Homes, farmland mix in proposal.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

In a twist on the idea of building higher-density housing to save farmland, Loren Schein and Miaya Sustaita want some of the land they save to be part of the land they build on.

The couple owns a 3-acre plot that fronts River Road and also has access to the Willamette River bike path through a gate at the rear of the property.

Schein and Sustaita hope to use the streetside third of the property to build as many as 20 units of housing clustered in several buildings, including two 1920s-vintage houses that face the road.

The rest of the parcel would remain in agricultural production, turned into orchards and gardens to feed its inhabitants.

While the vision for the land belongs to Schein and Sustaita, they've linked up with another couple, Robert Bolman and Melanie Rios, to shepherd the idea from concept to reality.

`I've been involved with the `intentional communities' movement - that's a fancy name for people deciding to live cooperatively together - since the early 1990s,' Schein said. `We knew a developer could buy this land and put 75 units in block buildings on it, but we wanted to save it. When Rob and Melanie came along, we knew they were the right people to help make it happen.'

Bolman said he and Rios instantly became enamored of the project.

"We're both very much interested in where modern industrial civilization is going," he said, especially in the areas of dwindling petroleum supplies and escalating global warming. "We think there will be a time when it will no longer be practicable to travel great distances or live far from dependable food sources."

"We appreciate the importance of higher-density development," Bolman said, "but we also believe that (personal) food production is going to be a necessity in the future. I think there will be a lot of people who will want to live here and be part of that."

The property lends itself to eco-friendly development because of size, soil and location near downtown Eugene, Bolman said.

City planner Lydia McKinney says she likes the concept - "The eco-village idea is a valid one, especially given the quality of the soil" - but devoting two-thirds of the 3-acre property runs up against the city's policy of wooing higher-density residential construction to take pressure off outlying prime agricultural land.

Low-density residential zoning wouldn't be a concern, because part of the property could be developed and the rest left open for agriculture while still meeting minimum density requirements, McKinney said. "But because it's R-2, which requires a greater density, and also part of a nodal (mixed-use) development area, which has even higher minimum densities, that will be an issue."

However, there may be a solution, she said. Under planned unit development rules, which also apply to the property, contiguous properties under the same ownership all must be considered as part of the same development.

Schein could redraw the lot lines for the two tax lots to separate the proposed housing and agriculture portions and then move the agricultural land into a separate limited liability corporation, effectively changing the ownership, McKinney said.

Then one parcel could be developed for housing at the minimum of 15 units per acre required for nodal development, while the remainder could be maintained in agricultural use.

Schein bought the tax lots at 485 and 505 River Road four years ago but declined to disclose the purchase price. However, county tax records show the total real market value to be just over $500,000.

If development requirements can be ironed out, site work could begin in mid-2008, with construction taking place the next year, Bolman said.

- Real Estate Report runs Tuesdays. Reporter Randi Bjornstad can be reached at 338-2321 or [e-mail].