The community advisory committee — a citizen board providing recommendations to city government — reached a consensus on April 26 to prioritize multifamily housing development, especially in areas near Creswell’s center, and ensure development for senior housing.
The committee had prioritized six objectives after reviewing two reports: a housing needs assessment (HNA) and an economic opportunity analysis (EOA). Most everyone agreed that policy objectives 2.2 (multifamily) and 2.4 (seniors), which would provide opportunities for housing development to meet the city’s needs, were the priorities for the HNA.
Other objectives the committee wanted to tackle included: encouraging development of multifamily housing in commercial zones (2.3); developing the “Creswell Housing Program,” a compressive housing strategy to lower barriers and encourage affordable housing development (3.3); and planning for infrastructure development to support residential development (4.1).
There were four objectives created from the EOA report:
The City would develop policies and programs to encourage development and redevelopment on industrial lands (2.1). Scheduled for a later date, the City would have the same focus but on commercial and mixed-use development downtown (2.2).
Another priority was objective 3.1, which will have the City would coordinate capital improvement planning to ensure infrastructure availability on employment land and continue to pursue funding for needed infrastructure to support economic development activities (3.1).
Existing business retention, new business development and attraction of new businesses had two popular objectives. One was to promote and support diversification of Creswell’s economic base, such as businesses that are complementary to existing business in Creswell or within the Eugene-Springfield region (4.1). The other supports and encourage business location at the Creswell Airport, focusing on businesses that benefit from locating at the airport (4.5).
Two other objectives were noted: The first states to retain and encourage growth of existing businesses in Creswell (4.2), and the other supports existing businesses by sharing technical resources, maintaining open communications with local business people and providing available staff report for economic development projects (4.4).
Beth Goodman of EcoNorthwest mentioned that, with changes to flood plain maps, cautioned there might be less land available for development. Results from map changes won’t be available until at least December 2019.
Going forward, City Planner Maddie Phillips said the focus will be on the HNA report because they had the funding to prioritize those initiatives. A planning commission meeting is scheduled May 16 to present the reports to the full planning commission, and in June, Goodman will present the analysis to the City Council, giving the council and planning commission a chance to discuss it together.