The Metro Council voted unanimously Thursday to approve four urban growth boundary expansions and open up 2,181 acres of land for future development.

The expansions will take place in the cities of Wilsonville, Beaverton, Hillsboro and King City, although Metro councilors and staffers reportedly have concerns over the latter’s ability to guide large developments through to completion. Proposals in the cities call for development of a total of 9,200 new housing units.

Wilsonville was granted a 271-acre expansion that will allow construction of at least 1,325 homes near the city’s northeastern edge, including the large Frog Pond development that has been under way for several years. Hillsboro’s 150-acre expansion near Witch Hazel Road will allow the addition of at least 850 housing units, while Beaverton’s 1,232-acre expansion near the southwest side of Cooper Mountain will allow construction of at least 3,760 housing units.

King City had asked for 528 acres to build a new town center. But because it would be the small city’s first large development in many years, the council encouraged city officials to apply for grants to pay for additional staff, consulting and engineering needed to make the plan happen.

“We try to get better at this every single time, but one of the clear reasons this process is different is because all of us in the region invested time, energy and compassion into defining the urban and rural reserves that that map illustrates,” Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington stated.

Metro is required by law to ensure the Portland tri-county area has enough buildable land within the UGB to accommodate 20 years of growth. Metro normally reviews the boundary every six years. The 2018 process is different from the 2004 UGB review process, which saw the Metro Council expand the boundary in the Damascus area. That decision ultimately did not lead to significant development, and Damascus ultimately voted to end city incorporation and return land use authority to Clackamas County.

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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.

Metro is preparing to seek new authority from the Oregon Legislature to consider changes to urban growth boundaries outside of the usual six-year cycle.

The Portland-based regional planning agency has convened a task force that is examining how to structure a new process for UGB adjustments.

Metro is pitching the changes as a necessary correction to an overly rigid process for expanding growth boundaries. But any change to Oregon’s UGB system promises to be politically charged, with municipalities, homebuilders, developers and conservationists defending their interests.

Metro wants to allow up to 900 acres to be added to UGBs outside of the usual six-year cycle.

“The (Metro) Council wants the flexibility to respond to modest requests from cities,” said John Williams, Metro’s deputy director of planning and development.

Under current law, the Metro Council lacks sufficient flexibility to respond to city requests for modest residential UGB adjustments tapping into urban reserves when cities demonstrate that they can govern the area and finance infrastructure, Metro says in a task force document.

Metro is next scheduled to undergo a wholesale re-evaluation of the UGB in 2018.

The task force is wading through sticky issues, including a swap concept whereby a city could add land from outside an UGB in exchange for creating land reserves inside it. The task force, which met Sept. 21, includes representatives of Wilsonville, Forest Grove, Happy Valley, Portland, Multnomah County and the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland.

The aim of the land swap process is to remove so-called “nonperforming” areas – tracts that, for one reason or another, have resisted development – from inside the growth boundary in exchange for land with development potential.

Municipal representatives were wary of how a swap would work. In a letter to the task force, a Home Builders Association representative said there are “significant political and legal challenges toward implementing a swap.”

Some stakeholders expressed concern about the idea of Metro removing land from within growth boundaries. Sherwood Mayor Krisanna Clark wrote in a letter that Metro should have a “high bar for a UGB exchange to ensure areas being exchanged truly are not suitable for immediate development and were brought into the UGB in error.”

Williams sought to ease those concerns.

“I don’t foresee a scenario in which Metro takes back something,” he said. “It would be a collaborative conversation.”

The idea warrants careful examination, Metro Council member Carlotta Collette said.

“It’s big, and it needs some vetting,” she said.

The task force came out of the aftermath of Metro’s decision in November 2015 to not expand the Portland area’s urban growth boundary. Metro said the area has plenty of land to accommodate the growth foreseen for the next 20 years, disappointing local planners and builders who were hoping for new areas to develop.

“Obviously, I think some tweaks are necessary,” said John Ludlow, chairman of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. “You looked at the disappointment around the region when the report came out.”

Ludlow pointed to historic rises in housing costs in the county, saying more units are the sensible solution.

