The ASUO Senate will hear a resolution in opposition of the 20-year-old plan to develop land on the south bank of the Willamette River tonight.
If the resolution passes, which requires a majority tonight and two-thirds of the vote for final passage, the Senate will then encourage the University Senate to speak in opposition and pass a similar resolution.
The resolution, written by the ASUO Executive and sponsored by Sens. Zachary Stark-MacMillan and Jeremy Blanchard, is called the Riverfront Research Park Resolution and seeks to halt development until “the University undergoes a student-inclusive, open process” for revising the Riverfront Research Park (RRP) Master Plan.
One of the main problems with the plan, the senators say, is the date it was written — 1988.
“It was created in the ’80s at a time of economic crisis for the city of Eugene and also a time when, realistically, environmental sustainability was not really on the radar like it is today,” ASUO Environmental Advocate Daniel Rottenberg said.
The University began the plan in 1983, and historically it has not boded well with community members. Since its conception, the master plan carries with it a history of resistance.
“The public has seen this as unacceptable for decades and that is seen through public opposition over the years, including a rally of 200 people in 1998,” Rottenberg said. The four-phase plan, he said, is “still in phase one and has been very slow due to this opposition. It really could work for everyone a little better.”
The plan in place would occupy 4.2 acres along the river to build a research building and parking lots for the Oregon Research Institute. Rottenberg said the strong opposition to the project stems from the fact that the riverfront space acts as a corridor that links the University to downtown and also to the Willamette River. The business park, he said, would cut off that corridor.
Rottenberg has environmental concerns about the plan as well.
“The site was formerly an industrial waste site and it was capped a few years back,” he said. “However, everything still exists underneath and rather than restoring that industrial waste site, which could easily be done, they’re planning on pouring concrete over it.”
Rottenberg became involved in the issue in July 2008, when two landscape architecture students approached him with their concerns. The students, Christo Brehm and Rena Schlachter, had done a project reevaluating the plan.
“They not only hypothetically look at an alternative plan for their class, but would like to implement some of those ideas in real life,” Rottenberg said.
Brehm and Schlachter collaborated with Rottenberg and reached out to the community. Now they’re looking for Senate support.
MacMillan became aware of the issue when he was approached by former ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz.
“He was concerned about the RRP master plan and the effects on the area,” he said. “The lack of student involvement is kind of upsetting. It is something that the students obviously have a huge interest in, and we want to make sure that in this project and future projects that students are taken into account.”
He doesn’t foresee much opposition to the resolution, since it simply asks for student involvement, which the Senate almost always supports. “(The resolution) is not placing judgment on a plan, just saying students should be consulted and listened to about it.”
Because the issue is currently in a 15-day public comment period that ends on Nov. 20, outreach is the name of the game for Rottenberg and the group of landscape architecture students who helped compile the alternative plan for the area.
“I think once we educate, then people will know how important this issue is,” Rottenberg said. “Students really care about this area; it’s really intergenerational and could be a beautiful public space.”
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Resolution aims to halt riverfront plans
Daily Emerald
November 10, 2009
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