Welcoming River Road Renters

River Road Community Organization Board is reaching out to renters who live in the River Road area.  We are teaming up to canvas and invite  Renters to the Sept. 9 River Celebration and invite them to our monthly RRCO General Meetings, the second Monday of each month at 7 pm. 

Canvasing will be

Thurs Aug 24, from 6-8

Sat Aug 26 from  4-6

Thurs Aug 31 from 6-8

Sat Sept 2 from 4-6

Please use this sign up link to help us reach out: 

https://forms.gle/jJmnWgwiUxHEnesr9

River Celebration September 9

Are You Ready for the River Celebration? On Saturday, September 9 the whole neighborhood is invited to celebrate our favorite landmark and the many talents and assets of our community. Walk or ride your bike to the west bank path between the duck pond at  Merry and Rasor park between noon and 4 pm. There are over 24 activities confirmed so far.
Got apples?  Bring them and a jar for cider for the apple press.
Too many zucchinis?  Bring them to the garden trade table.
Got poems or stories? Share them at the spoken work circle
Got songs?  Join the song circle.
Want to learn about native plants, honey bees, permaculture, and the seed library?
Bring your drum for the drum circle and get ready to dance with the trees.


RRCO Board Recommendation on Draft Neighborhood Plan – Your opportunity to review at July 9th General Meeting

After five years and thousands of hours of neighbor’s collaboration, the Draft Neighborhood Plan is ready to move to the next step. The RRCO Executive Board has unanimously agreed on our feedback on the Draft Plan, Action Plan & Proposed Code Amendments to the Neighborhood Plan Community Advisory Committee (CAC). In summary we support the Plan documents, but we list three areas of concern that have been eliminated from the draft documents.  

The CAC will meet on July 27th to review the feedback from both the River Road and the Santa Clara Community Organizations and craft their response to the Eugene and Lane County Planning Commissions.  
 

Those Commissions will then deliberate to review the proposed documents and forwarded River Road / Santa Clara recommendation and prepare their joint recommendation to be presented at a public hearing sometime in the Fall. Once they review that public feedback, they will produce a recommendation to the City Council and County Commission who will also hold a public hearing and eventually produce an ordinance implementing a new River Road /Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan, Code Amendments and an Action Plan to guide our Neighborhoods’ development over the next 30 years. And to think it only took six years!

Following the RRCO charter, the general membership of RRCO will have an opportunity to vote on the Board’s letter of approval. We will have time for  questions, discussion, and potential membership action on substantive issues at the beginning of Monday’s General Meeting.

Here is the RRCO Board letter to the Plan Community Advisory Committee:

Dear Mayor Vinis and Members of the City,

We, the members of the River Road Community Organization Board, are writing in support of the Draft River Road/Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan being submitted by the Eugene Planning staff, in conjunction with the Community Advisory Committee, and the River Road and Santa Clara Community Organizations. 

For the past 6 years, our community and board members have engaged in this effort with enthusiasm and with the needs of our unique and fast-growing neighborhood in mind.  The plan does not address all of the requirements outlined as part of the Envision Eugene initiative; however, we have heard from our community via a variety of vehicles and believe that the current draft should proceed through the adoption process, moving us forward from the refinement plan of 1986 that currently guides the development for our area.  We are ready to partner with the City and County to move the draft plan forward and are willing to accept some of the shortcomings of the document in order to proceed. 

While the new plan will define much of the direction for the neighborhood, we have identified three core areas of opportunity that were eliminated from the plan. As these three areas of opportunity are core to the desires of our community, we are committed as a board to continue to advocate for resolution of these issues to meet the needs of River Road residents.  These are:

  1. No Parking Resolution for County Streets:  Lane County controls 76% of River Road Local Streets (58% of Santa Clara) and they have negligible capacity to enforce on-street parking standards. The reduction in on-site parking requirements through the middle housing code amendments and other State standards means that our experience with parking overflow near ECCO housing will just become more intense.  Many of the County Local streets in our neighborhoods aren’t developed to urban standards and have limited capacity to accommodate the overflow parking almost certain to occur with new properties lacking minimum on-site parking requirements.   Without some way to regulate on-street parking on a significant majority of our streets, further densification will lead to more unsafe streets in our neighborhoods. One potential resolution would be for the City Manager to include deliberation on how to address the issue as part of the Climate Friendly and Equitable Community Parking Reform process.
  • Potential Loss of Commercial Properties:  When we asked our neighbors to set goals for the Neighborhood Plan, they placed strong emphasis on having more commercial opportunities, especially restaurants, gathering spots & groceries. They also called for 20 Minute Neighborhoods– businesses they could easily walk or bike to.  However, the staff decision to eliminate the proposed Corridor Mixed Use zone leaves the majority of our current Commercial properties in the C-2 Community Commercial Zone.  This zone allows 100% of the properties in the zone to be residential with no commercial at all.  The eliminated Corridor Mixed Use zone would have required commercial use on the ground floor.

The economic study included in Sera Architect’s River Road Corridor Study showed that economic demand for housing is high and commercial use is low.  Without regulation requiring it or some kind of incentive to encourage it, the commercial facilities we currently have may well be replaced by multifamily housing that ironically will create an even greater need for the commercial properties they replace. We encourage the City to conduct a feasibility study to determine how to encourage more commercial services in the River Road/Santa Clara area.

  •  Need for Neighborhood Specific Regulations for the River Road Corridor: We continue to believe that we need neighborhood-specific regulations to guide the development of the River Road corridor.  We appreciate the C2 code changes proposed instead of a special area zone but recommend that you reconsider a one-size-fits-all ordinance for all seven corridors, as proposed to be enacted in 2026. 

We wish to recognize the efforts of the Eugene Planning staff, the RRCO and SCCO boards, the Community Advisory Committee, and all of the members of our joint communities who have engaged with us over these past 6 years to reach this milestone.  It is our hope that we will continue to collaborate over the coming years as we work to implement the Action Plan and resolve our parking, commercial, and corridor issues.

With kindest regards,

River Road Community Organization Board Members

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is asking for your public input about the proposed rules for the Fuel Tank Storage facilities located in Eugene that store over 2 million gallons of fuel.

Fuel tank farms provide gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to people in Oregon. However, many tanks in Oregon may be vulnerable to earthquakes, which means they present a risk to the local communities and the environment.  

Under the rules created in this process, facilities will develop plans that include actions to protect public health, life safety, and environmental safety within the facility, in areas adjacent to the facility and in other areas that may be affected as a result of damages to the facility. The plans must consider the impacts of a magnitude 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, the potential consequences of that event and the resources needed to respond.  

DEQ will accept comments by email, postal mail or verbally at the public hearings. Anyone can submit comments and questions about this rulemaking.

The virtual public comment hearings will be held on 3 dates, see below email for full details and to register.

  • 7 p.m., Thursday, June 15, 2023 
  • 2 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2023 
  • 12 p.m., Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Thank you,

Charlsey Cartwright and Joel Robe

HERE are the details from the DEQ

DEQ Rulemaking – Fuel Tank Seismic Stability  DEQ is Asking for Public Comment on the Proposed Rules

Summary

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is in the process of creating rules to implement the fuel tanks seismic stability requirements enacted in Senate Bill 1567. The bill requires operators of large capacity fuel handling facilities to assess their facility’s ability to withstand a magnitude 9 Cascadia earthquake event and propose mitigation to minimize risk.

Public comment

The Department of Environmental Quality is seeking public comment on the proposed rules More information on this rulemaking, including the draft rules, can be found on the Fuel Tank Seismic Stability webpage.

How to comment: DEQ will accept comments by email, postal mail or verbally at the public hearing. Anyone can submit comments and questions about this rulemaking.

  • Email: Send comments by email to SeismicStability.2023@DEQ.oregon.gov 
  • Postal mail: Oregon DEQ, Attn: Fuel Tank Seismic Stability Team, 700 NE Multnomah Street, Suite 600, Portland, Oregon 97232-4100 
  • At a public hearing (see below):
  •  7 p.m., Thursday, June 15, 2023 
  •  2 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2023 
  •  12 p.m., Tuesday, June 20, 2023 

DEQ will only consider comments on the proposed rules that DEQ receives by 4 p.m., on June 21, 2023.

Rulemaking Hearing: DEQ will hold three public hearings, with registration details below:

Hearing 1 
June 15, 2023, 7 p.m. PT 
Register via Zoom 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. 

Hearing 2 
June 17, 2023, 2 p.m. PT 
Register via Zoom

Hearing 3 
June 20, 2023, 12 p.m. PT 
Register via Zoom

Note for public university students: 

ORS 192.345(29) allows Oregon public university and OHSU students to protect their university email addresses from disclosure under Oregon’s public records law. If you are an Oregon public university or OHSU student, notify DEQ that you wish to keep your email address confidential.

Additional Information

To view copies of the notice documents, learn more about this rulemaking, and how to submit comments, you can view the rulemaking web page at: Fuel Tank Seismic Stability webpage.

If you want to receive future email notices about this rulemaking, you must sign up at: Fuel Tank Seismic Stability GovDelivery

You can also obtain more information about this rulemaking by contacting:

Svetlana Lazarev 
Svetlana.lazarev@deq.oregon.gov

Here is a link Videos for staying up to date on our local Emergency Preparedness.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChyvm3RpwB4uRgsc4u2b6jQ

RRCO & SCCO together Thurs. May 25 at North Eugene

River Road and Santa Clara Community Organizations are joining together (in person) at North Eugene High School (200 Silver Lane) on May 25th for a Community Meeting from 5:30 to 7:30.

The format will be similar to the 5/8 RRCO meeting. Help us plan  by RSVPing here)!  

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Join-us-this-week–Community-Event-on-the-RRSC-Neighborhood-Plan.html?soid=1123418754250&aid=GzFanpSmuT8

There’s still time to engage and share your input on the Draft River Road-Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan! We are looking for your feedback on how well the Neighborhood Plan captures your community vision and priorities. The documents proposed for adoption or approval by the City Council and Board of Commissioners include:



RRCO Board Changes

The RRCO Board Meeting on April 17th resulted in the following changes:

1. Clare Strawn submitted her resignation as RRCO Co-chair. The Board appointed Dan Isaacson as interim Co-chair and secretary Michele O’ Leary assumed the role of treasurer. Thanks to Clare for her years of service as Co-chair and to Dan and Michele for stepping into their new roles!

2. The board also voted to move the monthly board meeting from the third Monday of the month to the fourth Wednesday. The next board meeting will be held via Zoom on May 24th from 7 to 8:30 PM.


Pat & Carleen Thank You Celebration

Carleen and Pat Reilly are hosting a ‘Thank you’ Celebration in response to all of the help and kindness that have been shown to them during Carleen’s illness. Please join Carleen and Pat at the River Road Annex (1055 River Road) from 1 to 4 PM on Saturday May 20th and give them an opportunity to ‘Thank You’ in person. Tasty refreshments will be served. This is being held at the River Road Annex.

Your voice is needed for our Neighborhood Plan

The exemplary public involvement that started our River Road/Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan unfortunately ground to a halt with the arrival of the Covid Pandemic. None the less, City and County Staff have continued to work with the River Road/Santa Clara Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to refine the draft plan all along. 

Now it is time to get your feedback on the proposal. City Staff and Committee Members have agreed to use a Plan Toolkit to guide group and individual information and get feedback through a Community Feedback Form. You can utilize them on your own, but we are providing several opportunities for folks to gather in person or by Zoom to utilize these tools and learn about the current proposal and how to provide feedback.
1) RRCO general meeting May 8 In Person
2) ZOOM sessions May 17 and 18 combined with online tools (see links below)
3) RRCO/SCCO combined community meeting May 25th 5:30 to 7:30 at North Eugene High School.

The current process is that you have these opportunities to review and comment on the draft plan The RRCO and SCCO boards will utilize your feedback to make recommendations to the CAC.  The CAC will submit their recommendation to the Eugene and Lane County Planning Commission and then on to the Eugene City Council and Lane County Commission. 

Though some issues remain unresolved, such as managing parking (see parking article below) the three groups have agreed to submit the Draft Plan to the Community for your feedback. The most significant change is the City’s Planning Staff proposal to replace the Special Area Zone for the River Road Corridor and Willamette Greenway with zoning changes such as lowering the maximum allowed height of the majority of commercially zoned properties from 120 ft. to 60 ft. 

While we worked on the plan,  the State passed HB 2001 (Middle Housing) and is in the process of implementing Climate Friendly and Equitable Community Standards. These significantly changed how land use is implemented throughout the State including our ability to implement our original vision for our Neighborhoods.  

The first opportunity for River Road residents is to attend the May 8th General Meeting (7-8:30 PM) at the River Road Annex (155 River Road).  We will have an information session and then break out into tables for each topic areas with Community Advisory Committee members and Staff to review the plan and action items and to answer your questions.  You will have an opportunity to discuss your thoughts and use the feedback form to share your thoughts. 

Unfortunately this format will not allow us to also have a Zoom Session this month but we will be back to hybrid meetings in June. To serve neighbors who prefer to meet by Zoom there will be two Zoom Virtual Information sessions: May 17 at 8 PM and May 18 from 12 to 1 PM. You must register to attend these meetings and to get zoom information by clicking on your preferred date.

And we are excited to return to North Eugene High School (200 Silver Lane) on May 25th for a Community Meeting from 5:30 to 7:30. The format will be similar to the 5/8 RRCO meeting.Help us plan  by RSVPing here)!  

More detailed information on the Draft Plan and all the meetings mentioned above can be found here:  https://engage.eugene-or.gov/rrsc-neighborhood-plan

Kids Fishing Derby & Community Breakfast

Ages 2-7 on Saturday May 6, 8-11 am!

Come on over to River Road Rec Center and Emerald  Park wading pool for the 36th annual children’s’ fishing derby.  Open to children 2 through 7 (accompanied by an adult.) Bring your own bait and tackle and try your luck.  The wading pool will be  fully stocked with rainbow trout.  Take a break and come on in and enjoy our community breakfast! We’ll be serving eggs, ham, pancakes, fruit and juice!
Thank you to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife for givng us the fish!.