This month's EUG Planning Newsletter includes updates and info on Urban Growth Strategies, Pre-Approved ADUs, Middle Housing Code Amendments, the Protected Bikeway Survey, the 2025 Consolidated Plan, an upcoming weatherization workshop, neighborhood planning, and a Community Engagement Survey.

We hope you'll find this information useful and reach out if you have questions. As always, you can find more information on all of our work by visiting our website.

Curious about what's going on with Urban Growth Strategies? Staff will be creating regular updates that provide relevant project information, milestones, and upcoming opportunities for engagement. For October 2024, project updates include: 

• Draft Land Use Designation Map 
• Climate-Friendly Areas Recommendation 
• 2024 Community Engagement Summary 
• Meeting Eugene’s Housing Need 
• Recent and Upcoming Public Meetings 

Read the full project update for October 2024 here. 

Climate Friendly Areas at City Council



The Envision Eugene Community Vision calls for focusing future growth, particularly higher density housing, in and near mixed-use centers and along key corridors. Mixed-use centers range in size and activity level, from downtown Eugene to smaller neighborhood centers. Centers will play a crucial role in reducing dependence on cars, lowering household transportation costs, and decreasing pollution by keeping goods and services close together and near housing. 

Climate-Friendly Areas (CFA) are a type of center, directed by state administrative rules. They are intended to be areas where most people can meet their daily needs without relying on a car. CFAs are envisioned as mixed-use centers with high-density housing, jobs, and services, as well as great walking, biking, and transit infrastructure. Staff proposed three options for Climate-Friendly Areas designation, based on the results of the 2023 Climate-Friendly Areas Study, 2024 redevelopment analysis, and community engagement. 

On October 8, 2024, the Eugene Planning Commission made a recommendation to City Council on where to designate Climate-Friendly Areas, including greater downtown and the commercial areas around Lower Coburg Road, Santa Clara Station, South Willamette, and Valley River Center (collectively known as Option 2).  

On November 13, 2024, the Eugene City Council will hold a work session and potentially take action to provide direction on where to designate Climate-Friendly Areas. Learn more about how to access City Council meetings here. 

Meeting Eugene's Housing Need

The Oregon Housing Needs Analysis (OHNA), part of the 2023 state legislative session, will fundamentally change how cities plan for housing. The OHNA uses a much more comprehensive approach to determining housing needs than previous state rules and emphasizes local government’s critical role in facilitating the production of more housing and achieving more fair and equitable housing outcomes.

Eugene needs more than 27,000 homes over the next 20 years, according to the latest results of the draft OHNA. To meet this need, Eugene would need to produce about 1,600 homes each year for the next 10 years.

That's a big number, but how does it compare to our current trends?



Based on data from Eugene’s Growth Monitoring Program, Eugene produced an average of about 950 net new homes per year over the last decade (see the chart to the right above).

To meet Eugene’s true housing need and meaningfully address the local housing and homelessness crisis, the community will need to produce 70% more homes annually for the next 10 years, compared to the last 10 years.

What can we do?

The City of Eugene has worked diligently over the past decade to address our local housing crisis, identifying priorities and coordinating resources through the 2022 Housing Implementation Pipeline and 2023-2026 Strategic Plan.

As a part of Urban Growth Strategies, the City will identify and prioritize new actions to address Eugene’s housing need. This housing need will be integrated within Eugene’s urban growth planning, including a technical analysis of the land available for housing within the current urban growth boundary (UGB) and the need for a UGB expansion.

Engaging Young People in Urban Growth Strategies

In 2020, Mayor Lucy Vinis formed the Youth Advisory Council to narrow the divide between youth and local government while providing a voice for youth in Eugene. The Youth Advisory Council consists of 20-25 high-school aged youth from the five largest high schools around Eugene. Learn more about the Youth Advisory Council here. 

Urban Growth Strategies staff, along with staff from other City program areas, are engaging the Youth Advisory Council to better understand the needs and priorities of youth in Eugene.

(Youth Advisory Council members designed engagement events and activities intended to help engage more young people in City projects.)

Over a series of meetings, the Youth Advisory Council is considering:

• Strategies the City can use to better engage young people
• Improving access to goods and services, in an equitable way
• Producing more housing that everyone can afford, has desirable qualities, and in locations people want to live
• Tools, actions, and policies for making progress towards Eugene’s climate goals

Input from the Youth Advisory Council will inform policy outcomes of Urban Growth Strategies, primarily in the Envision Eugene Comprehensive Plan. The Envision Eugene Comprehensive Plan guides the City in its land use planning for future growth within Eugene’s urban growth boundary. 

The Pre-Approved ADU library continues to grow in selections! The most recently added ADUs offer more variety and smart, contextual designs. Here’s a preview!

The Domino by Drake Architecture and Design:

Using standard materials and construction methods The Domino enables homeowners to act as their own GC, saving money and encouraging customization. Due to the small footprint it's adaptable to many sites/conditions, and sized to enable additional construction methods (i.e. prefabricated/modular). Abundant, thoughtfully placed windows introduce natural light on the interior, with the option to expand the window openings to create a permeable edge.

