Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

and welcome to the July 8, 2025 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 this evening, I'd like to call on Commissioner Edwards for the city's land acknowledgement statement. Great. Thank you. Since time in memorial, the Calipula people have been the indigenous stewards of our region, building dynamic communities, maintaining balance with 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, Palapolia people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government and forcibly removed to the coast reservation in western Oregon. As we consider the impacts of colonization, we also acknowledge the strength and resiliency of displaced indigenous people. The city of Eugene is built within the traditional homelands known as the Calapouia illegalia descendants are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ron community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of the Silots Indians, Oregon. They continue to make contributions in our communities here and across the land. 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 many generations who will come after us. Thank you, Commissioner Edwards. And thank you to everyone joining us in this well not virtual, but anyone who is joining us virtually. Today, our meeting will begin by welcoming our newest commissioner

and congratulate reappointments followed by public comment and then anformational work session on the city's comprehensive plan. 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 be also viewed by watching the live stream available on our website or the broadcast on Comcast channel 21. Before we begin public comment, we'd like to take a moment and welcome and congratulate two of our commissioners. As of July 1st, we welcome Kathleen Yang as our newest planning commissioner and congratulations to myself. on my reappoint to the planning commission. I'd like to give Commissioner Yang a few minutes to introduce herself to the planning commission. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening. It's nice to meet everyone in person. Uh I'm Kathleen Yang. Uh I've been a Eugene resident for the last 15 years. I um immigrated from China to the US at the age of 20. And then I spent the next 15 years. I live in the San Francisco Bay area. That's where I did my undergraduate work and that's where I received all my uh medical training. I don't have planning background. My background is in medicine. Uh more specifically, I'm a GUI oncologist with the uh Eugene Wamic Valley Cancer Institute. Uh so I mostly do surgery and chemo for women with reproductive um organ cancer. Uh I raised two kids here. um they're 17 uh and 19 and um I'm just excited to have the opportunity to participate. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Yang. We're

excited to have you on board. Next, we'll move on to public comments. 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 blue and 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 in the queue for public comment. Is anyone waiting? Yes. Um, so I'll go ahead and jump into my moderator script. Um, hello everyone. I'm Crystal Fischer. The planning commission has allowed a maximum of 10 minutes for the public comment this evening. Uh, to ensure that everyone has adequate opportunity to speak, each speaker will be limited to three minutes. Um, it looks like we only have one person, so I'm going to go ahead and, uh, allow you to speak here in a moment and start your time. Um, I'll let you know when there is 30 seconds remaining. Um, and then once your public comment is concluded, you will be muted. Um, I would like to point out too that the use of profanity is prohibited and any instances of profanity will result in immediate termination of speaking privileges. All right. So, uh, we have Greg Bryant here who would like to speak. I'm going to go ahead and allow you to talk. Um, you will have to unmute yourself and then, uh, your three minutes will begin once you start your comments. Uh, can everyone hear me?

Yes. All right. Uh, hi. I'm from the South University neighborhood. Uh, I'm joining the the Sunna board uh again this summer. Uh, our general concern uh in the South University neighborhood which is mostly um mostly still owner occupied except for around the uh the R3 edges uh is that we will in the future not be a owner occupied neighborhood anymore. were mostly worried about turning into West University neighborhood. I moved to Eugene in 1973 into the West University neighborhood and it was almost all owner owner occupied. Um there were people had, you know, students living upstairs and in ADU like things out back and there were certainly a couple, you know, apartment little apartment things scattered around and things in alleyways and whatnot, but um but it was mostly an owner occupied neighborhood. And I um I I saw that um degrade and uh actually there's a new uh bill in the House to try to um uh improve owner occupancy in neighborhoods and that's um uh a uh a goal, one of the uh goals of House Bill 2698 um which kind of works a little bit against the the the the rather rough treatment that neighborhoods are getting uh from HP2 2001 uh which has a tend first of all is sort of shifting ownership to rentals because what happens is you owners you know maybe leave they get bought out by um speculators and of course a a rental is built um and so uh this is concerning to us that that this isn't considered an issue um to uh the planners in Eugene although I I I actually don't know that it isn't an issue for anybody. Um so there there are definitely people who may be considering this as something

that they need to look at uh at the permit level for example. Um but uh the other thing that we wanted that we've discovered in our research at Sunna is um that affordability is is really um hurt by the building of market rate housing in Eugene. Uh this isn't just Eugene. This is a a global problem, but the United States problem uh is is a price fixing and a vacancy fixing scheme. So, uh we went online to Real Page this uh this year during the school year. It's different during the summer. There were 14,000 investment grade units in Real Page and uh a thousand of them were vacant. The scarcity was increased in order to raise the rents and continue testing the raising of rents. So we're worried about the fact that building all ruining neighborhoods by building increasing amounts of uh rental housing is uh not going to have any effect on affordability while there is still a monopolizing effect of this uh on the entire uh invest on the entire rental uh market in Eugene and I'm wondering if okay sorry I'm I I hear someone saying something we have reached three minutes but you Okay. All right. Well, that's enough, I think, for for for now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Greg. Feel free to contact staff if there are comments you were not able to provide or you wish to get to us in a different manner. Thank you. And no further? No, that was the only one we had. I will now close public comment. Do any of members of the commission want to respond to public comment? Moving on to our next agenda item, I'd like to turn it over to Rebecca Gersho

to begin the staff presentation. Following the staff presentation, the commission will have the opportunity to ask questions and provide input. Thank you, Madame Chairwoman and planning commissioners. I'm Rebecca Gersau. I'm a senior planner in our community planning and design section. And I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to kick off a presentation. Oh, let's see. Commissioner Isacson, can you see the screen? Okay. Great. So, I'm going to kick off our presentation. We are talking to you tonight about our comprehensive planning work. Um the goals and policies that we have been working on for over a year now. Um and we're going to focus on two chapters on community health and on land use. So these are two of the chapters that we haven't yet brought to you. Um, so we're breaking up our presentation into two parts. So, I'm going to provide a little bit of background on our comprehensive planning work and then Stuart is going to talk about our community health goals and policies and then Thea and Heather are going to talk about our land use goals and policies and our draft land use designation map and we're going to break for discussion in between the two pieces. Great. So our um comprehensive planning work is

part of our urban growth strategies work which is um our broader work that is underway which you have heard presentations about. And not only does it help support our urban growth strategies work, this these policies, but it also advances many of our citywide priorities and they're included in the plans on the screen. Some of these plans, there are others such as the housing implementation pipeline, our climate action plan, our park and recreation system plan, and our city's strategic plan. So, a little bit of background on the comprehensive plan. Um, historically, Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County have shared a regional comprehensive plan for the metro area known as the metro plan. And due to legislative direction, in 2007, Eugene and Springfield have been developing our own comprehensive plans to provide land use policy direction within our separate urban growth boundaries. Because of the work involved in moving from one comprehensive plan to another, we're developing ours in three phases. The first phase was adopted with Eugene's urban growth boundary in 2017. The second phase is underway now and the final two chapters will be the last phase. They will be on resilience and natural resources and they will be completed in the future when funding works. So the comprehensive plan is the city's roadmap. It guides us in our planning for the land within our urban group. It's informed by years of community engagement starting with Envision Eugene which produced our community vision and

updated with our recent urban growth strategy engagement work. Each chapter in the comp plan has a series of goals that articulate the community's overarching aspirations and it also contains policies for each chapter which we will share with you tonight. These policies inform how Eugene grows in the future. So once adopted, the comprehensive plan guides the work of city staff and all of our land use planning, including work like updating development regulations, long range planning projects, community engagement plans, and prioritizing projects for so phase two of our work with this is the work that's underway now. They cover community engagement, compact development and urban design, housing, community health, public facilities and services, and land use plus our land use designation map. Excuse me. Um, this map is replacing the metrop plan diagram. is going to talk about that within Eugene within excuse me within the area of Eugene's Irving growth boundary excuse me. So um we shared that work with you last December. Um so we're going to share an update on it tonight. We've also been receiving input on the first drafts of the goals and policies of these first three chapters here. Um, including from the planning commission. Um, you provided input on these chapters in February and just a couple weeks ago in June. Um, but we've included all of

