Discussions <br />These problems and questions have been discussed with the planning staff to no avail. In fact, <br />in the February 24, 2017 Envision Eugene Newsletter3 there was a statement made about why <br />the data and assumptions could not be changed. The joint planning commissions also ignored <br />the problems with residential projections. <br />In order to set our UGB for twenty years of growth, certain assumptions and models were <br />used to determine just how much land is required to support our community vision. Things <br />like the number of jobs we expect to attract, our predicted population growth, and the <br />assumed household size all impact how much land we will need for homes, jobs, parks, <br />and schools. You can learn more about these assumptions in our Population and <br />Demographics Fact Sheet. <br />We know people are concerned about some of our assumptions, including population <br />forecasts and housing mix (the ratio of single family detached homes to multifamily <br />dwellings), and how they compare to recent reports about what is currently taking place in <br />our community. We know that 2012, the year our assumptions are based on, feels like a <br />long time ago. In order to move forward with creating our own UGB, Council gave us <br />direction to use the adopted population forecasts in 2012 and reaffirmed this direction in <br />2015, so that we could set our baseline UGB. Updating our assumptions now would set <br />us back a number of years. In addition, updating one assumption means you have to <br />update them all because they all interrelate. <br />Monitoring and Adjusting - Flexible Implementation <br />Setting our UGB allows us to begin monitoring - an important program that will allow us to <br />adapt to emerging trends. Setting our UGB also allows us to begin urban reserve planning <br />using the most recent population forecasts. If our previous population forecasts or <br />housing mix are off, we will be better prepared to consider necessary changes to <br />implement our community vision and values. <br />Obviously, the newsletter excerpts are an attempt to defuse comments such as mine. <br />I don't believe doing the job right will set the project back several years, and the staff has <br />already had more than two years to fix the problem. <br />The land model is a series of Excel spreadsheets. The assumptions can be changed with a few <br />key strokes, to test various scenarios and tune the model for correctness. Fixing the data is <br />more difficult. <br />s Ibid. <br />The following section was included in the June 8, 2017 Envision Eugene Newsletter. <br />