R-1 Low Density Residential Zone
Flash! Good news! City Council voted in favor of all provisions recommended by neighborhood advocates, completely rejecting the Planning staff and Planning Commission attempts to defeat these critical neighborhood protections.
*UPDATE!* City Council has closed the official record and will deliberate on the R-1 Code Amendment ordinance at a future meeting. Stay tuned!
Click here to read the proposed Ordinance that Council will consider, which implements the code changes as recommended by neighborhood leaders.
*UPDATE* Neighborhood leaders work on standards to allow compatible Secondary Dwelling Units on large “flag” lots. Click here to read the proposed standards.
*ALERT!* City Planning staff uses inflammatory and inaccurate language to undermine neighborhood protections. Click here to learn the truth.
At the May 14 Council work session, Councilor Mike Clark proposed and Council adopted the following motion:
“Direct the [City] Manager to come back to the third Monday in June public hearing with ordinance language on R-1 code amendments that reflects the requested ordinance language that several of us made two months ago that was captured in the work done by the neighborhood leaders and detailed in the memo from Carolyn [Jacobs] of two months ago. And that created ordinance language I would like to see us, with the third Monday in June, have a public hearing on; and to initiate the notice to affected property owners.”
(Voting in favor of the motion: Mike Clark, George Brown, Greg Evans, Betty Taylor and George Poling. Voting against the motion: Alan Zelenka, Chris Pryor and Claire Syrett.)
Because of this direction, the ordinance that was the subject of the public hearing on June 16 included all the revisions to Ordinance that were recommended by neighborhood leaders. Click here to read the recommendations. In summary:
- Remove the code that would allow creation of new alley access lots. Hold off on further work on this concept until it can be dealt with as part of developing or revising specific neighborhood plans.
- Revise the development standards for Secondary Dwelling units to adequately protect the privacy and avoid “crowding” of adjacent property owners.
- Similarly, revise the development standards for Accessory Buildings to protect neighbor residents’ livability.
- Rewrite the “adjustment” criteria for SDUs and Accessory Buildings to clarify the approval criteria and limit the extent of allowable adjustments.
Click here to read Ordinance proposed by City staff. NEW! This document now has bookmarks for easily finding different parts of the code, as well as concise comments identifying problems with the proposed code.
The City staff proposal had completely ignored the neighborhood recommendations.
Click here to read 45 neighborhood leaders’ letter to the Planning Commission providing recommendations for these amendments.
Click here to read the petition signed by 96 individuals requesting City Council to adopt the ordinance with the standards proposed by neighborhood leaders.
Click here to read a detailed technical review and recommendations of the staff proposal.
Click here to read an analysis of how the proposed R-1 code “maximum density” exceeds the legal Metro Plan density limit for “Low Density Residential” areas.
Click here read testimony detailing problems with staff proposal for allowing the creation of new alley access lots. Click here for map of Eugene alleys.
Click here to view an example of a nice SDU built under appropriate setback standards.
Please contact your City Councilor and ask them to approve the revised Ordinance when it comes to a final vote after the public hearing.
E-mail to MayorAndCC@ci.eugene.or.us
Trust the Neighbors 
[…] R-1 Code Amendments […]
e-mail submitted to City Council re proposed R-1 Code Amendments
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May 10, 2014
Dear Mayor and Councilors,
The staff proposal was not made available to the public until yesterday; and, as of today, it has not even been posted to the City’s “Envision Eugene” website at all.
To my knowledge, the City Manager has not advised the public, including neighborhood leaders, of the proposed ordinance or scheduling a Council vote (other than listing “potential action” in the agenda without any links to it).
As the City Manager admits in the AIS, the staff made no substantive changes in response to neighborhood leaders’ concerns and recommendations or to address Councilors’ comments at the Council February 12 work session and follow-up e-mails.
Consequently, the staff proposal continues to be conflict with the Metro Plan and retains provisions that are potentially harmful to existing single-family neighborhoods and that conflict with the Envision Eugene pillar to “Protect, Repair and Enhance Neighborhood Livability.”
The City Manager has also concocted a bogus scenario for Council not approving the staff proposal “as is” on Wednesday, which is nothing more than a thinly veiled threat directed at councilors who want to minimize the need to expand the UGB. The Council can legally and practically direct the City Manager to bring the Council — in a timely fashion — a revised ordinance that addresses the unresolved Metro Plan conflicts and neighborhood issues. Such an ordinance can be adopted and in effect before Council considers Envision Eugene housing capacity adoption.
In any case, the mere increase of 125 dwelling units in capacity, which the staff can only speculate would occur, is a trivial number when considered against the total twenty-year need for single-family dwellings and versus the significant harm to some home owners and neighborhoods that might result. Being swayed by the City Manager’s ruse and adopting a flawed ordinance would also unnecessarily squander significant public trust with home owners in single-family neighborhoods.
Furthermore, this inconsequential and speculative capacity is almost certain not to be allowed in the Envision Eugene capacity analysis in any case. The ordinance wouldn’t go into effect until acknowledged by DLCD, and DLCD acknowledgement would not occur for six months or more if the ordinance was appealed.
Please direct the City Manager to bring council a draft ordinance that reflects the community’s values. You would still be able to add some measure of capacity for Envision Eugene. More importantly, you would serve and keep faith with the community.
Thank you for your consideration.
Paul Conte
1461 W. 10th Ave.
Eugene, OR 97402
May 12, 2014
Public Forum – R1 Single Family Code Amendments
Bill Aspegren
1939 Alder Street
Eugene, Oregon 97405
aspegren@comcast.net
Councilor Zelenka’s Ward 3
The council is scheduled to have a work session Wednesday, May 14th, on the proposed Single Family Code Amendments.
Please, before that work session, take a few minutes to re-read the September 10, 2013 letter from neighborhood leaders to the Planning Commission. In that letter the leaders proposed a number of changes to the R1 code amendments. Ask yourself how many of those changes have been incorporated in the ordinance you are being asked to approve?
In case you are not able to find or review the letter the answer is none, absolutely none.
What’s the deal? Why were the suggestions of 45 neighborhood leaders ignored?
The code changes you are being asked to vote on are virtually identical to the proposed changes staff presented over a year ago, before neighborhood review.
The AIS for your Wednesday work session states “If the council chooses to pursue the changes suggested by the university area neighbors,…” 125 housing units “would not be counted as land efficiency measures to accommodate housing within the current urban growth boundary. Instead, this number of housing units (125) would necessarily be added to the city’s land need.”
First, the code changes were not suggested solely by the university neighbors, note that there are 45 people signing the previously mentioned letter, not all from the university area. In fact, 16 neighborhoods are represented.
Second, 125 housing units is less than one percent of the projected need over the next 20 years. The probability of projecting the population growth and housing needs of Eugene within one percent over 20 years is, practically speaking, zero.
If the design of the UGB is so tight that it cannot tolerate a one percent variance from projections, the planning effort has failed.
I urge you to reject the City Manager’s recommendation to “approve the ordinance as provided”. Instead, Deny the ordinance and send it back to staff with the direction to include the neighborhood leader’s suggestions.
Thanks
Just posted your site info to the South Willamette Neighbors Facebook page. Thanks for this great collection of information!!