A project city planners are calling “Envision Eugene” kicked off last night, and, to the encouragement of the project’s designers, the initial workshop enjoyed an ample turnout of citizens to converse about strategies for the city’s projected growth over the next 20 years.
Mayor Kitty Piercy and members of the Eugene City Planning Commission made opening comments, laying the groundwork for the evening’s forum by citing a new study that projects the city’s population to grow by about 35,000 people over the next 20 years, from about 177,000 now, to 213,000.
One wall of the banquet room that housed the workshop was lined with various aerial graphics of the city, each graphic prominently featuring the urban growth boundary outlining the city.
Alterations to the urban growth boundary are at the heart of the discussions city planners are attempting to cultivate in the community.
“If historic development patterns continue, we can expect that we might need to expand our urban growth boundary,” city planner Randy Hledik said, “but the state has mandated that before we do that, we need to consider how we can efficiently use the land that is within our urban growth boundary.”
Attendees participated in an hour-long discussion session, sitting at several tables of about 10 people each, responding to prompts encouraging dialogue about growth and development. At one table, dialogue advanced haltingly over such topics as increasing the residential capacity of downtown, creating better mixed-income developments, and measuring Eugene against other mid-sized cities featuring waterfronts like San Antonio, Texas, and Boise, Idaho.
The underlying principle guiding the workshop was that considerable growth would occur over the next 20 years, planned or not, and that deliberation beforehand is the superior option.
Many of those involved in the discussion defended the urban growth boundary as an essential part of responsible urban growth in Oregon, including Envision Eugene project manager Terri Harding.
Harding showed photographs of sprawling cities in California and Arizona to emphasize the importance of urban growth boundaries.
“One of the most obvious things you can see in places like (California and Arizona), without the kind of growth management that we have, there can be automobile traffic, which, in turn, is associated with bad air quality,” Harding said.
Striking a balance between feasible upward construction and unavoidable outward development promises to be a challenging negotiation, but supporters of the project say Envision Eugene is designed to provide community members with a different kind of interactive experience to develop the right compromises.
“We are on a very tight timeline,” Public Works staff contact Carolyn J. Weiss said, “but our hope is, this opportunity for people to get some face time and share their considerations with us will really optimize this process.”
Weiss said workshops will continue until the end of July and that Eugene City Commission’s adoption of a new urban growth boundary will happen in February of next year.
Envision Eugene’s second meeting is scheduled for May 26 at Churchill High School, with a third meeting June 23 at Willamette High School.
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