Chris Wig’s letter to the editor in Lookout got it right. Oregon’s new housing reforms exist for a reason, and the Laurel Hill Valley neighborhood’s opposition to the Floral Hill Terrace project shows exactly why they matter. DevNW proposed 40 affordable homes on land a Laurel Hill homeowner chose to sell for housing. The neighborhood association still responded with the same reflexive obstruction it brings to every housing proposal.

Lookout’s reporting made the pattern clear. It doesn’t matter how many homes are proposed, what they look like, who they serve, or how carefully they’re designed. This neighborhood association will always find a way to stall, appeal or demand that housing be built somewhere else. These tactics aren’t about safety or design. They’re about preventing any new homes from ever being built.

Across the West Coast, housing officials have emphasized a simple principle: communities cannot pick and choose which housing laws they want to follow, and process cannot be used to block compliant housing. And no neighborhood has to solve this challenge alone, but every neighborhood has to do its fair share.

Eugene can’t meet its housing needs if certain neighborhood associations keep looking for excuses to avoid new housing. At some point, there has to be no more excuses.

Curtis Taylor
Eugene