enforceable when it comes to protecting designated land.
The covenants and restrictions, however, haven’t been
submitted — they will be submitted after the application
is approved. “At which point they can do whatever they
want,” Brown says.
In April 2017 the city fined Dreyer $4,320 for removing
a small stand of trees without a permit in the vacant lot he
owned across from his home, documents show.
“This is the kind of person we are dealing with,” Brown
says. “This isn’t just character sniping. The PUD applica-
tion is asking the community to trust that he will do certain
things, because it’s not in fact proposing to build them into
the application in any kind of legal way.”
Dreyer says that Brown and other neighbors are pro-
ducing “Donald Trump facts” of their own. He explained
that his development is small enough not to require a traf-
fic study, but he conducted studies anyway, “showing the
roads are perfectly adequate” to handle more traffic.
Branch Engineering conducted two traffic surveys for
Dreyer. The first report was “built on the premise of more
units,” Carol Schirmer, Dreyer’s landscape architect, said
in an email to EW. “The revision [the one received by EW]
was based on less units which, of course, concluded that
there were no safety issues created by the development be-
cause there were less units than report 1.”
The study evaluated three different sections of Capi-
tal Drive in order to determine current traffic levels and
speeds. Tube counters — industry standard cameras used
to measure traffic — were set up on Capital Drive in stra-
tegic areas.
Collected data showed that the development would add
“roughly 141 daily trips, assuming full occupancy of the
31 new dwelling units.”
Engineers requested crash data from the Oregon De-
partment of Transportation for the section of Capital Drive
between Spring Boulevard and Hendricks Park. The most
recent five-year period data they received — Jan. 1, 2010
to Dec. 31, 2014 — did not include any crashes.
A reporting form only has to be filed with the DMV if
damage in a crash exceeds $1,500 or there is an injury or
fatality.
• Cougar Dam on the South Fork of the McKenzie
River creates a quandary that government agencies
and environmental geeks have been puzzling over
for decades. The dam is too high for a fish ladder and
blocks migrating fish both upriver and downriver.
Capturing salmon and steelhead below the dam and
hauling them by truck above the dam works, but is
very expensive. Even more costly is the construction
and operation of elaborate floating fish collectors in
the reservoir. We can spend $100 million to build a
mechanical contraption that makes so much noise
fish won’t go anywhere near it. It’s time to take
seriously the once-considered-silly idea of draining
the reservoir and allowing the river to run free
except for times when flood control is needed. The
downside is lost power generation and recreational
lake boating, but the mostly free-flowing South
Fork idea might just pencil out economically and
environmentally.
ENCROACHING ON THE PARK
Noise and traffic in the neighborhood may affect visi-
tors in the park as well. Dreyer has established a buffer
zone between his development and the ribbon trail, but
hikers value the solace the forest provides.
“The forest offers trails, hiking in the middle of the city,
hiking through the woods,” says Sandra Austin, a founding
member of Friends of Hendricks Park.
Austin was asked by PUD opponents to have the board
write a letter opposing Dreyer’s project. She said she
would take the idea to the board, but Friends wasn’t ready
to take a side.
“We aren’t opposed to taking a stand, but we are wait-
ing,” says Jim Beyer, another longtime member of Friends.
Beyer says the continued expanding of the development
doesn’t sit well with Friends, and the potential visual im-
pact is even more concerning.
“The ribbon trail that goes from Hendricks Park to 30th
Avenue is a sweet little trail. And for the most part, you
have no idea that there’s anyone around,” he says. “If you
had a whole hillside up there, that would take some of the
sweetness of that particular thing away.”
If the proposed PUD is approved, the park is at risk of
more than just being an eyesore.
When trees grow in stands they protect one another
from windthrow. As stands are thinned, large trees left be-
hind — such as those in the buffer zone — are more sus-
ceptible to being toppled, as their roots haven’t developed
the strength to stand on their own in high winds.
“Harvesting the designated trees will significantly in-
crease the risk of wind damage to the remaining trees,”
Mehrwein said in the letter from Brown to the city. “Trees
not only on the CHPUD site, but also in adjacent private
properties and in Hendricks Park would be vulnerable to
being blown down or having tops broken.”
Trees on private land contained in the PUD are vital to
the stability of the eastern ridge of the park. Brown cites
Mehrwein in his letter, writing that those potentially top-
pled trees in the PUD “significantly contribute to the risk
of catastrophic landslide.”
