The Neighborhood Planning Process offers an unprecedented opportunity for creating a more green and resilient home, neighborhood and community.
Here is a short over view.
Site Tours Support Planning Goals and Inform RR/SC Plan
River Road Neighborhood will be the location for two timely site tours, June 2 and June 16. Both dates are Saturdays and both tours will meet at Rosetta Park [Benjamin and Evergreen] for an 11 AM start. Bikes are best, cars can follow. Total tour distances, about 2 miles each with an easy pace.
Currently, the River Road and Santa Clara Neighborhoods are working with the City on a new Neighborhood Plan. The Plan must conform to City and State planning goals. All the features included on these site tours show actions in real life that support these planning goals.
Eugene neighborhoods have hosted dozens of permaculture site tours over the years but the tours coming up in June are particularly important. The tours are intended to show and tell green and resilient actions at homes and in the neighborhood that also support State and City Planning Goals and can inform the current Neighborhood Planning Process.
Grass to garden, solar design, rain water catchment, depaving, accessory structures, eco friendly business, edible landscaping, collaborations with the City in the Greenway, front yard gardens; all help mitigate climate change, help restore the environment, contribute to a more walkable neighborhood, improve public health, help create local jobs the are planet friendly, build community, preparedness, resilience and much more
More and more people all over Eugene are growing food, catching rain water, making use of solar energy, collaborating with their neighbors and more. The new Neighborhood Plan for River Road and Santa Clara can be a pioneering document by specifically encouraging people to take these green and resilient actions at home and in the neighborhood.
Every neighborhood in Eugene can benefit from green and resilient content in the new River Road and Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan. Other neighborhoods [Eugene and elsewhere] can build on the RR/SC Plan when their neighborhood's turn for planning comes up.
Neighborhood leaders, city and county staff from many different departments will be interested to see these timely and creative projects at homes and in the neighborhood that are a perfect fit for State and City planning goals and an emerging future that promises unfamiliar economic, environmental and social challenges.
Dates of the tours - Saturdays, June 2 and June 16.
Meet 11 AM, at Rosetta Park - Benjamin and Evergreen, River Road Neighborhood
Bikes suggested. Cars can follow.
Tours organized by the River Road Community Organization Education Committee.
The public is invited.
Just below, a graphic that shows how the planning process works.
Here is a short over view.
Site Tours Support Planning Goals and Inform RR/SC Plan
River Road Neighborhood will be the location for two timely site tours, June 2 and June 16. Both dates are Saturdays and both tours will meet at Rosetta Park [Benjamin and Evergreen] for an 11 AM start. Bikes are best, cars can follow. Total tour distances, about 2 miles each with an easy pace.
Currently, the River Road and Santa Clara Neighborhoods are working with the City on a new Neighborhood Plan. The Plan must conform to City and State planning goals. All the features included on these site tours show actions in real life that support these planning goals.
Eugene neighborhoods have hosted dozens of permaculture site tours over the years but the tours coming up in June are particularly important. The tours are intended to show and tell green and resilient actions at homes and in the neighborhood that also support State and City Planning Goals and can inform the current Neighborhood Planning Process.
Grass to garden, solar design, rain water catchment, depaving, accessory structures, eco friendly business, edible landscaping, collaborations with the City in the Greenway, front yard gardens; all help mitigate climate change, help restore the environment, contribute to a more walkable neighborhood, improve public health, help create local jobs the are planet friendly, build community, preparedness, resilience and much more
More and more people all over Eugene are growing food, catching rain water, making use of solar energy, collaborating with their neighbors and more. The new Neighborhood Plan for River Road and Santa Clara can be a pioneering document by specifically encouraging people to take these green and resilient actions at home and in the neighborhood.
Every neighborhood in Eugene can benefit from green and resilient content in the new River Road and Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan. Other neighborhoods [Eugene and elsewhere] can build on the RR/SC Plan when their neighborhood's turn for planning comes up.
Neighborhood leaders, city and county staff from many different departments will be interested to see these timely and creative projects at homes and in the neighborhood that are a perfect fit for State and City planning goals and an emerging future that promises unfamiliar economic, environmental and social challenges.
Dates of the tours - Saturdays, June 2 and June 16.