the chapters in your AIS, so we welcome any input or questions on any of it. Tonight, um, like I said, we're focusing on chapter five, community health, and chapter 11, land use. And then the last one we have to bring to you is our public facilities and services chapter, which we will hopefully bring to you later in the summer or in the fall after our first round of legal review. So, we shared some of this at our last meeting, but it's important work and so I wanted to share it again. We've continued to engage with the community on our draft goals and policies using both broad reaching and focus strategies. So some of the work underway in 2025, it was work with a community advisory panel composed of members of underserved communities to center their voices in the outcomes of our project work. We attended a series of meetings with the youth advisory council to better understand the needs and priorities of young people in Egypt. We facilitated two meetings with a working group of housing providers, architects, and advocates. And we've also worked with the s sustainability commission and active transportation committee to include their work in our project. So lastly, we've been getting out in the community presenting on urban growth strategies and comprehensive plan policies at events like the annual neighborhood conference and tableabling at we are BETHL Junth Pride and other activities which will continue over the summer. So, we've taken that work and that input that we're receiving from groups and folks, and this summer, we're going to

be refining our policies and actions, which we will then bring to you and to council in the fall with um with our actions to initiate the adoption package for 2026. Usually we share this next step slide at the end, but I'm just kind of shaking things up and moving. See if you're um so the adoption package that we are putting together includes significant other work uh namely the actions that we have talked to you about with surrounding housing and jobs. Um but these are the comprehensive plan chapters that we are um including in the adoption package. So by mid2026 we will be asking the planning commission to make a recommendation to council for the first five chapters. Excuse me. In 2027, part of our adoption package, we will be coming back with our public facilities and services chapter and our public facilities plan. At that time, it will also include the land supply studies that we're working on for jobs and for housing. And that will be included as appendices to the comprehensive plan. So, that's how the work that we'll be talking about tonight will fit in our adoption packages. And with that, hand it over to Stuart. All right, there it goes. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Stuart Warren. I'm an associate planner in the community planning and designing team. It's great to be back with you again tonight, and I just want to say welcome to Commissioner Yang. We're

excited to have you on board. Um, I get to discuss the community health chapter with you this evening. If you want to follow along with me, this is attachment A in your AIS. Um, and I want to just highlight that I'm only going to highlight a few of the policies for you and mostly focus on policies that we heard were important to the community through a lot of our community engagement events tonight. The community health chapter, the Envision Eugene comprehensive plan, has three draft coal goals and 22 policies. It guides the city's efforts when planning for future growth and development that provides a healthy natural and built environment, enhances equitable access and opportunity, and fosters community safety and belonging. The first draft goal is titled healthy, natural, and built environment. And I just want to highlight that in our meeting with our community advisory panel, we heard a bit about how the city needs to help connect people to the land. And so we're hoping that we're hoping that this goal kind of maintains some of that sentiment from our community advisory panel. The goal is to provide a healthy natural and built environment throughout Eugene so community members can have access to clean air and water, experience nature in their daily lives, and live in places that are protected from environmental contamination. Under this draft goal, there are currently nine draft policies that help attain the goal of a healthy natural and built environment. A few draft policies I'll highlight for you are 5.1 environmental justice. This policy provides for the fair treatment of all people with the development, implementation, and enforcement of local environmental laws, regulations, and policies. There's also a policy in this section called separation abuses. That's policy 5.2. And this policy uh is is really responsive to a lot of the current community concern about people living

near industrial areas. And so this policy seeks to avoid that in the future. It calls for the city to avoid future land uses so that industrial and residential designations are not adjacent to each other. And I want to highlight that this policy will not change what's currently on the ground, only that it will avoid that issue in the future. And the last policy in this section I'll highlight with you is titled local regulatory tools and it's policy 5.3 and it direct staff to consider the potential adverse environmental impacts of new industrial and major transportation facilities on surrounding residences and businesses. The next draft goal is titled equitable access and opportunity and the goal is to enhance opportunities for all community members to improve their quality of life through access to affordable and safe housing, food, employment, and public facilities and services. Under this draft goal, there are currently six draft policies. And a few of the draft policies include topics such as 5.11 accessible built environment. This policy is intended to enhance the pedestrian experience throughout Eugene for all users including people with disabilities. 512 child care and early childhood childhood learning direct staff to work to increase safe, affordable, and accessible child care facilities through a variety of actions. And the last policy in this section I want to highlight is titled access to social services and health care. And that's policy 5.13. With the recent closure of Eugene's only hospital, there's been a lot of community concern about access to health care. And this policy directs city staff to coordinate with public and nonprofit agency partners to enhance equitable access to social services and health

care by encouraging the collocation and sighting when planning for centers. The final draft goal in this chapter of community safety and belonging. And the goal is to foster a safe and inclusive city where all people including those from underserved community groups feel a sense of safety, connection, and belonging. This draft goal currently has four draft policies. gathering places and social connectedness encourages the design and welcoming the design of welcoming and safe gathering spaces for flexible use. This policy is in response to input we've received from the community advisory panel and the youth advisory council about the lack of culturally specific gathering places and spaces for young people. 5.21 21 removing barriers to citing emergency shelters for people experiencing homelessness and sheltering related to natural disasters and 5.22 clean safe neighborhoods policy which encourages urban design practices that incorporate crime prevention techniques. Like our last meeting, we have some discussion questions for you that we think would be helpful for our process. But before we jump in the discussion, I want to pause for clarifying questions and turn it back over to the chair. Okay. So, we want to know if anybody has any questions. I have a question. So, this is a broad question. I'm not I haven't memorized the metro plan. Not even that aware, but it would be helpful if we could have a sideby-side comparison. this is what the metro plan said and this is what we're doing. So we can see where we're not doing

things but we're doing more things. There's some way that I can say oh we got to get it to understand how this works. Thank you for that feedback. So that's just the general. The other the only other comment would be in that process you could mark the parts that are required by state law and then parts that were just kind of and I presume there are some some are required but some just good practice. Yeah. for community health for this chapter specifically less requirements more good practice and I'll tell you quick the quick take which I just thought about it right now so it could be a little bit off but the quick take is that 5.2 through 5 not 5.2 I do that separation of uses but the regulatory conversation about local regulatory tools 5.3 5.4 local air water quality and noise standards and 5.5 coordination with regulatory agencies. Those are all based on metro plan policies. They're slightly adjusted and updated for Eugene. Um, but we made sure to not lessen any of the regulatory policies that were in the metro plan for those. But many of these policies, most of the policies in here are new and are not included in metro plan for this chapter specific. I'm sorry. Most of them are are new. Most of them are new. Yeah. and are not included in the metro land this chapter.

That is not true of the land use chapter and we can we can follow up. I um reading this I thought that um I have some questions about if we have specific health outcome metrics or markers that we can track and measure. So, for example, 5.3, it looks like we acknowledge that there's external environmental impacts, but we don't specifically name them. Um, and we don't have a good way to measure those impacts, and we don't have a way to measure if our policies or repatory tools are effective. And from a separate email from Ree Verer about the public health standard, uh he mentioned that there's ongoing hazard and risk assessment um project that's in progress. So perhaps some of the metrics or markers can come from that project. So I'm thinking but that's one thing I thought about and the other thing I thought about is regarding 5.6 5.8 85.9. Uh, I know that certain areas um in Eugene um are more quote unquote desperately needed to have access to parks and and you know uh neighborhood business and such. Um, and I wonder if the city has a way to prioritize those areas like Bethl or Santa Clara so that the benefits can be maximized for those uh communities. Um, all right. Do you want to respond to any of that now or get more questions?

