Gutenberg College decision delayed

The final hurdle in getting the necessary city approvals to allow Eugene's Gutenberg College to relocate to the old Weitech building on Larch Street was not cleared at Thursday's city council meeting as expected.

Despite the fact that there has been no public testimony against Gutenberg College's proposed move to Sisters, the final clearance was held up by Gutenberg's own consultant, Bend land use attorney Liz Fancher.

Fancher requested that the public hearing be held open for written commentary for seven days, and reserved her right for rebuttal to any such commentary. The council's final approval cannot be voted on until the public testimony is closed. Fancher will return from vacation on April 24. This will allow her to file any rebuttal before the April 28 city council meeting.

Gutenberg College is a very small four-year accredited "Great Books" liberal arts college that has been in Eugene, adjacent to the University of Oregon campus, for more than 15 years. The college would like to move their entire operation to Sisters. They currently have 27 students, would like to expand to no more than 150 students, and would consider dorms at a later date.

"...one of the attractions is the building is extremely well set up for the type of things that we do and for our maximum size," said David Crabtree, president of Gutenberg college.

Gutenberg had to resolve their conditional use in a light-industrial-zoned area, they needed a rewording of the city's development code, and they had to resolve concerns about the location of a college in the airport approach overlay zone. The planning commission has recommended approval of all requirements.