Middle Housing was touted as a way to allow individual homeowners if they had room in their yard to add a mother-in-law studio, a tiny house, a duplex, triplex or four-plex on their property which would help in-fill the need for more housing in low density single family residence neighborhoods. A wonderful idea whose time has come!
With developers getting involved in the undeveloped land grab in addition to your regular single family homeowners the stakes have changed for neighborhoods. On less than 4 acres of land which would normally would have allowed for in-fill of about 4-5 houses, Middle Housing Overlay regulations have now opened it up to, in this case, 40 residential units made up of 22 buildings, over half of which will be 3 story 4-plexes of 2 and 3 bedroom units. The entire complex would add 116 additional bedrooms to our vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic along one of the most rural roads in Laurel Hill Valley.
This added traffic impacts everyday road safety for walkers, bicyclists, and two-way vehicle traffic on less than optimal narrow roads. It also can seriously complicate emergency vehicle access and evacuation plans in the case of a fire like the McKenzie fire a few years ago which would not be unheard of. Just think of Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires in Southern California. This is the climate and reality we are now living in.
The lion has awoken. It’s not about 40 units. It’s about the way the development conglomerate has hijacked the cause of Affordable Housing into a sort of NewSpeak for actually NOT solving housing crises and NOT finding ways to make meaningful changes to challenges of the unhoused and instead finding ways to capitalize on tax benefits and playing upon the dreams of home ownership.
Granted we cannot solve the housing crises by just adding a few mother-in-law units or tiny homes in our backyards though it’s a step in the right direction. There needs to be a concerted, well designed approach capitalizing on under-utilized vacant buildings and surplus city and state owned properties and being open to creative community and housing alternatives that mesh with the neighborhood’s history and character.
Middle housing takes neighbors out
of the neighborhood decisions.
The rule changes that established Middle Housing stole that last voice residents had by preventing objections to whatever developers propose. Developers have more say than decades old Neighborhood Plans that were instituted to give residents a voice in defining their communities. Plans were tossed to the side. This is a bastardization of the original intent of creating the 23 different neighborhood associations in Eugene – Laurel Hill Valley Neighborhood Association being the very first one established in Eugene in 1974. Neighborhood Associations carefully researched and produced Neighborhood Plans that helped to build community consensus and establish a relationship based neighborhood . Our neighborhoods now function more like a corporate boardroom where the dynamics are often to just run over the quieter voices. We need to take out neighborhoods back!
.
