The Envision Eugene Technical Advisory Committee met over Zoom on August 18. The committee spent the hour discussing the progress and changes made on their first growth monitoring report, as well as an overview of the early version of a housing data visualization dashboard they’ve been developing. 

The committee, an advisory group to the Eugene Planning Commission, focuses on preparing data pertaining to housing development and Eugene’s urban growth boundary. 

Citing population growth studies conducted by Portland State University’s Population Research Center, Envision Eugene estimates that the number of people living in the city of Eugene by 2032 will increase by almost 34,000. 

To prepare for this influx of new residents, the committee began gathering data in 2015 for the purpose of informing city policy regarding housing development, zoning, and managing Eugene’s urban growth boundary. 

EETAC is developing a Comprehensive Growth Monitoring Report, which will be an aggregate report of a variety of population growth, job growth, housing affordability and housing development data gathered annually. 

Heather O’Donnell, senior planner for Eugene Community Planning and Design, began the meeting by stating to the committee that having patience with the development of this report was crucial. As Envision Eugene’s first annual report since it began collecting data in 2015, the living document has undergone many changes since its inception. 

“We want this information to start generating ideas for more housing production, and how to use our land more efficiently,” O’Donnell said. 

The committee is planning to forward its first growth monitoring annual report to the Planning Commission and City Council in the spring of 2023. 

O’Donnell recapped the recent Planning Commission meeting where data gathered by Envision Eugene was shared, and she said that the discussions had felt promising for the future of housing development in Eugene.

“It felt like policy discussion, or nibbling on the edges of policy discussion,” O’Donnell said. “It took the data and said ‘OK, what can we do with this? How can it inform us in the future?’”
UO students came up with both the planning commission and city council, O’Donnell said. The role students have in housing production – whether or not it will go up or down based on enrollment – was a standout topic at the work sessions and hearings, O’Donnell said. 

Moving forward, the committee is developing an interactive Tableau dashboard to better illustrate the development data they are collecting. At the end of the August 18 meeting, Elena Domingo, assistant planner for the city of Eugene, shared some key data that will be added in the dashboard, including data about housing affordability, household demographics, new dwellings, and acreage development designation.
Domingo said that dashboards like Seattle’s and Minneapolis’ are inspirations for the Eugene dashboard.

Envision Eugene will continue to work on its Comprehensive Growth Monitoring Report and the interactive dashboard in upcoming sessions in September and October, and they expect to review growth monitoring by January 2023.