A proposal to reduce the assessed value of west Eugene wetlands by as much as 95 percent drew praise Monday from groups as diverse as property owners, real estate brokers and the Lane County Audubon Society.

Art Farley, conservation chairman for the Audubon Society, said the proposed lower values are an important step in planning for the future of the wetlands in the area, estimated to total about 1,400 acres.

"It does show the beginning of the adjustments that we need to make," he said. "That's obviously what we need to do if those (wetlands) are going to be environmental resource areas that aren't going to have the economic values that they did before."

Lane County Assessor Jim Gangle last week released a report proposing reduced values for about 120 parcels in west Eugene that have undeveloped areas covered all or partially by wetlands.

His report, which will be forwarded to the county Board of Equalization, calls for dramatic reductions in some assessed values because of the difficulty of using the wetlands, protected by federal and state law, for anything other than farm land.

At the top end of the scale, industrial lands once valued at $25,000 to $40,000 per acre would be reduced in value for tax purposes to $800 to $1,000 per acre, the going price for agricultural land. If approved, the new values would result in reductions in 1990-91 tax payments due in November.

While such dramatic reductions raise the specter of land speculation, industrial real estate brokers Monday were quick to squelch such a notion.

"Most people who own vacant industrial land are more sophisticated than to rely on the assessor's value" as an indication of the market value of their land, said Clayton Walker, an industrial broker and chairman of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce's Wetlands Task Force.

Steve Tibbitts of Bob Bennett Realty said he wouldn't recommend speculating on properties with wetlands at any price unless he knew the wetlands classification was going to be removed or dealt with in some other way.

"Paying taxes on dirt doesn't make for much fun if you can't convert that to real dollars down the road somewhere," Tibbitts said.

Brokers said they believe the reductions in assessed value are only fair given the uncertainty surrounding possible future uses of the wetland sites. Since identification of the wetlands a couple of years ago, property sales in the area have come to a virtual standstill, they said.

The city, which previously had chosen west Eugene as the prime growth area for new industry, has hired the Lane Council of Governments to conduct a study of which wetlands should be preserved and which are more suitable for development. Results of the study are due for release in September.

Tibbitts said the proposed new values, even though dramatically lower, still are too high. He said he believes wetlands sites have "almost zero value" because of conflicting opinions on whether they can be converted to farm land without securing federal or state approval.

He suggested a "wetlands deferral" of almost all property taxes, similar to the state's Farm Deferral Program, in recognition of the limited economic value of such sites.

Representatives of two of the largest landholders in the area, a Gonyea family trust and the University of Ore- gon Development Fund, said the reductions in assessed value would give them breathing room in deciding how best to deal with wetlands regulations.

Larry Campbell, property division manager for Gonyea and Associates, said the company is conducting an independent study of 50 acres of wetlands on 500 acres owned by the trust in the Willow Creek area.

"We hope to use the wetlands in some type of development that will enhance our project," he said. One possibility would be to create a lake, which is one of the most intense forms of wetlands, and allow construction to proceed on the surrounding land, he said.

But that's in the long-range future, he said. In the meantime, "I expected a reduction of values and would have been very disappointed if this hadn't occurred," he said.

The UO Foundation, partial owner of 113 acres in west Eugene, originally planned to sell the land, which was donated to the university, as an industrial site, said Lori Ask, the foundation's real estate manager. The land turned out to include some of west Eugene's most highly rated wetlands.

The property tax reduction would relieve a "terrible financial strain" and enable the UO Foundation to be able to hold onto the land longer than it otherwise would be able to, she said. A non-profit corporation, the foundation still pays property taxes on its land holdings.

"I imagine some day it (the west Eugene property) will end up in the Nature Conservancy, something like that," or might be bought by the city or Lane Council of Governments to become part of a wetlands park, she said.