Yeah, more questions. That's great input and and you're right. We don't have measurable tools for a lot of um for a lot of this work. Um and there is a way for the city this this park and recreation planning one talking about equitable provision of parks and recreation is in coordination with our parks and recreation division. And so there is agreement citywide that it makes sense for you know prioritizing equitable provision and making that part of the decision making process for folks. So thank you. Thank you. Um, I just kind of I kind of want to tack a little bit on to something that Commission mentioned, but also I don't know if it's a question so much as it's just like um in thinking about the um hold on back to the the environmental justice components and things such as that. I'm just kind of curious what I love the idea of like connecting things to metrics and kind of understanding the cause and effect um components of things because I think sometimes we jump to make assumptions about like land use and close proximity to things. But there are other factors to consider that when you have um people of different socioeconomics in certain areas concentrated, there are other reasons that sometimes could point to, you know, a life expectancy for example. And so I like the idea of data helping to drive the these decisions, but also in thinking about how oftentimes, you know, I'm going to use uh transit for example, right? So we have uh busier, more congested roadways that that obviously generate more emissions and with that though come a lot more density of housing and a lot more low-income folks who need to access the transit that goes on those. And so it's

sometimes it's like a trade-off where like we need those folks to have the access to their resources that they need, but that puts them in this place where, you know, you could claim that that's not social equity and environmental justice. And so I guess I'm just curious about how you all as planners are looking at trying to resolve that because it to me it just see seems like it's like well you kind of have to pick which one and and especially with policies and land use designations and all that. So anyway, it's kind of I'm sort of one, but I just like it's something that I think about a lot and I you just never know how you'd reconcile that. Are other communities doing something differently that we aren't or what? Thank you. Thank you. I also have questions about equitable access. was mentioned in several different um policies and I'm sure equal access equitable access to shade will be very different than equitable access to arts and I believe it all could use a greater explanation or definition. Um in several places you've mentioned barriers and I imagine it's another thing where the barriers are different given the different topic but for example for social equity acknowledging and striving to eliminate barriers to inclusion and integration. You know what are those barriers? Where are they? And are they regulatory or related to fees or process or you know all of the above? That's a question I have.

C can I respond to something? It's kind of related and this is not part of the community health um but as you know growth monitoring is um in my wheelhouse and I'll just mention that one of the things that we did in growth monitoring is that we took the studies that we had developed and the policies that we had adopted and then figured out what metrics we needed to measure for that outcome. So in my mind it makes sense that we haven't identified the metrics yet because that's kind of a next step. Um you're kind of saying what the policies are and then um and then what is the question you're trying to answer and then that helps you narrow in on the metrics that you want to measure. So I just wanted to mention that that was kind of how we did it with um you know the housing and the jobs metrics and um those kinds of things. So in case that's helpful and I like that response because a lot of times it's convenient if you you pinpoint decided on the metric but a lot of the um you know metrics may not be easily collectible right it may not have enough historic data it may not be updated annually so you can go by that right so it makes sense to me um but I also just didn't want to have you know community outreach uh meetings where people um draw their own experience, anecdotal experience and then become emotional and it's a little it's colder but it's also easier sometimes when you just speak to data. Thank you. Do you want do you want to I have a piece of a response to your barriers question. Sure. So, do are we moving into

discussion about the chapter since you said you wanted questions first, but if we're open to comment and discussion, I I think we could do that. I just want to have one quick question. Um, the metrics I and Heather, I hear you. The only thing I would say is if we don't know what problem we're solving for to be able to identify what we need to measure. That's the only reason I would say like how would we know that there's you know what what are we trying to what's the problem we're trying to solve? And unless we understand the the data or the problem I guess that be where it's like well how how is how is this tool the one we're choosing to fix that or whatnot. I guess that be my only need. What is the extent of it? Yeah. I mean like we don't know what the problem is or we're making assumptions that the problem is this but we don't actually have the data to support that then that to me that's why where I would like to see commissioner is that a comment or a question? So I'm sorry are we questions and then what are we doing next after questions? Well I I think we're addressing Did you want to have a discussion? I thought we should discuss this chapter then and respond and you were going to say something about the barriers about the barriers. Sorry. It's sort of an overarching um issue uh highlight about the policies is that you know we have written them in a way that they are general enough so that they can provide guidance. Hopefully specific enough so that they um

so that they are meaningful, but not so specific that because we can't anticipate all of the actions that are going to come from these policies in the future. We want them to be able to last through time, at least the next eight years until we update the comp plan again. Um, so there's a balance. So when we talk about barriers, we we um we've tried to scrutinize the wording in the policies so that we can um not anticipate that we know what all the barriers, for example, are right now, but also not be so general that it's a meaningless policy. So, it's helpful to know where there are things that could be tweaked and made more specific, knowing that we want them also to to retain a somewhat general nature so that they can help guide us in our overarching. That's just a little bit of background on what we've been doing. When we did the other chapters last month, you provided housing actions under consideration, right? And 10 of them and those were kind of addressing barriers. Exactly. And there perhaps could be some of that just to illuminate those of us who aren't familiar with what you're dealing with or what these are addressing. Got it. Okay. Thank you. And um I'd like to comment about the chapter. I think this is um critical work if not the critical work of the city to improve the quality of life for its residents.

My one of my concerns about the chapter is the goals are very broad and beautiful, but they refer to all community members. And if a lot of the policies will only be going forward from here on, then there are large swaths of the population that will not receive any medication or benefit. for example, that adjacency adjacency of residential and heavy industrial that's existing now in the JH Baxter side and all the Bethl neighborhood around there. Um, so I'm having difficulty reconciling that for myself. I I love the goal of making life better for all community members, but I believe there are a lot of barriers to that. Oh, Commissioner Isacson, thank you. Commissioner's response. Um and in and that also some of the other work that we've done in the past where so much of our work is talking about how do we get people to into housing that are moving here and so little of the time we talk about what are they moving here for and how can we keep that at the same time that we're adding more people and how does it change. So this is one of the nice ways of of kind of meeting that. I I I'm going to trust that there's a there's a north star here. it doesn't it doesn't feel like there kind of is kind of back to what Commissioner Edwards was saying that that we're we're kind of casting a wide net and seeing where um the priorities lie over the next eight years and drafting kind of goals and metrics to meet those. Um but in the

meantime um I think it's fantastic work. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Isacson. Other comment? Yes. May I respond to that really quick? Pardon me. May I respond to that really quick? Absolutely. So, u just want to point out a couple things about how this chapter was developed. Um, one thing that we haven't talked about is that we relied heavily on Lane County's community health plan to pull out a lot of these priorities. So, these are things that they have have been measuring and they're aware of and they're hoping to make progress on. So, we have some collaboration happening with them. In fact, we just met with them last week to discuss these goals and policies and they gave us some direct feedback on those too. So, we'll be refining uh these goals and policies as a result of their input. Um, and the next thing I want to say is a lot of these the other policies that aren't directly related to the community health plan are things that we've heard directly from the community are important to them. So just to bring that full circle back to how we drafted these goals and policies, these are things that we're hearing from the community come out of the Envision Eugene community vision or things that we've heard directly from like our community advisory panel or the youth advisory council. Thank you. I just want to quickly um comment on 5.19 and 5.22 uh with the focus on safe neighborhoods and gathering places especially for young people you know out of the youth advisory council. Um it looks like there's a lot of focus on crime prevention. Um can we consider adding maybe um alcohol availability, alcohol outlet density? Uh I this is a college town and high school kids and you know alcohol is a very common drug you know so if we can um have some language about that I think that would be helpful uh in terms of state neighborhood.

Um and then 5.21 21 talk about um locating and citing emergency shelters for uh people experiencing homelessness. I want to say that um in addition to homelessness, you know, a lot of these people suffer mental health problems, substance use disorders. And so beside I think it goes beyond locating and sighting. If we have a way to help uh facilitate their transition into social services, it would decrease their frequency to become frequent flyers or emergency shelters. with um this policy as well as most of our policies we have to balance what is where the land use nexus is um so meaning what can planning do what can what what can we what's our role here with this um community health related policy. So we know that um that there is a barrier in terms of citing emergency shelters. There may also be a way and we may have some policies. I'll have to look in our housing chapter about transitional housing. I know we do, but I have to look at the exact wording. So Oh, Stuart has the exact wording. You can hear that. Um, so yes, thank you for that. And if you see things that look um like they're missing pieces of it, it may be because it's less that land use connection, but it's very good for us to think about it and think about whether there is a piece that we as

