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 development.
The Eugene Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Eugene City Council just rejected DevNW’s application for grant funding for the third year in a row in a large part due to inadequate accessibility challenges with the Floral Hill Terrace plans.
Why would the State want to put money towards something that was rejected 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 TOPICS 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 2.0 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 and there is none planned near the development in the future. 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 an as-yet-uncompleted geotechnical report. There have been well-publicized stories of houses sliding down the hillside in LHV. The steep forested hillside to the west presents landslide risk if upslope soils are disturbed by road grading or utility work. A full EIS should be required before any application is approved.
- · Fire and Safety issues: The streets and blind curves are already troublesome for emergency vehicles. There is no documented emergency vehicle access plan. There is no evidence that Public Works and/or Eugene Fire have provided written confirmation of road and emergency access adequacy.
- · 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 (aka an HOA fee), and a cap on future sale value which limits equity building, plus a 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 month 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 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 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!
