those who use the Ribbon Trail for recreation purposes and a significant wildlife habitat and <br />corridor, helping to ensure a more harmonious environment" (DHO, p. 78). However, the Joint <br />Committee Report has presented evidence that the buffering and screening are not sufficient to <br />provide "minimal off-site impacts" from the Ribbon Trail. For example, although no housing is <br />proposed, building heights of up to 47 feet could be allowed under Eugene Codes. Thus <br />buildings would be intrusively visible. <br />The proposed CHPUD would permanently change and deplete the environmental quality and <br />natural urban resource of the forested landscape within the development and certainly off site. <br />This is an impact at a greater scale than any one or a grouping of multiple existing R-1 housing <br />has done in the area. The Application requested "flexibility for the lot coverage, frontage, and <br />area criteria" in order to maximize the large number of lots proposed, otherwise, "many units and <br />valuable natural area would be lost" (CHPUD, p. 60). The resulting proximity to the Ribbon <br />Trail and Hendricks Park was rationalized by a variation of the we-did-the-best-we-could <br />argument: , <br />"Even though the subject property line is fairly close to the Ribbon Trail, the applicant has <br />chosen to rely on the flexibility of the PUD process to arrange and design lots in such a way <br />that this important community resource is visually protected and buffered from as much <br />development as feasible" (CHPUD, p. 60). <br />Yet the Application makes excessive, unsupportable generalizations: <br />"inclusion of the conversation [sic "conservation"] areas within the individual lots preserves <br />natural areas and provides a multitude of opportunities to enhance habitat areas.... <br />conservation areas will also provide wildlife corridors for species such as deer, birds, grey <br />squirrels, and more" (CHPUD, p. 60). <br />However, the application does not present convincing evidence of effectiveness -that visual <br />screening would be suf'cient and that habitat would be enhanced by extensively clearing <br />existing forested slopes and by allowing fencing between lots and at lot boundaries adjacent to <br />the Ribbon Trail. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the designated preservation and <br />conservation areas would be not be compromised as the individual lots are built out. <br />Serious and irreversible impacts would result from clearing the site and increasing the potential <br />for slope instability and landslide hazard. The environmental quality would be adversely <br />impacted from harvesting a majority of the trees, and the result would hardly be "harmonious <br />with adjacent and nearby land uses" which on the east and north boundaries are public park <br />property. <br />The proposed CHPUD would be intruding into one of the sensitive environmental border areas <br />of Eugene's defining urban greenway landscape and view-scape. We contend that the city's <br />iconic urban landscape resources should be inviolable. <br />However, the Hearings Official simply repeats the unsupported generalizations of the <br />Application and dismisses the testimony of the opponents as "somehow" vagueness. <br />34 <br />