www.RiverRoad-SantaClaraPlan.org 1 <br />Reaching Out : Rural Santa Clara & Business Canvassing <br />The ‘Reaching Out’ phase of the River Road – Santa Clara neighborhood planning process focused on <br />broad public awareness of the project and soliciting input on the neighborhood vision from a diversity of <br />voices. This report summarizes the targeted outreach conducted by City staff and neighborhood <br />volunteers to two specific stakeholder groups: rural residents of Santa Clara and businesses interests in <br />both neighborhoods. <br />For different reasons, business interests and rural residents do not typically attend traditional community <br />engagement events. Business owners are often tied to their store all day and may return to other parts of <br />the city in the evening. On the other hand, rural residents may not feel that an outreach event for the <br />‘neighborhood’ includes them. The project team though it was important to target outreach efforts at <br />these constituencies. The following sections summarize the project team’s approach to engaging these <br />communities and the resulting feedback. <br />Rural Outreach <br />The Santa Clara Community Organization includes rural residents who live beyond the urban growth <br />boundary (UGB). Members of this community are unlikely to participate in broader neighborhood <br />workshops that are not tailored to their unique geographic location. <br />Over twenty participants attended the rural Santa Clara workshop held at Madison Middle School on <br />December 14, 2017. Jointly hosted by the City of Eugene, Lane County and the River Road and Santa Clara <br />Community Organizations, attendees had the opportunity to participate in the same activities as those <br />who came to the large community event in October: a mapping exercise to identify what they value about <br />the area, and a ‘my ideas’ activity that asked participants to share their future hopes for the <br />neighborhood. These activities generated the <br />following results. <br />Land Use <br />Land use was discussed extensively by <br />participants at the rural outreach event. The <br />majority of land use comments were about <br />protecting the existing farm zoning and high <br />quality soil. That said, there were also <br />frustrations expressed over the limits to land <br />uses resulting from being outside the UGB. A <br />recurring suggestion was to address the <br />March 12, 2018, Work Session – Item B