History Is Repeating

I am amazed that history continues to repeat itself. 435 River Road is prime real estate for low-impact use. It’s in a floodplain, next to a neighborhood and a park. If all goes as currently planned it will have cheap overdense apartments built upon it, destroying it forever, and then be resold to the highest bidder because of its amazing location. How can we allow this to happen again?

For recent history I refer to the Ecco Apartments. They were designed in a way that encroaches upon and angers everyone through a lack of consideration. This simply makes for unhappiness for the residents as well as the surrounding neighbors. It is short-sighted inconsideration that has no place in a society on the verge of environmental, economic, moral and mental collapse. And it’s happening again at 435 River Road.

Could it be that the City Council, which has control over ordinances and code, has no clear plan or strategy for increasing local jobs, not building in flood plains, maintaining visual privacy, preserving green space along the river or codifying designs that provide space for the type of thoughtful developments that help people coexist with nature? We need these values to be respected as much as the rights of a “low income housing” developer who has made a bad decision for this community.

Many have tried to make the case in rational and reasoned terms to no avail. I encourage us to do something besides watch this go down again. This is not the history that should be repeated. 

Juliet A Thompson

Eugene