“More supply means less price – it’s a fact,” he said.

Metro vowed to undergo another UGB review in 2018, three years sooner than required by law.

Metro should proceed with the process, Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis said.

“I don’t disagree that this is going to take some time,” he said. “But if not now, when? If we stop, we’ll be back here again two years from now.”

The off-cycle UGB adjustment process could benefit cities such as Wilsonville, Happy Valley and Sherwood.

Sherwood officials are looking to bring in portions of an area known as Sherwood West. The 1,291-acre site is classified as an urban reserve.

Sherwood would likely move forward with annexation of a portion of the Sherwood West site, where land is buildable and the fewest obstacles exist, planning manager Brad Kilby said.

“We would be looking at the low-hanging fruit, where property owners have indicated they’re willing to go into the boundary, and where we’re willing to provide an orderly and efficient extension of services,” he said.

The city is moving ahead on Sherwood West even after local voters repeatedly rejected annexation requests of areas brought inside the UGB in 2002. Three times, voters have turned down growth boundary expansions.

“We have to grow,” Kilby said. “We can’t just stop planning. We have to continue to plan for growth. There’s an old adage: Cities that don’t grow, die.”

Wilsonville also could benefit. The city has sought to persuade Metro to bring portions of the Frog Pond area inside the growth boundary.

“Wilsonville was kind of the poster child of a place that met a lot of good planning criteria,” Metro Council President Tom Hughes said.

Wilsonville has been lobbying to add Frog Pond inside the UGB since before 2010, Planning Director Chris Neamtzu said.

“That’s a long time to wait for 280 acres to come into an urban growth boundary,” he said.

The push came out of discussions of the Metropolitan Mayors Consortium, a group of Portland-area mayors. After several UGB decisions adverse for development, most notably last year’s decision to add nothing, growth advocates are encouraged.

“It’s incredible that the Metro Council has been highly responsive to the more recent concerns,” Neamtzu said.

An unresolved question is how much land would fulfill the task force’s goal of adding “modest” tracts of land inside growth boundaries. It has to be large enough to be worth developing, but not so vast that it undermines the more in-depth six year growth-boundary reviews, task force members said.

“Something like 500 acres a year we think is a reasonable number,” said Jeff Smith, vice president and treasurer of the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland and president of J.T. Smith Cos. in Lake Oswego, a homebuilder and developer.

A draft task force document pegs the limit for off-cycle regional growth boundary expansions at 900 gross acres.

The six-year UGB cycle means builders miss economic windows, Smith said. “It’s just too long of a cycle,” he said. “In six years, prices change so much it’s not even funny.”

Rural reserves would remain off-limits to development through at least 2060.

Time is growing short for Metro to prepare a push for legislation in the 2017 Legislature, which will convene on Feb. 1.

“We’re beginning to knock against the time where we have to decide what we’re going to carry forward to the 2017 Legislature,” Hughes said.

Ultimately, the Metro Council will decide what to lobby for in the Legislature.

Hughes said regardless of what Metro decides this fall, the agency will go forward with the scheduled UGB review in 2018.

Task force members are also aware that whatever they come up with must be palatable to the Oregon communities far removed from the Portland-metro area.

Forest Grove Mayor Pete Truax put it this way: “What works for Metro has to work for Bend, and for Astoria and for East Jesus, Oregon.”

The post UGBs in the crosshairs: a developing situation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Multifamily units account for more than half of Wilsonville’s existing housing stock – including senior housing, according to city Planning Director Chris Neamtzu.

But change is coming to the Portland suburb.

The build-out of Villebois, 2,600 homes on 500 acres west of Interstate 5, is about 60 percent complete, Neamtzu said. Next, Wilsonville is planning for construction of 610 market-rate, single-family homes on the 173-acre western portion of an area named Frog Pond. No apartments are planned.

“This neighborhood is going to help us provide some balance in our housing portfolio,” Neamtzu said.

The city of Wilsonville is at work on a master planning process for Frog Pond, north of City Hall. City officials are moving forward, and the project is on track to be ready for developer proposals next year, Neamtzu said.

