New Search
J <br /> August 19, 2004 C344-P4iT <br /> Russ Royer Senior Real Property Officer <br /> City of Eugene Public Works <br /> 858 Pearl Street <br /> Eugene, OR 97401 <br /> We bought property in Santa Clara in 1979. In 2002 the City of Eugene bought 4.34 acres <br /> for a park, leaving us with 2.6 acres. I'd just like to let you know how this all came about <br /> and where we are today. <br /> We received a letter(dated December 20, 2000) from Public Works. John Weber <br /> (Landscape Architect/Park Planer) asked us to consider selling our property to the City of <br /> Eugene for a park. <br /> January 16th Mr. Weber called and I told him we didn't want to sell and the City didn't <br /> have enough money to get me to part with my land. "Oh," he said"we've had to pay over <br /> $100,000.00 an acre to secure future park property. Otherwise it all gets used up in <br /> developed properties. He said he'd at least like to meet with us and walk the property. <br /> January 19th at 2:30 PM we met with him on our property. He brought along a public <br /> works employee Andrea Reiner. While we walked the property I expressed my concerns <br /> if we considered selling. Some were as follows... <br /> -We do not want Terra Linda Ave. extended or developed. <br /> -How would the property be taken care of until it is a park? <br /> -we might consider an open park, but not a skateboard park, baseball or soccer field etc. <br /> -we do not want to annex <br /> -it is to remain a park forever <br /> -if we were to look at an offer it would have to be over $100, 00.00 an acre or don't <br /> bother. <br /> John Weber once again told us"We(the city) have had to pay that kind of money to buy <br /> future parks or all the land gets developed. We've had to pay well over that already. As <br /> for the care, there are people that come in and groom everything and take care of it. <br /> We're not planning on developing it right away, will be at least 10-15 years before <br /> anything is done. So it'll be just like living by your property only someone else will be <br /> taking care of it, and we'll pay you for it. He also said "If we buy this for a park, we <br /> would not want Terra Linda to cut through the park. <br /> Through out our discussions he assured us all the details could be worked out. My wife <br /> and I decided to allow them to make us an offer. <br /> • <br /> March 20th 2001, Lloyd Williams(Real Property Officer) brought an offer by the job <br /> where I was working. It was $50,000 and acre. I told him it wasn't even 1 enough. He <br /> said that all the market will bear. I paged through his appraisal and found the sales <br /> comparison analysis(comps). Two were a year old,two were 4 years old and one sale <br /> was over 5 years old. I told him again that we were not happy with that price and were <br /> not interested in selling. <br /> In our conversation he mentioned that he could give us a threat of condemnation letter to <br /> let us run it by our tax preparer to see how it would benefit us tax wise. I stopped him and <br /> 1 <br />