and I'm also a senior at BlameT High School. Uh, I'd like to thank you all, by the way, for uh, allowing me to be here. I plan on going into government. So, this is like a happy little dream for me this afternoon. But um yeah, a few uh takeaways I had from the collaboration with Uggs and the youth advisory council is um I really find we got the opportunity to engage our YC members um in a very direct way which um you know a lot of the times we have service projects or something but this was um from council to city and that was really engaging for us as um you know it's a very pressing issue especially here in Oregon in Eugene there is a big housing shortage and so um the innovative ways you guys have been you know drafting to um try and solve such an issue. Uh being a part of that is incredible. And so, um, yeah, those monthly meetings where we made posters or we would talk about how our neighborhoods are built or what we feel like is missing on our sidewalks, um, was really empowering when we then saw that go into policy and, um, turn into also like testimony and support of the Uggs, uh, team. And it sort of served as not only like um a tool for us YSC members to say yeah we can make a difference within our city and communities but um our you know fellow classmates then also saw that and it brings more you know investment in our youth and city. And so I really hope that you guys continue to um pursue those under uh represented upper well under represented groups like youth as um you know in Bethl we are really good

with our surveying and so um like in the future maybe seeing us having kids like in high schools go get surveyed during their um assembly periods or having like school visits meeting people where they're at. Um I really hope to see that in the future. But um yeah, I'll leave one last thing. Uh I also just right now um looking at the world, I'm you know about to go into the second chapter of my life, graduating from high school and going into adulthood. And so um it is a very uncertain world right now. um and community efforts like this where all of us public servants are working for this common cause to build such a united uh innovative and strong community is a beacon of light right now and so thank you guys. Your efforts mean a lot to me. Yeah, thank you.

That was beautiful. Wow. [laughter] Um hi everybody. My name is Samuel. Um, I'm a freshman this year at the University of Oregon. I'm studying planning, public policy, and management. So, this is kind of right up my alley. I'm really excited to be here. I actually have tuned in online before a couple of times. So, different to be in the room, though. It's it's pretty exciting.

But, um, I worked on this project as a liaison between um, Stuart and the planning division and the youth advisory council. I was the secretary last year and I I really really loved the experience and I could talk for a long time about um the process of planning the meetings and the takeaways that I think the youth advisory council had but what I think is more valuable is to talk about why it's important that they came to the youth advisory council and why I think youth perspective is really valuable in the planning process. Um because at least for me when you know Stuart approached me what I thought about wasn't um wow I get to contribute to the city it was wow I'm being invested in people are taking time to listen to me sorry I'm bad at public speaking [laughter] but um I think for me and I think you as commissioners also really know and value the diversity of perspective diversity of experience and I guess my argument to you tonight is that the youth perspective is absolutely one of those. It's a very important one. Um nearly a sixth of the population of Eugene are young people. It's a massive portion of the population. We're growing up. We're entering the workforce. We're finding housing. You know, we are becoming part of the city. And so I think that taking in our perspectives is really important. And I think we also have a lot of unique um constraints to how we interact with the city. Um, often we can't afford to drive or we can't drive. Um, so we rely on our parents, on public transportation, on biking. Um, and we also often are limited by money to where we can hang out, where we can um interact with other people our age. And so how our cities are designed um can really make can really open the world to us or it can, you know, kind of leave us um alone. It can really impact our mental health. That was something we talked about on the youth advisory

council actually was mental health is such a big thing right now and how our cities are designed, whether you can get access to green space, whether you can find third spaces to interact with other people is is is [clears throat] really important. Um, and so now as a freshman at the UFO, I'm kind of phasing out of my youth period. Um, [laughter] but but I I'd like to say that even if I can't be a youth advocate, I can still be an advocate for youth. And I think that applies to all of you as well. Um, you know, even if you aren't a young person, you can recognize the unique struggles that young people face and you can in your work um help to make it easier on them. So, thank you.

Great job. Sure. I think we have time now for any questions of either Daniel or Ila or for me about education summary.

I have a question. [laughter] Um, thank you both for all your work and it's very impressive. And actually, I have a couple of questions about it. In the area you did not address, Samuel, about what what are you able to bring back to other students? And does it serve to inspire them to become more involved? Because if it goes both ways, then we can help bring more people along into the process, which I think would be very use helpful.

And if they're involved enough, if more young people are involved enough to want to speak out or join a committee or be on a commission or, you know, it would it would go a long way, I think. And you're the perfect ones to be bridging.

Yeah, I mean I can speak to that a little bit. Um I think, you know, obviously I kind of was interested in this as somebody who's pursuing planning as a career. Um but I think if you ask the average 18-year-old, they probably wouldn't know very much about this. They probably wouldn't know how impactful a project like Urban Growth Strategies is on on their future, on the future of the city. Um, and I think for a lot of the youth advisory council in conversations that I had with them, the introduction to these concepts of of housing, of mobility, of accessibility, they sort of were brought into this world where they realize how widespread these deci how impactful these decisions are on every facet of their life. And

so I think it it really is about going to them explaining to them why these processes are important, why these projects will impact them and you know once they understand that they are so excited to contribute. We had so many activities that we did over the year and I think um nobody would have guessed how into it you know a group of teens would be but they were super excited and even if you consider the youth advisory council as kind of a select group of people who select who chose to you know be more involved in city processes um I think that definitely applies outside of that as well. So, I would say it's about yeah, showing young people why it matters and once you give them the opportunity to um see that they're they're more than excited to contribute

and they have their own groups that they can take the information to spread it. And what's your experience of that?

Yeah, I uh I really enjoy your question. I wanted to add on to that. Um I I am like I just got the role of community ambassador for the youth advisory council and so I have some big plans on that front as um you know we are a wonderful committee of 25 high school students but um we also have like 6,000 high school students in Eugene. So the you know sampling isn't necessarily as uh reflective of the greater population. But um I really uh this year am hoping that we can make it a term of like branching out to those greater uh you know communities of youth as um I definitely I'm some sort of city geek in my school because half of my classmates are like we still have mayors and I was like yep ours is pretty cool but um [laughter] yeah I like it it is a really important

sorry I turned my phone off. I can try and grab it if you'd like. It's Oh, you got it still. Sorry. I had turned it off. Not supposed to do that. But then I'm not the geek, you know. It's just