planners can do related to that. And just to to add on to that, we do have policy in our housing chapter that's more closely related to like collocation of both housing and supportive services. Um so just want to make sure that you do have access to that. Um if we haven't sent it to you already, we can. And it's also on our website so you can I want to admit that I did not think of it in the context of land use or planning. Right. No, that makes sense. We do this. This is this is the conversation we have on different things. Other comment questions about this chapter. I have two I have two two more things. One of them is is general if you look at 514 and it follows up on Commissioner Edwards and others about what is the problem we're trying to solve. And I wonder when I read these things if we didn't just flip the structure of the sentences. So 514 you would say a community social and economic well-being is dependent on integration of access to arts culture and recreation. Therefore, when planning for new and underside of for new and underserved neighborhoods, be sure not to screw up the language, but you get my point. But if you can describe that problem in a way that starts with the problem, and I think what what you see if you try to do that is you get to 515 and you go, what is the problem you're trying to solve in 550? Historic preservation does not often include voices and lived experiences of underserved. Is that the problem? So therefore, otherwise it sounds like, you know, if you work on building standards, the custodian group doesn't like small tiles. So you just say no more small tiles and no one ever understands why that is. So here, this is an example of that. It's like, well, oh, you know enough about it. You know why it's here, but if you take it out of country, you don't

understand what that's about. So by restating the problem in a way that everybody can understand. Oh, I get it. only informed knowledgeable people that are involved in in historic preservation. We should be sure that others are brought in as well. I think that that then goes to my very specific comment which is electric vehicle charging stations given the same weight as child care. Um, and these are very different things. And I wonder if we're really talking about access to modes of transportation. It's not just electric vehicle charging stations. It's bicycle parking. It's uh carpool. It's riding the bus. It's walking. This just happens to come to the top because it's a current thing that we're all concerned about. But I think if you rephrase it into how do we create a transportation system where people have choices according to their means. Therefore, be sure you include bikes, you know, go down the road and you got everything in there. Otherwise, when you put out by itself, again, you're looking at the small town going, why why can't we have small tiles? Those are comments. And I believe 5.9 discusses transportation chapter. Yeah. Chair may respond. Um, thank you for that feedback. Super helpful. We have transportation policies kind of spread throughout the complex land. In particular, we have the transportation system plan is our transportation chapter of the comprehensive plan. So, there's much more specifics about um all modes of transportation there. And you will also find them spread throughout

all of our new chapters as well because it's pretty hard for us as planners to to contemplate land use without thinking about the transportation connection. And chapter two, our compact development urban design chapter really relies heavily on that connection. So in that chapter you'll see more policies about um the types of transportation modes to be planning for in places like centers along key corridors these places where we expect to see uh or we would like to see additional growth in the development occurred in the future. Thank you. Yeah. So in that case I think it even more highlights if you like to call out standard mods of transportation. I've got a General, please. This kind of occurred to me when we were I was going through these and I I think it kind of applies. I haven't really looked back on the Everson. It might kind of apply a bit. I um when I look at the policies here under community health, there's a number of them. I'm I found myself kind of caught up in some of the words of uh promote and consider and uh strive and things like that. And I found myself I'm I'm looking at 5.16 as an example, access to food options. It says promote equitable access. And I noted there, how about if we prioritize equitable access? And I I found myself I guess I'm wanting to I I appreciate the discussion about the general versus the specific and trying to find the right balance there, but I'm I you know when I kind of look back and I think about where we are right now um in 2025 and you you said we're going to I guess we update these maybe every eight

years. state law now we need to evaluate our urban growth boundary every eight years. Okay. Yeah. And I it it just seemed to me I guess my my point that kind of crosses over a lot of this. We're we're in a situation maybe with this incredible need for housing and we seem to be falling back every year. I know we're working on that but it it seems to not be improving. Um, and I I guess I I'm wondering about going through this with an eye on trying to put a bit more edge into all of this. a bit more of a sense of urgency, a bit more of a sense of this is where we are right now, which is we're really trying to turn the corner on this whole issue of and I'm particularly focused on housing, which I think a lot of people are, but um you know, so I guess it's again kind of a general comment, but it I find it all the way through this I find myself wanting to uh I guess it's word smithing, but have some kind of editing being done where you really kind of tighten these down and I call that I guess putting a little edge on them or the sense of urgency. Yeah. To come. Thank you. Thank you. For me that's related to having more detailed more explanation, right? More description of what are barriers and what's equitable access even. Yeah. In these different areas. I have one piece to add. So, excuse me. So, what these are are our preliminary goals and policies. What we're going to bring back to you in the fall is the full context of the chapter with introductions that will provide more of that

background, who we worked with, what other plans we um used to inspire this work. uh previous work, the contexts and some of that um additional information hopefully will I mean it's all urgent so right so I I completely um I completely understand that so maybe our introductions won't feed your urgency need maybe that is more in how we craft the goals and policies but it will create more context and background on each of these chapters. So hopefully it'll give you a little bit more. Commissioner Isacson, I promise I won't keep bugging you with questions. Um I love that we're talking about mental health that that has always been near and dear to my heart and I'm just wondering if we I know that we're talking to a lot of experts. We're talking to the community. Is there a the kind of the intersection between urban planning and mental health? Um you know one one comes to mind is is uh Dr. Mindy Fov of Columbombia who's had a lot of um good research on the topic. Is there any plans to incorporate folks that way into what our goals are ultimately looking at with the mental health aspect in terms of a lens um in terms of our urban planning um being added as an expert to give us some guidance in terms of how we can incorporate that lens. Uh, thank you, Commissioner Isacson. We're Stuart and I were just talking because that's one of the things that we heard from um our Lane County public health colleagues when we met with them. Um they're interested very much in this

connection with public health and land use and express to us their desire to like we have an equity lens or how we're looking at things with equity in mind. Um they're very interested in this concept of a public health lens and they have this or they have tried to institute this with the board of commissioners that one of the things folks have to do when they go and and present to the board like we're presenting to you tonight is talk about the health impacts of their work. Um, so we didn't speak specifically about mental health. Um, but mental health is definitely a key component and um, it's something that we'll be thinking about a little bit more. Thank you. I I' I'd love to see that lens attached to even some of our work when it comes to room planning. I think that that would help. It's a common denominator that affects everyone equally and it doesn't get talked about enough and and I think it's one something that if we started to do it it would free up a lot of the things that we are addressing in the rest of public health. Other comments or questions back to you. Great. Thank you so much. We are going to add it up. I can advance. Would you like me to advance? There we go. Okay, great. I'll try the next one and see if it works. Um, so good evening. Um, now we're going to shift gears a little bit, although even more talking about land use. Um, but I'm Heather

O'Donnell and this is Thea Evans and we'll be providing an overview of the chapter 11 land use chapter. This chapter is a little bit more technical than the other um comprehensive plan chapters that you've reviewed so far. Um, and it includes the policies relating to the new land use designation map that Rebecca mentioned um, you got an overview on last year. So, if you want to follow along on chapter 11, it's attachment B of your packet. Yes. All right. So, the land use chapter lays out the goals and policies for Eugene's land use designations and designation map for the urban growth boundary and for urban reserves. These policies help to guide land inside Eugene's urban growth boundary towards eventual annexation into city limits and future urbanization. The map on this slide is a map of Eugene's urban growth boundary which is shown in solid black outline with the area inside the urban growth boundary being white. This boundary was adopted in this chapter in 2017. So, chapter 11 is formatted a little bit differently than the other comp plan comprehensive plan chapters. The actions are listed as one group rather than separated out under each goal. There's a lot of crossover. Um, it also, as I mentioned, already has some currently adopted components that were adopted in 2017 and 2023. So, these include a policy, as I mentioned, establishing Eugene's urban

growth boundary and the official map, which I showed on the previous slide. Uh, this policy and map were adopted as part of phase one of the comprehensive plan. Eugene's urban growth boundary identified the land that was anticipated to be needed by Eugene's growing population over a specific period of time which at that time in 2017 was anticipated to accommodate growth through 2032. Chapter 11 also already has a policy establishing Eugene's urban reserve and its official map which is shown on this slide with urban reserve areas in orange. When the city's future land needs have outgrown the current urban growth boundary, Eugene's urban reserves, those orange areas are the areas that will be prioritized for future urban expansion. This map was adopted as part of this chapter in 2023. So before we jump into the new draft goals and policies for this chapter, I want to provide a bit of an overview overview about what land use designations are since they're kind of the biggest component of this chapter. Land use designations categorize land within the urban growth boundary based on their general uses. So like residential, commercial, and industrial. And this categorization is based on a long-term vision and guided by policies that are in the comprehensive plan. designations provide general guidance on the density, the character, and the location of land uses throughout the UGB. Most people are actually more familiar

