Metro believes four suburban Portland cities should be granted urban growth boundary expansions.

The regional planning agency’s chief operating officer, Martha Bennett, recommends Beaverton, Hillsboro, King City and Wilsonville be allowed to expand their growth boundaries. The changes would open 2,181 acres in the metro area to development.

The recommendation will go to the Metro Council for discussion at a work session on Tuesday. A vote is likely to follow in December.

Metro is flexing its new ability to expand the UGB outside the usual six-year cycle, after the Oregon Legislature last year changed state land use rules.

UGB expansion decisions typically result in appeals to the Land Conservation and Development Commission and district court. Metro spokesman Nick Christensen said he could not recall the previous UGB expansion decision that did not result in an appeal.

Bennett recommended boundary expansions for all four communities that requested them. (Sherwood withdrew an earlier UGB expansion proposal). All four cities demonstrated governance, infrastructure and market factors that will lead to housing development, Bennett stated.

• Beaverton would gain the most land – 1,232 acres able to accommodate an estimated 3,760 homes in the Cooper Mountain area. Bennett wrote Beaverton’s “strong track record for getting housing built in the South Cooper Mountain area is a major reason why I recommend that the council expand the UGB in the Cooper Mountain urban reserve.”

Beaverton planning officials have thoughtfully planned for the area’s topographical features and environmental assets, she wrote.

Bennett recommends the council add the entire Cooper Mountain urban reserve inside the UGB to enable the city to provide infrastructure in a coherent fashion.

Beaverton’s concept plan for the area proposed that approximately 50 percent of the housing be attached single-family or multifamily.

“We’ve always anticipated a pretty broad range of housing types to be provided within the neighborhood,” said Cheryl Twete, Beaverton’s community development director.

Beaverton will perform a study to better understand how the city can attract development of various housing types, Twete said.

City officials are “very excited” by the positive recommendation, and city leaders support all four regional boundary expansions, she said.

“We feel really confident in the value and the case that we’re making for Cooper Mountain urban reserve,” she said.

• Hillsboro’s bid to add 150 acres with 850 homes in the Witch Hazel Village South area was recommended. Hillsboro’s concept plan calls for up to 70 percent of the housing to be multifamily or attached single-family.
• King City earned a recommendation to expand into 528 acres, with 3,000 homes planned, in an area known as Beef Bend South.

Bennett wrote King City “deserved credit” for its ambition to diversify its population and housing options. King City’s concept plan for a town center with 1,000 multifamily units “may be overly optimistic at this time,” but a smaller-scale town center could work, she wrote.

• Wilsonville’s plan to add 271 acres near Advance Road in the Frog Pond area was recommended. The area would host approximately 1,325 housing units.

Wilsonville has a “strong track record getting housing built” in Villebois, Bennett wrote. With Frog Pond, Bennett wrote, “the city is ready to govern and serve this area and there is evidence that market demand is strong.”

Taken as a whole, the UGB expansions would represent opportunity for a modest addition to the Portland-metro area’s housing stock. The four expansions would add a projected 9,235 homes inside the growth boundary.

The relatively small expansion areas reflect how challenging it is to extend roads, sewer and other infrastructure into previously undeveloped areas, Christensen said.

“It’s really expensive and really difficult to build on green fields,” he said. “As long as that remains, you’re only going to see a handful of applications (with each cycle).”

Metro is pushing for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and other forms of less expensive housing.

“Our population’s growing (and) our economy’s growing, so we need to make sure there’s housing for the people who live here,” he said.

The post Metro recommends UGB expansions appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan is one step closer to taking effect after a favorable ruling last week from the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission.

The state commission turned down appeals from the Multnomah Neighborhood Association objecting to the city’s “middle housing” policy and other rules intended to increase density.

“We’re pleased with the decision,” Eric Engstrom, principal planner at the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, stated in an email message.

“Among other things, it brings new mixed-use zoning to transit corridors and centers outside the Central City. This new zoning will facilitate private investment in needed housing,” Engstrom stated.

The Comprehensive Plan is the city’s wide-ranging document that will govern development within city limits as Portland grows to incorporate more than 100,000 new residents that are expected by 2035. The Comprehensive Plan is set to go into effect on May 24.

An appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals is likely, Multnomah Neighborhood Association Chairwoman Martie Sucec said.

“That’s our plan,” she said.

Neighborhoods such as Multnomah Village have adapted uneasily to developers building apartments near single-family homes, often with little or no new parking.