The Willow by Arbor South Architecture:

The Willow is a cute “cottage style” ADU with an open floor plan and much bigger living than its 560 square feet would suggest. The vernacular style embodies the white farmhouses of the late 19th and early 20th century in rural Oregon. The single level plan allows for easy circulation and could accommodate a mostly barrier-free lifestyle. 

Check out the ADU library here - two more ADUs will be added soon!

On November 18, 2024, the Eugene City Council will hold a public hearing on an ordinance readopting the City’s Middle Housing Code. The proposed ordinance addresses the remand of the previous Middle Housing Code Amendments (Ordinance No. 20705) by the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). To address the most recent remand, the requirements for “sufficient infrastructure” from the State’s Large Cities Middle Housing Model Code (Model Code) have been directly incorporated into the proposed ordinance. Adding the “sufficient infrastructure” provisions into the proposed ordinance ensures that the higher density housing will only be allowed on lots with sufficient infrastructure (i.e. water, sewer, emergency access, and stormwater). 

It’s important to note that Middle Housing development continues to be allowed in Eugene, but those developments are subject to rules from the State known as the “Model Code.” While the Model Code continues to allow middle housing in Eugene, the readoption of the Eugene specific Middle Housing Code is important because it includes increased flexibility and incentives to encourage more housing options in the City. In light of the remand and applicability of different codes, applicants for middle housing are faced with confusion and uncertainty around their planned middle housing projects.

Anyone wishing to submit comment on the proposed ordinance can email their comments to MiddleHousingTestimony@eugene-or.gov. More information on the Middle Housing Code Amendment project, including record materials, a copy of the proposed ordinance, applicable code provisions, and other guidance can be found on thee website.

How Are Eugene's Protected Bikeways Working For You?

The City of Eugene has 5 protected bikeways:

• Alder Street from Franklin Boulevard to 19th Avenue 
• Eighth Avenue from High Street to Lincoln Street 
• 13th Avenue from Alder Street to Lincoln Street 
• High Street from Sixth Avenue to 19th Avenue 
• East Amazon Street from 33^rd Avenue and Hilyard Street to Dillard Road 

Please let the City of Eugene know about your experience with these protected bikeways by taking the survey! Responses will be used to inform City staff on fine-tuning the current bikeways and improving future bikeways.

A written public comment period on the draft Eugene-Springfield 2025 Consolidated Plan is open November 1^st through 5:00 pm on December 6, 2024. Comments may be submitted online or to Genevieve Middleton, Affordable Housing Policy & Planning Manager, City of Eugene, 99 W 10th Ave. Suite 240, Eugene, OR 97401.

The next Eugene-Springfield Consolidated Plan Advisory Committee meeting and Public Hearing on the draft Eugene-Springfield 2025 Consolidated Plan will be held December 10, 2024, at 2:00 pm. Additional information about the meeting and the draft Consolidated Plan can be found on the website.

The City of Eugene’s Sustainability Program invites homeowners and renters to participate in a weatherization workshop on Saturday, November 16^th from 3-4:30 p.m. at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 255 Maxwell Road. The workshop will include information on steps community members can take to weatherize their own homes; information about rebates for home energy upgrades like electric heat pumps and insulation; and free supplies, food, and stipends for participants.

This workshop is part of a larger suite of strategies identified by the City to help us meet our climate goal of reducing emissions from buildings. Buildings are the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change. Weatherization refers to home improvements that increase the efficiency of your home. These types of upgrades can protect health, reduce costs, and improve comfort during extreme weather, while also reducing our carbon emissions.

The City is excited to highlight the coalition of nonprofits delivering this work, including Fossil Free Eugene, Beyond Toxics, Springfield Eugene Tenant Association, Homes for Good, and Nonprofit Home Inspections. 

Click here to register for the workshop.

The City of Eugene is conducting neighborhood action planning for the Bethel and University areas. This new process relies heavily on community engagement, utilizes clear and objective processes, and supports increased participation through neighborhood associations. By attending planning meetings with staff from multiple City of Eugene divisions, residents will increase their capacity to understand and address issues impacting their neighborhoods. Planned meetings include some of the following topics:

• Public Safety
• Housing and Homelessness
• Transportation
• Sustainability

These sessions offer a space for the community to connect with City staff, learn more about City processes, and ask how these processes impact their neighborhoods. 

To learn more about the planning processes, provide your input online and see a calendar of events, please visit the Engage Eugene pages for each planning area:

Help us know how to best inform the public, aka YOU! We want you to have every opportunity to give your feedback on community projects and to know what’s going on. This survey will help us improve how we share news and consider your thoughts on City of Eugene projects.

The survey has three sets of questions and an optional set of demographic questions. Most people complete the survey in under 10 minutes. The survey is open through November 20. 

It’s important to us that community members know when someone has applied to develop their property through the land use application process. City staff are always happy to discuss a project before the formal review, and can provide information about what the formal review process will be to ensure that you have a fair opportunity to review and comment on a project. Sign up to start receiving emails that list recently submitted projects.

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