are not an impediment to emergency response.... the language from the Design <br />Guidelines that Trautman cites is not mandatory.... <br />"Weishar did not testify that Oakleigh Lane meets the standards set out in the Design <br />Guidelines for queuing streets, but rather cited the Design Guidelines as support for his <br />position that the city allows narrow streets in other parts of the city.... It is evidence that <br />a reasonable person would rely on to conclude that a 14-foot wide paved surface is not <br />an impediment to emergency response." <br />LUBA affirmed the City's decision, finding that: <br />(1) EC 9.8320(6) does not explicitly require the City to find that the width of Oakleigh <br />Lane meets minimum street width in the City's land use code; <br />(2) EC 9.8320(6) does not explicitly require the City to find that Oakleigh Lane meets <br />the Eugene Fire Code ("EFC"); and <br />(3) Testimony provided by the applicant's consultant demonstrated that Oakleigh Lane <br />can accommodate emergency traffic. <br />LUBA's findings, however, misconstrued the applicable law and were not supported by <br />substantial evidence. <br />Neither LUBA nor the City ever interpreted the threshold question of what constitutes <br />an "impediment" to emergency response. So, on this remand, the Planning Commission must <br />first adopt a clear and relevant interpretation of "impediment": <br />"Impediment - something that impedes: hindrance, block" <br />"Impede - to interfere with or get in the way of the progress of" <br />Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1132 (1993) <br />With that definition, EC 9.8320(6) requires that the movement of emergency response vehicles <br />along Oakleigh Lane should not be "hindered" or "interfered with." Yet, as explained above <br />and now confirmed by an extensive assessment by a professional engineer, <br />"The safe and unimpeded ability of emergency response vehicles to traverse this <br />extensive length of substandard roadway cannot be ensured without improvements <br />identified elsewhere in this report." Page 10 of the Nemariam report. <br />And <br />"Oakleigh Lane, in the configuration approved by the EPC, cannot safely accommodate <br />emergency response vehicles because of the potential for parked vehicles to obstruct the <br />travel lane." Page 14 of the Nemariam report. <br />LUBA set up two "straw men" by suggesting that the appellant had argued that EC 9.8320(6) <br />explicitly required Oakleigh Lane to conform to the EC 9.6870 right-of-way width standards <br />and to the Eugene Fire Code standards for a fire apparatus access road. Neither argument was <br />present in the appeal, and this testimony doesn't present either argument. <br />Conte Appeal Testimony PDT 13-1 Page 13 April 12, 2017 <br />