Welcome again to the “Gallery of Mything Middle Housing“; where you can view “Middle Housing” that is present, not “missing”; and all too real, not the myth that’s being sold by developers.
The overarching theme of this exhibition is that HB 2001 is fundamentally flawed in it’s simplistic, “one-size-fits-all” dictate that usurps and short-circuits the essential crafting of flexible housing code so that it fits the local context.
Click the links below for more exhibits from the “Gallery of Mything Middle Housing.”
Gallery Exhibit #2
“Fourplexes can fit right into a single-family neighborhood.”
The “mythical” image being sold as representative:
The reality in Eugene:
Here’s what got built when Eugene Code allowed fourplexes in the Westside’s older single-family neighborhood:
These four “fourplexes” were built on two lots at 1050 W. 11th Ave. One had a beautiful, classic and affordable duplex rental facing W. 11th Ave. The lots were scraped bare and the four buildings were jammed together as close and high as possible with 20-some parking spaces all requiring occupants to use an unimproved alley running behind the backyards of single-family homes.
The neighbors to the West now have balconies overlooking their backyards. Here’s what it’s like looking up from a neighbor’s backyard.
All privacy gone. Of course, the one advantage is that the neighbors who are under these balconies can collect the 10-cent deposit on beer bottles thrown down into their yards during loud parties by the occupants of this “missing middle warehousing” development. It’s too bad, these fourplexes aren’t actually “missing.”
Trust the Neighbors 