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One of the questions facing this year鈥檚 Oregon Legislature is what role it plays in determining whether land is brought into urban growth boundaries (UGBs) across state.

What was once a clear distinction between the role of the Legislature to set rules of statewide applicability and letting local governments make the decisions on what specific tracts of land are in or out of the UGB has been blurred by the 2014 action of the Legislature to directly intervene to determine the location of the UGB in Washington County. This action has lead local jurisdictions all over the state to wonder whether they, too, can end–run the lengthy and uncertain UGB amendment process by getting direct action from the Legislature. Multiple jurisdictions currently have bills pending before the Legislature to do just that.

rior to the 2014 legislative session, the statutory UGB amendment process was the only way to change a local UGB. Under that process, local governments are required to hold extensive hearings and make findings identifying why any land to be brought into a UGB meets a set of statewide priority standards for becoming urban. UGB expansion attempts through this process have generated a number of appeals, some of which take years to shake out before the Land Use Board of Appeals and the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Due in part to the frustration from the lack of efficient options to add urban land, a coalition of interests (including local jurisdictions) from the Portland metro area went to the Legislature in 2014 seeking to get a final determination of the location of the UGB in Washington County. In response, the Legislature directed action in an unprecedented fashion, approving what was dubbed the 鈥淟and Use Grand Bargain,鈥� essentially redrawing the UGB in parts of Washington County and denying any right of appeal.

One year later, other jurisdictions see the benefit of similar local interventions and have submitted various proposals to the Legislature to resolve long-standing, UGB-related disputes. Exemplary of this approach is the bill sponsored by state representatives in Clackamas County that would validate the county鈥檚 approximately 13,750 acres of urban reserve lands, effectively designating such areas for future inclusion in the UGB and urban development. The bill would essentially overturn a recent decision of the Court of Appeals that remanded the county鈥檚 2010 urban reserves designation.

Washington and Clackamas counties also have less extensive requests to the Legislature. HB 3313 would designate the Langdon Farms property adjacent to Lake Oswego as an urban reserve, and HB 2458 would designate new urban reserves in the vicinity of North Plains.

The city of Woodburn also has submitted a bill to validate its urban reserve designation, after a protracted appeal process. HB 2649 would validate the city鈥檚 decision in 2005 to adopt more than 900 acres of urban reserves.

Finally, Bend has taken a different approach, proposing SB 851, which requires the city and the State Department of Land Conservation and Development to report back to the Legislature within two years on the status of the current attempt to expand Bend鈥檚 UGB. This requirement would essentially act as a placeholder, letting the Legislature know that if Bend can鈥檛 come to some resolution in the interim, it will be coming back to a future legislative session asking for a UGB amendment fix.

Thus far, reports out of the Legislature are not favorable for the Clackamas County bills. However, it remains to be seen what message the Legislature wants to send to local jurisdictions. The policy case for intervention is plain, as the track record for UGB amendments is anything but efficient. But if the Legislature continues such actions, it will be the beginning of a pattern that could be politically difficult to curb, as it can be difficult to substantiate why one city or county鈥檚 UGB expansion is more than another鈥檚.

In contrast, the Legislature could simply take a hard line and decline to act on these issues in an ad hoc fashion. Likely, the outcome will be less cohesive than that, with some of these bills gaining traction and others not. The good news is that unlike UGB litigation, there will be an outcome in the next couple of months.

Damien Hall focuses on land use and real estate law as an attorney at Ball Janik LLP. Contact him at 503-944-6138 or [email protected].