Yeah. But um we are representatives of um sort of like our high schools and our youth communities. And so I really um hope that within this term I can like sort of how I mentioned um use methods of surveying our youth having questionnaires and like having inschool visits um going to their schools and um you know letting them know that they have a youth voice through the youth advisory council that they have the opportunity to go to these um meetings and um that it is really fascinating. I mean, like two years ago, you you would have told me housing and I would have gone legislation, but um I mean my I'm in a full IB diploma and part of it is I have to write like this huge research paper and it's almost too much fun for me right now. You're I'm like, you get to tell me I get to pick to write a 4,000word essay on housing. Oh my gosh. [clears throat] Um but uh yeah it's it's a passion that I didn't have until I got educated on it and got to learn what you know local government and uh what we are doing to fix such things and so um I definitely there is value in including more and more youth and more and more uh just like demographics that aren't uh represented or in government and so

thank you. Are there classes in school that support this activity? I think in uh a lot of 4J there is but um will lam it is a little bit barebones. I hope my superintendent isn't watching. But um [laughter] [gasps] yeah, I um part of it is like we don't have a civics class in Wamtt and there isn't much education beyond just like the federal here are the three branches, here's the bill of rights. And so um having that local governance education is um highly lacking and definitely I would say adds to the um like non-usage of youth voices as uh I don't like it's not also just like trying to hear what the youth are saying half the time they're not saying anything because they don't know that exists and so yeah education.

Thank you. Any other questions? I have one. Um, thank you very much for for all your hard work. My question is that what's your suggestion of the most effective way to reach out to some of the pockets of the youth that may not be quite as engaging as you two are, right? Talk about 25 and you are all highly motivated, very engaged already, but what about the rest of them? I mean, [clears throat] housing impacts everyone.

Yeah. So how do we make it more relatable to everyone? So uh you know more teens pitch in in ideas and all that. So I want to hear your take on that. And these day and age there's so much high-tech, so much social media. What are some of the most effective ways to reach out? Um I imagine that you won't go very far with school surveys or clipboards anymore. So what's some of the platforms that you have explored or been successful in reaching out and getting people excited not just on Earth Day but you know on other things too about a subject. Um did you want to start or

Yeah, I can start. I would say I would really really really emphasize the idea of meeting them where they're at. I think it's a lot to expect a teenager to seek this out. Not very many do. But if you go to them, you get on their level, you show interest [clears throat] in them, I think that creates a lot of goodwill. Um, and I I can definitely say it's it's hard to reach teens. Even as a teen myself, you know, as a member of StuGov,

it was hard to to get things out. But I would say um a good something that we talked about was kind of going to programs or clubs that they're already interacting with and trying to reach them through that. Um, so yeah, I would say emphasize getting on their level.

Yeah, I um I definitely agree with what Samuel said and it sort of ties into what I um spoke about earlier in that uh city government uh and just government in general can seem like this big scary entity to a lot of um like high schoolers and youth that aren't involved in it. Uh they don't know who the faces of Eugene are. they don't know how it works. And so, um, if they do have a concern about the city, um, and want to try and figure out what is going on, it can be an incredibly nerve-wracking situation to like, you know, put themselves out there in front of city council and government. And so um like definitely uh like having say uh one of the city planners or a city councelor whoever from the city maybe like come to uh like WAMIT and have a lunch meeting talking about the city. We did that a couple times and I mean kids showed up and they got to learn about it and have fun with it. Um and just like break that barrier of you know authority fear um a a bit more. And so yeah, uh definitely showing that we are all just people in government um is a big way of um like having a welcoming environment to youth interaction. Um education of uh local government and also just um learning specifically what Eugene is doing is also really um engaging as it's sort of personable. you are connecting on the same factor that we are both Eugeneians. And so if you talk specifically about what Eugene is doing and how Eugene stands out, they get to learn how we are special and you get to be a part of something special. And um surveying, I mean, if you if you put them in a room and give them a computer, I they can't escape it. It is um [laughter]

I like Bethl does a really good job of surveying um our community and like they have been sort of like a template for say 4J to start surveying as well. Um and it is like quite effective if you figure out how to really get a good group of uh kids to do it. But um yeah surveying can be quite effective. I would also say I think maybe not everybody is interested in you know something like this the same way we are but they all [clears throat] have interest that this affects. So if you go to a climate club you can explain how housing has an impact on the climate. You if you go to a mountain biking club you can talk about how transit is important to get to those mountain biking areas. Right? So it's about seeing what they're interested in and explain to them how these decisions impact that. And I think they feel a lot more passionately about it then.

I'll just put a plug in for the engagement summary because we actually asked the youth advisory council that question commissioner and so there's some really good information in there that uh we found surprising like social media is not a great way to go. Right. So I just encourage you to take care.

Great. Quick question what Sam was saying. Um, in you said you remember 28 different engagement projects that you went on. Um, it would be great if we could know about some of them ahead of time. I know I want to speak for other commissioners, but I know I would be happy to go to some of them if if my schedule allowed um instead of waiting for you folks to come here. were looking to go to these events and hear what's going on on the ground and and help planning staff and and just hear it um in the in the public and also have kind of a little bit more of a gateway between the planning commission and the public itself. So if we wanted to send a schedule out of what your next occasion are and then as we have scheduled the permit we'll let you know if we would like to do that.

Thank you. As I recall there's one potential issue when a bunch of us went to one that you had um marketing. Yes. Can't be four of us showing up to the same meeting. So, we'll draw straws [laughter] or do a sign up. So, you guys can manage it. But yes, it's very enjoyable. Thank you, Commissioner Isacson. Any other questions or responses? I just want to make a really quick comment. Um, as a parent of a 16-year-old junior, like very impressed by you all. My daughter, I'm gonna make her watch this meeting. [laughter] I

I think it's amazing. I think it's really fantastic. I I work in um professionally in a realm that I'm constantly trying to get people more civically engaged and young professionals and young people are always a tough it's a tough crowd. And so I just this has been really helpful and I really appreciate it and really appreciate your enthusiasm for it. So are you two going to stick around? What was that? Are you going to stay at the meeting? I'm planning on staying. I wish I could, but unfortunately I'm in midterm season and I've got some studying to do. Yeah, the books are calling me. But yeah, thank you both very much.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us. Thank you both. While we're switching staff at the table, I just want to put in another comment about the youth advisory council which has been out for three years. It was started by Mayor Lucy Venice and now Karen has taken over and this is I uh I've worked for the city for 19 years. This is the coolest group of people I've ever worked with. also the community advisory panel, but it's right up there in the top ones because every area of Eugene is represented, which is so hard to get hard to get on the planning commission. You have it at council by ward, but it's just a place where all the different areas of Eugene are represented and cool. You guys are really, really awesome. Awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being here. Thank you guys so much. I'm gonna take my cookie with me. [laughter] Take more sugar. Hi all. Thank you Samuel.

Are you willing to keep running the show?

