From:Louisa de Heer <br />To:Eugene RR-SC Plan <br />Subject:CAC member Testimony - River Road Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan <br />Date:Tuesday, March 12, 2024 2:59:32 PM <br />You don't often get email from louisa.deheer@gmail.com. Learn why this is important <br />[EXTERNAL ] <br />This testimony is provided in relation to the public hearing on 3.12.2024 <br />I have dedicated many, many hundreds of hours of my time to volunteer for the River Road <br />Santa Clara neighborhood plan. Hundreds of hours gathering input from our neighbors, <br />walking door to door, standing in front of grocery stores and housing complexes, hosting <br />events in my home, and reviewing surveys. Hundreds of hours listening to the value that my <br />neighbors place on our unique neighborhood, walking the business corridor inviting them to <br />planning meetings in the fire station, the local Mexican restaurant, and the pub. I have met <br />with planners, councilors, and county commissioners for years as we baby stepped towards a <br />plan everyone could agree to that had lasting benefit for our community. In each of those <br />conversations, I promised my neighbors that the work we were doing was valuable and would <br />lead to clear revisions to the city and county code to better reflect our 21st century lives, <br />prepare for the future, and protect what we love most about our neighborhood's character. <br />I said that hundreds of times because I had trust in the City to follow through on their <br />commitments to us as volunteers that our collected wishes would be codified, that the plan we <br />worked so hard on would not be a feel-good wish list to sit on a shelf. We were told we could <br />make the plan whatever we wanted and the city and county would work with us to ensure it <br />was agreed to. The plan and the code amendments are the result of input from thousands of <br />people and countless hours of discussion, review, and revision. <br />After sticking with the city's promises through four city planners, a global pandemic, a failed <br />corridor study, and state laws erasing opportunity after opportunity, the few code changes that <br />we have left from the original still reflect the original wishes of our neighbors to hold our <br />viewsheds and access to the river dearly, to support our urban farmers, and to prevent <br />development of high rises along the river from negatively impacting our accessible, connected, <br />pedestrian experience and our ecosystem. <br />If council chooses to erase all of our work and leave only the 'action plan' which is neither <br />adopted nor code, it will violate a trust that the city staff have tried to build with volunteers. I <br />believe that will have an extremely negative impact on other neighborhoods' willingness to <br />engage with city projects like this; what has been the value of my time that I was so repeatedly <br />praised for donating since 2017? What is the value of the city's word to volunteers when in the <br />end it can be swept away and we are left with nothing? <br />We did our best, now please do yours. <br />Louisa de Heer <br />Eugene Sustainability Commissioner 2019-2023 <br />RRSC Community Advisory Council 2017-2023. <br />1