The Planning Commission will hold work sessions on Frog Pond in October and November, with a public hearing tentatively planned for December. The City Council would then consider the master plan in January.

Lots in Frog Pond’s western portion will vary in size from 5,000 square feet to more than 10,000 square feet. If the eastern and southern portions were pulled inside the urban growth boundary, the anticipated build-out would have 1,935 homes.

Frog Pond will offer “a lot of opportunity for some nice, high-end homes,” Neamtzu said.

A commercial center is also envisioned. An analysis found that the area could support 38,000 square feet of commercial development.

All of the residential construction in Wilsonville is following substantial commercial and civic projects. Wilsonville Old Town Square, developed by Gramor Development along with Retail Opportunity Investments Corp., which later acquired the property, is anchored by a 145,000-square-foot Fred Meyer store, with an additional 50,000 square feet of other retail space. McMenamins opened a pub in a former church dating back to 1911.

In 2006, Wilsonville built a 30,000-square-foot City Hall. The $11.5 million project was developed by Specht Development.

Schools are going up too. Construction has started on a new middle school, Meridian Creek, on the northeastern edge of town. It will be the city’s third middle school. Wilsonville didn’t have its own high school until 1995. A school site has also been identified as part of Frog Pond.

At Frog Pond, developers are beginning to investigate the possibilities ahead of proposals next year.

“There’s great potential,” said Don Hanson, director of planning, architecture and design at Portland-based Otak. “It’s not constrained. It’s fairly level land. Obviously, it’s well located, close to the downtown core and to schools. People can walk. And Wilsonville is always good to work with.”

Hanson said he was looking into Frog Pond for Arbor Custom Homes, a Beaverton-based developer.

Wilsonville, population 22,729, sits at the southern edge of the metro area’s urban growth boundary. The city has seen 16.5 percent population growth since 2010, according to Census Bureau data.

Frog Pond is coming on the heels of Villebois. Last year, Wilsonville gained upwards of 350 new homes – a record, Neamtzu said.

“It ebbs and flows, but Wilsonville has a long legacy of relatively consistent growth,” he said.

Villebois has a range of homes with current prices of $256,990 to $659,900. Developers including Polygon, West Hills/Arbor Custom Homes and Lennar Corp. have been building there.

Polygon managers were out of the office and could not be reached for comment. Efforts to reach a Lennar Corp. spokesman were not successful.

Construction at Villebois has slowed as developers pursue higher-end homes, Neamtzu said.

“In Villebois, the homes that are being built are at a higher price point; I’m sensing less velocity because of that,” he said. “We’ve moved into new areas where the homes are upwards of $600,000, and the market is not deep at that price point.”

Meanwhile, as plans for Frog Pond advance, planners are grappling with how to structure infrastructure charges.

“That’s always the hardest part of these master-planned communities,” Neamtzu said. “How do you pay for the infrastructure that’s needed to serve the new urban area?”

Frog Pond was once literally that – a wetland known for its croaking frogs. A grange hall and later a road, Southwest Frog Pond Lane, cemented the name.

While city officials say Frog Pond development is needed, not everyone in the suburban community is thrilled.

Under current plans, a road would impact the property of Don and Debra Ross. The Rosses moved to Wilsonville from Medford in 2012 after eminent domain was exercised to extend Crater Lake Highway (Oregon Route 62) through their property.

At their Wilsonville property, the Rosses entertain their grandkids and raise cattle and chickens. Debra’s elderly mother lives with them.

“I don’t really want to move,” Debra Ross said. “This is déjà vu.”

Wilsonville grapples with UGB

The fate of Frog Pond’s remaining tracts will depend on how Metro handles the southern fringe of the Portland area’s urban growth boundary.

Frog Pond is divided by the metro-area’s UGB. The western portion is in; the east and south are out.

Wilsonville officials are planning for development of west Frog Pond while pushing for the two remaining tracts to be included in the UGB when Metro reconsiders it in 2018.

