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Eugene city councilors are nearing a decision on the University of Oregon’s request to raise building heights near the Fairmount neighborhood. If approved, UO's plans would make way for a new residence hall amid escalating tensions between the neighbors and the university.
Debate continues over the University of Oregon’s request to raise building heights in the area between campus and the surrounding Fairmount neighborhood.
More than two dozen people, primarily neighborhood residents and UO stakeholders, urged the Eugene City Council on Monday, April 20, to either reject — or approve — a package of land use changes for East Campus proposed by the university more than a year ago.
The proposed land use changes would make way for UO to construct a five-story building at Moss Street and 17th Avenue. A seven-story residence hall is already being built on 17th Avenue between Moss and Columbia streets.
The proposal has gotten increasingly complex over the past several months as the university and the Fairmount Neighborhood Association go back and forth over specifics.
The main sticking point hasn’t changed: UO wants to build the second dormitory — and raise building height limits from 45 to 85 feet — in an area designated in old plans as a buffer zone between residential homes and campus.
The council is set to vote on the proposal May 11. Councilors agreed at Monday’s public hearing to no longer accept testimony into the public record except for submissions from UO for the next seven days.
Councilor Alan Zelenka, who represents the area, pushed his fellow councilors to side with the neighborhood association — and against UO, the Planning Commission and city staff — by finding that the university’s requests do not meet the necessary state and city approval criteria.
That decision, he and other neighbors said, would send the proposal back to the negotiating table and prevent the “very likely” scenario of neighbors bringing the decision before the state Land Use Board of Appeals. He said he was disappointed in city staff’s lack of “critical thinking and analysis” in determining UO’s compliance with the approval criteria.
“We should not be a rubber stamp here,” he told his colleagues.
Colin McArthur, a principal planner hired by the university, disagreed. He said the proposed building heights, similar to Yasui and Unthank halls, are “appropriate and necessary” and offer a “reasonable and gradual transition in scale.”
“There has been an assertion this proposal does not meet the approval criteria,” McArthur said. “That claim is incorrect. Neighborhood plans are not meant to be static. The plan itself calls for review after 10 years. In this case, it’s been over 20 years since the last update.”
It was the council’s second public hearing on the requests, which include a zone change, refinement plan amendment and code amendment. (Councilors took the unusual step of scheduling another hearing last month after the city attorney concluded that the public didn’t have enough time to weigh in on new tweaks to the proposal submitted by UO.)
The public record period for the project alone has been open for more than 120 days, an amount exceeding the state-mandated 120-day requirement for the council to reach a decision, McArthur noted.
Monday, a handful of student and administrative leaders as well as the executive director of Homes for Good took UO’s side, pointing to the need to build more student housing, the university’s long-standing plan to expand campus eastward, and improved student outcomes of living near campus.
David Mitrovčan Morgan, a student trustee, reminded councilors that their decision should be quasi-judicial, contingent on whether they agree UO’s site-specific proposal complies with objective criteria, “not whether you like this project.”
With photos of their homes fastened to their shirts, Fairmount residents argued UO’s proposal runs afoul of hard-fought planning protections to preserve the character of the historic neighborhood lined by single-family homes.
“Our testimony is not the long-winded ramblings of a not-in-my-backyard anti-development neighborhood group,” said Susie Smith, a member of the Fairmount Neighbors Association and Zelenka’s wife. “It is a careful, thoughtful, professional evaluation.”
The neighborhood association’s board of directors has said it will withdraw its opposition if UO adds protections to the buffer zone through designated strips of vegetation, height stepbacks, and traffic and parking plans. UO has agreed to study traffic on Agate Street to identify travel improvements for all modes of transportation.
But for now, the board argued in a recent memo, UO has not met the burden of proof required to meet the proposal’s approval criteria, and city staff “simply echoes” the university’s statements in recommendations to councilors based on incorrect information.
McArthur countered that Monday, arguing that the application has been thoroughly reviewed and vetted by city staff and the planning commission.
“I have heard council speak to the integrity of service of planning commissioners and of staff and of their legal counsel,” he said. “We don’t believe that to be true.”
Neighborhood residents expressed tentative relief at the council’s vote to close the public record period and move toward a decision. Villard Street resident Steve Gab told Lookout Eugene-Springfield that UO’s “tortured” proposal and its voluminous testimony includes enough information for city councilors to determine the requests are an “overreach.”
“We’re not giving up on our neighborhood,” he said. “But we’re also extremely tired of the fight.”
