In a recent guest viewpoint in The Register-Guard, four neighborhood leaders, Paul Conte, Marilyn Milne, Kate Perle And Deborah Healy, responded to the guest viewpoint by Laura Langdon of the Home Builders Association of Lane County:

Representatives of the local Home Builders Association shed a few crocodile tears recently in a Register-Guard guest viewpoint headlined “City’s proposed code changes undermine ‘smart growth.’ ” In that opinion piece and subsequent public testimony, HBA representatives seek to prevent fixes to flawed zoning regulations that allow unbridled infill development to degrade Eugene’s neighborhoods.

HBA representatives have twisted the meaning of “smart growth” to serve their own interests, essentially arguing against any standards that might reduce the potential density of some developments. By this faulty reasoning, standards that keep building heights in scale with surrounding residences, require adequate parking or protect natural storm water drainages all undermine “smart growth.”

The Lane County Moving Forward Togetherâ„¢ conference on June 11, 2008 will feature a panel on housing and “Smart Growth” with Bob McNamara of the National Association of REALTORS® and Robert “Skip” Rotticci of Costa Pacific Communities. The panel will be moderated by local affordable housing advocate John VanLandingham, who also chairs the Oregon Land Conservation & Development Commission.

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In an “Activist Alert” the Eugene Weekly reports:

An all-day “Moving Forward Together” conference on “smart growth” is planned for June 11 at the Eugene Hilton. The event is sponsored by Realtors, the cities of Eugene and Springfield, Lane County, LTD and the Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program. Registration is required and costs $25 before June 6. Visit http://movingforwardtogether.robzako.com. A series of panels with national and state experts will “offer ways in which we can work together to expand our housing, economic and transportation choices.” One of the panels will discuss the West Eugene Collaborative.

Do you wish you lived in Lane County and could attend the Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11, but somehow find yourself living at the other end of the Willamette Valley?

Then you might be interested in the:

2008 Regional Livability Summit

May 28, 2008 — Portland State University

Keynote by Maya Wiley
Executive Director of the Center for Social Inclusion

Join us at the Summit and help create an agenda for true sustainability in the metro area—one that harnesses our desire for positive change, recognizes our interconnectedness, aspires toward equality and inclusion, and lives up to the promise of our people and our place. Along with Maya Wiley’s keynote address, the Coalition for a Livable Future will unveil preliminary strategies that have emerged from the community in response to the Regional Equity Atlas research. These ideas will provide focus for plenary panels, breakouts, and other activities throughout the day. Click here for additional Summit details.

Disclaimer: Moving Forward Together™ and the 2008 Regional Livability Summit are different events with somewhat different aims in different parts of the state organized by different groups. This notice is for informational purposes only.

A cover story in Willamette Week questions the need for the Columbia River Crossing: a proposed $4.2-billion new Interstate-5 bridge over the Columbia River.

Although this project isn’t in Lane County, it does raise questions about the changing economics of transportation investments throughout Oregon.

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In a recent guest viewpoint in The Register-Guard, Laura Langdon, director of government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Lane County, wrote:

Two amendments proposed by the Eugene City Council would drastically reduce density in neighborhoods near the University of Oregon campus that are currently zoned for high-density housing.These changes would reduce the availability of housing, decrease property values, and force many students to commute by car to campus.

These amendments would contradict Eugene’s expressed growth management policies, as well as the Metro Plan and Oregon land-use law.

The City Council and Mayor Kitty Piercy have taken the stance that Eugene will not expand outward. Long established city policies urge maximizing the use of land within the Urban Growth Boundary by growing up at higher densities. This is known as “smart growth.”

Smart growth is a well-established practice that allows cities to grow while using land more efficiently, creating viable urban neighborhoods, and limiting sprawl to protect wetlands, forests and farm lands.

The Lane County Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11, 2008 will feature a panel on housing and Smart Growth with Bob McNamara of the National Association of REALTORS® and Robert “Skip” Rotticci of Costa Pacific Communities. The panel will be moderated by local affordable housing advocate John VanLandingham, who also chairs the Oregon Land Conservation & Development Commission.

What do you think about “Smart Growth” and how land use policies should guide growth in Lane County?

According to a recent commentary in the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman:

Austin continues to grow at breakneck speed, but growth is a double-edged sword. On one hand, growth brings prosperity. On the other, it undermines the very quality of life that attracted so many of us to Central Texas in the first place.

In response to its unprecedented growth, Austin has undertaken many measures to balance conservation and development from the Austin Tomorrow initiative in the 1970s to Smart Growth in the 1990s. A current initiative, Envision Central Texas, is the most comprehensive regional effort to promote a more sustainable path to the city’s growth. To achieve this course, we need elected officials committed to realizing the Envision Central Texas vision through concrete plans and projects. As John Fregonese, one of the principal architects of the vision, noted recently: “Visions without actions become delusions.”

John Fregonese will be the opening speaker at the Lane County Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11, 2008.

The Slant column in the Eugene Weekly reports:

Is there a connection between higher fuel prices and sagging real estate prices around the country? Both are causing worries about the economy, and they are related, according to a new study by Portland economist Joe Cortright. In his research, Cortright found that distant suburbs requiring long commutes have suffered the largest declines in housing prices “while values in close-in neighborhoods have held up better, and in some cases continued to increase.” Cortright says Oregon has weathered the housing price slump better than other states due to our relatively stringent land-use laws. And here in Eugene we have so far managed to resist the constant drumbeat for unbridled growth.

Inflated fuel prices are economically damaging, but they do encourage us to buy smaller cars, ride bicycles or take public transportation and live closer to where we work, shop and go to school. That makes sense environmentally regardless of gas prices.

Joe Cortright will be speaking at the Lane County Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11, 2008.

Online registration for the Lane County Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11, 2008, is now available. To register, click here.

Reid Ewing, the lead author of Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, spoke at the recent meeting of the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission in Salem.

Read the meeting materials (Part 1, Part 2), including an excerpt from Growing Cooler.

In brief, Mr. Ewing indicated that to meet Oregon’s goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, it won’t be enough to rely solely on improved technology and cleaner fuels. In addition, it makes sense to begin looking at ways to enable some people to make fewer or shorter trips some of the time—in particular, by encouraging more compact urban development.

Mr. Ewing, a nationally recognized expert on transportation, best development practices, and related topics, will be speaking at the Lane County Moving Forward Together™ conference on June 11.