objective criteria does not allow the applicant to waive or not comply with the subjective criteria <br />under the alternative approval process (i.e., the General Track). <br />The Needed Housing statute does not require that an application for needed housing be <br />approved for every specific property. If the applicant cannot satisfy the clear and objective <br />criteria contained in the City's code, then LUBA has explained that the applicant has three <br />options. In Home Builders Ass'n v. City of Eugene, LUBA explained that an applicant who <br />cannot "avoid denial for failure to meet all clear and objective standards" has three potential <br />options. Home Builders Ass'n v. City of Eugene, _ OR LUBA _ (LUBA No. 2001-059 Feb. <br />28, 2002). The applicant can (1) "modify the application so that it meets all clear and objective <br />standards." Id. The applicant can (2) apply under a different procedure, if available. Id. <br />(discussing a discretionary adjustment procedure). Finally, the applicant can (3) do nothing and <br />allow the application to be denied. Id. <br />An applicant's failure to satisfy all clear and objective criteria as it relates to a particular <br />application for a unique property is not a basis for finding that the City's criteria runs afoul of <br />ORS 197.307(6)(a). It just means that the application, as submitted, must be modified, applied <br />for under the alternative track, or be denied. If, as is the case here, the applicant seeks approval <br />under the alternative process (here, referred to as the General Track, see EC 9.8320), then the <br />applicant must satisfy the subjective criteria contained therein. The applicant "retains the option <br />of proceeding" under the Needed Housing Track (EC 9.8325). The fact that such an option may <br />lead to a denial is a result of applying the City's clear and objective standards to a particular <br />piece of property. Some property is capable of greater development than others when it comes to <br />EC 9.8325(3) (30-foot landscape buffer), EC 9.8325(5) (prohibition on grading on 20% or <br />greater slopes); and EC 9.8325(12)(a) (prohibition on development over 900-feet). The simple <br />fact that these clear and objective standards result in fewer development opportunities for this <br />particular property does not in and of itself violate the Needed Housing statute. <br />However, if the particular clear and objective standard is one that could not be satisfied in <br />all instances (i.e., on any property), then such a clear and objective standard would violate ORS <br />197.307(6)(a) because the applicant for a PUD could ever satisfy the standard. Such a situation <br />occurred in Home Builders, slip op at 48. There, a stormwater runoff provision that was clear <br />and objective prohibited a PUD from creating "negative impacts on natural drainage courses." <br />Id. Because rain falls on all developments and all rain transports some pollutants, the standard <br />would be violated in all instances. See id. ("Petitioners submit that rain falls on all development, <br />and all water moving across ground carries some sediment, creates some turbidity, and has some <br />erosional component, no matter how minute, and therefore no PUD could possibly comply with <br />LUCU 9.8325(10)."). LUBA agreed with the petitioners in Home Builders, "at least in the <br />abstract, that imposing a clear and objective standard that is impossible or virtually impossible to <br />meet is a prohibition in the guise of a standard. -2 Even though the City had a discretionary <br />approval track (i.e, the General Track), LUBA found that such an "option is illusory if the clear <br />and objective standards are impossible to satisfy." Here, the circumstances are distinguishable <br />2 LUBA's conclusion was somewhat complicated by the fact that LUBA determined that "[i]t <br />may not be the case that LUCU 9.8325(10) is impossible to satisfy," but the city did not <br />"respond to [the] assignment of error at all." Slip op at 48. <br />