Carolyn Jacobs’ letter (“Middle Housing Has Developers and Investors Salivating,” 10/28) repeats the totally discredited talking point that HB2001 removal of single-house zoning is gentrification.

And look at the title — trying to draw upon the politics of resentment. Those NIMBYs really believe that developers are the devil. 

Gentrification is what we have now, with the artificial and quite historically recent restriction of Eugene to single-detached zoning. Which has been a disaster for everybody but the property owners like Jacobs, who lives a block from University of Oregon and still expects a suburban single-family lifestyle even in her 70s. 

Here on Alder, in the Amazon neighborhood mud-flats, we have seen dozens of houses upgraded and improved, and almost zero ADUs and zero duplexes. There has been exactly one demolition of a house, and it was not a cheap rental. It was a $300,000 house, like $2,000 per month. Bluntly: Under existing code, you would have seen only gentrification. 

Thank God for the state legislature. Support HB 2001, share the land.

Todd Boyle

Eugene