Forced Upzoning & Redevelopment

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Is this the future of Southwest Neighbors?

The Oregon Legislature has dictated that Eugene must upzone all single-family neighborhoods to allow redevelopment with triplexes and fourplexes. What’s more, the legislation leaves what gets built, and where, up to developers and large real estate investment organizations.

An example of a demolished neighborhood is how the character and livability of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood was destroyed when blanket upzoning allowed radical redevelopment.

Get informed. Get involved. Take action. Protect your neighborhood.

Join your neighbors for a highly informative seminar on House Bill 2001’s impacts and action you can take.

“The Complete Survival Guide for Single-Family Neighborhoods” — Presented by Paul Conte Wednesday, December 11 from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. at Tsunami Books — 2585 Willamette St. For more information, visit TrustTheNeighbors.org/seminar

Note to Southwest Hills Residents & Homeowners:

Homes south of W. 29th Ave. and around the Edgewood Shopping Center are prime targets for developers who want City Council to upzone so the developers can demolish homes and redevelop as high-end condos and apartments. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn specific actions you can take to protect your neighborhood.

Southwest Hills Neighborhood Association General Meeting

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The next SHiNA general meeting will include our annual elections for the SHiNA board and a presentation from Cascadia Prepared. They will talk about what we can do to prepare for the next Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake. The meeting will be held at the Hilyard Community Center, 2580 Hilyard Street in Eugene. On Sunday, November 3rd, from 4:00 to 6:00pm.

We would love to have community input for future topics of interest at our neighborhood meetings. We have a few remaining raffle items from our Annual Picnic that include a Sunrise Asian Food Market Gift Certificate and a Ditch the Disposables Bag that we would like to raffle off. Snacks and juice will be provided at the meeting.

Voting on street name ideas for the Downtown Riverfront redevelopment

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The city of Eugene put out the call for street name ideas for the Downtown Riverfront redevelopment and the community responded! More than 600 people contributed about 1,100 ideas. The 12 semi-finalists are now available to be voted on and we’d love your input.

Community members are invited to select their favorite street name options for the new Downtown Riverfront at https://engage.eugene-or.gov/name-our-streets.

Voting will be open through October 18. The voting results will be given to the Mayor, who will help make the final decision. 

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To ensure that street names are relevant to Eugene and the new Downtown Riverfront neighborhood, suggestions had to fall into one of three categories:

Community/Culture – From Kalapuyans to Bill Bowerman, choose a person, place, or thing that embodies Eugene.

Ecology/River – From our rivers to surrounding mountains and the valley we live in, ideas representing the ecology of Eugene are as abundant as our native plants. 

Industry/Energy – There are major industries that are important to Eugene’s history and the energy of steam and water have played an important role at the riverfront site. While timber has historically been a large driver of our economy, agriculture and education have also played major roles, and the technology community is steadily growing. 

Additionally, names had to meet practical guidelines such as not exceeding 20 characters or being too similar to another street name in Lane County. Names of people who are still living or already have a public space named after them were also removed. An internal group at the City reviewed all suggested names and narrowed down the choices based on the criteria. 

 

‘Leaving a legacy for the future’ – 2,000 sequoia trees planted by 2021 in Eugene

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Eugene hopes to add a lot more green here in 2021. They hope to do it with 2,000 sequoia trees, and community members can look at how you can get involved in the effort. The City of Eugene is on a mission to plant at least 2,000 sequoias by the year 2021, before the IAAF World Championships. “This is really leaving a legacy for the future and when the city and all of the constituents in it can come together and plant trees, that’s building a stronger community,” says Heidi Lakics with the City of Eugene.

Lane County residents can help by picking up a free tree from Alton Baker Park at an event this month. Lane Community College is already on board. “50 years from now students will be welcomed into the campus with a gorgeous giant sequoia forest,” says LCC instructor Timothy Ingalsbee. Their goal is to bring back wildlife and plant 100 sequoias these next couple of months. “There’s been an immense amount of clear cutting going on around the campus and so we lost a lot of forest to land speculators,” Ingalsbee says, “so planting these giant sequoias will partly compensate for that.” Of course, people need to have the adequate space–that is, at least 20 feet of space between any buildings, sidewalks or any other trees.

“People need to keep in mind that these are little baby trees that we are giving away and these are going to turn into big, massive trees, so you have to have the right space,” says Heidi Lakics with City of Eugene. She says community members are already on board too. “We’ve had a lot of requests for giant sequoias; people are really on board with this. Again, it’s leaving a legacy for the future and that makes people really excited.” This will be a legacy that will live for centuries to come. The City of Eugene looks forward to giving away hundreds of baby sequoias.

If you are interested in picking up a free tree, you can do so on Sunday, October 20, from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Alton Baker Park in the native nursery.

Story by Kassandra Gutierrez and KVAL.com Staff from Thursday, October 3rd, 2019.