91ÊÓƵ

In an attempt to spur job creation, Gov. John Kitzhaber this week publicly championed a bill that would expedite state permitting for industrial properties deemed regionally significant.

The state bill – read to the Senate on Thursday as – would accelerate a process that has become a thorn in the side of industrial developers and businesses. But while local industry groups appreciate the effort, some don’t believe the legislation will have the sweeping effects being promoted.

“The subject and concept of the bill are great,” said Mike Wells, the 2011 president of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. “But from an industry standpoint, when policy is created, we want the maximum results and we aren’t sure that this will get us those.”

The bill, which came out of a discussion between stakeholders and legislators in December, would establish a process for designating regionally significant industrial areas. The bill would also create an Economic Recovery Review Council, which would perform expedited site reviews for proposed industrial projects on such properties, said Paloma Sparks, the senior policy adviser for Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, who sponsored the bill.

A group of state officials from various business and development departments would pinpoint inherently industrial sites zoned for such use. The land could fit the bill by simply being a large, flat parcel, or being located near industrial infrastructure or a port.

Developers would be eligible to use the expedited, industrial-use permit process for properties designated as regionally significant and pegged for industrial projects. All state permits would be issued within 63 days after applications were submitted.

The expedited review process would then sunset in the first even-numbered year after the state’s annual average unemployment rate were to dip below 8 percent.

Mary Kyle McCurdy, staff attorney for the land-use advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon and part of the initial group that discussed a bill, said she believes SB 766 captures the spirit of the discussion.

“We all had some common ground on a few issues, one of which is that it should be easy to do industrial development on industrially zoned land,” she said.

Wells, however, said there were a few issues he would like to see ironed out. One is that the bill does nothing to address federal permitting or local permitting delays, he said.

“Where we often see a long, protracted process is going through the planning approval at the local level with all of the public meetings and the public notices,” he said. “That’s something the state can’t really change.”

Wells also said he was concerned that the program would end after jobs were created.

Corky Collier, executive director of the Columbia Corridor Association, a group representing industrial businesses and property owners along the Columbia Slough, said the bill is a reaction to the loss of industrial lands over the years, and he applauds the state for responding.

“Whether it’s through lands being converted to other uses, or new zoning like with the River Plan or the Airport Futures project, we are losing industrial parcels,” Collier said. “That’s where we need to be focusing our attention.

“What we have seen lacking is a real understanding that any of these constraints you put on land renders at least some of it unusable. We need to find a way to offset that.”

Nevertheless, Wells and Collier said they were thrilled that Kitzhaber initiated talk about industrial land issues early in his term.

“There’s a need for policies like this and it’s very promising that we are having this discussion,” Wells said.