Testimony by 6-20-18 - Laserfiche WebLink

To whom it concerns (In regards to Lombard Apartments) My name is Jason Hilliker and I live at 1490 E. Briarcliff, Eugene, Oregon. I own the duplex at 1490 E. Braircliff and 361 Lombard. I am writing with my concerns with the apartment complex that is proposed at the end of Lombard. We as a small neighborhood fell like we have been left out of the discussion on the development of this property that is government owned land and supported by tax payers. This property was bought with tax payers funds originally, supposable for the development of low income housing. I have heard that the reason this property is being sold and not developed because it is in FEMA zone X and cannot be developed. From the work I have done in a zone x as long as the finish floor is above the flood elevation there should be no issue with getting government backed lending on a project. I for one am not so much opposed to the development of the apartment complex. I am opposed to the land not being used for its original use and the lack of regard to the current residences of our neighborhood. The city seems to be at a total lack of understanding or care of the impact of the developments design. Are neighborhood of Lombard and Briarcliff consists of 21 households. One household is a physically challenged resident that uses these roads every day to take his dogs on a walk with a modified wheel chair. The development and increased traffic will greatly affect his ability to be able to get out and walk his dogs. We have 2 houses that do adult foster care and these residents will also be greatly affected by the increased traffic as they try and take their walks. By allowing Lombard street to be accessed by the apartment complex Lombards traffic will go from 21 households to 115 households this is an increase of 547% and the people that will be living in the apartment complex will have no investment in the livability of the existing neighborhood. The current road system in our neighborhood is sufficient for the traffic that it is currently subjected to but will have major issues with added traffic. From what I was told the current road will stay the way that it is with no improvements. My major concern is the city will come back later and want to develop the road out to match the road at the apartment complex with sidewalks and such. At that time the city will come to each of the people with frontage on Lombard and expect them to pony up money to help with the development of the road, when the development of the road was not needed until the development was put in. If the road needs to be developed out it should be the responsibility of the developer, if the city does not do that than the cost should not be based on frontage but by sqft of lots. We all know that eventually the city will develop the road and this needs to be in writing some ware about how this will be addressed. Also Lombard is an old paved above grade county road. Briarcliff is a developed city road with gutters, curbs & sidewalks. Lombard is 8" to 1' above the grade of Briarcliff. If Lombard is to be improved Lombard should be brought down to grade to match Briarcliff. This would need to be done where the old section of Lombard goes into the new section on Lombard also, so when Lombard is improved the street would be on the correct grade. The other issue with having the traffic from the apartment go through Lombard is that Fir street, the street that connects Lombard with River Road has a very dangers entrance due to a new walk signal that was installed there and a choke point on Fir that can only be considered a one lane road. At entrance to Fir street there was a new cross walk installed that only allows one care in the turn lane. With the pot shop across the street there is also people that use the turn lane to go the other direction and there is no room for both cars. See attached pic below