That would be great. Okay. So, we're gonna transition into the process itself and kind of what's coming up for both planning commission and council and then dive into a couple of housing actions. So, we can go to the next slide when we have a second Stuart. There it is. Um, this slide focuses in on the 2026 and 2027 adoption packages, which will be two opportunities to move forward some uh actual components, plan amendments, code amendments, regulations, as well as program changes. Um, looking back a little bit into 2025, just an acknowledgement that we're already doing things that don't have to necessarily be adopted. So, some examples of that are the downtown core housing initiative, um ongoing annexations and infrastructure projects. Those are all ongoing and contribute to the work that we're doing in urban growth strategies. Uh but the 26 and 27 adoption packages will have both policy and action components in them. And then as we move on in time, the period of 2028 to 2035, we'll be implementing our housing production strategy. And so that has additional actions and we'll get into a little bit more detail about that in a moment. Um and then the last box on this slide shows our UGB expansion which we think will be probably necessary uh but we won't know until we finish our land supply studies in 2027. Then we'll have an idea of how much and begin the process of analyzing where um how and how much to expand the urban growth fun. Next slide. So real um high level what we expect to

be in this adoption package for 2026. I mentioned both policy and action components. So the policy components are shown on this slide. There are five new chapters of the comprehensive plan which each have goals and policies for the topics shown on the slide and also a new parcel specific use designation map which is really exciting and that we've talked about with you [laughter] before. Next slide. And then the action components for the adoption package. There are generally four types of housing and jobs actions. Um they are increasing our capacity for housing and reducing regulatory barriers for both housing and jobs development. Encouraging compact development for both jobs and housing in and around centers. Some of the actions are going to be efficiency measures, meaning they actually create more capacity within our urban growth boundary and will quantify that impact. And other actions are more about reducing a barrier or reducing the cost of um of doing development, not as easily quantifiable. Um, there is a detailed summary of actions in your packet and it goes into kind of paragraph level detail on each of those actions that we're continuing to pursue. So, we only have time for two [laughter] of them today, but we're going to dive into micro village housing and housing production incentives today. And then your December 9th meeting, we're going to bring you another round and we'll have other staff like plenty of people in the building are working on different actions that are components of of this project. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Leah.

Thanks, Terry. Good afternoon, good evening, everyone. My name is Leah Roush, your planner on the community planning and design team. Um, so as part of our urban growth boundary planning, as Terry said, we need to implement both our citywide policies and priorities, but we also want to take some concrete actions towards meeting our 20-year urban growth needs um by increasing not only housing production, but also housing affordability and choice. Um, we've previewed these actions for you at your June meeting. Um, and they're included in detail as attachment D in your packet. Um, and we'll we'll dive into a couple um, in particular tonight, but um, go to the next slide. I will continue to remind us all [laughter] of what our housing need looks like. So, we have previously shared how the new Oregon housing needs analysis or the ONA really significantly changes how cities plan for house future housing needs within our urban growth boundary. Um, through the 2025 ONA, we know that Eugene will need to support the production of more than 26,000 new dwelling units over the next 20 years.

And to meet that housing need, we should be producing 70% more units each year for the next 10 years as compared to the last 10 years. So using data from our growth monitoring program, we know that Eugene, you want to advance, um saw an average of about 960 new units per year over the last decade. And of those, about 100 each year were subsidized affordable housing. And then to meet our new housing need, Eugene should see closer to 1,600 new units per year for the next decade, including roughly 700 that are affordable to households with below incomes. Next slide. We are also now required to meet our housing need not just through overall production but also by affordability. Um so this chart that you've seen in the past um breaks down those new dwellings into affordability bins that are based on area median income or AMI. So on the far left um we have new units needed for households with the lowest incomes. The bars in green are units needed for households making less than 80% of the median income, which we typically think about as a level of affordability that's um only provided through subsidized affordable housing. Um we have some existing tools and subsidies that support affordable housing um but certainly not enough at current levels to kind of meet this need. Affordable housing developments that are deeply affordable. So kind of that bar on the far left side reaching below 30% of area median income are especially difficult to achieve. We also need around 5,000 new dwellings that are affordable to households with moderate incomes. This level of affordability isn't often provided through new housing. Um and we have few tools if any to actually encourage this kind of level of affordability at the city today. And then on our the right hand side is our need for market rate housing which is typically where we see

new development landing without any subsidy. Um, two of the most affordable, if you want to advance, Stuart, um, two of the most challenging affordability ranges to address are deep affordability. Um, so again that below 30% of area median income, which is households earning less than about $26,000 per year, and then moderate income housing, which is um, as I mentioned, not eligible for most of our current subsidies um, and isn't typically provided through new development. So, I've highlighted the need for um those two kind of bins or ranges because it will inform our conversation today about the couple of housing actions we want to present to you all. So, if you want to go to the next slide, as Terry mentioned, um staff are proposing a number of actions in 2026 and 2027. We want to focus on two actions tonight um for our meeting. So, first I'm going to review a new proposed housing type, micro village housing, that's focused on providing deeply affordable housing, especially for people transitioning from homelessness. And I'm going to hand it off to Amanda Duza from Community Development to talk about two new proposed housing production incentive programs. And I just want to shout out to Amber Freriedman who's in the back tonight. Um she's been doing a ton of work to support the development of both of these actions and we're excited that she'll be starting uh with planning next week. Um so you'll definitely get to hear more from her in the future.

Great. Um okay, so micro village housing, we've heard from affordable housing developers and shelter providers that there is strong interest in kind of this new housing type which modeled on an approach that has already been successful in a shelter setting. So micro micro village housing developments as Ken were um envisioning them um would likely include very small dwelling units with an in-unit bathroom. The dwellings would share a multi-use common building with cooking facilities and other amenities. And the this type of housing is intended to meet some of Eugene's um local housing needs, especially for people with the lowest incomes. The hope is that these dwellings are faster and less expensive to develop than traditional multi-unit rental housing and could reach a deep level of affordability without as much or any subsidy. We've heard through community engagement that the village setting can provide both independence and community support and detached units in particular can offer a sense of safety and comfort for residents who have may have previously lived unhoused. The next slide. [clears throat] So in kind of taking on creating this new housing type um we set some priorities. So um some of our priorities are to again create a path to build deeply affordable units to um have a path that allows for on-site supportive services or workforce development opportunities as well as something that doesn't require a lot of additional process which as you all know means additional costs um and could be feasible on sites in a variety of zones. Um, we do have some precedent for this type of development outside of a shelter setting. So, there's Kiote Village in Olympia, Washington, which is pictured here, as well as the Community First Village outside of Austin, Texas, which you'll see in some of the later slides. Staff have started to develop code concepts in coordination with some of our interested housing and development