Whether it’s trees above the park falling down and slid-
ing into trails, or trees in the park that are no longer pro-
• Eugene was chosen from 47 cities that competed
to be the next Mozilla Gigabit City. That was the prize
that kicked off the Feb. 23 City Club of Eugene program.
It meant that winners received national recognition
and grants totaling $300,000 “for projects utilizing
emerging technology to improve education and expand
workforce development.” A big deal. Speakers were:
Matt Sayre, vice president of Technology Association
of Oregon; Craig Wiroll, Mozilla portfolio manager in
Eugene; Eric Braman, Lane Arts Council Gigabit residen-
cies; Jon Bellona, Harmonic Laboratory, City Synth; and
Erin Maloney, Lane Stem, Coder in Residence. After this
excellent educational program, we found ourselves
wondering if the tech geniuses of America are smart
enough to keep foreign powers from infiltrating and
weakening our democracy. We can only hope.
• Tony Corcoran’s Hot Air Society column about
upcoming elections, “Lane County Commission Needs
Estrogen Therapy,” hit a nerve last week. Looks like
election season is heating up! (Though it’s hard to say
what readers were madder about in last week’s issue
— Corcoran’s opinions or the fact that the Jonesin'
Crossword was missing a bunch of down clues. Nostra
culpa, we’ve posted the missing clues online.)
tected, critics argue that miscalculations by planners could
have far reaching effects on the cherished land.
On one hand, Dreyer says he is looking to improve his
own neighborhood. On the other, he says he is looking out
for the best interests of the city.
“Eugene has a real and desperate need for housing,”
Dreyer says. “I’m a big advocate of the urban growth
boundary. It prevents sprawl and keeps neighborhoods
more compact.”
The trouble with the boundary, however, is that once
filled in, there aren’t enough places to build, unless in-fill
projects such as Dreyer’s are allowed, he says.
State law requires cities to keep a 20-year inventory of
developable residential land. For years, Eugene has clas-
sified the in-fill pockets in the south hills as such, Dreyer
says.
“But people have had trouble developing it,” he adds.
“If the city doesn’t allow development in those areas, then
they don’t have their 20-year inventory and at some point
the state will say, ‘You’ve got to do something.’”
Dreyer says he fears that “something” will mean ex-
panding the urban growth boundary and contributing to
sprawl along riparian areas and the rivers.
Opponents to the development acknowledge the diffi-
culties of their position. They don’t want to propose what
happens to the land, but they don’t want to see it developed
according to this proposal.
Brown would like to see the land donated to the park
but worries about crossing the line between being a neigh-
bor concerned about the legality of the proposal and an
activist converting private property into public land.
As a group however, opponents have made a concerted
effort to raise money and buy the land from Dreyer rather
than see it developed and harm the park.
“If it weren’t for the park system, I just wouldn’t care,”
Brown says. “I’m certain that 30 years from now, people
will say, ‘Why was that allowed to happen?’”■
The public hearing will take place on Wednesday, March 7 at 5:30 p.m. at
Harris Hall, 125 E. 8th Ave. Both the developer and response committee
will offer final arguments for their cases. The meeting is open to the public.
• Thursday, March 1, marks the first day of the
rest of the life of The Register-Guard, which is now
officially owned by GateHouse Media Inc. instead of
Eugene’s Baker family, which owned and operated
the paper for 91 years. It was still unclear this week
entirely what that means for the RG and its staff.
Three employees were let go Feb. 21; numerous
sources told EW that most of the paper’s eight copy
editors face losing their jobs, with copy editing being
outsourced to GateHouse’s design hub in Austin,
Texas. Publisher Logan Molen has also been let go,
according to reports, and managing editor Dave
Baker has retired. Reporters and photographers,
though, are being kept on, at least for the moment.
• Last week’s announcement that EW’s arts editor
Bob Keefer and theater and film critic Rick Levin have
filed for the 2018 gubernatorial race in Kansas drew
nationwide publicity when the Topeka Capitol-Journal
wrote about their candidacy (“Two artsy guys from
Oregon assume roles in Kansas’ political theater”)
that was then sent out by Associated Press. Keefer
and Levin are sequestered in a smoke-filled back
room with big-money backers to plan their next
campaign move.
SL ANT INCLUDES SHORT OPINION PIECES, OBSERVATIONS AND RUMOR-CHASING NOTES COMPILED BY THE EW EDITORIAL BOARD.
HE ARD ANY GOOD RUMORS L ATELY? CONTAC T EDITOR@EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
eugeneweekly.com • March 1, 2018
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