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Washington County reserves not good with Metro

By: Nick Bjork//December 15, 2010//

Washington County reserves not good with Metro

Nick Bjork//December 15, 2010//

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The Washington County Board of Commissioners Tuesday night approved its retooled land reserves map, showing where urban growth can and cannot occur over the next 50 years.

But the map, the county’s second shot at a land reserves proposal, doesn’t appear to be popular with regional government Metro, the next body in the process with authority to approve it.

The county approved the map with a vote of 4-1, with Commissioner Dick Schouten, the lone dissenting vote, calling for more time for review. Washington County had to make changes to its initial map after it was handed back in late October by the Land Conservation and Development Commission, which gives final authorization for proposals. The state board specifically did not approve of two urban reserves in the proposal – one north of Forest Grove and one north of Cornelius.

In the new proposal, the county redrew the map, changing some urban reserves to rural, some rural reserves to urban, and removing the reserve status from some land altogether.

In all, the county lost 67 acres of urban reserves. But it kept the urban reserve north of Cornelius. But it created a new 625-acre urban reserve north of U.S. Route 26 near Helvetia Road.

Some conservation groups are taking issue with that reserve, which was changed in the new proposal from undesignated and rural reserves into urban reserves.

Cherry Amabisca, chairwoman of the conservation group Save Helvetia, said allowing development north of U.S. Route 26 will have negative effects on farming.

“We’re obviously not happy about it,” she said.

The Metro Council will likely not support the new proposal, said Council President Carlotta Collette, in a statement. The council on Tuesday agreed not to put the proposal on its Thursday meeting agenda, the council’s final meeting of the year.

The council wants to give the public more of an opportunity to comment on the proposal before taking a vote on it, the statement said. The proposal was released to the public for the first time on Monday evening.



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