partners. Um, you'll see a draft set of concepts in your AIS, which I'll just review briefly tonight. So, first is the dwelling unit. itself. Um, these would essentially be tiny homes. We're looking at 400 square feet or less with a possible bonus for accessible units. Um, the detached units, you know, would be required to include a private in-unit bathroom and a developer could choose to provide a small kitchenet as well. Um, during a round table with potential developers, they emphasized the need for flexibility. So looking at possibly offering a mix of detached, attached, and stacked units to make the most of the development site and leverage other factors like infrastructure hookups. Next is the common building. So um this is envisioned to provide shared kitchen and eating facilities for residents and would also be accessible to people with disabilities. We're considering allowing a number of dwelling units to be included within the common building, allowing for more flexibility on kind of reuse of existing homes or community facilities. And other accessory uses would likely be provided but not required. So things like laundry, storage, daycare, other on-site services for residents or like a property management office. Um, we're still working through the details of how many residents or units would be served by each community building and the required kitchen facilities on each development site. So for the village site itself, we're looking at regulating um by the minimum number of units on the development site. The micro village model is currently learn aimed at slightly larger sites. So something like seven units or more. The density would be calculated using a ratio something like f four microunits to one dwelling unit which is what we use for single room occupancies right now. Um there would probably be some basic requirements for open space, pedestrian circulation, other general development standards we have in the code like parking or landscaping. Um and

a developer could choose to provide additional recreational features. Um and may also choose to offer some limited commercial uses on the site. So, we're considering potential co- bonuses for units that are income qualified um and available to low-income households. As I mentioned, there is some interest in allowing limited commercial uses within the micro village development site. Commercial uses could provide opportunities for workforce development for the residents or they could provide additional services and resources for the residents and neighbors. Micro Village housing that's developed in residential zones. Um, we're thinking about requiring a conditional use permit for C1 neighborhood commercial uses. We already have basically the standard in place for um C1 neighborhood commercial uses in our R2, R3, and R4 zones, but this would be new for R1. Um, C1 neighborhood commercial uses include things like restaurants, cafes, neighborhood centers, clinics, daycarees, offices, or meal services, just as some examples. And for development in commercial zones, they would already have the option to provide a mixture of uses on the site without a cup. So this would just be in um residentially zoned properties. Uh we're also looking at whether it makes sense to offer additional allowances for temporary activities and uses. So things like parking lot sales or kind of other occasional events. With that, I will hand it off to Amanda to talk about housing production incentives and then we'll stop to ask for your feedback on these concepts and answer any questions.

Thanks, Leah. Hi, everyone. My name is Amanda Duza. I am development programs manager in the community development division. Um, today I'm here to talk about the next proposed action, which is the creation of two new housing production incentives that fill gaps in the city's housing programs. Right now, the city's housing programs typically support either low-income housing, meaning below 60% of area median income, or housing in the downtown area. Today's proposed programs are aimed at addressing two development types that currently lack production incentives. The first is tied to moderate income housing, which we're defining as 60 to 120% of area median income. Right now, we have no programs that specifically benefit moderate income housing. And yet, we know there's not enough supply to meet the community's need. The economics of moderate income housing mean that they do not pencil without public investment. The second gap is tied to a lack of a program aimed at supporting dense housing near transit throughout the city. The city's existing tools that encourage density are focused on the downtown area. Supporting the creation of more density around transit and centers around the city helps achieve both our housing and our climate goals. So, our proposed action is to create two new 10-year property tax exemptions. These would be enabled by a state incentive for transit supportive multi-unit housing, which is the same incentive that enables the MUPD, a housing incentive program that's focused on downtown. The first program would be targeted towards moderate income housing. This proposed program would be available for household between 60 to 120% AMI and the eligibility boundary would be any property within a/4 mile of a fixed route transit line. The second program is supporting the creation of housing in mixeduse centers. This would be for new market rate housing but in a smaller geographic boundary than the moderate income housing program. It would be for properties in the core

commercial and downtown centers that planning staff have presented on in the past. In addition to these two exemption programs, we're also exploring the feasibility of implementing a new state program that offers a revolving loan fund for moderate income housing. The program is set up by the state, but would would be implemented by the city. We're still exploring the feasibility of that program and what it would like to what it would look like to administer uh at the local level. I'll note that these are very high level parameters and if council wanted to pursue either program, they'd have to decide on specific program components like the affordability um pieces shown here. I'll briefly touch on some of the benefits of this approach. Firstly, it aligns with our compact development and housing policies. Supporting the creation of more and a variety of dense housing helps achieve our housing production goals. Additionally, the the city's climate action plan 2.0 know identifies encouraging more dense housing, especially along transportation corridors as actions that support our climate goals. Finally, once the property tax exemptions expire, the projects would pay for full taxes for the city after 10 years, which would strengthen our tax base. Today, we're looking for feedback from you about these concept and any questions you may have. We are still considering our current capacity and any financial needs that that there would be to move either project forward. As I mentioned, if council wants to continue exploring either program, we could bring back more information and options for their consideration, and council will need to take action on an ordinance to implement the programs. With that, I'll hand it back to Terry for for any questions and next steps.

Thank you, Amanda and Leah. A lot of great information. Um, so I'm going to quickly go over next steps and then leave the questions up on the screen so that they can be there while we're having our discussion. Um, you heard a lot of talk about city council and that's because we're preparing to go to council in a couple of weeks after we get your feedback and present largely the same content to them. Uh, so that work session is a Wednesday noon work session where we'll give them the adoption package overview and this um these two housing actions that you just heard updates about at that work session. And then two weeks later or 12 days later, we'll be back at council asking for them to initiate the formal adoption p process. And so that's an action they need to take because we're proposing plan and code amendments um which require a series of public hearings, a public hearing before the planning commission recommendation and then a separate council hearing and action in 2026. So those are coming up this fall. We also are coming back to you as I mentioned earlier December 9th with some additional housing and jobs actions and we'll be checking with checking in with the county um in December. So we've got them kind of lined up through the end of the year here uh going to the board of commissioners December 2nd and Lane County Planning Commission on the 16th. And the reason I mentioned that is because they are co-adopters of several of the components of urban growth strategies. So, it's important we keep the county in the loop um for what we're doing. And now we'll go to the discussion question slide. Lot a lot of prompts here. [laughter] Uh but we did want to leave it pretty open for you all to ask questions of our presenters and give any feedback you have um as we head into the council discussion on these topics. Thank you.

questions, comments. Commissioner Isacson, I have a few. Um, we talked about the magic number 26,000. Do we have a year to date on how many we've been going towards and do we have an idea of what's in the pipeline? Um, our growth monitoring program does um keep pretty regular track of new housing development. I don't have those numbers at hand, but I know that they pulled like the first half of the year. Um, we could follow up with you on that via email. Um, the short of it is it's not looking good. [laughter] Um, but I don't remember the numbers. We just got the number in May. So, I mean, we have Oh, you got a number in May. No, we got No, we got the the 26,000. So,

Oh, right. Your time on on target a whole year. [laughter] Um, can the units be purchased the the micro housing? That's a good question. like a mobile home scenario where you get a spot and you pay like a site fee and you have home ownership or is this going to be just a rental property?