with Eugene's zoning map, which cate categorizes land into various land use zones. Different from the more generalized designations, zoning is very detailed. um zoning rules uh are included in the city's land use zoning code indicating what specific uses are allowed in each zone and the specific standards for how a property can develop. So those are things like building setbacks, um building height, landscaping requirements, all of those development standards. The two maps designation map and the zoning map are related with zoning regulating development that happens today by implementing and following the guidance of the designation map and the policies that we're talking about. Designations are something that's considered during review of land use applications that involve policy level decisions. whereas zoning standards are considered at the time of building permit review. So just to give a couple of examples of the differences there. So we're focusing right now on land use designations. So now moving on to the new draft goals and policies for chapter 11. The first goal is on strategic and equitable growth. The goal language is Promote the efficient use of land inside the urban growth boundary with strategic and equitable boundary expansion when needed to accommodate when needed to accommodate all types of land needs for at least 20 years. Plan for the orderly and efficient conversion of land from

rural to urban uses in response to urban needs. There are several policies related to this goal that I'm not going to go through um but are related to issues such as assigning land use designations at the time of an urban growth boundary expansion and allowing agricultural zoning to be used as a placeholder until land is reszoned for urbanization. The second draft goal is on clear process. This goal is to provide clarity for property owners, community members, staff, and stakeholders regarding land use and growth management processes to foster a stable and predictable environment for sustainable growth and development. There are a few draft policies specifically related to this goal that we want to highlight. The first is a policy describing residential density ranges. So, this policy is is a currently adopted policy in the metro plan and staff felt that it was important to move that policy over into our new comprehensive plan to help provide more clarity between the different types of residential designations. This policy establishes density ranges for housing in low, medium, and high density residential land use designations. Density in these ranges is measured by the number of residential dwellings or units over a net acre of land. And so, um, I'm going to dive into some details a little bit here. Um, so I want to mention that although these density ranges may look a little bit different

than the ranges in the metrop plan policy, if you did go back and look at that policy, um, they're actually the same as what's in the metrop plan, just expressed a little bit differently. So the difference is in the acres that are used for this calculation. Um, net density is the number of dwelling units per acre of land. that excludes things like roads. So that's the net part. Whereas the metrop plan policy is expressed in gross density. So it's the number of um units over the total acres of land. So it includes roads. And so we made the calculation to um translate it to net density. We made this shift to provide more consistency with the zoning code because the zoning code also expresses density in net density um allowable density ranges. So it's just makes it more consistent um for people to understand what we what is allowed in those designations. And I will pass it to them. Hi, I'm Thea Evans. Um, and I'm going to continue on with the second set of policies relating to the clear process goal and I'll highlight the land use designations and zoning components of those. So first of all, having a Eugene specific land use map with designations at the lot level is the first big step in our phased approach to creating Eugene's land use designation map. For decades, Eugene and Springfield used the Eugene Springfield Metro Plans land use diagram, which is shown here, which we also refer to as the blob map. Um, it's valid only at an 11 by7 inch scale, so it's not zoomable and it makes it really difficult to tell exactly

where one designation ends and another one begins. Also, this paper map hasn't been updated since 2004, so it doesn't show the 35 metro plan diagram amendments that have been passed since then. Springfield has now completed and adopted their own land use map. We've been able to learn from them and are taking a similar approach. Phase one of this project was to make a version of the designation map specific to the parcel or lot level. For example, the metrop plan diagram image on the left. Uh the dashed urban growth boundary line is going right over the top of properties and there's two designations adjacent to each other. Now, the draft land use map image on the right provides more clarity about how land can be developed in the future, as well as making it easier to monitor our buildable land supply and development trends. As expected, it took quite a lot of time to clarify all plan designation boundaries within the urban growth boundary. Um, and we did so using the most detailed source possible, starting first with applying the land use designation specified in an approved metrop plan amending ordinance or land use application for the property. Second, we applied the land use designation shown in the land use map or described in the text of the neighborhood refinement plan. And finally, we applied the land use designation as shown in the metrop plan diagram if no other more specific sources were available. Uh so policies 11.7 and 11.8 help guide the next phases of the land use map work. First, as an interim step, policy 11.7 is in response to some inconsistencies that are now visible on the new draft designation map regarding

how some residential land is designated versus how it's zoned. This policy says in those few cases, those properties may develop based on their zone without having to change their designation. For instance, a property that is designated medium density residential but zoned R3 limited high density could develop according to the R3 densities. Policy 11.7 creates clarity for property owners while also creating space for staff to do the next significant bulk of work which is covered in policy 11.8. This policy directs the city to better align the land use designation and zoning maps through a zone, land use code, or land use designation change when necessary. This will require additional research, engagement, and future amendments to property zoning, property designations, and/or the land use code. The third and final draft goal of chapter 11 is titled land use designations. The goal is to define and regulate land use designations within Eugene's urban growth boundary as shown on the land use designation map to promote orderly development, protect natural resources, and guide future growth. Encourage a land use pattern that fosters a mutually supportive arrangement of jobs, housing, institutions, open space, and park and recreational uses. Chapter 11 also includes the creation of the Eugene specific land use designation map and necessary policies including 11.2 land use designation map. This policy once adopted will make the land use designation map the official designation map for Eugene. There are also other policies related to the map including how to handle public ways and railroad rights of way and how

to make administrative adjustments to keep the map up to date. If you'd like to see the map and learn more about the modernization process, you can view our story map online available at the link on the slide. Most of the land use designations in this chapter are very similar to the ones in the currently adopted metro plan, but there are a few slight changes and one new designation overlay. Our team removed designations that were referenced but not shown on the currently adopted metrop plan diagram. That includes neighborhood commercial, strip or street oriented commercial facilities and small-scale light industri industry designations. STEP also conducted cleanups on the employment and industrial designations, including collapsing one property that was designated special heavy industrial into the heavy industrial designation. renamed campus industrial to campus employment and renamed light medium industrial to light medium industrial and employment. Lastly, we are adding a new climate friendly overlay designation. This overlay meets new state requirements for planning areas with the highest density of housing, jobs, and services with high quality infrastructure for people who walk, bike, and take the bus. And now we'll open it up to clarifying questions. Thank you. Thank you both. I wonder if you could explain a bit of the process of actually assigning a land use designation. Does that live with the planning department or have to get approved by

city council? Um assigning a designation and changing a designation. So we started with the map and the goal was to keep that metrop plan diagram and just move it into something that was more modern. Mhm. So, we weren't changing anything. Um, we did do a lot of research because there were a couple of mistakes on it. Um, and it was 21 years old. So, um, there had been some changes with those metro planing ordinances that we wanted to reflect. Um, but really we did a lot of research and we documented all of it so that we can go back and refer to it later. So what was the source of those original designations though? How did that do we know? Um so a lot of them were um like land use applications that had been approved. So if there is a zone change that someone is applying for, they have to consider the underlying land use designation to make sure that it's compatible. And so we went back to many of those and we looked up the details from the application and the approval process uh where it clarified exactly what the land use designation was for that particular property or set of properties. And just to tack on to that um the metro plan was originally adopted in the early 80s and it had a land use diagram in it. So a lot of these have been pulled forward for 40 plus years. But you know in some cases it's based on it was already a residential area a low density residential area or a commercial area. So there's probably a variety of sources. Others other cases it's what we you know where do we need more commercial? Where do we where can we put in some higher density?

