Public Comment (8) - Laserfiche WebLink

Water Resources overlay zone. These streams cross under Martin Street, to the north, where they merge into a single stream (Amazon Creek), which is the receiving drainage channel for the Amazon basin that flows as an open system through the City's urban core to Fern Ridge Reservoir, west of the City's urban growth boundary. In addition, as discussed below in the findings for EC 9.8325(7) and EC 9.6710(6), an earlier Goal 5 Natural Resources adopted inventory (1978) designates the entire site as a Scenic Area. Therefore, the entire site is an area included on the City's acknowledged Goal 5 inventory. As such, this approval criterion does not apply. EC 9.8325(5): There shall be no proposed grading on portions of the development site that meet or exceed 20% slope. To start, the existing West Amazon Drive is not included in the "development site," which is a term defined in EC 9.0500 as follows: "A tract of land under common ownership or control, either undivided or consisting of two or more contiguous lots of record. For the purpose of land use applications, development site shall also include property under common ownership or control that is bisected by a street or alley." As such, the existing West Amazon Drive right-of- way is not subject to this approval criterion. The applicant's original plan (Sheet L6.0) provided slope calculations based on the difference in elevation between two points located on the opposite boundaries of the subject property, and for each side of West Amazon Drive. These calculations indicate that the property slopes range between .5 and 15.2 percent because they do not account for any hills or valleys within the site. This manner of calculating slope (spanning of the development site) does not give full meaning to language of the approval criterion regarding the reference to "portions of the development site." The staff report noted that staff informed the applicant prior to and in a letter to applicant dated December 12, 2011 that the correct way to determine slope is prescribed by the City's application form, which requires contours to be delineated at five-foot intervals. The applicant, in its written statement, hearing testimony, and post-hearing testimony, also asserts that this criterion (EC 9.8325(5)) requires the city to exercise discretion and cannot be applied as a clear and objective standard, as required for a "needed housing" development, because it does not set out the prescribed unit of measurement for determining slope. However, the Land Use Board of Appeals rejected this exact argument, about this exact criterion (EC 9.8325(5)) in Home Builders v. City of Eugene, 41 Or LUBA 370, 410-411 (2002). LUBA stated, "the slope of a property is an objective determinable fact, and the absence of instructions on how to determine slope does not offend [the needed housing statute]." The applicant argues that there are four methodologies for measuring slope posited to date (Applicant's Testimony, Aug. 22, 2012). The hearings official disagrees. Despite the staff informing the applicant to measure slope using the five-foot contours on the application maps, the applicant chose to ignore that advice and measure slope over the entire site. After the hearing, the applicant then proposed to use yet a different map-the USGS topo map in the refinement plan. USGS topos have 40-foot contours. Just because the applicant disagrees with Hearing Official Decision (PDT 10-2, CU 11-1) 12