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North Clackamas County Chamber Event

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On March 22, 2006, Metro Council President David Bragdon spoke to the North Clackamas County Chamber.

On March 22, 2006, Metro Council President David Bragdon spoke to the North Clackamas County Chamber regarding the Metro Council's choices and challenges we face as a region. He illustrated his points by hosting a Google Earth tour of our region. Audience members enjoyed a "flyover" of projected aerial satellite photos of areas of interest from Clackamas Town Center to Cooper Mountain. Afterwards, David fielded questions from the audience.

David Bragdon's remarks to the North Clackamas County Chamber

It has been an honor speaking to you in the past, most recently just a little over a year ago. Today, rather than give another speech, I would like to invite you to take a trip – a trip around the region, from a bird’s eye view, to imagine different scenarios for the future.

In my job, I look at our area without regard to the jurisdictional boundaries that were drawn in the 19th century – boundaries that sometimes get in the way of solving our 21^st century problems.

On our tour, you’ll find a diversity of communities, from Troutdale on the east to Forest Grove on the west, each with its own distinctive local characteristics, but each interdependent with the other communities that compose our metropolitan region.

The Metro Council’s job is to help those communities cooperate on the things we have in common, and to make us all better off than we would be if each town was struggling in isolation to solve big problems that extend beyond their boundaries.

One of those challenges that can only be addressed by working regionally is population growth. Demographers project that 25 years from now, this region will be home to a million more people than it is today.

We may not like some implications of that possibility – will there be longer lines at the grocery store and overcrowded classrooms? – but we may welcome other implications of it – won’t growth also bring new economic opportunities?

I understand both sentiments. I remember moving here at the age of 12, in 1971, when the population was under a million people – less than three-quarters of what it is today. Going to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time, once we were past a few traffic signals in Tigard, it was pretty much countryside. When our parents took my brother and sister to Mount Hood, we left Portland and then passed through what seemed like the small suburb of Gresham on the way – it was 12,000 people, about an eighth of its population today.

It’s natural to be wistful about that past, but we also know there’s a downside to not having growth: I remember graduating from college during the deep recession of 1982, when many of my high school classmates had gone to other states because they couldn’t find good jobs in Oregon.

Whether we like some aspects of population growth and don’t like other aspects of growth, it is a fact of life. The answer to both the fears and the possibilities is: it’s up to us.

Our choice is whether or not we plan for growth and make it something that makes our region a better place, or whether we just let it happen to us the way other American cities have. We know what rapid population growth has done to other places like Phoenix or Houston that didn’t plan for it.

One American paradise after another has been ruined by unplanned growth and poor investment decisions: established neighborhoods drained of their property values and abandoned; people forced to commute longer and longer distances; expensive taxpayer-funded roads and sewer and water lines extended further and further away while existing infrastructure is not maintained; natural features obliterated; no sense of that distinctive hometown community.

We Oregonians knew it doesn’t have to be this way. Oregon has always been different.

Once upon a time, Oregonians believed that working together actually provided individuals with more choices, not fewer. We also believed that regional cooperation accomplishes more than if city fights against suburb or east doesn’t talk to west or neighboring towns foist their problems on each other.

One example is the Metro Council’s 2040 concept, adopted about fifteen years ago to guide growth for the region. That was before my time on the Council, but I agree with most of its intentions: to maintain an urban growth boundary (UGB), and channel growth into redevelopment of existing land.

But as with anything, good intentions are one thing, and implementation is another.

Some things are working well in our region. More than most places, we have maintained our distinct character—clean air, clean water, nature nearby, safe neighborhoods, thriving urban places—a distinctiveness that is not only the most important reason many of us live here, but is increasingly recognized by economists as the strongest asset we have for attracting new jobs and wealth to the region. But there are some things we need to do better, particularly with making our planning system less legalistic and more economically savvy.

That’s why our council is taking a new look at what we are doing right and what we’re doing wrong, and suggesting some changes in how we plan for the future. Let’s take a look at how some of those choices play out in the region.

Clackamas Town Center was built 25 years ago, when vacant land was cheap and endless. It was planned when gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon. There was only one thing you could do there – shop – and pretty much only one way you could get there – car. Not a lot of choices.

The philosophy of that time was that shopping was over here, and offices were way over someplace else, and houses were in some third place, and none of them were well connected with each other.

Today, bolstered by the 2040 concept and an urban renewal district, Clackamas Town Center is on the verge of a makeover. Educational institutions and office developers are considering clustering nearby, and light rail is on its way.

The private sector and public sector are working together. To make improvements that will make it more like, well, a town center – in the real sense of those words. But it takes effort and financial tools, like tax increment financing.

There are lots of familiar places in our region that could benefit from a makeover, a makeover fueled in part by that population growth. Since most of us would not want overwhelming growth in our existing residential neighborhoods, disrupting their established character, let’s think of the spots that can use new population growth. The more we can accommodate growth in urban areas where it makes sense, the less impact on our single family neighborhoods that make up most of the region.