In Multnomah Village, Urban Asset Advisors has constructed Multnomah Village Apartments and is planning a second mixed-use building, Multnomah Station, along Southwest Capitol Highway. The buildings have similar designs, with three stories of apartments over ground-floor retail space.

The neighborhood association has fought the developments.

“It’s going to be like a canyon on Capitol Highway,” Sucec said.

Other objections from the Multnomah Neighborhood Association centered on designating Multnomah Village a “neighborhood center” rather than a “neighborhood corridor,” which allows for building up to four stories. The neighborhood association has advocated for a three-story height limit.

“It’s not that we object to density,” Sucec said. “We object to having no role, no assurance, in where those things go.”

A written order will follow the commission’s March 15 decision. If the neighborhood association does not appeal, the comprehensive plan will be considered “acknowledged” by the state, clearing the way for implementation.

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The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has turned back objections to Portland’s 2035 comprehensive plan.

The state agency’s Dec. 5 ruling means the comprehensive plan has cleared a hurdle toward implementation by the city of Portland in 2018. Yet opponents could still appeal the plan to the Land Conservation and Development Commission and the Land Use Board of Appeals.

One group left no doubt an appeal would be forthcoming.

“We’re going on with the appeal, and we’re working on it right now,” said Martie Sucec, chairwoman of the Multnomah Neighborhood Association.

The Multnomah Neighborhood Association in Southwest Portland was joined by the Goose Hollow Foothills League, Rose City Park Association and several individual property owners in lodging objections to the comprehensive plan.

Several objections concern changing the character of single-family neighborhoods by adding apartment buildings. Others also lodged complaints about the city’s process in adopting the comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan is a wide-ranging set of rules meant to guide how Portland will develop during the next two decades. The plan affects zoning throughout the city, and such crucial rules as maximum height and allowed building uses.

The Multnomah Neighborhood Association lodged objections against Multnomah Village being designated as a “neighborhood center,” and also against the city’s public process.

“We’ve just been ignored, which is why we’ve filed objections,” Sucec said.

The city’s neighborhood center designation “wipes out Multnomah as a single-family neighborhood,” she added.

Multnomah Village has seen a recent influx of apartment proposals. Crews are finishing construction of a four-story building with 70 units at 7661 S.W. Capitol Highway – a site that formerly held a gas station.

“What we don’t want is for developers to have free rein on any lot at any time,” Sucec said. “This is not good planning, to just say build anything, anywhere.”

Nevertheless, the DLCD turned back the group’s objections. The department found the city complied with its citizen involvement program during development of the comprehensive plan. It also found that designating an area a neighborhood center did not result in rezoning, and that rezoning would require further public notice.

The City Council adopted the comprehensive plan in June 2016. State law requires periodic review of a city’s comprehensive plan, and the 2035 plan is the first thorough overhaul of Portland’s rules since 1980.

The city’s plan allows neighborhoods to grow up to accommodate housing demand, DLCD Director Jim Rue stated in a news release.

“Portland is an attractive city with lots of people moving there each year,” he stated. “The City Council had to make difficult choices about how to best accommodate the expected growth. Our review found the plan to be consistent with the state’s requirements for efficient, managed use of land.”

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The city of Portland is poised to delay implementation of its 2035 comprehensive plan until May 2018 to allow time for state appeals to run their course.

The comprehensive plan, a wide-ranging update of Portland’s zoning rules, is now planned to take effect May 23, 2018. It had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.

The delay gives the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission time to rule on any appeals of the comprehensive plan. The LCDC rules on appeals from the Department of Land Conservation and Development.

The city is required to submit its comprehensive plan for “acknowledgement” by the state. City officials could choose to go forward ahead of the state decision, but that path “introduces some risks,” according to a statement from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

“For example, any land-use decisions made under the new plan during the ‘effective but unacknowledged’ period would have an extra burden of documenting direct compliance with state land-use goals,” the bureau’s statement said. “Staff have advised City Council against adding that complexity to the development review process.”

Added spokeswoman Eden Dabbs: “If we were to give it a green light, it would create a kind of procedural nightmare.”

The City Council is due to consider the delay at a Nov. 29 meeting. A previous agenda item on the topic was delayed because the council lacked a quorum.

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A bill making its way through the Oregon House could breach a wall in the state’s urban growth boundaries.