Meet 11 AM, at Rosetta Park - Benjamin and Evergreen, River Road Neighborhood
Bikes suggested. Cars can follow.
Tours organized by the River Road Community Organization Education Committee.
The public is invited.
Just below, a graphic that shows how the planning process works.
This is the text that appeared as a guest opinion in the Eugene Register Guard, early April. 2018
Planning Green and Resilient Homes and Neighborhood
It’s a rare opportunity when people can help create a civic plan with potential to benefit their homes, neighborhoods, businesses and quality of life in many ways for decades to come.
The residents of River Road and Santa Clara have such an opportunity, a collaborative process with the City of Eugene, that will craft a neighborhood plan to guide how River Road and Santa Clara evolve into the future. Land use, transportation, open spaces, economic development, public participation, housing are all vital elements to this planning process. It might look a bit wonky, but the process is of historical importance.
For generations, our country’s growth and development has been dominated by sprawling land use, oil and automobiles. Five of this country’s largest ten corporations are oil and cars.
Remarkably, with similar populations, the urban footprint of Atlanta, Georgia is 25 times the footprint of Barcelona, Spain.
We are learning our resource intensive and polluting way of life has serious consequences on the natural world, foreign policy and public health.
A sign of the times, resilience and sustainability are words used with increasing frequency. To a growing number of people, sustainability and resilience should be the over arching considerations for how to plan transportation, land use, economic development and just about every other aspect of human culture and economy.
Surprising to many, state and city planning goals include a great deal of language regarding resilience and sustainability.
Envision Eugene, Eugene's community vision for the next 20 years, calls for land use and walkable neighborhoods that reduce the need for cars, address climate change, conservation of natural resources, public participation in community decision making, community building and much more.
A neighborhood plan in Eugene, must be consistent with state and local planning documents. These state and local documents clearly identify sustainability and resilience as core values and goals.
With strong public support, citizens of River Road and Santa Clara can transform Envision Eugene's thoughtful language into a pioneering neighborhood plan for taking on many of the greatest environmental, economic and social challenges of our time.
At home, the plan could encourage solar energy, tiny homes, front yard gardens, rain water systems, de paving and more.
The plan could encourage important city programs like Neighborhood Watch, Matching Grants, CERT Training and Mapping Your Neighborhood to consider incorporating green actions and strategies that could make these programs even more effective for creating homes and neighborhoods that are more prepared, cohesive and resilient.
The neighborhood plan could improve public health, keep more money local and decrease pressure to build more roads by encouraging mixed use re- development along the River Road corridor with shops providing products and services near to where where people live so they can walk or bike to take care of important needs instead of driving.
Above the shops could be apartments designed for people who want to live without owning a car or want to work to home. The same apartments could facilitate social interaction attracting Baby Boomers wanting to downsize but stay in the neighborhood with friends.
These resilience and sustainability improvements to the neighborhood, both home and commercial, can create many jobs in construction, design, care giving, entrepreneurs and more.
Another important tool for the neighborhood is the economic development corporation [EDC], an organization, usually a non profit, whose mission is to promote economic development within a specific geographical area.
A River Road – Santa Clara neighborhood plan could assist creating an EDC, specific to these neighborhoods. Perhaps in partnership with a local credit union, the EDC could channel investments from neighborhood residents into high value projects, public and private, that would benefit the neighborhood’s civic culture, economy and resilience.
Imagine people in the neighborhood investing millions of their own dollars close to home, such as a natural food store, apartments like the ones described above, shops with healthy products, green home improvements and small businesses that boost resilience, cohesion and preparedness.
Imagine a vigorous civic culture where seniors, students, faith communities and ad hoc groups volunteered eight or ten hours a month for restoring natural habitat, helping neighbors, volunteering at a school or other important community minded actions.
A pioneering and ambitious neighborhood plan can create exciting new opportunities for a more resilient and sustainable neighborhood but it can't make magic.
Ultimately, it’s up to the residents of River Road and Santa Clara to value themselves, their families, homes, environment and neighborhoods enough to learn about the issues and participate to make smart use of this unique planning opportunity.
State and city planning goals are an open invitation to take ambitious action at this critical point in history.
What could be better than working with our friends, neighbors and families for creating a resilient, healthy and civic minded place to live.
Jan Spencer for the River Road Green Caucus. 212 Benjamin, Eugene