Community Events and Agricultural Resource Center
A Proposal by the Lane County Fairgrounds Repair Project
Executive Summary
The purpose of this proposal is to give Lane County and the City of Eugene a way to save the Lane County Fairgrounds. The proposal describes a plan to transform the fairgrounds into a state-of-the-art, zero waste and zero net energy community and agricultural resource center–a plan that will make the fairgrounds profitable, sustainable, and attractive. Should this vision be realized the Lane County Fairgrounds would become a one of a kind community asset, a gem in the crown of Oregon's greenest city, a destination for visitors from all over the United States, and a prototype for other urban fairground sites.
Overview: The world currently faces unprecedented challenges due to long-term resource mismanagement and environmental degradation. Our unrestrained use of fossil fuels, our methods of building, our methods of agriculture, our mismanagement of waste streams, and our way of life are simply not sustainable. Without wholesale revision of our culture and our relationship with the community of all living things, we jeopardize the health of the planet and the future of humankind.
Individual solutions to all the problems that we confront are available. Alternative techniques for the creation of energy, sustainable methods of cultivation, more efficient utilization of waste, green methods of construction, and new visions for the design of our socio-economic living space are being advanced and increasingly practiced every day. While these practices are yet the exception to the prevailing culture, they are our future. Individually these alternative practices are important, but combined in a holistic way they are powerful and fully sustainable. The Lane County Fairgrounds Repair Project endeavors to create a working demonstration of such a whole system design through the integration of cutting-edge green techniques and practices on the fairgrounds site in the center of Eugene, Oregon.
Mission Statement: The repaired fairgrounds site, renamed the Lane County Commons, will be a community resource and agricultural center designed to optimize the full potential of the site. The fifty-five acre campus will be networked into the city in such a way that it acts both as a transit node for the Lane Transit District (LTD) and a distribution hub for food grown in Lane County. The central economic premise of the site will be fostering local enterprise, incubating green jobs, and promoting Lane County agriculture, specifically food production. The overall operational goal for the site will be to achieve zero waste, zero net carbon, and zero net energy, and in this way be a working demonstration and educational model for the culture of the future.