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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 2003)
the UGB is." ers, schools, fire stations and other infra- One such speculator is John Musumeci, structure and services to serve the resulting urban sprawl. Taxpayers are forced to either the land dealer who made millions off mov- ing PeaceHealth from downtown Eugene to pay more to cover the costs of sprawl or suffer reduced city services and infrastruc- the northern edge of Springfield . Musumeci ture as limited city resources are diverted _ recently acquired more than 1,000 acres of from the central city to serve growth on the forest land just outside the UGB in the LCC basin and has recently been advocating on edge, Bettman says. "The reason sprawl is local TV and radio for bad is it's extremely expensive ." expansion of the That expense and opposition to the ugli- growth boundary that would allow his land ness, traffic congestion, pollution, environ- to be developed. mental damage and loss of livability and Musumeci played a key role in founding farm and forest land that sprawl creates has and funding the Gang of 9 that ran months made expanding the growth boundary of $1,000-a-day cartoons in The Register- unpopular in Eugene. A comprehensive Guard attacking anti-sprawl city councilors 1996 Growth - Management Study -found two years ago. _ overwhelming opposition to sprawl and cit- Roberts has allied with Musumeci's izens in favor of a "Recycle Eugene" sce- Gang in the past praising the anonymous nario that focused growth within the UGB. attacks in a R-G opinion piece and in a let- ter posted on the Gang's web site. "From In r(?Sponse to public opinion, the council the beginning, I have appreciiued the job adopted a set of official city growth man- you are doing," Roberts wrofe in the letter. agement policies. Policy 1 states : "Support Bettman says Roberts and the partner- the existing Eugene urban growth boundary ship are funded mostly through local gov- by taking actions to increase density and ernment money and shouldn 't be involved use existing vacant land and under-used in political lobbying. "I have some very land within the boundary more efficiently." serious concerns about the role of the Metro Partnership," Bettman says. "I believe this is advocating policy." Whil~ sprawl is expensive for taxpayers , The cities of Eugene and Springfield it's highly profitable for developers , give the partnership $50,000 a year each Bettman says. "You can make a lot of and the county contributes $170 ,000 . At the money if you can externalize the costs of council meeting, Roberts said that the part- infrastructure on to taxpayers," she says. nership expects about $100 ,000 in private "There are land speculators out there that donations next year but has received less will profit obscenely depending on where an OBSCENE PROFITS - ~ J consolidate parcels or cleanup old industri- than that amount this year. al sites so they can be redeveloped . Kelly Bettman says city staff didn't respond to her request for a legal opinion on the legal- faults the Chamber studies f~r not fully ity of the city contributing to a group that considering redevelopment opportunities within the existing UGB. uses the money to tum around and lobby The Chamber studies argue that redevel- the city on legislative matters. "I was very opment . can't provide much more land disappointed." Kelly, who sits on ,the Metro Partnership because land buyers view the sites as unde- sirable in location , appearance and cost to board, says it's legitimate for the group to argue for an expanded UGB. "I have no clean up. problem with them telling the local govern- - Councilor Scott Meisner also said at the ments that, hey, you don't have enough meeting that he is interested in such brown- industrial land." field redevelopment. He said it was unfor- On its 2002 non-profit tax return, the tunate that the council recently voted to partnership states that it is not involved in give Hynix millions of dollars more in tax lobbying or influencing public opinion on breaks rather than using the money to fund legislative matters. clean-ups of old industrial sites for new industry. Bettman says lobbying for more land to serve homebuilders and commercial devel- Meisner said that while the council is opment also goes beyond the partnership's requiring higher density commercial and supposed mission of promoting local indus- residential development, it should also require industry to build more densly with trial job creation and retention . less ~urface parking . "Are we squandering the resource?" Meisner asked. "I'm not interested in doing a [land] inventory in iso- Before the city opens up more land to development, it should make sure land - lation ." Another alternative approach would be already within the UGB is being used, to prevent the ong6ing rezoning of industri- according to Kelly. al land to commercial and residential uses . Bettman agrees , saying "There's a lot of "It's inappropriate use of industrial land alternatives to consider before we consider that is the issue not unavailability," Segel opening up the U<1B and bringing in 2,500 says: "We're seeing a whole slew of con- acres." version s throughout the metropolitan area." "There is a significant amount of under- Meisner also says the city has to be care- utilized industrial land;" Kelly says. He ful with rezoning industrial land. "I don 't says the city could use urban renewal to BROWNFIELDS - -~t ~'.,IU\N IHHl\\fl'l~J~~~!~!~!~!!!}: ~!\HISTORY OF RURAL AMERIC~j :,:~·:•::;.•; .... ,... -~ __ ....,.,._'-\- ..... si . . t - ---- ... ···--: I'!..» \._ ,.,,.A ---.. . ... ---1 I • e- ,._ 7000ft ~-1 ~ T /~-f-- ~-.1 ~ . Whok food,, for whol.e peopk . . ·. 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