HB 4079 would create a pilot program for two Oregon cities to enable developers to build on land adjacent to existing urban growth boundaries.

Supporters, including the Oregon Home Builders Association and affordable-housing advocates, say the bill would address a pressing need for affordable housing.

Opponents decry the legislation as a way to end-run Oregon’s urban growth boundary system, which they say has reduced sprawl and encouraged density while providing certainty to developers.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Duane Stark, R-Grants Pass. Some legislators have discussed linking the bill with others as part of a package of legislation to address affordable housing, tenant protections and inclusionary zoning.

“It has been a concern of many of us that the urban growth boundary has a connection to high land costs and rents,” said Jon Chandler, chief executive of the Home Builders Association.

Chandler said policy makers won’t know if UGBs restrict development of affordable housing unless they make exceptions and see what happens.

“What we’re trying to do with this is create a fairly modest experiment to test to see,” he said.

The bill does not identify the two cities that would host the experiment. Instead, the legislation says the UGB exception areas would be nominated by local governments according to rules promulgated by the Land Conservation and Development Commission.

The legislation specifically excludes Metro-area governments – Chandler said there are “too many moving parts” in the Portland area – as well as those in Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties, and a portion of Jefferson County.

“Affordable housing might look completely different in southern Oregon than it looks on the Oregon coast, or in Eugene,” Stark said.

Stark said he wrote the bill in consultation with John VanLandingham, a well-known Lane County attorney who has served on the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission, the Eugene Planning Commission and the Housing Policy Board for Lane County.

Stark said the bill is a “small risk,” envisioning only two UGB exceptions of 50 acres each.

“We designed the bill in a way that encourages communities to be innovative,” he said.

Mary Kyle McCurdy, policy director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, criticized the bill, saying it contains no definitions or requirements for affordable housing. Also, UGBs are regularly expanded with little controversy, she said, so a question is raised: Why should a loophole be created?

“Most of them are not appealed and they go through fine,” she said.

McCurdy said building advocates also tend to underrate the difficulty and expense of building roads, pipes and other infrastructure outside an urban growth boundary.

“We think that would be money and energy better spent within urban growth boundaries to provide affordable housing,” said McCurdy, who testified against the bill.

Metro has waded into the debate. A report on Feb. 12 looked back at UGB expansions and the resulting construction in those areas. Metro argued that UGB expansions have resulted in little affordable housing construction.

In 2011, for example, the Metro Council brought 1,062 acres of south Hillsboro into the UGB. The expansion was approved by the state Legislature in 2014. Yet not a single home has been built in the area. Metro pointed to similar results in Cornelius, Forest Grove and elsewhere.

In other cases, such as North Bethany and Wilsonville’s Villebois area, homes were built, but they did not address the affordable market.

Meanwhile, developers are building in Portland. In Metro’s coverage area, about 90 percent of housing growth has occurred within Portland’s original urban growth boundary.

“We frequently hear from a variety of different interests about the need for more land,” Metro spokesman Jim Middaugh said. “What we’ve found, although land is an important component, it’s not a panacea. We’ve actually approved significant expansions of the urban growth boundary and not achieved the growth we’d hoped for.”

Chandler called Metro’s report “disingenuous.”

“Metro is cherry-picking statistics, and I’m fairly aggravated with the approach they’re taking,” he said.

Chandler also cautioned that the bill targets rural Oregon, not Metro’s area.

“The state is full of cities where the urban growth boundary is 500 feet from downtown,” Chandler said.

The bill has attracted a strong response through public testimony.

Russ Dondero, a Forest Grove resident and Pacific University professor emeritus who has advocated for affordable housing, called the bill a “retreat from good land-use policy and also evidence of pandering to the developer and real estate lobby.”

And the Oregon Farm Bureau said the bill doesn’t require local governments to show a need for more land to participate in the UGB pilot program.

“OFB is concerned that relaxing land use laws in an attempt to facilitate housing will only result in urban sprawl into rural areas,” said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the Farm Bureau.

But several affordable housing advocates backed Stark’s bill.

“HB 4079 is an opportunity for a creative pilot that would help smaller communities address their lack of affordable housing,” said Peter Hainley, executive director of the Community and Shelter Assistance Corp.

“While some may say that this is an assault on the state’s strong land use system,” he added, “properly implemented it could be the answer to the need for affordable housing throughout the state.”

Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall said a lack of affordable housing comes up often in discussions on the coast.

