Developers, city officials: damn those meddling citizens!
December 8th, 2009 by Jim JustFrom Tuesday’s Eugene Register-Guard:
Springfield growth inventory delivers a surprise
City councilors were prepared to adopt the results of a buildable residential land inventory, which concluded the city was short by more than 300 acres in what it would need to meet 20-year growth projections.
Instead, they learned the city actually has a slight surplus of buildable residential property.
The change brought a howling protest from one developer and muted concern from two others who spoke at a public hearing Monday night.
Springfield’s early estimates suggested it might be short by as much as 1,000 acres of land for homes. But by August, with the help of local consultant ECONorthwest, the city concluded it was short by only 344 acres of the land it would need for housing by 2030.
But Monday night, Springfield planning supervisor Linda Pauly explained that that total was based on a mistaken assumption that housing could only be constructed on land that had no more than a 15 percent slope.
When a community member concerned about the survey results asked to see the data, city staff and ECONorthwest discovered they’d used the wrong slope constraint, Pauly said.
Housing can go on hillsides with a 25 percent slope, according to state law. It’s commercial buildings that require the 15 percent slope limitation.
The mistake was only discovered last week, Pauly said.
The revision concludes the city has a small surplus: 59 acres more than they’ll need to meet expected residential growth between now and 2030.
The “community member” mentioned in the article was LandWatch Lane County member Mia Nelson. Through dogged persistence and determination, she overcame stonewalling by the City of Springfield and EcoNorthwest, who didn’t want to make available the data which supposedly supported the earlier conclusion that 300+ more acres of land would be needed to support projected growth. When Nelson finally got her hands on the raw data, she brought to light the flawed assumption.
City officials aren’t yet ready to give up their precious expansion plans:
Mayor Leiken called the latest review a hiccup in an otherwise useful process. . .
While some councilors worried that the new numbers may be as flawed as the old ones, they voted unanimously to adopt the Residential Lands Study.
Al Johnson, a consulting attorney for the city, assured the councilors that their vote would not be considered the last word on the subject, and that their conclusions about how much land they’ll need won’t be considered final until the city formally adopts its Springfield 2030 Plan, a process it will undertake with Lane County.
Can you visualize the day our political leaders will let go of the idea of growth?