There’s the Lloyd District – it’s already got wide streets, good transit service, and a handful of high rise buildings. Tall buildings are already in character there, but there are also all those surface parking lots. What would it take to encourage property owners to convert those from asphalt to places for people who want urban living to live? How do we help make redevelopment of those underutilized areas pencil out? According to recent public opinion research, 65% of people in our region think population growth should be accommodated within the existing UGB, rather than expansion – but accomplishing that will require changing where and how the public sector and the tax system induces or discourages private investment.

In our new look at regional choices, I will be pushing for more attention to the actual costs of growth – who pays, and who benefits.

While redeveloping Clackamas Town Center or the Lloyd District has a financial cost, such as tax increment financing, not redeveloping them would also have a cost – or loss of sunk costs. We are recognizing there are not-so-hidden price tags on other forms of growth, too.

Consider the Bethany area, north of Beaverton. The Metro Council brought 805 acres into the UGB in 2002.

Over three years later, the real issue is not the UGB, but money: current estimates are that connecting this area with arterials to Highway 26 would cost $250 million. Add water and sewer pipes and schools and parks and utilities, and you’re talking real money. In the past, federal subsidies to highways and water systems underwrote a lot of this type of new development, and local governments were willing to extend services. But with huge national deficits in Washington D.C., and Measures 5, 47 and 50 in Oregon, local governments can no longer justify extending services when they are barely able to maintain the infrastructure that current residents use today.

It’s an inescapable fact that new development is going to have to pay a bigger share of the public costs it creates.

Most of our region consists of single family neighborhoods – and even though average family size is shrinking, single family homes will always be the heart of our region.

One thing that distinguishes our area from other major cities is that neighborhoods here tend to hold their property value. In a nation where most of our net worth is embodied in personal home ownership, protecting those established neighborhoods is important.

There’s a new one that will soon feel “old” – Villebois, in Wilsonville, on the site of an abandoned mental hospital. Thanks to careful planning it will be a great neighborhood – some single family homes, within walking distance of shopping, with apartments and condos woven in around a town square so that older people who no longer need a big house, or younger people just starting out, can find something appropriate in the neighborhood.

Some of them will be working in Wilsonville, too, thanks to high tech and also the warehousing around Interstate 5. Where else are people going to work?

One of the shortcomings of the 2040 concept, in my personal opinion, is that it didn’t really take economics into account. Now we realize that you can’t talk about the future of the region without also having an understanding about economic development. That’s why the Metro Council is a partner in developing an economic development strategy that builds on our strengths to create economic opportunity for the future.

One of our region's potential strengths is international trade. We will be taking a new look at how to guide highway investment and preserve industrial land so that businesses can exploit our competitive advantage. Since the gas tax in Oregon has not been raised since 1991, our update of the regional transportation plan has to recognize that there is not enough money for all the projects that engineers dream up, and that we have to be more strategic with the money we do have. That also means putting a priority on taking care of the things we already have first, and then finding new ways to pay for new things, like the possibility of tolls to widen Highway 217.

We are going to have a diversity of industries. On Saturday, you read in the newspaper that a new biotechnology company is coming to this site in Hillsboro. We added these parcels to the UGB in 2002 and additional parcels in 2005, and it was the right thing to do. We also required that the zoning be designed for these industrial employers. That requirement was controversial: there are those who think that they could have made a quicker buck with low density office parks or strip malls – but then where would Genentech have gone?

As our economy changes, we need to take a new look at the types of places those businesses want to be. Economists say we will have more research and development – activities that fit in an office or a lab. So take, for example, the Open Source Development Lab in Beaverton. They could locate anywhere in the world, but they chose Beaverton – bringing lots of potential with them. They need light rail to get their employees to and from work. And Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, has said that he likes living here so that he can bike to the town center with his kids.

Another aspect people like about our region is the presence of natural areas, such as Cooper Mountain on the west side.

In the past, we’ve made choices that kept Portland distinct, such as when voters approved the 1995 bond measure that purchased 83,00 acres of streams and natural areas. Those choices are clearly paying dividends now, in terms of attracting new employers like Genentech and the Open Source Development Labs.

Natural areas are an important element of our urban life – and so is having clean air and water. Nature really is a valuable part of our region – we just need to rebuild our communities to recognize that.

The Willamette waterfront revitalization in downtown Milwaukie is a great example of transportation, riverfront and history all coming together. If we can have more projects like that, growth will be a good thing!

The Metro Council's new look at regional choices is figuring out how to do that. The question is what kind of choices will we make that will determine how the region looks 25 years from today: choices of how we invest in revitalizing places like downtown Milwaukie or how we preserve our natural areas. With your help and support, I know we'll find the answers.

Thank you.

Need assistance?

Metro Council President David Bragdon
503-797-1889 | 503-797-1793 fax
david.bragdon@oregonmetro.gov
or
Eileen Schill
503-797-1560
eileen.schill@oregonmetro.gov