Thank you for the question. Um the city doesn't necessarily regulate whether something is available for home ownership or just rental. Um so that would be up to the developer of the property. Um I don't see a reason why not. Um, if that's a choice the developer wanted to make, they could do something like a community land trust, which is kind of the model we've seen out of Square One Villages, um, where they might be owned through a cooperative, something like that. Um, but it would be an option for the developer. You mentioned it was cheaper. Do you have a rough idea for a square foot of the difference? I I don't have a rough idea. Um, it would depend if it was site built or like a manufactured model as well. Yeah.

Last question because I want to get a ton of time. Um, I think the commercial use is the most attractive thing. I I saw the ability to have food carts or daycare centers that make the ROI more attractive to a developer where I can have I can offer a lower rent because I'm getting a revenue pipeline for in perpetuity over here um and maybe offer it up for folks to build it like you said or development or maybe they want to start a business who are who are local and then take it you know into brick and mortar whatever they want to do but that seems like a natural transition that we should be exploring I'm sure if they can take to [laughter] the chamber different ideas.

Commissioner Bon, I I I guess I have some comments and a couple of questions. Before I do, I don't want to take us off track [laughter] very far. Good one. Yeah. The comprehensive plan. Am I I'm kind of missing and maybe Terry maybe it the chapter 8 public facilities and services where I noticed can you just a brief snapshot where where is that and when do we get to see it

that one is still under development it's a little bit um less developed than the five I showed you on the screen that it is under development and it'll be part of 2027 adoption packet instead of 26. Yeah. So the other everything else is in 26. So that one will Okay. Yep. There's a lot of coordination with that one that's um taking some time.

Okay. Um I Well, I think all of this stuff looks really good and looks like really good idea and it's h clearly going to take some work. When I was looking at the micro village housings, um I mean the way as you portray it, it looked like they'd be units in there with the community center and there'd be some owner operator, you know, who would be responsible for managing the whole thing. As you noted in here, there'd be supportive services and so on and all of that. I was kind of thinking how's all that going to fit into the code and how do you, you know, put the city regulations in place so that that's all kind of set up. I'm I'm and I was assuming it was just kind of on the model as square one villages and some of those. It kind of got me thinking and you I think you mentioned somewhere in the material you could develop these it started to kind of cross over for me into middle housing and maybe I don't know if it was cottage clusters or what but uh we talked one time a few years ago about tiny homes. There was some conversation around this table about it and I've thought of those as four to 500 300 400 square foot units but all they'd be homes so bathrooms and kitchens and everything and uh this kind of it seemed to me this would sort of offer a model for that too. I'm I'm thinking as you look at this, you're you're thinking about it being people could do it virtually anywhere in the city in the R1 zones. And

that's what we're looking at proposing. Yes. Is something that would be allowed in all residential and commercial zones, not in industrial zones. Um, of course, we have to kind of get that to the finish line, but that's

residential line is the suit. Yeah. Um, okay. Um, I I'll get back. I I had another one in there, too. Let me jump over real quick and then I'll I'll come back over um on the housing production incentives. I All of that also makes sense. I found myself staring at the uh geographic boundaries. I've mentioned walkability already done a little bit. I'm kind of into looking at the city and understanding as we have people living all over the city and how they are able to get to services and get to the kind of places they they might want to. Um I it seems to me when you talk about geographic boundaries on this, I I found myself wanting to just edit the within a quarter mile to like a half mile or,

you know, maybe even more. So, I I guess I would suggest it. It seems like we we ought to Well, and let me let me throw a question in here, too. When you say fixed route transit, I'm sort of assuming that's kind of these major transit zones or areas we've looked at before where LTD runs the 15minute service. Yeah. Basically, the fixed bus routes um and the it's the state statutes are what limit it to a quarter mile. So, they say this this tool can only be used on the the quarter mile of the fixed track transit line. So, while I would love to say a half a mile would be great, that we were limited to the quarter mile by the state.

And that actually covers quite a bit of the city. I heard you say frequency in there and I'll just say the um we're not necessarily proposing that it be limited to frequent service. Okay. Lines. So, it would just be any bus route as we currently. I mean, I think out like out where I live, there's a what I think is a fixed transit route. The bus comes all the time on a regular schedule, but it doesn't come every 51. Yeah, we're not considering it as long as there's a set bus line. Okay. Well, I've got a few more. I'll let it go here. I'll come back. Thank you.

Um I had a question about First of all, I'm super excited about this stuff. you guys know this, but um I I had a question about in your in the process of kind of scoping out some of the different ideas and what other communities are doing and whatnot. Were there things that you that you came across that you were like, "Wow, this would be so cool for us to do here, but oh, there's this state law or something, right?" Like some other I'm just curious if there were those things that you had to take off the table because of that particular barrier. anything that comes to mind likely limited to a quarter

mile. [laughter] Like I found out we could not you can't annex non-ontiguous parcels and so that means a fix in the state law in order for the city to be able to apply any kind of incentives to those parcels. And so as an example, I'm just curious if there were other things that you

There was one when we were looking at using the the tax exemption tool. There's language in there because we were interested in making a moderate income housing incentive citywide similar to lurpy the the low-inccome rental housing property tax exemption which is available citywide and there there's way that the law is written where there's these weird technical things where they have to be the the project have to be in a contract with an agency of the state. Like it's just really weird. And so that's one that we're like okay we have to pivot away from doing it citywide. And then we looked at the quarter mile from a transit line that actually covered quite a bit of geography in the city. But that's one example.

Yeah, I don't have anything specific to micro village housing. I think um we're kind of concurrently looking at how it will align with state law around um single room occupancy. So, that's something we're navigating, but um no specific barriers to kind of creating that new housing. Could you explain the difference to me between micro village housing and single room occupancy?

