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While the new year is already here, there’s still time to make some much-needed resolutions. Here are my top 10 land use resolutions for a more thriving greater Portland region:

1. Improve the regional development dialogue

Our regional land use conversation is more a dysfunctional family feud than a process leading to a shared vision and consensus. Oregon land use politics could serve as exhibit “A” in proving politics is just war by other means. But history proves war’s ultimate futility and destructiveness. The more intense the war, the greater the impoverishment of the combatants. Oregon land use battles have indeed squandered our economic opportunities. We need land use peacemakers who can break this cycle and lead us to a more thriving economic future while protecting the livability and environment we cherish.

2. Increase incentives to better balance jobs and housing

History shows that everyone is diminished by land use inequities that lead to economic segregation. Consigning one side of town to poverty is really just another way of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Only through dispersion of jobs and housing types can we thrive as an entire region. While Portland has a long history of providing affordable housing, the suburban cities’ record is far more spotty and lacking.

3. Reduce urban services discrimination

This is a corollary of No. 2. We have a sad history of regional discrimination in the provision of urban services. The Oregonian has pointed out past land use discrimination between the west side and east side of Portland, but such land use discrimination continues throughout the entire region today, including suburban cities. Good leadership will resist the selfish tendencies of human nature.

4. Increase planning and infrastructure for raw land added to the urban growth boundary

We have a big regional gap between UGB expansion and land that is truly ready for economic development. That results from the lack of planning and public infrastructure to service the newly added land. Adding land to the region is far easier than planning and providing urban services needed for economic development. Damascus is only the most extreme example of this region-wide problem.

5. Increase the availability of shovel-ready industrial land parcels

Portland city commissioners rejected the Port of Portland’s efforts to make West Hayden Island available to industrial development. The port’s plan would have provided hundreds of new jobs. Regional studies show a lack of industrial land is resulting in a loss of economic development opportunities. To be a thriving region, every city and county needs to focus now on increasing shovel-ready industrial land.

6. Improve government culture of customer service and satisfaction

The old Communist joke was that the government pretends to pay us, so we pretend to work. Unfortunately we have some of that problem in our regional land use bureaucracy. A city can have the best code and the best plans in the whole world, but the culture of customer service is essential to successful achievement of the community development plans. A city’s bad reputation can and has scared away many a developer. We have much room for improvement.

7. Reduce the time of the entitlement process

The theory of the Oregon entitlement process is that it will only take 120 days to entitle a project by governmental land use action. That theory has unfortunately never been realized; instead we have a reputation for serious entitlement uncertainty that rivals any state in the nation, including California. We need a solution to avoid abuse of the land use appeal process that puts developers in LUBA hell by repetitive appeals and remands. The union appeal of the Park Avenue West design review purportedly based upon lack of affordable housing is exhibit “A” for such abusive delay tactics.

8. Reduce entitlement uncertainty

Too often planning and zoning has been divorced from the realities of the market, such that there is no demand for the permitted land uses. Developers hate the uncertainty and delay of trying to rezone land for its highest and best use. As a result, community development plans go unfulfilled. If and when discretionary development permits are required, developers must have confidence that the city staff and elected officials are unified in support of the community development plan, and that these officials have done their necessary homework to gain community-wide support for the plan. Consensus is a prerequisite to a thriving community.

9. Increase short-term development incentives

Too often communities fail to understand that short-term financial incentives to make projects financially feasible will be mutually beneficial in the long run. This is because the projects will perpetually increase local government revenue. Even when the additional revenue is reduced to present value, it often far exceeds the cost of necessary short-term incentives. Economic infeasibility is one of the biggest impediments to fulfillment of community development plans.

10. Support the Thriving Cities Alliance by attending its inaugural event

The purpose of the newly formed Thriving Cities Alliance is to convene a broad alliance of organizations with the credibility and technical skills necessary to help communities make real progress on the preceding issues. Speakers at an event Feb. 5, at 7:30 a.m., at the Governor Hotel will include: Rollin Stanley, widely regarded as one of the top planning directors in North America; Metro President Tom Hughes; and Portland State University President Wim Wiewel. Attendees will learn about the Development Ready Communities program, which will provide multi-disciplinary and affordable assistance to local governments willing to discover and remove the barriers to fulfilling their community development plans. To learn more about the event and register, visit http://northwest.uli.org.

Gene Grant is a partner in the Portland office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. He is the former co-chairman of the firm’s real estate and land-use group, and a co-chairman of the ULI NW task force that has created the Thriving Cities Alliance. Contact him at 503-778-5427 or [email protected].