So then the issue might only come up in an application, a zoning application or a land use application. Then you would look back at the designation to determine if it's appropriate or compatible or consistent. You mean how would we use the the map once we have the map adopted? How would we use it going forward? Yep. There's some land use applications that have an approval criteria that say um is it consistent with the um policies in the comprehensive plan and so you look at the applicable policies which may also include which would include looking at the land use map designation. So, for instance, if um I believe this is right, Alyssa will correct me if I'm wrong, but if somebody wanted to divide their property and the designation was parks and open space, but they wanted to divide it for housing, then they wouldn't be able to do that even if it's zoned R1 because the underlying designation is for parks and open space. Um, so that's when it would come into play, but it doesn't, for instance, come into play a building permit. So that was that distinction I was making um earlier. Mhm. I have a specific question related to the JH Baxter site since I'm a Bethl person and I know going forward we do not want to allow heavy industrial adjacent immediately adjacent to residential and now that Baxter is going away would that enable us to change that the land designation of that area to light industrial or some other way of ensuring that heavy industrial does not move in

there again. Yeah, I mean any property can um submit for it would be a plan designation amendment. Um up and until now it's been a metro plan um amendment and now it once we get this adopted um it would be comprehensive plan. Yep. Exactly. So anyone can apply for that. And then we look at the comprehensive plan policies that we're talking about today as well as um any adopted refinement plan policies. Um so that it's a policy dis decision. Um but it can't yeah any property can apply for that. It also depends a little bit on the amount our buildable land. Oh yeah, thanks for bringing that up. So there is that technically there's a little land and and it the urban growth foundry you know there's the reserve area and when that land if and when that land is being added I assume then you will refer to the comprehensive plan policies so that furthest north where again there's heavy industrial you would then not allow residential immediately adjacent to that industrial because we're referring back to the comprehensive plan and that's when we would designate that land. Let's maybe that's built in. So when the land comes into the urban growth boundary is when we create a designation. We the planning department we the planning department it gets adopted by council. So any change or new designation is adopted by council and often the county too if it's outside the city limits. Right. But it's also based on we when we expand the urban growth boundary it's for a specific need. So we probably wouldn't

Yeah. We're looking for housing. You're not going to go north. Most likely not. Commissioner Isacson. Yeah. So, as we're talking about the comprehensive plan and the policies, especially as it moves out at the UGB, um I know I brought this up the past. I'm just wondering, you know, given that West Eugene is expected to absorb much of our future growth from reserves, and that it also contains the majority of our city wetlands, including some low valuable buildable wetlands. Can anybody speak to how much land that might constitute? And is there any sort of intersection between um conflicting policies between like say for example the need to preserve obviously an environmental mental health side of the equation as opposed to also wanting to have more housing. Well, I from a buildable land standpoint, I can just say um you know, if it's protected land, which is what we would be um determining at the time of expansion, is whether or not that land the if there's a wetland area, then we go to the next step of um should it be protected according to um local criteria for protection. um then we don't assume any capacity development capacity on that land. We we would actually apply regulations that protect it at the time of development. Um so if it's if it's um determined through that process that it does not meet the criteria for protection then um we do have to assume development capacity on it. Um per state regulations with how buildable lands inventories go. Um and then they would be development of the land would be subject to D uh DSLE division of state lands rules for getting a fill removal

permit but we would assume future development on it. So it really hinges on whether or not through the wetland studies if it's determined locally significant for protection. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just wondering if we've already done some of that work ahead of time to see, you know, if there are significant amounts of available land that would be subject to a wetland migation bank, for example, or is that not even factored into the equation yet? Not yet. We looked at our goal five protected wetlands um and did not include those in our urban reserves as developable land. So, so we know that our locally protected wetlands are not included, but we haven't done specific wetland studies on specific parcels of land and that would come into play during our urban growth boundary expansion. Thank you. Can I ask something more basic maybe? Um, so uh in reading 11.9 11.10 10. Um you know you talk about the density range definition but then you talk about you know um middle houses are you know have exemption. Um and then we also allow overlap in zones and housing types to promote housing choices. And so a lot of this look like, you know, it's uh responses to the housing crisis that we're facing, challenges we're facing. But I'm wondering um in the long run, would the development of neighborhoods still overall look coherent and preserve

some characters that it currently enjoy? or would it be anything goes because housing it's higher priority right now? I'm just curious. Great. Yeah, that is I know that is a great question. Um and I mean I think we do anticipate change, right? I mean we have a huge housing need. We do anticipate change throughout the city as as land develops. Um, I think middle housing is a good example of that. Um, because we did remove code barriers um to making it easier to do middle housing and particularly in R1 zoning, which is the majority of the city. Um, and so that's mostly allowed out right now. Um, so if you're asking whether or not um, you know, neighborhoods are going to look different over time, they will. and if we are anticipating accommodating our housing need. Um so I would say that um I would also say that the state has um when they required that we allow for metal housing, they were very specific about what kind of design standards we could or could not apply to mental housing. And I think there's a few more bills right now that limit some of the design standards as well. So, and I think those are intended to remove barriers to housing and an acknowledgement that there is a natural evolution of neighborhoods that they're they don't they're not static and so that they they will change. So, could could I just add one more thing though? I think our code is far from anything that was the code is about this tall and contains a lot of standards for

anything that's built in the city. Um so it is a balance we've been saying about a lot of things between different goals but the pendulum I think is swinging back with the housing crisis towards removing barriers and allowing more change but over the years over the decades we've only increased the regulations to piles piles of them. Stuart, do you want to talk maybe a little bit about how centers fits into that conversation, too? Because I think there that is part of planning for a particular type of growth and trying to encourage a particular type of growth. It might not look exactly the way neighborhoods look now, but yeah. So um Commissioner Yang, we are also working on a specific um strategy which we're calling centers which is are ways to increase growth and development in and around areas of commerce. So small think about like small neighborhood centers. You might have a couple like a small neighborhood market. Um maybe some other goods and services there and then increasing the density around those areas. Um we have these in Eugene already. Friendly street market area is a good example. The Whitaker is a good example. Um, and so we are we're planning to to make some changes around those existing centers and also encourage new ones throughout the city, especially in areas like Bethl that don't have uh quite as good of access to those types of places. And as we start planning for urban growth boundary expansion, thinking about how we can include that sort of planning in those neighborhoods as well. So while it might include some changes to existing neighborhoods, it's also um creating new neighborhoods that have those amenities of people. so much love in their neighborhoods and something that we hear a lot about from the communities that everyone wants to live in a place like this. So is that what you're thinking? Can I just follow up on that quickly? Please. So the metrop plan does not currently

designate community commercial. Is that is that why we're neighborhood neighborhood? It doesn't show neighborhood commercial. Neighborhood commercial. But isn't that what you just described? Thank you for that question. Yes, that is true. And our neighborhood commercial designation is technically a floating designation. Um there's lots of reasons why it is that way. I think the original reason is that the original neighborhood commercial designation areas um were so small that that blobby map you wouldn't be able to pick it up. So it just wasn't shown on the map. Right. The other rationale that I think um really rings true to me is that um since the metro plan was the metropolitan area, it was um specifically not assigned when they created the metropolitan maps to allow for flexibility for community local communities to decide where these small neighborhood centers go. So, um, because we're removing that neighborhood commercial designation and we are considering how then, uh, the neighborhood commercial zoning C1 will then be implemented. Um, and right now what we're thinking is it will pretty much be implemented the same way that it currently exists, right, where you just kind of plop down uh, C1 into residential areas or areas designated for commercial. That community commercial designation, that's the red color you see on the map. um with some regulations surrounding like how that happens and um to what the scale of that development can look like. Well um great but 20 years of history we're here we are just now talking about nodes again. So I mean I'm all don't don't pick on your own. It's just that we're recycling the same problem. And I think at some point we have to look at the blog nature of the map and face up to it and say well this is our

squinninging our eyes looking at how we want our our city to develop specific now because it's according to property ownership uh tax maps but it's still that and it and with that I think my overall question is I went I go to the map I click on downtown it comes major retail and I'm pretty sure that's not our goal to downtown right now. And also in that category is Valley River Center also maybe, maybe not. Probably fits better for Valley River Center than downtown. So my question within that is are we able to change any of this stuff or are we just going to leave it alone and not poke the bear at this point? Like redesate? You mean I wouldn't downtown be a mixeduse kind of thing rather than Yeah, I was just pulling up the description for major commercial. So So I mean I think that's a question is is that the right label for that designation? But um it says the major commercial designation is in is intended to provide hubs for regional commercial uses major commercial areas within the So it's not retail it's commercial which includes offices. When you go to the map it says retail that's that's why it says retail it says major retail major retail center. Yeah. Yeah. I think that No. Right. And what's cool about the map, by the way, shows if you like this kind of thing, you know, it highlights everything that's in the same category. Yeah. So that's I go, "Wait a minute. Valley River Center is the same category, right?" But it's they're both major retail center. Sorry. But it's just a nomenclature cleanup that needs to happen. Yes. And so assuming that we have made