I don't have like a nice concise answer for you. I think we're figuring it out. um we had come to microvillage housing as kind of a local priority kind of concurrent with the state making some changes to um single room occupancies in their definition in this most recent session. Um so there is some overlap I would say between the two. Um single room occupancies we've traditionally thought about as an attached you know building like you would think about with traditional apartments. um they haven't been defined as detached units in the past. So that's new kind of figuring out what that will look like. Um single room occupancies don't have the any special provisions for commercial uses or kind of a mixture of uses necessarily. Um and there is a minimum number we'll need to allow on any lot that allows a single detached home. Um, so we're thinking about them as kind of two different scales, two different paths, but there is some crossover that we're gonna just have to figure out over the next few months together. [laughter]

Questions? Commissioner Yang?

I have a few questions about the micro uh village housing. So, what does a successful micro village housing program would look like to you in Eugene? you know, use some examples in the um in the AIS here about Austin, Texas and uh Olympia. So, I looked them up uh a little bit online and I'm curious just to you um what kind of um transition to permanent housing rate would you hope to achieve with the program since you said that's you know kind of a good transition for people from boring homelessness to permanent housing. what kind of rate of transition that you think is a success? What kind of uh occupancy uh do you think it would be? Because when I read it was like one of them is like 43% was was I was thinking that would be higher but it's not that high.

And then besides the initial investment of building it and all that what are the additional costs to have somebody who manage the village, the social services? Do we need to have a manager and attendant who live on site in one of them that take up one of spots? Yeah. Like I'm just curious about what it's a successful program looks to you.

Yeah, those are all really good questions. Um from the land use perspective, it's um not necessarily in the land use code where we're creating any sort of programmatic investments or um parameters. So we're just really saying like what does the unit look like? What does the site look like? What are those minimum requirements? We're working closely with community development staff who are more on the programmatic side to say, how can we support developers who might want to build this type of affordable housing? Um, if is it income qualified affordable housing? What types of supports do they need from the city to make this work in addition to creating a path in the land use code? So, um, when we're just kind of thinking about the land use code, creating a clear path for it, um, allowing it as kind of legal permanent housing where right now we see it as, um, temporary shelter. Um, and so that's what we've been focused on, kind of creating the path and creating a flexible path so that those developers themselves, whether they're affordable housing or not, um, can be flexible in terms of what does the program look like? Does it have an on-site manager? Are there on-site supportive services? How big is the site or how many units? Is it colllocated with shelter so that folks can move from the shelter side of the a site into permanent housing that might be colllocated on the site? Um that's an option, but we're not necessarily going to require that in the land use code, if that makes sense. Um, that's part of where this idea generated from is that our shelter providers don't have a lot of options to exit people into permanent housing because we lack in our community housing that is affordable to people who are transitioning um out of homelessness or at those really low income levels um and

need a deeply affordable option. So that's part of the um hope with this model is to provide more of those options so we can see more people exiting um from shelter sites. Um but that kind of programmatic lens is really the lane of community development and our affordable housing partners. Commissioner Breamie. Um, thank you all for this presentation and I I just wanted to begin by saying that it's very interesting to think that we're doing policies and actions all at the same time. Yeah.

I think what it means what I hope it means is that as a community we got our hands around, okay, this is really something important. We're not going to wait because so many times we would wait. Let's set the broad policy. So my only question about that is I hope there aren't any sort of weird conflicts that are in those policies that are going to get tripped up by these some I don't think there are but it's a it's an interesting thing and I think it's great that it's going that way because really it's a crisis so we got to deal with

so having said that [laughter] I just spent two weeks in a micro village in Victoria Canada and it was called the West Bay RV Park had 52 units in it. Each of them had power and sewer and water and there was a community building with a shared kitchen. So my question is, have you looked at similar constructs like um mobile home parks to see what we can learn from those? And does where where do those fall in the code currently? I um might look to Lauren if [laughter] or Alyssa who might be better equipped to talk about what mobile home and RV parks look like in our current home. Um I think it's a great point that um there are similarities between the two models, right? Like small detached units with utilities but are sharing common spaces. So there's certainly a lot of echoes. Um, we have some of the sites I mentioned have a mix of both. They have like sight built or modular homes and they have spots for RVs. So, um, it's not something we've explored deeply yet, but certainly it's something we could look into a little bit more closely. It's great to have other examples because we haven't found a lot in certainly not in Oregon with our unique um ladies planning program, but in um even in the rest of the country that we've looked at, there's a lot of models for single room occupancies, but not necessarily this um

so I'm just calling it a microbill [laughter] actually. It's resort. It's a resort. Um, and there are dozens and dozens of them all over the place, but they have a very similar construct and I wonder if there's anything we can learn from those um, either good or bad. So that that was the my first comment. And then about the the micro units themselves, I'm just getting into the detail here. It's a little confusing to me the way these are listed on this chart. you you have access to a kitchen when it sounds like that should really be under com the common building should have a kitchen

unless all units don't have kitchens. So something there's something about how these things are are listed that and I'm sorry to drag you into those details by the way. No, it's good feedback to me. So um I think that was it for for microousing. Is there anything we can learn from other micro housing models? I do remember being in school and having a affordable housing and granted 40 years ago saying well really the most affordable housing is a double wide trailer. So you pull that on your lot while you build your house

and it's hard to beat that because manufactured you know it's a controlled environment. Throw it on there and you when you're done with it you sell it you nice things. So that all most of these units will be built, pre-built and brought onto the site. And so it's it's in fact there's I'll talk to this. I just thought of another thought of another RV resort where they did just that. They have 15 little tiny houses that they put on pads that used to be were rotating and they're now they're permanent. And it's interesting because all the connections were there. Yeah. and and a model like that would really help with the bottom line in terms of making these more affordable um if they were um

okay so um just to display my ignorance I did not realize that MP was a state thing it's a state enabled program that what does that mean when you say the word enable maybe Lauren can [laughter] better I could stumble my way through it

allowed to do it [laughter] Yeah. So, because it's an exemption from property tax, the state statutes have to enable that exemption, but the city had to take advantage of the exemption and adopt its own program. So, you have kind of a state statutory structure that says what the tax exemption or the pieces of the tax exemption that are required. And then Eugene decided yes, we want to offer that as an opportunity for development in in particular in our downtown. Um and so council enacted an ordinance and you know adopted code provisions that say this is how MPY works in the city of Eugene. We in particular Eugene has public benefit criteria that are

unique to us right mostly for our students 101. I I'm still not sure I follow that. So the state's not giving any resources that they're telling us what we can and cannot do. But it's a local tax. Well, it's it's a local exemption. It's [clears throat] an exemption. Yeah. So this is real property tax that is comes to the city but is collected by the county assessor. That is set. The state doesn't have anything to do with it. They they do. [laughter] We don't we don't have that. I'm sorry I'm just curious about my they have to allow us to soap exact they don't require [laughter]

