{"id":178315,"date":"2020-07-24T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T00:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eugeneweekly.com\/?p=178315"},"modified":"2020-08-04T23:24:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T23:24:20","slug":"hb-2001-a-eugene-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/24\/hb-2001-a-eugene-odyssey\/","title":{"rendered":"HB 2001: A Eugene Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Eugene City Council was introduced to HB 2001, they apparently hated the state housing bill, which requires every Oregon city of more than 10,000 people to allow multi-unit \u201cmiddle\u201d housing in any residential neighborhood within the urban growth boundary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the first council work session on the issue in March 2019, in a feat of bipartisanship, councilors across the political spectrum joined together in disdain for this bill. Councilors said that they didn\u2019t think the bill itself would suit Eugene, but it seemed like they also disagreed with it on principle, annoyed that influential Portland-based legislators would try to usurp local authority.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like this bill at all. It has many problems,\u201d Councilor Alan Zelenka, one of the council\u2019s more liberal members, said. \u201cIt\u2019s a cookie-cutter Portland solution imposed on the state.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a place where you can let this pass and make it okay. Not for me,\u201d conservative Councilor Mike Clark said at the 2019 work session. \u201cThis won\u2019t just be bad for liveability, it\u2019ll destroy some neighborhoods. This would be a horrible, horrible outcome. There is no working halfway on this one that will make it acceptable to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The state didn\u2019t listen to the Eugene City Council, however, and the bill passed last summer. Last September, after Gov. Kate Brown signed the bill into law, some councilors put a motion forward to fight to repeal it in the 2020 legislative session. But Mayor Lucy Vinis encouraged them to let it go, telling the council that fighting it would be a \u201cfool\u2019s errand,\u201d and most of them have cooled down and are more willing to discuss how to move forward, tailoring the bill to Eugene.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Public Outreach<\/b><\/p>\n

At the July 22 work session, city planners presented the council with information on the Middle Housing Code Amendments project to develop land use code changes that comply with HB 2001 and fit Eugene\u2019s needs. This conversation addressed housing equity problems that have been present in Eugene as a result of systemic racism throughout the city and state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During their presentation on their plan for public engagement, <\/span>Metropolitan and Community planners Terri Harding and Sophie McGinley emphasized HB 2001 as an opportunity to create more equitable housing practices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Harding and McGinley said that the city needs to look at developing the new land use code from an equitable and anti-racist perspective, seeing as zoning regulations in many cities across the country have historically restricted more affordable, multi-unit housing in certain neighborhoods. This was done intentionally to create racially segregated cities across the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They made it clear that a big part of the project would involve reaching out to groups representing a diversity of race and economic class, including local leaders from the Black, Indigenous, People of Color community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Councilor Betty Taylor has recently said that she doesn\u2019t think Eugene still upholds racist policies from the past. Last month, Vinis and most of the City Council released a statement supporting the Black Lives Matter protesters and condemning racism in the community, which Taylor and Clark didn\u2019t sign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor said that she didn\u2019t want to sign the statement, which recognized that some city policies have continued a legacy of racism, because she doesn\u2019t believe that there are racist policies embedded in Eugene\u2019s institutions. At the July 22 work session, she maintained that position, saying that she was disturbed by the focus on race in the proposed middle housing outreach project and that previous racist housing policies are irrelevant now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s illogical to say that we\u2019re excluding people. Those things are no longer happening,\u201d Taylor said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a part of creating equitable, diverse roundtables to discuss the niches of HB 2001 through the Middle Housing Code Amendments project, Harding and McGinley said that it would be important to compensate people for their time and energy spent giving input.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This proposal comes in the midst of national conversations about racism which have brought forth a wider acknowledgement that people of color should be actively involved in creating more inclusive policies and they deserve to be reimbursed for this labor instead of being expected to educate white people for free.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The council also pointed out that using unpaid volunteers for big, time-consuming projects like this often results in panels dominated by people who can afford to work for free, who are often older, wealthy white people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we really want a diverse group of residents to participate in these processes we can\u2019t just limit it to people who can afford to give us their time for free,\u201d Councilor Claire Syrett said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor said she disagreed with the notion of paying volunteers to assist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know when we started paying volunteers,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cAll kinds of groups rely on volunteers. Volunteering means you don\u2019t get paid.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Councilor Emily Semple expressed confusion with the project, saying that she doesn\u2019t see why the community should start having these conversations until there is a clearer idea about what the code will look like and how the policy will be implemented.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re going to convene these groups and spend a couple of months educating them about the possible issues? I think that\u2019s a fine thing to do, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very productive considering how everything could change,\u201d Semple said. \u201cI\u2019m not convinced that we need three months of meetings and paying people before there\u2019s something to really talk about.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Problems with density<\/b><\/p>\n

Zelenka, who represents the University of Oregon area of ward 3, said that he thinks it is damaging to look at this project with a one size fits all approach. He said that the HB 2001 will impact his ward disproportionately, as developers would be incentivized to buy out older single unit homes around the UO campus, turning a large profit to transform them into expensive apartment buildings that can fit dozens of students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Zelenka has said in prior meetings on the matter that this would transform the nice neighborhoods around campus into party zones. (If you\u2019ve ever walked down Ferry Street on a Duck home game day, you\u2019d probably know that\u2019s already a lost cause.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Clark also brought up new concerns about more dense housing that would come from multi-unit complexes, saying that these are prime conditions for coronavirus to spread.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now critically clear that density creates greater capacity for disease to grow,\u201d Clark said. \u201cDensity kills people in this new environment we live in.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beyond Zoning<\/b><\/p>\n

Councilor Greg Evans, the only person of color on the council, talked about growing up in a segregated neighborhood in Cleveland and experiencing racist housing policy firsthand. He mentioned that not only has zoning policy been a way to racially discriminate, but so are lending practices, which have historically kept people of color from being able to own a home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a zoning issue,\u201d Evans said. We also need to work to remove those barriers in commercial bank lending and insurance.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Clark, who, by day, is a mortgage lender, said that racial discrimination in lending practices was resolved by heavy government restrictions after the 2008 housing crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToday is an entirely different atmosphere than 10 years ago,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThere is an intense list of remedies for people who think they have reason to think they\u2019ve been discriminated against.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Evans, who said he had lived experience with mortgage discrimination, disagreed. He said that just because there are laws against something doesn\u2019t mean that people won\u2019t find loopholes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey keep doing the same things that they\u2019ve been doing in the past,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The city of Eugene must develop a new land use code by July 2022 or it must implement the state\u2019s model. Now that the council has weighed in, the Planning Commission will begin to start the public outreach effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor and Clark both made comments throughout the work session about continuing to fight this bill, which frustrated Councilor Chris Pryor, <\/span>who also serves on the state\u2019s Housing Rulemaking Advisory Committee. Pryor urged any of his colleagues who were still upset that the bill had been passed to stop trying to get this bill repealed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re stuck with what it is and we\u2019re going to have to work with that,\u201d Pryor said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to leave it up to Salem to decide all the nuances of what we should do on the local level. I\u2019m pleading for us to get started as soon as possible so we can have a code that\u2019s good for Eugene and still reflects HB 2001.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Eugene City Council was introduced to HB 2001, they apparently hated the state housing bill, which requires every Oregon city of more than 10,000 people to allow multi-unit \u201cmiddle\u201d housing in any residential neighborhood within the urban growth boundary.\u00a0 At the first council work session on the issue in March 2019, in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":178522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[19,17],"class_list":["post-178315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news","tag-eugene-city-council","tag-ew-extra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}