In 1971, Grace Rye moved with her husband, Jack, to a home about half a mile outside of Monmouth when he took a job as an administrator at Western Oregon University.

Rye, 92, and now a widow, discovered in February that the city was proposing to swap 90 acres of land within its urban growth boundary with a 75-acre parcel that nearly borders her country home. The prospect of hundreds of new houses and apartments rising nearby doesn’t appeal to Rye.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said.

Numerous people who live in and around Monmouth voiced their displeasure of the proposed land swap to the city council during its regular meeting on April 7. Nevertheless, the council voted 4-2 to approve the proposal and adopt a legislative amendment. Councilors John Oberst, Carol McKiel, Jon Carey and Christopher Lopez voted yes, and Roxanne Beltz and Jason Ridgeway voted no.

The approval still needs to come back before the council in the form of an ordinance for adoption, Monmouth Community Development Director Suzanne Dufner said. The land swap would then have to be approved by Polk County and the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.

When House Bill 2647, which was sponsored by Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, and Sen. Deb Patterson, D-Salem, became law in 2025, it gave Monmouth an expedited process to swap the 90 acres southwest of the city for the 75 acres to the west of the city.

Though there are other processes for cities to expand, UGB swaps through the state legislature have become increasingly common.

Portland State University projects Monmouth to gain 3,400 new residents by 2040 and the need for 1,200 new housing units to accommodate that growth. If so, the city would add nearly one-third of its current population of 11,651, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2025 American Community Survey estimates.

The city applied strategies to allow growth, including increasing density and allowing housing downtown, Carey said.

“The city is doing a lot of things to solve the problem,” he said. “Many of those are applicable to new development. Not all, but most. The city’s been doing a lot of work. We’re still constrained by the land.”

Monmouth has fewer than a dozen developable properties within current city limits, Dufner said.

“All the easy properties to develop have been developed,” she said.

So, Monmouth looked at ways it could incorporate more land into the city.

City staffers project the swap could result in Monmouth gaining 525 to 1,050 new housing units.

The 90 acres the city will remove was owned by people not interested in selling, contains wetlands (making development difficult), and is prone to flooding because of its proximity to the south fork of Ash Creek.

The 75 acres on the west side of town, however, is mostly flat and would be easier to develop with city utilities like water, sewer and power. Also, the property owners want to sell.

Monmouth Public Works Director David Karr Jr. said the parcel that is leaving the UGB could be connected to utilities but would require infrastructure like a pump station for sewer services — something the incoming parcel won’t need.

The city held two planning commission meetings about the proposal, and the city council held a public hearing about it in February, Dufner said.

“The public participation part has been happening,” Monmouth Mayor Cec Koontz said.

But some people, including Rye, said they never received notice about the planned swap or any new development on the land.

In a staff report, the city officials say they posted signs visible from the street 10 days before the first public hearing, a mailer was sent to property owners that would be directly impacted, a notice was published in a newspaper and on the city’s website, and notices were sent to other affected public agencies like fire districts and school districts.

One person asked the people in the packed council chambers if they felt they had been heard during the public process. One person raised a hand. When he asked if they felt they had not been represented, most people in the crowd raised a hand.

“We have to acknowledge a real tension in growing communities,” Beltz said.

People also brought up potential problems including traffic and infrastructure issues, environmental concerns, the impact on Western Oregon University, the potential loss of farmland, and the city’s ability to bring in utilities like water and power.

Land use conservation group 1000 Friends of Oregon argued in a letter to the city council that the 75 acres being swapped into the urban growth boundary is not contiguous to the city limits and therefore does not comply with House Bill 2647.

John Moore, who lives on Mistletoe Road, said new development would produce multiple three-story buildings mere feet from his rural home.

“If I want to live in a city, I’d live in a city,” he said. “We like to live in the country.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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