For years, Washington County has been pushing the notion that cities should be the provider of urban services, encouraging annexations and discussing ways to get out of infrastructure business.
But some federal grants could be the first step toward eyeing a different approach for one of the Tualatin Valley's more prominent unincorporated communities.
Washington County was recently awarded $2 million in grants for transportation and housing planning, targeted at the Aloha and Reedville areas between Beaverton and Hillsboro.
"It's really a welcome opportunity to look at an area that was never developed to modern standards with regards to transportation infrastructure," said Rick Van Beveren, owner of the Reedville Café and a TriMet board member. "It (Aloha) predated the kinds of roads that are being built today that have multimodal capability, which is something it's hard to retrofit a community with."
In many ways Aloha has been left behind as the county has looked to shed some of its responsibility as a service provider. While newer communities in unincorporated Washington County like Bethany have been built to resemble modern suburbia, Aloha still has narrow, disjointed streets with few sidewalks.
Among counties with more than 500,000 people, Washington County ranks 21st nationwide in terms of percentage of its population living in unincorporated areas. Take out the counties east of the Mississippi River, and Washington County ranks fifth, with 41.5 percent of its residents living in no city.
Aloha-Reedville public participation
For more information on public outreach for the Aloha-Reedville study, contact Mike Dahlstrom at 503-846-8101 or
[email protected].
County Commissioner Dick Schouten, whose district includes the study area, says cities aren't necessarily the definitive urban service provider.
"I just wonder if that's (Aloha-Reedville) going to get annexed ever, or if it's going to be annexed in any practical time period," he said. "We have code enforcement issues, we have planning issues, and issues on the library at some point there. Those are the three needs that really come to mind and we can't wait forever to get some of these things taken care of."
With the county commission getting two new members next year, Schouten said he expects an analysis of the fate of unincorporated areas to be a topic of discussion.
The grant should help commissioners with their conversation. A large-scale effort to get small-scale feedback, the grant includes grassroots public outreach aimed at an area that lacks a central focal point for community conversation.
Through the ground-up effort, said Washington County Housing Authority Executive Director Val Valfre, the county should get a feel for what the community needs in the realms of affordable housing and connections to transit and economic development. He said a lot of conversation awaits, but there's a lot of interest in developing to the potential of the Aloha area.
"We're trying to upgrade this area that really has been kind of overlooked," he said. "We've just not had the priority for resources, or funds for that area."
Already, Valfre's been getting some feedback. Reading an article about the grant on a newspaper's website, Valfre saw comments about streetscapes, sidewalks, bike paths and lighting.
"That's a very strong message to me that there's a constituency there that thinks that's very important," he said.
The grant also will help the county study how jobs relate to the transportation plan.
"If we can conduce some development that ties into transportation, we can use that land use to make it more marketable for jobs that people want," Valfre said. "It's kind of a win-win, if there's a need and it's accessible."
Van Beveren pointed to improvements in downtown Cornelius as an example of success in a similarly disconnected community.
"Look at the project through Cornelius to put in pedestrian infrastructure and safer streets," Van Beveren aid. "I drove through Cornelius recently and, wow, I'm impressed. Maybe that can be accomplished in the medium term. That's my hope."
That kind of development doesn't come cheap, and the county has no concrete target for funding sources to implement whatever the study recommends. Valfre said private investment and local money, along with successful implementation of the planning grant, could bring some federal money.
"It won't cover everything we want to do in the area," Valfre said of federal grants. "We're still quite a long way from that. The first thing is to make sure we meet the expectations that the grant was awarded on. I'm fairly confident if we do that, we'll compete well for some federal dollars."
Schouten pointed to equity as another concern that he'd like to see addressed.
"We don't want any place in the county … left out as far as livability," he said. "We have to figure out a way to see that happen. We can work our way back from that answer to what the solutions are going to be.
"It's the old Zen thing. There's no one path," Schouten said. "We know where we want to get to. We want to make sure everyone's participating in a healthy, livable community."