AN ALYSI S
BY EB EN FO DO R
EUGENE GROWTH TRENDS
Envision Eugene vs. the reality of compact growth
H
The transition to compact infill is much greater
than forecast in the 20-year Envision Eugene process.
to mitigate many of the impacts of intensified urban
development by providing added amenities and
infrastructure to support a high quality of life and to
maintain neighborhood integrity and sense of community.
It’s not clear whether any mitigating urban amenities
are being planned in or around the impacted neighborhoods.
The wonderful mobility we have enjoyed in Eugene may
be coming to an end. It’s easy to see that the critical arterial
roads in the area, such as Pearl, Hilyard, Willamette, 11th
and 18th, will soon be overloaded. There is no offsetting
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increase in pedestrian and biking facilities or added
parkland and recreational amenities to accompany this
growth in the city core.
These changes may have caught city of Eugene by
surprise too, and the improvements could come along
eventually. In the meantime, it’s smart growth without the
“smart” part. ■
For more information on the data presented here, see wkly.ws/1mi. Note: The
city does produce a federally mandated “construction report.” However, this
only shows aggregated, citywide data for completed development for prior
years, so it is one to two years behind.
Y KSGIVING!
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H HA
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ow has recent growth been shaping Eugene’s
neighborhoods? It’s hard to know without data,
and the city no longer provides reporting of
residential building permits issued by year — let
alone by type and neighborhood.
Getting answers required analyzing a city online
database and integrating this with a special multi-family
housing report provided by a helpful city planner. The
result is a complete picture of residential development by
year, type and neighborhood from the year 2000 to present.
The data show that Eugene has been growing much
more compactly than was predicted in the Envision Eugene
planning process. There has been a dramatic transition
from single-family construction before the recession to
multifamily afterward. In 2004, new housing was 57
percent single family. So far this year, 85 percent of new
housing units were multifamily.
Equally dramatic is the shift in location of the growth
from the urban fringe to the urban core. Growth that was
taking place primarily in Bethel and Santa Clara before the
recession is now occurring in the Downtown and West
University neighborhoods.
The pace of growth is also surprising, given that the
recession is still being felt in Eugene and around the
country. Permit data for Eugene is incomplete for 2013;
however, with two more months to go, it’s possible that the
number of housing units this year could exceed the recent
peak in 2004 of 1,233 units.
The data show a remarkably speedy transition from
sprawling single-family development on greenfields to
denser multifamily in existing urban areas. Some of this is
student housing attributable to past growth at the UO.
Some may also be due to the new economic reality of
lower wages and tighter housing budgets.
The transition to compact infill is much greater than
forecast in the 20-year Envision Eugene process. Given
these trends, the city should revisit the baseline assumption
that 61 percent of new housing would be single family. It
might not be necessary to expand the urban growth
boundary at all.
Has Eugene become a “smart growth” success story?
Certainly the environmental impacts of denser, urban-core
development are preferable to those of sprawling fringe
development. But the smart growth formula was intended
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November 21, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com
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