Commissioners complete zone changes en masse.

Byline: COUNTY BEAT by Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

NEVER MIND THE 3 1/2 YEARS it took to get from there to here. The really amazing thing was this week's sweep of a hand by Lane County commissioners that completed 36 rezoning actions at once, changing the official standing of 71 parcels of property up and down the McKenzie Watershed.

There are 6 1/2 acres surrounding the Old McKenzie Fish Hatchery, for instance, that went from prime forest zoning to the "rural public facility" designation that reflects its current status as a visitor center.

On the private property end of the spectrum, there were 18 separate transformations from rural residential to rural commercial zoning - everything from a Pacific Northwest Telephone exchange substation in Marcola to Ike's Pizza in Vida to the United States Basketball Academy in the upper McKenzie community of Rainbow.

You get the idea. This stuff is all over the board, essentially properties that were mislabeled when overlaid with zoning maps - as required by state law - back in 1984, or that have since been conditionally approved for uses that don't match their zoning desig- nations.

The en masse zone changes are the most eye-catching end product of a tedious "periodic review" process for the McKenzie Watershed that began in 1998 and has included at least 35 community meetings and public hearings, along with hundreds of hours of work by county planning staff members Jim Mann and Bill Sage.

The aim of the project was to bring the county's Rural Comprehensive Plan - which governs land-use activities in unincorporated portions of the county - more squarely into line with statewide planning goals and rules.

Commissioners agreed that more fine-tuning lies ahead for the McKenzie portion of the comprehensive plan, but the documents approved this week are a good starting point.

"It's a baseline," County Planning Director Kent Howe said. "We get something on the books that works a heck of a lot better than the Lane Code does today."

The McKenzie is the first of several watershed areas in the county scheduled to undergo the periodic review.

Ambulance ramp-up

Ambulances unaffiliated with the Eugene and Springfield fire departments will be roaming the roads of northwest Lane County on May 1 and beyond - the first time in more than 20 years that the metro departments haven't been the area's primary advanced life support provider.

The Lane Rural Fire District, based in Irving, was awarded service rights to the area last year by county commissioners following an application process that dragged on for nearly two years.

"Our equipment is complete," Lane Rural Division Chief Jim Drew said this week. "We're doing the training we need to do for our staff, at this time. We just have to train them in our equipment, and in our area."

The Lane Rural ambulances will transport patients to local hospitals from within its own district boundaries, as well as those of the Junction City and Lake Creek fire districts.

It also will serve the portion of the Monroe Fire District that lies within Lane County, and the portion of the Harrisburg Fire District that lies within Harrisburg's city limits.

Each of the rural fire districts will continue to send its own medic units as first-responders to medical emergencies, with the Lane Rural ambulances following up to transport patients to local hospitals.

Lane Rural will have four full-time paramedics and at least one part-time paramedic to staff its ambulance crews, Drew said.

Get ready for winter

That's right, it's not too early to start thinking about next winter.

The county's Housing and Community Services Department won approval for its annual weatherization grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and it amounts to good news for low-income households.

An increase in the weatherization grant - combined with this year's Low Income Energy Assistance grant, also through the Department of Energy - will allow the county housing authority to expand its assistance programs for low-income families.

"We typically serve about 400 (households) per year," said Craig Satein, who administers the county programs.

"This year we anticipate serving about 500."

In addition to the two Energy Department grants, the housing authority's energy assistance programs get financial boosts from the Eugene Water & Electric Board, the Springfield Utility Board, the Emerald People's Utility District and the Bonneville Power Administration.

The local programs cover everything from home insulation to furnace replacement to installation of ventilation systems and carbon monoxide detectors.

The grant money is expected to be available next month, so projects at individual clients' homes are likely to begin by early summer.

The energy assistance programs are available for households that earn less than 60 percent of the state median income.

For a one-person household, the cap on pretax income is $16,820; for a four-person household, the cap is $32,345.

Lane County reporter Joe Mosley can be reached at 338-2384 or by e-mail at [e-mail]