“We have to create incentives and remove barriers to private investment as well,” he said.

The bill was assigned to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

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The city of Scappoose, which lies approximately 30 miles northwest of Portland, has struggled in recent years to find ways to fill the economic gaps left after the timber industry dried up and the numerous mills around the area closed.

But that may soon change in light of a recent decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals that will allow the city to annex a 380-acre parcel of industrial land into its urban growth boundary (UGB).

The decision isn’t expected to alter only the future of Scappoose. Land use experts say the court’s ruling, which upheld a prior decision by the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC), is expected to change the fortunes of other cities in Oregon that have run into opposition from residents and environmental groups when they have tried to bring land inside their urban growth boundaries.

Jordan Ramis shareholder Tim Ramis, who argued the appeals court case for the city of Scappoose and has worked on the legal side of land use issues for decades, agrees the decision may indeed be a game-changer.

“I think the court will be more willing to approve UGB amendments and refrain from overturning (in cases) where LCDC and local government have created a good record for compliance with the law,” Ramis said. “I think it’s a good sign.”

The parcel in Scappoose, according to Scappoose City Manager Michael Sykes, is one of the last few large chunks of industrial land left in the Portland-metro area. Since 2011, the city had been trying to bring it into its urban growth boundary in order to allow the owners, Joe Weston and Ed Freeman, to move forward with development. Because the property is located near the Scappoose Industrial Airpark, the city believed that airport-related businesses that could be established there would help spur job growth.

“(Columbia County has had) some setbacks because of our dependence on natural resources,” Sykes said. “Plenty of (timber) mills have closed in the past 15, 20 years. There’s always been a vision that (area) could be a hub to industrial development.”

Not everyone in Scappoose agreed, however. A group of citizens opposed to bringing the land into the UGB asked the LCDC to review the case. The commission ultimately determined the city had provided enough evidence to show that bringing the property into the city’s UGB would create enough jobs and attract enough people in the future to justify the move.

Patricia Zimmerman, who lived in the city at the time and was opposed to the plan, remained unconvinced. She decided to appeal the LCDC decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Because the Scappoose case was subject to a legal test called substantial evidence, the LCDC had based its decision on whether it felt the city of Scappoose had provided ample evidence to justify allowing the city to bring the land into its urban growth boundary. The usual approach attorneys have used in the past to argue such cases when they advance to the appeals level has been to argue the evidence of the case.

“In the case of industrial land, you’re trying to show the amount of land you’re proposing is supported by evidence you need this land,” Ramis said.

Ramis, representing the city in the appeal, knew that other cities in Oregon had ended up on the losing end when their similar battles had landed in the state’s appeals court. So he and his team decided to take a different approach.

“We chose not to argue the evidence of the case,” he said. “Instead, we argued the court’s scope of review should be limited.”

In other words, Ramis and his team argued that the appeals court’s responsibility wasn’t to determine whether there had been substantial evidence in the record to support the original decision. Instead, the court’s role was simply to determine whether the LCDC understood the law when it ruled that Scappoose had provided adequate evidence to show that future population growth, spurred by development on the land, would support and justify including the 380 acres in the city’s urban growth boundary.

“The court agreed 
 it should defer to the expertise of the LCDC,” Ramis said. “Sometimes simple is best.”

The appeals court’s decision could be overturned if the state Supreme Court agrees to consider the case. However, Zimmerman’s attorney, Michael Sheehan of Sheehan & Sheehan LLC, said his client has decided not to pursue the issue further.

“It’s done,” Sheehan said.

Before development can begin on the property, it will need to be annexed into the city’s UGB, Sykes said. He doesn’t expect to run into hurdles in that area, however. Although at one time, annexing land into the city required voter approval, city residents about a decade ago voted (54 percent in favor) to eliminate that requirement.

The city hasn’t heard of any specific plans for the 380 acres yet from the property owners, according to Sykes. At one point, he said, there was talk that Portland Community College was considering land around the airport as a location for a Columbia County campus.

Whatever eventually rises on the land, Sykes believes it will help the city increase the number of jobs within its boundaries – helping those already living in the city while also attracting new residents.

“Approximately 90 percent (of those living in Scappoose) commute to jobs in either Beaverton or Portland,” he said. “We’re hoping this becomes a catalyst for growth.”

The post A potential game changer for Oregon cities appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

After a brief detour on the traditional route to expanding an urban growth boundary, Scappoose officials are back on track.

