The Eugene City Council is now in the process of considering substantial changes to the planning codes in R-1 single family housing throughout Eugene. According to state law HB 2001, all R-1 housing is now R-2 to promote more efficient land use in suburban areas. Eugene’s job now is to define the codes guiding this new statewide standard.

Eugene’s planning division has opted for extreme deregulation, in essence creating a free for all, a gift to developers and rent-seeking businesses that will tear down single family homes to build more profitable fourplexes with no off street parking requirement.

Your block may host 42-foot-tall two-story buildings with all the construction involved, resident vehicles parked on streets. It’s dismaying in the extreme. This will only exacerbate the loss of low-income housing. Contact your ward rep today and ask why this is occurring. All the hand waving over middle housing disguises the city’s true intentions here. And somehow you have not received a single postcard about this.

There is a better way, called the Middle Housing Standard. This proposal protects the quality of housing in residential neighborhoods by creating realistic standards that adhere to HB 2001. Low-income housing will not be solved by throwing raw meat to real estate developers. It will be solved by a city commitment to providing assistance to those in need. The planning division’s proposal is marketing fluff based on feel-good sunny assertions underlying a blatant revision of established building norms.

Todd Reed

Eugene

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