DevNW is asking the Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) LIFT HO (Home Ownership) Program for $8.1 Million dollars in taxpayer funding for their Floral Hill Terrace subdivision.
The Eugene Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Eugene City Council just declined DevNW’s application for grant funding for the third year in a row in a large part due to the many letters they received from you pointing out the inadequate accessibility challenges with the Floral Hill Terrace plans.
Why would the State want to put money towards something that was declined by our own local affordable housing agency and City Council for the city that would have supposedly benefitted from this development?
According to DevNW, without this $8.1 million OHCS LIFT funding the Floral Hill Terrace project likely will not proceed as proposed. There are better options for affordable housing in Eugene that would provide better services to more people and we think these other options need to be pursued, not Floral Hill Terrace.
What to do — Who to write to…
Call to Action:
Write to OHCS Today
Timeframe:
NOW!
Address Letter To:
Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS)
and LIFT HO (Home Ownership) Program
EMAIL:
— jessica.mackinnon@hcs.oregon.gov
— ho.development@hcs.oregon.gov
CC:
— LaurelHillValleyCitizens@gmail.com
— IsFloralHillTheRightPlace@gmail.com
TARGETED ISSUES / Project Details
Funders want their money to be stewarded carefully. One of the scoring criteria that OHCS will be evaluating is PROJECT DETAILS. Use those exact words in your letter.
What to say: “THESE ARE THE PROJECT DETAILS THAT I FEEL DevNW’s FLORAL HILL TERRACE PROPOSAL DOES NOT DO WELL.”
Remember, you don’t have to address everything. Pick one or two points from our TARGETED PROJECT DETAILS below to discuss in your letter. (You can just mention the others to be sure OHCS is aware of the breadth of problems but you don’t have to.) Feel free to include the links provided below in your letter to give OHCS more background information.
- · Lack of access to services: In DevNW’s own application the project carries a Walk Score of 11. The nearest bus stop is 1.4 miles away. The nearest grocery store is 1.5 miles, but this is a high-end holistic/organic specialty grocery. The closest traditional grocery and pharmacy is over 2 miles away. That is a burden for low-income people without cars.
- · Transportation and Traffic: There is no LTD service in the Laurel Hill Valley. Residents of 40 new homes will rely on personal vehicles, on a narrow residential lane with no sidewalks, no shoulders. Fair housing guidelines would allow up to seven people per 3br/ba and five per 2 bd/ba. Even assuming some car-pooling, that virtually doubles traffic on Riverview alone.
- · Geotechnical concerns: Much of LHV is built on fill land. There are also underground springs. Even the developer’s application discloses wetlands requiring Army Corps permitting and a $20,000 budget for a geotechnical report. We have seen geotechnical reports before. Houses still slid off the slopes that developers insisted building on. The steep forested hillside to the west presents landslide risk if upslope soils are disturbed by road grading or utility work. A full new EIS should be required before any application is approved.
- · Fire and Safety issues: The streets and blind curves are already troublesome for emergency vehicles and residents. There is no evidence that Public Works and/or Eugene Fire have provided written confirmation of road and emergency access adequacy. We are in a Fire Priority Zone in the Wildfire Urban Interface. Our concerns about wildfire are real. The strong fall easterly winds could easily push flames right across the street and into the urban forest of Hendricks Park with a very distressed forest of Douglas Fir trees with a lot of fuel on the ground. The Fire Marshall said it’s not a question of “IF” but of “WHEN”.
- · Inappropriate use of taxpayer money: These homes are being marketed as affordable home ownership for low-income purchasers. But that feels like false advertising, as buyers will not own the land under their homes, which stays with the community land trust. There is a monthly Ground Use Fee and a cap on future sale value which limits equity building, plus a 75% portion of profit must be paid to the community land trust. There are also intrinsic issues about who pays for maintenance and repairs. It’s not really home ownership; it’s a taxpayer subsidy to a development corporation using the right buzzwords.
Your letters over the past months explained to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Eugene city government just what our concerns were with Floral Hill Terrace. Now we need you to share those same concerns about the above PROJECT DETAILS with the Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) LIFT HO program.
We support affordable housing and are not reflexively anti-development but this is an inappropriate location that will not properly serve the people needing affordable housing for many reasons. If our own local city of Eugene Affordable Housing Trust Fund isn’t supporting funding the project it makes it less likely that the state will decide to fund it. That’s why the timing of this letter is so important.
DevNW’s Floral Hill Terrace is on a waitlist for the 2027 funding cycle. OHCS has taken a serious look at their request for funds from last year but they remain uncommitted at the moment. The OHCS’s focus should be on the real needs of low-income residents, not subsidizing DevNW’s costs to build the project in the wrong place.
THANKS FOR WRITING AND SHARING THE NEED FOR MORE LETTERS WITH YOUR FRIENDS!