so then within the m we have now it's completely geographically oh there are some other criteria I think it's restricted to the downtown and so then as I look at what what we're doing here and there are geographic boundaries and quarter inch downtown core if there was a way to make it more simple these things are almost overlapping as they are Now what is the difference in the two? Yeah, they they'll be very overlapping. So why don't we just have one idea? Yeah. So we I mean we want to we want to incentivize. [laughter] I mean that's a good argument but I think the idea is that we want like we defin we think there's

political agreement that we want to we want more moderate income housing and so let's go as geographically broad as we can on that and that market rate might not always need to be incentivized. there is some market rate naturally happening, but can we incentivize more dense market rate housing in these core centers where we want to see more density? And so that's why that has a smaller geographic focus, but certainly council could choose to say on a quarter mile of all transit lines, we want to incentivize all types of housing, moderate income, market rate. So that's certainly an option. So though, so there are I guess what you're suggesting is where I started on this. Are there mixed use areas that are not on transit corridors within quarter miles of transit corridors?

That's where I started. I'm like, well, why do we have two different definitions here then? Depends on what you mean by transit corridors. Well, that's what you mean. Mish [laughter] Road is back to the state. Back to our partners at the state. M is only available in transit oriented areas which are defined as within a quarter mile. Okay, so that's one category. And core areas. Core. So ours could say that too, right?

So downtown is a core area. We think we can make a good case that the centers also can count as poor areas, but the only MUPS that would be available citywide, the only geographically citywide available version of this tax exemption is for low-income housing. And that's what Amanda was talking about. the the state definition of low-income housing is written such that it it won't apply to the kind of moderate income housing that staff is looking to incentivize with this incentive. Um so then we're back to the geographic limitations of either transit related quarter mile from transit corridor or um core areas which is downtown and centers. We have to have two because they're looking at two different markets. One's looking at modern income and one's looking at market rate.

I think that's the intent. Yeah. I mean, that's why the proposal is two. You don't have to have to planning commission could make a different recommendation. Well, I I would not do that, but I would I would urge you as you think about this to make it simpler, as simple as possible. Um because I get tripped up [laughter] Sometimes they're Oh, I already said that. Sometimes they're talking about excuses. Sometimes they're talking transit quarter. Why? I mean, why don't we just do the same thing every one? [laughter] Sorry. And you're wondering why you came to

Sorry. If I can offer a comment on that, Will Dowy, I'm the community development director. Um, I think that some one way to look at this is that it starts with two different questions. And I think you're right that maybe these questions have come full circle and and maybe there's simplification that's needed. But um they start with two questions. One of and it goes back to that slide about what is our need and so one and so so actually all of these be this this need. So one is we need more moderate income housing. Right now there is no intentional uh uh specifically designated moderate income housing being built in the community. There may be projects that do fall into that and maybe housing that's offered at that but there's not something where someone says we are going to certify this and promise this to be moderate moderate income. So the question is how could we produce that? How could we get someone who's building you know 16 units of apartments would that is happening in the community but how could we get them to become a moderate income and so the thought is well if we offered an tax exemption that could be one tool that's we know we have that capability so we could offer that as moderate income housing following the the state enabling provisions that there's the rules about well it needs to be close to transit and we can do all that 10-year tax exemption so we can so that's how we can create um or maybe nudge projects that are being built, nudge them into moderate income, and then we can start addressing that that one need. The other question is how can we get more housing in the community? And if you look at our zoning code, I I think the the uh the most obvious place, the most flexible place for people to be building um housing is in C2 and C3. It's the most flexible, has no density uh limits. Um it's it's it's a huge opportunity for um for housing to be built. We did a little bit of number crunching on that and looked at over the last 10 years how much has been built. And if you take out affordable housing, which is its own specific thing, if you take out student housing,

and you um look at areas that are not already enabled by MUPY, we're seeing 24 housing units per year built over the last 10 years. And so if if um in C2 in C2 and C3 across the city and C2 C2 C2 is everywhere, you know, it's or not it's not everywhere, it's in all of the different parts of the city. You know, there's little pockets of C2.

So it's a citywide opportunity. Um now there are apartments being built there's multif family being built outside of C2. So that's that would be one reason not to do a blanket um exemption wherever possible. Um, but to say in our in our highly fertile ground, no one's choosing to go there. So, how could we incentivize that? So, I I hear what you're saying and in the 10 minutes that I've studied this problem, [laughter] it there's got to be a way to make it simpler.

And maybe it's just that I'm I'm thinking too much. Maybe that the idea is sound and everybody will get the idea, but then when we dig into the details, it starts to get a little more messy. It's like making the sausage. So that's that would be my advice [laughter] there. This might be a hard cell. Market rate said might be a hard cell.

I have is that we're talking about a toolbox that we have and our tool tools are limited by what the state offers us to be able to use. What a code that's on paper that we can theoretically change around the state laws if we went to go down that process. I haven't heard any conversation about having conversations with either real estate agents, finding people finance homes, developers because I can design a car that I think you want, but if I'm not talking to you to see, well, you want a car, then we have a little bit of a problem. So, I would think some of this conversation needs to come around to what do developers looking at the code, looking at what our toolboxes say this would get me to start swinging hammers in that category. History group includes

we've pretty actively been talking to folks in the housing arena inclusive of developers both market rate and affordable architects designers real estate um finance folks. So we have convened them a number of times kind of through the last year and a half two years of this process. Um we've asked them about exactly what you're saying like um what are the barriers in the code that we can reduce? what are some of the financial barriers? Um where are they most pressing? Um that's a lot of where we're getting the moderate income piece is that we know um there's interest and there's not a tool out there like there is for kind of below 60% affordable housing um or for market rate which might be able to kind of pencil without the subsidy. So that's it's part of that. Um certainly we talked about what um difference financial incentives can make with those groups. Um and I think similarly we've heard incentives help make them simple make them available in lots of places. Um so a lot of what you know we're hearing tonight too. I'd like to go back to um micro village housing. Um thinking about details and the reality of it, the way it's outlined, if the individual units don't have their own kitchenet, then your common facility needs to have something

and there's a million details there that are muddy. Mhm.

Who provides the cookware and who cleans it up and how is it managed and do people have to sign up for it? And so there either has to be a manager or again to keep it simple. Maybe you let these units have a kitchenet. Maybe there's common laundry facilities, but even that needs to be managed. So there there will always have to be involvement at some other level, a higher level. like the mobile home parks, you know, you have your own parking space, but then that common area has those nice showers and you know, um I've seen um the St. Vincent Depal shelter, you know, they have you seen their shelter in the huge warehouse? They have 78 tents inside there and it works beautifully, but their common area has oversight. Mhm.

