Downtown Eugene Renewal (NEW: 4-20-08)
The people of Eugene don’t like to come downtown because they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe because there aren’t many other people around. This is a classic Catch-22 situation.
Do safety concerns suggest that we put more officers on patrol downtown? Well, yes. But a police presence is not not even a partial answer.
We need to finish the job of revitalization. Reaching agreement on HOW to clean things up—to build office, shopping and entertainment facilities that will give people a reason to be downtown.
Why hasn’t this happened?
During my two terms as Mayor, the city made some progress in revitalizing the downtown area of Eugene with the opening of East Broadway. Since that time, the city has been unable to move forward and finish the job. Our only indication that the city has been doing anything at all downtown is the legacy of two massive holes, which have remained unfilled and unchanged from the demolition of two buildings earlier in Mayor Piercy's administration.
I believe a large part of the problem has been an overall sense of divisiveness between city leadership and the downtown stakeholders. The city needs to talk to local stakeholders to determine the best way to move forward. We need to change an overly restrictive city development policy. We need to loosen building codes. The city is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to option land when no developers are willing to partner with us to build what we need.
This is not good fiscal management during a time when fiscal resources a scarce and need to be carefully prioritized.