Slightly more than 53 percent of the Scappoose voters who turned out for a special election on Tuesday voted in favor of a citizen-driven referendum that asked whether they supported a city plan to expand its urban growth boundary by 365 acres. The plan is scheduled to now go before the Columbia County Board of Commissioners. Final approval would come from the state Land Conservation and Development Commission.

The UGB expansion would include 339 acres east of the Scappoose Industrial Airpark and 26 acres on the city’s southern boundary where Old Portland Road meets U.S. Route 30. Portland developer Joe Weston is the major property owner and has plans to use the land for employment purposes and potentially for a Portland Community College satellite campus.

Details aren’t worked out completely yet, but supporters of the expansion plan – including local business groups, Mayor Scott Burge and state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose – believe it could lead to the creation of hundreds of family-wage jobs.

This belief led a group of citizen activists, with the support of statewide land-use watchdog group , to fight the UGB expansion proposal. The group, , contended that citizens don’t support the plan, which was approved by both Scappoose’s planning commission and City Council.

The group’s main gripe with the proposal, according to one of the main opponents, Pat Zimmerman, is with claims that it would create jobs. She noted that the southern end of Scappoose has nearly 200 acres of vacant industrial land considered shovel ready and not creating jobs.

Mia Nelson, a member of 1000 Friends of Oregon, pointed to flaws in the city’s justification for expansion. Under state law, cities must prove they need land for their 20-year supply before they expand UGBs.

Nelson believes the city is relying too heavily on the figures in an economic opportunities analysis, and that statistics from the Oregon Employment Department might be more accurate.

“We recognize and commend the city of Scappoose’s efforts to plan for its future,” Nelson wrote in a letter to the Columbia County Board of Commissioners. “We support economic development, including provision of land necessary for that development, when it is based on accurate facts, and realistic future assumptions and projections, and takes into account a jurisdiction’s unique attributes.

“But 
 the proposed employment growth rates are neither realistic nor based on sound factual information.”

Burge agreed that jobs aren’t created from a UGB expansion directly, but added that an expansion is needed for Scappoose to be competitive in the regional economy.

“If you want to be hyper-technical 
 adding land to the UGB doesn’t directly create any additional jobs,” he said. “But it does indirectly help create the jobs for our future by giving companies looking for a place to (locate) more options to locate and thus helps create more jobs.

“Not adding the land guarantees no new jobs over the next 20 years and guarantees turning this land into a gravel pit and only residential development. More homes and no more jobs.”

Burge added that if the land wasn’t added to the UGB, then both taxes and rates would likely rise, and less money would likely be spent on public services, which would lead to more crime.

The election resulted in 609 votes in support of the expansion, and 536 in opposition.

If the expansion plan was to receive approval from the Columbia County Board of Commissioners, it would then go before the LCDC. Also, the UGB expansion could be appealed, but none has been announced.

Even if the UGB expansion was approved, the property would need to be annexed into the city, which would require approval of voters, before development could occur.

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The Metro Council next month will decide whether to expand the urban growth boundary, and the number of expansion possibilities is continuing to grow.

The Metro Policy Advisory Committee – a 21-member group that helps guide land-use decisions for the Metro Council – last week voted to recommend adding four areas, a total of 1,120 acres, to a list of potential residential expansion areas. The council already is set to consider two other areas that total 1,606 acres.

Urban growth boundary expansion possibilities

The Metro Council recommended areas for study to be included in potential UGB expansion for residential housing. They include:

• 1,063 acres south of Hillsboro – south of Tualatin Valley Highway and west of Southwest 209th Avenue; and
• 543 acres of the South Cooper Mountain area near Beaverton – north of Southwest Scholls Ferry Road and east of Tile Flat Road.

The Metro Policy Advisory Committee recommends considering four additional areas. They include:

• 256 acres west of Tigard, near the intersection of Southwest Roy Rogers Road and Southwest Beef Bend Road;
• 276 acres west of Sherwood, near Oregon Route 99W and Southwest Kruger Road;
• 272 acres south and east of Cornelius; and
• 316 acres adjacent to Wilsonville, near Advance Road.

Metro policy requires that a notice be sent to every household within one mile of an area being considered for an urban growth boundary expansion. Metro Council is expected to finalize the list of those households Tuesday afternoon.

“Considering there is a cost associated with mailing these notices, we’ve been trying to be very strategic in only considering areas that have a realistic chance of being included in an expansion,” said Ken Ray, a Metro spokesman.

