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The state Land Use Board of Appeals on Wednesday on several appeals to a Columbia River Crossing land-use approval Metro gave last month. With one exception, the board sided with Metro on its handling of the land use final order.

The final order is part of an accelerated land-use approval process that consolidates decisions primarily into one approval by one agency: Metro. It was instituted to create a fast way for a north-south light-rail project to go through land-use processes in multiple jurisdictions.

The problem for Metro, according to the LUBA decision, is that the legislation allowing the LUFO process restricts Metro’s decisions to areas within the urban growth boundary. Most of the area touched by the CRC project is within Portland’s UGB: including highway improvements, interchanges and most of the light-rail extension. However, Metro’s approval of the CRC extends to the state line between Oregon and Washington, which is in the middle of the Columbia River – and the UGB ends at the north boundary of Hayden Island.

Metro Senior Attorney Dick Benner said Metro expected this decision.

“We’re very pleased with the result on all the major issues,” Benner said. “We anticipated there would be a remand on the UGB issue.”

To resolve that concern, Benner said that Metro would either reduce the scope of the LUFO to leave the “tiny portion” of the project in a regular land-use approval process, or expand the Portland UGB to include the 25 acres of the Columbia River between Hayden Island and the official state line.

Plaid Pantries president and CEO Chris Girard, one of the appellants on the LUFO decision, was pleased with the partial remand issued by LUBA, he said.

“Metro and TriMet can’t use the special accelerated scheme; so I anticipate that they’re going to try to do something else.”

Girard interpreted the decision as LUBA stating the Metro and TriMet couldn’t use the LUFO process for the entire CRC project.

“The next step is up to Metro and TriMet; and anything beyond that I don’t want to speculate,” Girard said.

The parties appealing Metro’s decision included Plaid Pantries, the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, and Coalition for a Livable Future, Weber Coastal Bells Limited Partners and Jantzen/Angel LLC. Those groups raised several concerns other than the UGB limitation, including a significant claim that Metro should not have used the LUFO process because the CRC’s impacts were more significant than a simple light-rail line.

Benner said that claim was “important,” and Metro wasn’t sure how LUBA would rule on that measure. Metro was “pleased” that LUBA came down on its side, Benner said.

The appellants have 14 days to file an appeal of LUBA’s decision to the state supreme court.

Girard said that a decision on whether to appeal LUBA’s ruling will be reached by the lawyers that represented Plaid Pantries and the other organizations that appealed Metro’s decision. He wouldn’t speculate as to whether an appeal was likely.