that um so for those two areas I think they are hubs for regional commercial uses and we do say in the description that it is downtown Eugene and Valley River Center. These areas are generally larger in size than areas designated community commercial and contain a scale of services that attract people from a large area including pe people from throughout the Eugene Springfield metropolitan area, Lane County, and the adjacent counties. I won't go on, but we do talk about um semi-public uses, higher density housing, a vi and to your point, I'm finally getting to the mixed use part. um to provide a vibrant mix of retail, office, housing, dining, entertainment, cultural da da da da in a compact um environment. So that so that is the description that we will I know all of you are going to have questions, but since we talked about mixed use is how I got on to it. Yes, I'm looking at mixed use and are there residential density standards for mixed use areas? In other words, when I click on this map, I find a community, I'm sorry, a commercial mixed use, right? So, is there a residential density standard for that commercial? We do not have one at this time. One of the things from a that would be more on the zoning side. um you don't necessarily need that in the designation, but climate friendly areas will require us to add um wherever we put that overlay, which right now is looking at downtown and lower Cobberg Road, there will be required to be a minimum density of 25 housing units per acre, and that's from state law. Um and

then another consideration is do we want to add um should we add a minimum density requirement in co in commercial zones for instance like C2 community commercial. So we don't have to put that in the designation but we can implement that um intent in the zoning code. So for clarity when I look at this and it says mixed use commercial I'm not sure I know well what's the other mix besides commercial are there other mixed use things so it's commercial seems like it's our chance to fix the nomenclature yeah that I believe means it's commercial with a mixeduse overlay designation so we have overlay zones and we have overlay designations the metro plan's going to have overlays center our land use map. We're moving the metro plan already does and we are bringing those designation overlays into our our comprehensive plan. So what does that mixeduse overlay mean? What does it mean? It means it's an area that we've identified um through I think it's been through I'm just trying to find it. There's a write up for it. Mixed use generally represents areas with a greater mixture of uses and more flexibility and where more flexibility is appropriate such as a mix of uses identified in special area zones, refinement plans or through other zoning tools. It can be applied as an overlay or as a base designation. So in that case if you've got commercial mixed use it's commercialbased designation with a mixeduse overlay designation but we but yeah and so so something I

wanted to point out earlier and maybe to your point about poking the bear is um we are just now getting our own Eugene lot level designation map so that you can do exactly what you're doing, which we couldn't really do before, which is what is the designation of this property very clearly and is it right? Um, and so that is what we were talking about next steps is um should we or looking at those zoning inconsistencies and other things like that. Um, you know, for instance, out in West Eugene, we have there's land that's designated industrial. We're not counting it on it for industrial development because it's owned by the city as wetlands um or it's owned by BLM as as protective wetlands. So, clean there's a whole there's cleanup like that that we can do. I wanted to point out Oh, I'm sorry. I could wait my turn, but there were some comments at council on this topic. Um, and I don't know if you've had a chance to watch that meeting yet, but when this work was presented to council in the end of June, a couple of comments were asked and one was your comment reminded me of it because it was a is this noble development? Is this a new name? What what's um changing from the metrop plan into this new plan? And then there was another question about what are the major kind of shifts? Yeah. Um, what's the departure from the metrop plan or are we just carrying forward? And I think it's a both and kind of answer. Um because we do have a lot of cleanup work and modernization work to do first and there are changes we want to make either for policy reasons or because we update our land studies and then we have a need for something to change. Yeah. Um so it's a phased approach I would say.

Commissioner, thank you. Uh I have a question. I think Stuart, it's kind of for you on the nodal development areas because I'm really curious about this. I mean, I know we're we're actually looking at a an area right now that hasn't been producing as a nodal development. How do you kind of like know what will work and what won't? I mean, what are you looking at when you're looking at the the entire community and you're trying to figure out like where do they work and where do they not work? And does that make sense? because I know you go probably, you know, we know the Royal Node area has been designated that way. It's been sitting there and or kind of actively looking to maybe take that away so that we can see some development. But I'm just curious like what do you look at when you're trying to figure out where do we put these? Yeah, thank thank you for that question, Commissioner Edward. So, I think I can handle the where do we put these centers question and maybe I'll let Alyssa answer what's happening with the Royal Node conversation. Um, so we've been talking to community members about where do they like to go in their neighborhood. So we started there. So we did an online mapping u interactive mapping activity with folks. We got over 600 responses asking folks where do they like to go in their neighborhoods. And so we got a bunch of data points and then we had they kind of help us to visualize those points and I think we showed that map to you all last winter at some point. I can't remember which time. Um, and then we did some staff research and said, "Okay, what are the areas that we have currently designated or zoned to allow sort of a mixed use development to occur?" And then we zoned in on those areas and went through a process of kind of identifying which ones we think are um viable in the future or would help provide goods and services to the surrounding neighborhood that maybe doesn't have it already. Um so I think that kind of

is providing and there's the centers map. So so this map uh this draft map is included in chapter 2 compact development urban design. Um and so you are welcome to see it. It's up for your review right now. Um and of course we will always love your feedback on um additional spaces you think would make sense. Um, and the last piece I was going to add to answer your question, Commissioner Edwards, is um, we did do some market analysis, um, to understand which spots might be the best sort of development for climate friendly areas and we thought about other types of centers as well through that that analysis. So, we use some of that to help inform some of our decision- making. And Stuart, do I remember correctly that some of those areas like the ones in Bethle that are in the middle of the residential community will require a zone change? Nothing on that map at this point in time will require a zone change if we do a little neighborhood center. Correct. Wow. We can do that in R1. Uh there's nothing on that map identifies as a center that is R1. Everything is either zoned for commercial or designated for commercial or I think it's actually they have things zoned for commercial uses. Now there's a a variety there, right? We've included C1, our neighborhood commercial, which is our smallest type of commercial. We also have C2, our community commercial, which is kind of what you would think of as larger department stores and bigger commercial areas. And then of course there's our downtown center, which is the major um commercial that you were speaking of earlier. Um, so it's pretty much isolated to those areas right now. Um, once we do our buildable land inventory and understand what our needs are for commercial um, commercially zoned properties, we could take a look at further properties as well. Thank you. Can I respond to Commissioner Edwards

question on the Royal Avenue? Um, so that's a special area zone that's got a pretty prescriptive um, land use regulations and that is listed as one of the actions we're looking at um, cleaning up um, as part of the housing actions. And so I think a lot of it will be related to the code. I I we don't know at this point if the underlying designations would change. I imagine there will be a similar percentage of residential and commercial. It may be that the alignment changes. um because right now the alignment of the streets is really problematic and some of the alignment of of really what the zones are is problematic as well. So really we haven't taken a deep dive into it but um those are the things we've been hearing. I also want to jump back to something that um commissioner Rainey asked about and like how is this different from no development and two things of the center conversations and two things I want to point out um Stuart had mentioned were actually have done some market studies that's not necessarily something we did as nodal development which is why some of these have sat for a while and then the other pieces um as part of the housing actions we're actually looking at incentives so previously the middle development areas have either been holding zones with the null development overlay, which I always call the no zone. Don't do these things, or there's been special area zones. Some cases they've been in successful locations, so it's worked out. Other cases they haven't been. And so I think we're al I think the incentive conversation will be really important for furthering the development of centers. Commissioner Bon. Um, two things. The first one you guys I don't really need to respond to. I think I've raised this a couple of times in conversations. I find myself um

wishing at times there was no such thing as density. And maybe it's kind of me and and odd, but I I appreciate the the net density and I appreciate the discussion about it. I I've wondered for some time why uh it it it's as opposed to being a uh land use designation map matter for me it's kind of a zoning map thing and I find myself wondering if we basically just described property according to a specific zone designation R1 or C1 or whatever it is and then we have design standards in the building code that in the case a residential prescribed maximum lot size or minimum lot size or co building coverage or building height or setbacks and all of that stuff. um you would get the density, you'd have the density, the density that would be there would be what would be allowed by the code and as people built on individual lots and you'd be you wouldn't be having this conversation at times where you say well uh R1 is thus and so density except at times when maybe there's middle housing in it then it's going to be higher. So again I don't I I think I just want to make that comment out loud. I realize it' probably be a pretty heavy lift to get everybody to change something like that, but um well, I'll just please on that. Um we did try to go in that direction with the special area zone for Walnut um on Franklin the special area zone for there. Um I don't think it does talk about densities, but it talks about the form of buildings in each of the sections. Yeah, it's a form based code is what you're I think what you're talking about