The Metro Council has already determined it will consider a 1,063-acre area south of Tualatin Valley Highway and west of Southwest 209th Avenue near Hillsboro, and the 543-acre South Cooper Mountain area, north of Southwest Scholls Ferry Road and east of Tile Flat Road. Both areas are being considered to accommodate residential housing and not employment.

But MPAC members recommend four other areas be considered for residential expansion: three in Washington County and one in Clackamas County. These include a 256-acre parcel west of Tigard, a 276-acre parcel west of Sherwood, a 272-acre parcel southeast of Cornelius and a 316-acre parcel near Wilsonville.

Metro officials, staffers and MPAC members all have made it clear throughout the process that just because these areas are being considered for UGB expansion doesn’t mean they will be included in one.

“The action taken by MPAC isn’t an endorsement; it’s about what areas should be included in the noticing,” Ray said. “MPAC will make its recommendation for an expansion at its (Sept. 28) meeting.”

Both sides of the UGB expansion issue have advocates. Officials at the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland have strongly supported adding multiple areas to the UGB for housing needs, while land-use advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon has taken a hard stance against any expansion whatsoever.

Complicating the matter is the fact that the five potential expansion areas in Washington County could encounter a legal snag because of the county’s urban and rural reserves map. It outlines land that can and cannot be brought into the UGB over a 50-year period. After the long-range growth map was remanded to Washington County and Metro officials last year, the Land Conservation and Development Commission finally approved a revised version in August.

But even though the map received approval, it’s likely to be appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals. Cherry Amabisca, leader of Save Helvetia, said her group would most likely appeal the decision, but it is waiting for the LCDC to release its final written order.

According to Lisa Howard, assistant to the director of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, that final written notice is expected to be issued in November. The Metro Council plans to take its final vote on whether to expand the UGB at its Oct. 20 meeting.

But according to Ray, the possibility of an appeal won’t affect the council’s actions.

“No, we’re not going to wait for the Court of Appeals if the reserves process is appealed,” he said. “We’ve got the basis to make a decision since LCDC has approved the reserves map, and we feel fairly confident with the process we went through.”

In addition to lands being discussed for residential housing, the Metro Council is also going to examine at least one area for industrial employment: a 330-acre parcel north of Hillsboro. Also during the MPAC meeting, members decided to add two other industrial areas to the discussion: a 115-acre area north of Forest Grove and a 117-acre area south of Tualatin.

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Oregon’s land-use decision board recently approved a reserves map for Washington County showing where the urban growth boundary can be expanded over the next 50 years. While the move is contentious among Oregon conservationists who’d like more land left undeveloped, it shows remarkable restraint when compared to land-use policies elsewhere.

A published last week and reported today in highlights that though the greatest increase of urbanization is happening in rapidly developing countries like China and India, the greatest conversion of rural land for urban use is happening here in North America.  Washington County’s original plan left more land for urban use, but that plan was remanded to the county by the Land Conservation and Development Commission for more work.

Though I can not authoritatively say what the motivations for greater development were, Times reporter Felicity Barringer points out an interesting remark by the authors of the study:

…Urban growth is driven, at least in part, by the economic incentives of local officials to increase their revenue by obtaining rural land and transferring land use rights to developers.”

Photo by via Flickr

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After almost a year of waiting, Washington County finally has a state-approved growth plan outline for the next 50 years.

The Land Conservation and Development Commission, the state’s land-use decision board, today unanimously approved a retooled urban and rural reserves map for Washington County. LCDC approved the map after remanding the county’s original map back to county officials last October over concerns of designating two specific areas as urban reserves, meaning they could be considered for urban growth boundary expansion over the next 50 years.

Washington County was one of three counties – including Clackamas and Multnomah counties – that were designating urban and rural reserves last year as part of a regional long-term growth strategy for the Portland-metropolitan area. While the maps for both Clackamas and Multnomah counties were adopted, Washington County’s maps were remanded because of a 624-acre parcel north of Cornelius and a 508-acre parcel north of Forest Grove that were designated urban reserves.

Washington County and Metro officials decided to retool the map, paring down the size of the Cornelius urban reserve and forgoing the Forest Grove parcel for a 352-acre urban reserve north of U.S. Route 26 in Helvetia.

While the LCDC decision is the final approval required to implement the urban and rural reserves, the decision could still be appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

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