Wilsonville officials have tried during the past two UGB cycles to persuade Metro, the regional planning agency, to include all of Frog Pond within the UGB. Both times, in 2010 and 2015, Metro rejected the efforts. Officials have cited undeveloped land within the UGB as well as a checkered history of development in areas brought within the UGB.

The western portion of Frog Pond was added in 2002. Wilsonville and Metro continue to discuss the other tracts.

“It’s really important to have the larger geography and be able to rely on more dwelling units being constructed to help offset the costs,” Planning Director Chris Neamtzu said.

Metro is pursuing another solution: asking the Oregon Legislature for new authority to consider exceptions to UGBs outside the usual review cycles. The goal, agency spokesman Jim Middaugh said, is to give Metro a tool to consider “small, strategic exceptions.”

A Metro task force is considering recommendations for the Metro Council to review.

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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.

For the first time, the metro area’s urban growth boundary will not move outward, following a unanimous vote by Metro councilors on Thursday. They took several factors into account when making the decision to keep in place the boundary that separates farmland from land available for urban development.

The council felt that despite previous UGB expansions, most development was happening in the same sections of the metro area.

“Our challenges in the Portland-metro area aren’t about land supply,” said Jim Middaugh, Metro’s communications director. “They’re about land readiness.”

The decision also took into account the state’s history, including preservation of as much farmland as possible.

“In Oregon we have a long tradition of trying to protect the land that nurtures us,” Middaugh said. “The decision that the Metro Council made reflects that heritage and tradition in Oregon.”

By law, the Metro Council has to assure that enough land is available to provide for 20 years of growth population. The council is required to look into that every six years. With understanding that the recession has significantly affected development plans, the council made a commitment to review the situation again in three years.

“We’re coming out of a recession and we’ve seen such a boom in the multifamily market in the Portland region,” Middaugh said. “We don’t know whether that’s going to continue or not, whether that’s the result of a hangover from the recession or not.”

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It’s a new year and the right time to take up a new topic in this space. Previously I discussed projects and market issues in Portland’s South Waterfront District. But with the start of the new year, I am pivoting my gaze beyond the city center to new horizons. I will spend 2015 delving into just what exactly is happening with the urban growth boundary in the Portland-metro area.

For those uninitiated in the legal framework for UGB amendments, some context is in order. State law mandates that Metro Council review and amend the UGB every six years in order to meet the region’s residential and industrial land needs for the next 20 years. This is one of those decisive years; the next decision on whether to add more land to the UGB is scheduled to be made toward the end of this year.

In the coming months Metro will mull over considerations such as how much acreage to bring into the UGB. How much of that acreage should be for residential or employment uses? And which particular tracts of land should be included?

Metro’s decision-making process is guided by state law intended to balance the need for urban land with protection and retention of high-value agricultural and forest lands. which land has first priority for inclusion in the UGB over the next 50 years (the urban reserves) and which land is protected from inclusion in the UGB over the next 50 years (the rural reserves).

Metro will determine which urban reserves, if any, will be brought into the UGB. In order to do so, Metro must forecast the land needs for the entire region for the next 20 years. Such forecasting is necessarily uncertain and based on any number of policy decisions that are less than scientific.

To assist in this process, Metro Council adopted the , which provides copious amounts of information and analysis of the scenarios under which the region can grow, and ultimately suggests that Metro not include any additional acreage in the UGB until the next six-year decision cycle.

The recommendation to stand pat is contentious and not favored by many stakeholders, including cities, counties and industry groups. Each has its own set of interests, which Metro will attempt to balance to determine what is best for the region as a whole. The methodologies used to come to the stand-pat recommendation are also malleable, so the Urban Growth Report is far from the final word on the subject.

I will use this space to follow the UGB amendment process throughout the year, and touch on the following topics:

• What housing development trends does Metro project?

• On what issues do Portland and the suburbs have diverging interests?

• Is there an adequate industrial land supply to support employment growth commensurate with projected population growth?

• Will there be another UGB-related “Grand Bargain” at the Legislature?

• Is the future of the Stafford triangle rural or urban?

• What will be done with Damascus?

