Appeal Materials 2024-09-17 - Laserfiche WebLink

Eugene Hearing Official August 14, 2024 Page 9 individually or cumulatively, discourage the development of all middle housing types permitted in the area through unreasonable costs or delay. Local governments may regulate middle housing to comply with protective measures adopted pursuant to statewide land use planning goals.” The /PD overlay zone at issue in this case imposes severe limitations on housing development, whether residential development is proposed under either the General track in EC 9.8320 with its discretionary standards, or under the Clear and Objective track in EC 9.8325 with its nondiscretionary standards. Other code restrictions, whether in this code or other city codes, and whether manifested as overlays, PUD requirements or otherwise, would effectively exempt an unquantified but undoubtedly substantial share of all “areas zoned for residential use that allow detached single- family development.” Examples include the /SR Site Review Overlay Zone (EC 9.4400, EC 9.8425) and the /# Residential Density Overlay Zone (EC 9.4050). In so doing, they would greatly reduce the existing capacity of urban growth boundaries to “reasonably accommodate” cities’ housing needs for “the next 20 years” as required by Oregon’s Needed Housing Statutes (ORS 197.296) and LCDC’s Urbanization Goal, both of which are important context for the statutory language in question. For example, under the General Track, there are 15 /PD standards in E 9.8320; the City has discretion to deny any residential development proposal under one or more of those 15 standards. Thus, the /PD discretionary track gives the City authority to negate any residential development proposal. The overlay changes the overall zoning designation from one that allows single family detached residential uses as of right to one that might allow single family residential uses or, more accurately, to zoning that potentially negates all residential uses. Under the Clear and Objective track, any R-1 land above the 901’ elevation may not be developed at all. In those areas the R-1 zone is effectively nullified. The context of the statute supports reading its reference to “areas zoned for residential use” as meaning the base zoning district, not including any overlay zones the City wants to apply or enforce. That context includes not only the statewide housing goal and needed housing statutes, but also the statewide planning statutory framework of which they are an integral part. That framework’s foundation stones include commitments to protect rural resource lands while also accommodating urban needs including affordable, accessible housing at prices, rents, and locations within compact urban growth boundaries that are to be expanded only when they can no longer “reasonably accommodate” project urban growth needs. See 1000 Friends v. LCDC (McMinnville), supra. Speaker Kotek’s linkage of the middle housing statute’s purpose with that broader framework is reflected throughout ORS Chapters 197 and 197A. Among other places, it is found in the UGB expansion area priority “tiering” statute, ORS 197.298, and, perhaps most importantly, in the Housing Needs Statute. ORS 197.296, which outlines the methodology for determining both need and capacity,