MCRD Letter to Medford City Council Members

Ivend Holen, 19.06.2009 06:30

Text of letter to Medford city council members from Medford Citizens for Responsible Development (MCRD) urging them to comply with the most recent LUBA ruling ordering the city to require a traffic study, and not seek to have the ruling overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals. Provides links to further sources of information on this issue at the end of the message.

Danger !!

MCRD Letter to Medford City Council Members


MCRD does not believe that the Medford City Council should seek to bring suit to have LUBA’s most recent ruling overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Up to now the city has required the production of an extensive traffic study only at the time there is a zone change for real property, even though that zone change may include land where there is no immediate planned development, and even where the current use of that land would not trigger the requirement for a traffic study.

To conduct a traffic study on an area where there is no current nor immediately planned commercial development, such as a county-owned baseball field, is truly an unneeded and unnecessary exercise. The study would necessarily assume no increase in traffic over current levels, or it may assume some eventual increase, but the time-frame for this projected increase may well be beyond the time-frame that the study is required to model.

This is absolutely what happened with regard to the proposed Walmart supercenter site near the South Interchange. We have been informed that an objective projection of the increased number of vehicle trips per day associated with this particular development is 8,500 trips/day.

We believe that the projected increased level of traffic in this area has the potential to cause one or more nearby intersections to "fail", resulting in unacceptable traffic tie-ups, causing deteriorating air quality from stalled vehicles, and triggering an immediate halt of all future development dependent upon these streets and intersections until they are improved to required standards. The City of Medford has experienced this situation in the recent past.

At this point it will be solely up to the taxpayers to bear the full costs of these improvements. Even though the city’s municipal code states that the "developer" is responsible for making the improvements required by a traffic study, the city relieves the developer of this burden by its current interpretation by shifting all these costs to the taxpayer; an interpretation rejected by LUBA.

We believe the city is going too far by half in using this interpretation to attract new development in the city, and the Land Use Board of Appeals has agreed with us. We have been informed by our sources that most local governments and municipalities in the state which require traffic studies as a condition of development require them at the time of development, not at zone change.

MCRD believes that the fair and equitable response to LUBA is to comply with the ruling and amend the the Medford municipal codes to make it clear and consistent with other Oregon municipalities, that large commercial developments are responsible for abating the improvement costs brought about by the additional traffic burden on adjacent streets and intersections.

We also believe that current municipal codes and interpretations relating to the size of the development that triggers a traffic study may need to be modified so that smaller businesses are not burdened with street improvements that would discourage them from developing. Perhaps the current vehicle-trips per day standard which triggers a traffic study should be reviewed.

MCRD urges the Medford City Council to represent the best interests of the majority of its citizens by requiring large developers to conduct traffic studies and pay for necessary street improvements, and to respect the latest LUBA decision ordering the city to comply with a reasonable interpretation of its own municipal codes.

Ivend Holen

MCRD Petitioner



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For history and further background information see:

 http://www.sprawl-busters.com/search.php?readstory=3540

Please review the reader responses to the following two MT articles on this issue.

 http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090607/OPINION/906070307

 http://forums.mailtribune.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=mm-news&nav=messages&tid=9368

e-mail:: idholen@ccountry.net

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Mail Tribune Hurts Journalism 20.06.2009 - 14:55 JUST LET THEM DIE! GREAT ARTICLE and congratulations to MCRD for fortitude and hanging in there for the L O N G haul! Citizens HATE the traffic around the south Medford interchange even MORE than Medford's elected officials LOVE Walmart! It is not clear why this article sends people to Rupert Murdoch's Medford Mail Tribune to look at public comment... Local Southern Oregon newspapers both the MMT and its sister the Ashland Daily Tidings have an editorial policy that allows hate speech, name calling and otherwise "spam posts" which DO NOT MEET STANDARDS for journalism which are held by this media source the Rogue Independent Media Center. Don't miss the point here, these corporate papers have the first amendment right to print such baloney--its not about that at all. There are many reasons to not support corporate media. Community media is stepping up to fill in for the pathetic services being offered by a dying breed of old geezers (corporate big wigs like Rupert Murdoch and much smaller corporate big wig Bob Hunter)... Hats off to the Rogue Independent Media Center for having standards of journalism which go beyond the pathetic newspapers that continue to die... GREAT ARTICLE except for sending people to the MMT which is dying under its own weight and need no support at all! The slow death is happening before us... Just let them die. When they do we will all rest in peace. WHY REFERENCE TO CORPORTATE NEWS?> Homepage:: http://