<br />16 <br />Draft | December 1, 2023 <br />Continued Development and Annexation <br />Development continued to urbanize both communities, bringing aspects of in-town communities, such <br />as curved streets and cul-de-sacs, to River Road and Santa Clara by 1975. Accompanying these <br />transformations to the built environment were continuing conversations around how these <br />communities could be incorporated into the City’s jurisdiction and how urban services, such as <br />electricity, water, transportation, and sewer, would be provided to the area. <br />Annexation, sometimes called “incorporation,” is the legal process by which properties located in a <br />county become part of a city (“incorporated”) and thus eligible to receive city services. In 1982, the <br />adopted regional Metro Plan governing planning efforts of Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County, <br />established the regional UGB and included policies requiring that if new development occurred on <br />properties within the UGB, the properties in question would be annexed to the appropriate city, either <br />Eugene or Springfield. <br />Sanitary Sewer Service and Patchwork Jurisdiction <br />Later in the 1980s, a groundwater pollution problem in the area led to the State of Oregon mandating <br />the provision of sanitary sewers. The Metro Plan specified that cities were the sole providers of sewers <br />in the metro area, which meant the City of Eugene was responsible for providing sewers to River Road <br />and Santa Clara. While the City originally intended to provide sewer service to individual properties that <br />chose to voluntarily annex, in order to reduce the groundwater pollution problem, Eugene extended <br />wastewater service to developed properties regardless of whether a property owner chose to annex. <br />These processes resulted in tensions between River Road and Santa Clara community residents and the <br />City. The legacy of these tensions has led to the continued jurisdictional fragmentation of these <br />communities, with some residents integrated into the Eugene City limits and others remaining within <br />the Lane County jurisdiction—all of which contributed to the checkerboard pattern of City and County <br />properties seen throughout the River Road and Santa Clara neighborhoods today and created <br />inefficiencies in the provision of services and confusion for residents and agencies alike. <br />Policies in the Metro Plan now encourage annexation as the preferred means of providing urban <br />services to new development. Annexation is voluntary; however, it is typically required when a property <br />owner proposes to develop a property that is within the UGB but not within city limits as a condition of <br />certain land use approvals. In the City of Eugene, annexations must be approved by the Eugene City <br />Council, and the property must be contiguous to the city limits or separated from the city limits only by <br />a public right of way or a stream, bay, lake or other body of water. <br /> <br />Past Community and Planning Efforts <br />Adopted in 1987, the River Road-Santa Clara Urban Facilities Plan has governed land use and <br />development in the River Road and Santa Clara communities for over 30 years. A number of planning <br />efforts have occurred in River Road and Santa Clara in the years since the Urban Facilities Plan was <br />adopted, leading up to and informing the formal Neighborhood Planning process that began in 2017.