Land for Future Growth

How can Eugene accommodate future growth while enhancing the environment and our overall quality of life?  How should the city’s land use planning adapt to accommodate the new residents?  Where should these new residents live and work?  Depending upon where new housing or employment centers are planned, how will transportation and government services need to change?

These questions are all part of the planning processes that are being undertaken at the cities of Eugene and Springfield, to develop a regional and local growth strategy.  Studies of future land needs and available land play a key role in this process, allowing communities to evaluate different growth scenarios and determine how best to distribute forecasted growth.

House Bill 3337
The 2007 Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 3337, which requires Eugene and Springfield to each establish separate Urban Growth Boundaries, by dividing the metropolitan boundary that Eugene and Springfield have shared for more than 25 years. The new law also requires that the cities of Eugene and Springfield complete a study of the sufficiency of residential buildable land within their respective Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) by December 31, 2009.

In establishing separate UGBs, the cities must address all of the State’s applicable planning goals and administrative rules, which means that, among other things, each City must make estimates of its residential and employment land inventory and needs. This work also addresses a desire for agreement on how to manage growth (e.g., whether the UGB should be expanded and, if so, where). Such agreement has been elusive, in part because there has not been agreement on the amount or location of vacant land available for development or the amount of land that future growth is likely to consume. For both legal and practical reasons, the cities both want an accurate, current, and well-documented assessment of land supply and demand.

Eugene Comprehensive Lands Study
In January 2008, the Eugene City Council directed staff to conduct an assessment of residential, industrial and commercial lands, as well as non-employment lands (e.g., parks, open space). This expanded study includes an inventory of buildable lands within the City’s UGB, an estimate of need for land for residential uses, an estimate of need for land for non-residential uses (primarily commercial and industrial, but also public), and a determination of whether the City has sufficient land within the UGB to meet the estimated residential and non-residential needs.

In May 2008, Eugene hired consultant ECONorthwest to conduct the land study within the Eugene Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), which is called the Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment (ECLA).  The project began in June 2008 and will be completed by December 2009. 

The comprehensive lands assessment has six primary technical tasks: (1) buildable lands inventory, (2) inventory of non-economic lands, (3) economic opportunities analysis, (4) housing needs analysis, (5) analysis of needs for non-economic lands, and (6) determination of the sufficiency of land within Eugene’s UGB. Community engagement is an essential part of the lands assessment to keep stakeholders informed about the progress of the assessment and to provide opportunities for public input in the assumptions used in the assessment.  The policy discussion and decisions about how to respond to the results of these studies, (e.g, if a UGB expansion is necessary, and if so, where it should occur) will follow this process, beginning in 2010.

A community engagement process is necessary for a project of this type. A community engagement plan will be prepared for ECLA to ensure that community involvement will address the issues and assumptions necessary to conduct the land needs assessment.  The community engagement plan will address key community organizations, interests, appointed and elected officials and the public at large.  When complete, the study will be taken through a formal public review and adoption process that will include public hearings, review by the Eugene Planning Commission and City Council, Lane County Commissioners, and the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD).