Public deserves a voice as housing affects neighborhoods

“The choices before us are hard. Our progress in some areas are promising, our challenges in others is worrisome. We will make better decisions if we make them together” —  Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis, guest view, Register-Guard, March 26.

The challenge of housing in Eugene is not a "what" question, but a "how" question. We have consensus on what we need to do — increase available housing, especially affordable housing. The conflict is over how we get there.

A robust public process recognizing that the differences among Eugene’s neighborhoods require different approaches to housing is the best way to preserve Eugene’s quality of life while making needed changes to the city’s land development rules.

The campaign to delegitimize neighborhood associations and marginalize the public’s voice in this critical decision-making process is profoundly anti-democratic. Instead of trying to make an end-run around the city’s residents, developers and housing activists should make their case directly to the public, because we all will collectively bear the brunt of any changes to housing and zoning regulations.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco, an unholy alliance of vocal and well-financed developers and special interest groups believes members of the public are too self-interested and lack the required perspective to make decisions about development in their own communities.

These self-described YIMBYs (yes in my backyard) — or more appropriately YIYBYs (yes in your backyard) — ridicule anyone who questions their ideology as selfish, elitist and even racist. They have successfully disenfranchised the public and rammed through extreme zoning changes that, despite their rhetoric, resulted in the destruction of neighborhoods, the enrichment of developers, gentrification and increased homelessness.

Demolishing an affordable older home to build two unaffordable new homes while degrading livability in our neighborhoods will not solve Eugene’s housing problems. It is cruel irony that people who wrap themselves in the banner of the progressive left somehow believe that wholesale deregulation and market forces can solve current housing challenges.

Your neighborhood associations think Eugene can do better. Decades of experience has taught us the public is smart and sensitive enough to make good informed choices that can help us avoid the mistakes of Portland, Seattle and San Francisco.

Toward that end, the Neighborhood Leaders Council has petitioned the Eugene City Council to create a neighborhood-based, inclusive, time-defined, and democratic public process for comprehensively addressing Eugene’s housing needs. It is heartening that Mayor Vinis, in her July 8 guest column, is committed to improving the cities outreach and engagement process.

Despite the overheated rhetoric from groups like WECAN, neighborhood advocates are not NIMBYs who say “no” to anything, but neither are we saying “yes” to everything. Rather, the neighborhood associations are calling for inclusive public forums where residents — you — can get informed and have a meaningful say in Eugene’s future.

Effective planning is done with the public, not simply to the public. Oregon State Planning Goal 1, Citizen Involvement, explicitly requires including a “cross-section of affected citizens in all phases of the planning process.” Concocting plans behind closed doors and then presenting them to the public for “comment” violates both the letter and spirit of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development’s guidelines.

People choose neighborhoods before they choose homes, and each neighborhood is unique. A house or apartment isn’t a commodity, it’s a home. Residents invest their savings and years of their lives in their communities with the reasonable expectation that their neighborhoods would not undergo dramatic changes without their consent. Not actively involving the more than 160,000 Eugene residents who would bear the brunt of changes to residential zoning would be unethical and undemocratic.

There’s no doubt Eugene’s current approach to housing is unsustainable. We must develop strategies to provide shelter that people can afford and want to live in. However, any actions we take must be based on data, evidence of a plan’s efficacy and potential effects, and with informed public comment, deliberation and buy-in. To move forward, without ample evidence of efficacy or public support, would be akin to dumping a load of gravel in a downtown lot and expecting City Hall to emerge.

Eugene must chart its own path and not follow the failed strategies of other cities. Work with your neighborhood association (https://bit.ly/2KbvFuw) and contact your city councilor to demand a public process to address housing in your neighborhood.

Ted M. Coopman is the chair and has served on the executive board of Jefferson Westside Neighbors since 2016 and edits its monthly eNews and website (jwneugene.org).