In 2015, the UGB amendment process is likely to provide contentious debate among a broad constituency of regional interests. Contact me if there are specific topics you’d like me to address.

Damien Hall focuses on land use and real estate law as an attorney at Ball Janik LLP. Contact him at 503-944-6138 or dhall@balljanik.com.

The post OP-ED: It’s UGB amendment time in Portland appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Metro staff predicts that 400,000 new residents, needing 200,000 new homes, will move to the Portland area in the next 20 years. Policy makers this year will make land use and urban growth boundary decisions about how to welcome the new residents and where to put them, but not without some controversy.

Metro last month voted to accept a draft 2014 Urban Growth Report assessing the region’s capacity to accommodate in-migration under current policy, as required by Oregon land use laws. In 2015, Metro Council will use the report to consider policy options, including UGB expansion – though the report concludes that, with the right planning, a boundary expansion may not be necessary.

Gerald Mildner, director of Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate, in September read the draft report and last month released a response titled “Density at Any Cost.” It criticized many of Metro’s metrics and the tools used to predict them.

Metro staff uses a computer program called MetroScope to simulate, in five-year periods, possible future development in order to plan transportation development, make land use decisions and test alternate policies.

“This report deserves special attention by citizens and professionals in the local business community because it distorts economic data and will lead the region to make decisions that will harm economic growth,” Mildner wrote. “The plan envisions a doubling of apartment rents over twenty years, creating a large burden for low-income houses in the region.”

Mildner, in a phone interview, also criticized Metro’s decision to use data compiled by MetroScope over the most recent five-year period because the economic downturn skewed numbers.

“Have they come up with an accurate demographic forecast?” he said. “Because I don’t think it’s correct to make 20-year plans based on the last five years of data. It seems urban planners and some elected officials have latched on to the idea that millennials only want to live in the center of town, but (millennials) are going to get married, they’re going to have kids, and living in a downtown one-bedroom apartment isn’t any fun with a kid.”

Mildner called Metro’s UGB expansion into Damascus a “failure,” saying the boundaries need to expand west into Washington County, even though state rules call for UGBs to expand into areas with low agricultural activity, protecting land – like that in Washington County – with high agricultural potential from development.

“The state planning statutes say prime farmland like what’s west toward Hillsboro is a high priority for preservation,” Mildner said. “The problem is that the same thing that makes flat land attractive for agriculture also makes it an attractive place for people to live.”

John Williams, Metro deputy planning director, and Molly Vogt, Metro interim research director, jointly wrote a letter to Mildner, standing behind the assertions made in the report and blasting him for making “significantly misleading statements and errors” in his critique.

“We have made efforts to provide information and clarity that could assist you in gaining an understanding and conducting an effective review of our work,” the letter states. “We offered to meet with you to answer your questions but you declined.”

The letter goes on to point out 10 “serious problems” with Mildner’s statements about the report, including his critique of MetroScope, his assertion that people will want to move away from the city center as they age and begin families, and his methodology in predicting a doubling of rents in the next 20 years.

“Your findings are skewed because you inflate housing prices but not wages,” the letter states. “You ignore the fact that people are voting with their feet. The popularity and redevelopment of close-in neighborhoods, main streets and town centers is based on the fact that many people want to live in communities where they can walk, use transit or bike if they want.”

Williams and Vogt wrote that they stand behind their work and the data in the report and that they welcome “reasonable and factual debate” as Metro Council moves toward making a decision about whether to expand the UGB.

Craig Beebe, Metro’s public affairs specialist, said it’s important to remember that the report, though accepted by the council, doesn’t create policy; it simply encourages conversation and decision making.

“The (Urban Growth Report) isn’t a plan,” he said. “It’s a report; a check-in on where plans already adopted by local communities and the region are taking us, along with market trends, infrastructure needs, and so on. Like all reports, it raises questions but does not answer them.”

Those questions will be debated and answered over the next year, as Metro Council members meet with stakeholders, interpret data and consider concept plans from individual communities. In December, the council will make a decision and adopt a policy that strives to meet the area’s 20-year housing and employment needs.

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