And each individual has their privacy and their cot and their little space. Um, but it definitely is going to be an area that gets sticky. Yeah, it's a good flag and something we've been talking about. I think the from the land's perspective again it's whether do we require that as a minimum or is that something that the developer um themselves kind of opts into um and creates that management structure for themselves. It's how we do it for apartments or single room occupancies or other types of development right whoever is developing it um creates what that structure looks like. Uh

so um from a land use perspective really thinking about like is that something we want to require in the code? Can we even require it in the code? Um, but it's certainly something we've talked about. Um, and from the programmatic perspective, certainly something in in terms of would a potential a site potentially get support from the city, one of our funding mechanisms, that could be something that Thank you. Other questions?

I have a question about the um housing production incentive for the moderate income homes. Um, is there any economic analysis that you guys have done to see if a 10-year uh tax exemption can significantly offset, you know, the high cost of labor, land, you know, material, which I really think is really skyrocketing in the last few years. Mhm. Um studies to

we um just got a grant from the Department of Land Conservation and Development and so we're hoping to actually do a market study um using some of that funding. So we're kind of scoping out what that would look like right now. Um we did a comparable market study um in our most of our centers um these kind of C2 zoned areas across the city last year. Um, and so we have those results to lean on. That wasn't focused on the moderate income viability, but just generally different um types of multi-unit housing um and whether they would pencil um in these different areas of the city. So, it's something we want to do. Um we want to make sure, you know, a new incentive is going to help. Um, and we're in a really tough market and even a 10-year tax exemption might not help enough in some places and in some situations. So, is insurance costs going to be a factor in that too if you do a, you know, a market study?

I would think so. Maybe I factor it in in a market study for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know at that level of detail, but certainly all the kind of hard costs and soft costs that go into development.

Two quick things. Um maybe Leah, you can tell us the last time a project was built in downtown without subsidy. Probably will lean on my community partners. [laughter] 2000. Well, no, no, without subsidy. Oh, without subsidy. It was the 50s with subsidy. It's been been decade or more.

Yeah. So I think what I've learned is that it's pretty necessary to get you know anything. Uh but my comment really was I wanted to just say that generally I had a presentation at some housing conference or something and and the speaker had said if you want to see certain outcomes you have to make that easier to do than anything else. And so I'm just generally supportive of removing the barriers and you know I think that a lot of things when once you just do that even just like changing the where where STC's are charged and things like that. I mean obviously

um if you can get out of the way because I think the market there's a lot of people out there just wanting to to build housing for lots of different reasons. I think sometimes we know that it's financially infeasible. I mean, just the costs are so astronomical and all of the requirements and everything else, not just, you know, the city, but just it's really hard to build housing and so very supportive of just, you know, the track that you all are on. Great.

I have a question, Terry, about the build buildable lands inventory, which I think is on a schedule for 2026. It seems to me to be critical to inform a lot of what we're trying to do because we can't put any numbers to what we want to accomplish without that information.

Yeah. And the work has begun on the land supply studies and updating the buildable lands inventory. um part of the work with the parcel specific map. It's all kind of leading towards a better understanding of what each piece of land inside the urban growth boundary can be used for, how much can fit on it, and what we need to do to make up that deficit. So, there's a lot of math happening over the next year to quantify how many of those units can fit on our existing lands and then how many can't. Mhm.

Um and and we'll be bringing you some numbers for both for two kinds of things. If you remember the graphic with the different boxes. So we do the land inventory first. Then we figure out how to get more things inside the urban growth boundary efficiency measure type thing and then we look to outside the urban growth boundary. So it it's a little bit sequential but the background work has already begun.

Oh good. [laughter] I'll just add commissioner bailing that um part of why it probably feels a little bit out of order is because we are doing it a little bit out of order in because the state's writing um rules for how we do this work right now. So the state is updating the methodology basically for how to do that buildable lands inventory and those new rules will be adopted at the end of this year. And so we're trying to get some work done now while we're waiting on the rules being written, taking actions that we can now to reduce barriers and then we'll dive in full force into kind of the statemandated part of the work.

Great. Thank you. Interesting. Any other questions? All right. Are we ready to move on? Think so. Thank you to our community development staff for joining. Thank you very much.

Thank you all for your great work. We've truly, as I told Cherry, I think this has been a gargantuan effort on the part of all of you. Um, are there any items from commissioners? twice. Any items from staff. [laughter] Yay. I have a few things. It's good to see you all in person. It's been a couple of these virtual public hearings, so we always like seeing you in person. And on that note, the float room, which some of you have never met in

Yeah, it's more than painted. It's got new carpet. It's It's a nice remodel. We're waiting on some of the hearing system or the sound system and the doors um and able in order for us to be able to open meetings there, but very very very soon. So, I'm very excited about that. Um we'll keep you posted on so your next meeting is is November 18th. We're not sure exactly where that's going to be held whether it's virtual or or downstairs. So, we'll keep you posted um depending on if we have doors and sound. Um and that will be right now that's planned for deliberations for public health standards and for the east campus amendments. Um you have three meetings scheduled in December on the 2nd, 9th and the 16th. So we're taking all your early Tuesdays that month. Um on the second um some of you may remember that uh we are one of the communities that has a high percentage of severe of residents who um suffer from severe rent burden meaning they pay over a certain percentage of their income towards rent and we are required to hold a public meeting uh based on state requirements. They don't enable they require us to [laughter] hold a public meeting. And um so that meeting is going to be on the 2nd and we'll be having some of um our partners from community development to talk about housing in general. There are some things we have to do as part of that meeting, but we broaden it to to to be a little bit more comprehensive than what the state requires in that case. Um on the 9th is another update on urbos strategies and there'll be some other actions um that you'll get to do a little deeper dive into. And then on the 16th, we're looking at another quasi judicial public hearing uh on a I believe it's a plan amendment zone

change. Um so that will be again on the 16th. And then just for those of you who are interested in in urban growth strategies, I know you all are. Um but also voluntary annexations, both of those topics have a council work session on November 11th, which is council's 12th 12th. I read 11 on my notepad. 1112 is the date for that. So, urban grow strategies voluntary annexation and um we need to hold elections. So, I'm going to talk to a couple of you about that, but that will probably be at our the next meeting. So, December November 18th. November 18th.

Yeah, that's what I have. Thank you, Alyssa. Any other items or call this meeting closed? 7:12