In this article, Whole Community News reports on and includes the audio recording and transcription of Laura Shoe’s, Debra Higbee’s and Polly Habliston’s January 28 testimony on LARs before the Lane County Board of Commissioners. In the audio, after we testify, Commissioners Heather Buch, Ryan Ceniga and Pat Farr respond.
Below is our response to their responses:
Dear Lane County Commissioners:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about local access roads (LARs). We appreciate that those Commissioners who commented are open to reopening discussions on these.
We would like to express a few concerns.
Commissioner Buch helpfully explained that when this issue was discussed two years ago, it was decided to continue LARs because “making roads up to current standards is expensive and it increases the cost of residential property and you’re trying to keep the cost down for housing.” She went on to explain that the issue continues to arise, people on LARs continue to be caught offguard, and “often people will never have the money to make the necessary upgrades to the road”.
We reiterate that LARs in the UGB are just like County-Road-System roads in our neighborhoods built at the same time, they should have entered the CRS in around the 1950s, and they were left out due to a negligent process. The idea that these LARs would need to be upgraded to current county standards for newly admitted roads in order to be accepted is objectionable, as is the idea that these homeowners would have to pay for such upgrades, when no property owner on a CRS road is required to do so. Finally it is objectionable to continue the unjustifiable disparate treatment of these homeowners in order to keep their property values suppressed for the benefit of others.
We are also not convinced that LARs would have difficult easement issues. These are not private roads, and the law allows the Board of Commissioners to vote them into the County Road System. We urge you to do so.