Applicant Final Argument (6-29-16)

Eugene Hearings Official June 29, 2016 Page 10 Valley River Inn Issue 10: Willakenzie Area Plan Policies Here VRI invokes a refinement plan policy that it says has not been addressed - Willakenzie Area Plan, Commercial Area Design, Policy 10. There are two shortcomings with this complaint. First, Policy 10 is not included in that section of the zoning code that lists the policies from the plan that are to be applied in the Site Review process. EC 9.9500; and EC 9.9700 (Willakenzie Area Plan Policies). The second reason is likely related to the first. Policy 10 is not a mandatory policy because its operative word is "should." Because the policy is limited by the word "should," the Policy is not a mandatory policy that must be complied with. VRI has not shown that Policy 10 needs to be addressed at all in this application. Valley River Inn Issue 11: EC 9.8815 - Willamette Greenway Permit VRI complains that the Applicant has not met the Greenway standard in EC 9.8815(1): "To the greatest possible degree, the intensification, change of use, or development will provide the maximum possible landscaped area, open space, or vegetation between the activity and the river." As background on and a touchstone for how the Hearings Official applies this standard, the post- hearing materials include three Greenway decisions as Exhibits F, G and H. We have also included, as post-hearing Exhibit E1 & E2. These graphics provide two alternate methods of calculating the proportion of development within the Willamette Greenway Boundary depending on whether site landscaping is counted toward "development" or not. Initially, VRI misunderstands the meaning of the standard. It is not focused onwhere to locate the development activity. The proposed development is an independent variable. It is a given. Then the standard looks at that area remaining and asks whether the maximum landscaped area/open space/vegetation has been provided. This reading of the standard is exemplified in post-hearing Exhibit H: WB 10-03 - Goodpasture Partners (2011). That involved a new bridge structure with additional lanes over a channel to the Goodpature Island ponds. The Hearings Official explained, at page 4: "The provision does not ask whether the activity itself would provide maximum landscaped area, open space, or vegetation; rather, the measuring area is the land between the activity and the river, not the activity itself. The staff report accurately states that there would be no change to the landscaped area, open space or vegetation between the activity and the river." (emphasis in original) The Greenway decision in Exhibit G stands for the same proposition. WG 10-01 was for a Greenway Permit for a university parking lot. There the parking lot use encroached into the Greenway. This standard was applied to examine the area between the encroaching parking lot and the river, not to ask whether the parking lot should be moved back out of the Greenway.