and it's a pretty uh big effort to do because you Yeah, it's just a it's a it's a huge effort. Um but there's a there are successful examples of it. Um well, a lot of the things you were talking about in the land use code are a proxy for the density in the comprehensive plan. So, right. Yes, you're right that that can be done through the land use code also. Um Heather, you tell me just over a step but um when we are when you're looking at land need for for residential you do look at low, medium, high, right? Um so there is like there's some regulatory requirement in terms of having different densities of residential lands within the urban growth boundary. Just eliminating residential density altogether is not necessarily consistent with some state law requirements. That being said, um there are some policies that um Commissioner Yang identified in the comprehensive plan talking about for example, middle housing doesn't have a maximum density. That was a state law requirement that we had implemented in the comprehensive plan. Um and certainly there is availability to shift density ranges. there's a opportunity to think about zoning that kind of overlaps between comprehensive plan density ranges. So, um, there are lots of tools and they're

not all limited to the comprehensive plan policies. And I I think a lot of these questions are really good illustrations of the the differences between a designation and zoning. Even though sometimes it can feel a little bit gray and there's some crossover, the designation is really intended to be more of a blunt tool. how much and where do we want residential, commercial, and industrial land within the urban growth boundary? Um, within those designations, it's a little bit easier to change zoning generally as a general matter. Um, so from one industrial zone to another industrial zone. Um, and that will affect the types of specific industrial uses that would be allowed on your property. Uh but it's a little bit harder to change from an industrial designation to a commercial or residential designation. And that's kind of by design because the idea is there's this overarching sort of more blunt, more blobby planning process. Um and then it's refined through the zoning code and can be further refined through overland zones and and other tools. So, um, some of the things that we've been talking about that, you know, when you're thinking kind of generally about land use planning, it's like, oh, we should we should think about putting that in the comprehensive plan. Um, may actually end up creating barriers in the future. If the comprehensive plan is too specific and restrictive because the more things that are associated with the land use designation, the more difficult it will be to develop the property designated that way. and it's more difficult to redesate a property than to reszone a property. So, if there are

things that the commission or planning staff are interested in implementing, um, that's awesome and but I do think it's worth thinking about whether they it makes the most sense to put them in the comprehensive plan or it makes the most sense to think about how the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan support those things in the land use code or in other tools. Thanks for listening. It's a really long Well, I'm not going to campaign for it. I just telling you how my brain works. Those who are interested, um, it I have one more that and it it's kind of a followup to that. I'm I'm having a little struggle with the use of character in the definition of how the land use designation map works. And I will admit I watched the work session on character discussion that the council had which I found pretty interesting. Um I guess I have I have kind of two issues or two questions. Um it it seems to me the land use designation map there it it feels pretty I've had a I've had a lot of trouble. I've tried to conflate it with the zoning map for a very long time and none of you would let me do that. So I I I get now I understand we are it kind of it talks about the type of development we've got those six or seven types and and in the case of residential it's the density and so on. When I think of character I have some issues with the use of the word in the code. Uh but I I think more around this when I think about how it might apply, it seems like the land use designation is applied and

then the zoning applies more specifically to what kind of design standards and development code is going to use to talk directly about what kind of structures you can put there. you know, in terms of the how the buildings are designed and size and all of that stuff, which I think would start to get to to character if you were if you were trying to figure out how to define character in the code. So, I'm I'm if I'm being not being confusing, I don't understand why we would use character as an attribute of this particular map. Yeah, we could consider um changing that. I mean, I think it was not supposed to be intended to be the weighted term of character and more just generally trying to describe type of use. Yeah. Well, but it's but it's usesment. Yeah. It seems like type of type of use is described in that list of the Seven types of location of land uses. Anyway, that's my comment. Okay. Thank you. Good feedback. Thank you. Other questions, comments on this chapter. Oh, I wondered in major commercial if Oakway Center shouldn't be added to downtown and Valley River Center. Oakway Center is a huge I thought major commercial area. So, that could be something because right now it's not designated that as

major commercial. So, um, when we get to that next phase of where we might want to redesate property and clean up some inconsistencies or some things that have changed since the 80s, few things, right? You know, that that would be an example of one that we could clean up. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder the overall urban growth boundary and the blob map and you've got major designations. Um if in fact protected areas cannot be developed. Could we identify those protected areas so that it doesn't like you've got protected areas included in R1 but you can't do anything with it. So where's that strip? Where is that run of protected watershed or or wetlands or whatever it is? Some of the areas are identified um as parks and open space like along the um along the Amazon. Um and again what we were just talking about earlier with um there's some wetlands, huge wetland um complex out in West Eugene. Yes, there is designated industrial, right? Which is old news because it's it's protected. A lot of those are protected. And so we do want to redesate those and show them as parks and open space. Um what I love about this conversation is that you're already thinking ahead to the next phase of the land use designation map. The first was just to get the baseline um of where we are, what are the designations so we can say those confidently and then the next step is getting into that. Um there are

protected areas through overlays like water resource setback overlay. Those kinds of things, those are implemented through the zoning code. They're at too small of a level to show on the designation map. That makes sense. Um but but those larger areas that are protected wetland complexes um and owned by public agencies, those would be good candidates for parks and open space designation. And are there some of those areas that have been developed over the years? because I have a lot of there's a lot of residential out west where I live and it seems like there's a place in the middle where we're told now you can't develop there but wait there's houses all around it how could that be so the west hijene wetlands plan um and this was kind of what I was alluding to not very well earlier but um you can identify you can go through the studies and identify a an area as being a wetland But then there's additional criteria that you determine okay is a significant wetland if it meets these criteria and then even then is it does it meet the additional criteria to warrant being protected and then how big should the wetland set back be the setback be from the wetland. So there's multiple levels of protection. Um and so what you might be seeing is some area because there are quite a few wetlands in the West Eugene wetlands plan area that are um are wetlands but they because of the quality of them they were identified as okay to fill. There was and yes to all of that and there was also development that occurred before some of the regulations or exposure. Yeah. And going forward you will need to identify if they're buildable lands or not.

We and we already do that. We already go and they could talk more about this but anything that's locally protected we do not count any development capacity on. We count them as protected. Yeah. Um, but if they are not protected, then we don't then we count them as buildable because we're required to through state regulations. Okay. Thank you. I want to thank you all for this incredible wonderful work you have done. I appreciate all the heavy lifting and how much goes into it and what a great job you've done. Well, thank you all for the great input and conversation. It's been yeah a very rash event. Any other questions, comments? Um, next on our agenda are items from commissioners and staff. Are there any items or info to share from commissioners? Staff. Um, I just have a Yeah, thank you. I just have a couple of updates on just your next upcoming meetings. Maybe this these aren't updates, but your next meeting is August 12th and that will be about the equity house. Um that is an in-person meeting that will also be in this room. And then the meeting following that is the 26th and that's going to be a public hearing on a property specific refinement plan amendment and zone change. So you seasoned uh commissioners know what that means. Um and we will be following up with you, Commissioner Yang, on some of the legal requirements uh around that particular application. So you'll get to spend some time with Lauren uh to learn those. Yay. Um yeah, but for everybody else that is Quasai Judicial, so uh it's a property up

Cobberg north of Chad Drive that's looking to redesate and do his own change. So actually perfect following this conversation. You can see it in real life. And then the meeting after that will be September 9th and that topic's TVD. Um I know this room is well it's warm, it's small, um it's tight. Uh we are uh we made it feel great in the winter, but we are remodeling the slope room which is downstairs which is where the planning commission previously met. It's been a little while because it's been out of commission and that is currently being remodeled. should be ready by October. So hopefully if there is a in-person October meeting, we can we can meet down there and that will be much more comfortable. Um I think I think that's all I have at this point. Thank you. Other staff, if that's the case, I can now close this meeting of the planning commission. Meeting is now adjourned.