By GEORGE CUSTER/Editor/The Herald — “The times they are a changin,'” at least according to Bob Dylan. Oakridge is also looking to do some changes – zoning changes.
On Monday, the Oakridge City Planner, Rick Zylstra, laid out a potential roadmap for changing the city’s currently antiquated zoning rules to allow for planned regulated growth within the community. The phase two meeting was attended by members of the community, who were encouraged to ask questions and actively join in the overall discussion.
Zylstra has been working with professional planners Darcy Rudzinski and Emma-
Quin Smith from MIG in Portland and Nicole Cross from Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD).
They each briefed the public on work that had been done to look at the various options for changing zoning ordinances to reflect the need for developing adequate housing within the city. Zoning ordinances take into account a myriad of factors that can affect the overall livability of a community.
Artistic renderings of possible housing developments were created by University of Oregon students. The students come from several schools within the U of O. They represented the schools of architecture and planning as well as others and worked under the guidance and direction of Zylstra.
The students also provided drawings of housing types that could be developed, creating visual options to possible developers. Having a better understanding of what the city would like to see makes the decision-making process easier if the city can readily demonstrate to developers what might be acceptable housing types based on a particular zone.
The students are working with the City of Oakridge through the recent partnership between the U of O and Oakridge. Oakridge was selected for the University’s Sustainable Cities Year Program. The SCYP is a program where the university selects a city willing to partner with them.
Once the collaboration has been agreed upon, students from various disciplines, supervised by a U of O professor or staff member, work closely to donate time, energy and expertise to augment the work of city programs and projects. The SCYP will work with Oakridge over the next two years, a change from previous one-year partnerships.
The areas that were looked at for developing new zoning ordinances were the Uptown District and the Elk Meadows subdivision. The vast majority of these two residential areas are currently zoned R-1. This zoning does not allow for multi-family residences. Quads and apartment units are currently prohibited within these areas. Triplexes are allowed in some minor situations.
Because Oakridge is bounded on all sides by the Willamette National Forest, planning for growth is restricted to the city’s boundaries.
Before developers can even consider coming to Oakridge to build housing, whether it be workforce or other price point units, there must be land zoned to accommodate it. There had been a recent discussion between Zylstra and Homes for Good, an affordable housing advocate based in Eugene. The meeting resulted with the decision that they would be happy to consider building affordable housing in Oakridge once land was zoned for such units.
Oakridge currently has no available R-3 (multi-family units) zoning within the city.
Discussions also covered the topics of additional dwelling units or ADUs, updating design standards within the Uptown District, and rethinking height restrictions for housing units. Parking standards would also be incorporated in to any and all zone changes. The State of Oregon also has specific mandates for certain types of housing codes that the city must integrate into their zoning ordinances.
The tedious work of the rezoning proposals brought forward are only that – proposals. There’s much more work involved for the city to change many of the antiquated zones and open up land for development. Phase three would be to present the proposals to the Oakridge Planning Commission for recommending adoption. The city council will have the responsibility to approve or deny the commission’s recommendation.
Resident input is encouraged throughout the project phases.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.
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