About Perspectives
Each week, Metro news reporter Nick Christensen poses a question to stakeholders to spark a community conversation. On Wednesdays, the question and stakeholder responses are posted to Metro news. Then, throughout the week, Nick adds readers' comments and responses to the post.
That's where you come in. What do you think the answer is? How do you agree or disagree with the responses so far? E-mail your response to this week's question to [email protected]. Be sure to include your name, the community you live in and your phone number so your response can be verified. This is a moderated conversation, and comments are expected to elevate the discussion.
Members of the public who participate will be entered into a random drawing for a great Metro prize. This week, one lucky commenter will get a waterproof Bike There! map of the region's bike routes!
This content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Metro staff or elected officials.
This week's question
What's your reaction to the October Land Conservation and Development Commission ruling on urban and rural reserves?
Stakeholder responses
Sam Adams
Mayor, Portland
As one of the city of Portland’s representatives to MPAC, and a participant in the regional discussions on urban and rural reserves, I thought that a remand of the decision was necessary to reduce the overall amount of urban reserves and restore a regional balance. A large urban reserve diverts energy and resources that should be focused on our centers and corridors throughout the region.
I think that LCDC’s decision to accept the regional agreements for Multnomah and Clackamas counties is the right decision. I am glad LCDC saw the wisdom of the Multnomah County Board, Northwest Portland neighborhoods, and Portland representatives not to designate urban reserves in portions of western Multnomah County near Forest Park. These areas are environmentally significant to wildlife habitat, water quality, natural landscapes features. It’s features like those—together with farming activities—that have long defined our sense of place in the region. Future development in these areas would also have added to traffic on constrained roads over the Northwest Hills.
I would have liked to see LCDC scale back more of the Washington County urban reserves on our region’s “best of the best” foundation farmland. Such a result would have more closely aligned the amount of urban reserves with both the Urban Growth Report recommendation of the Chief Operating Officer and MPAC. In the end, their remand of parts of the Washington County designations is a reasonable compromise that will allow the region to complete work on this important, first-in-the-nation growth management tool.
From the beginning, Oregon has struggled with balancing farm and forest land protections with the needs of our urban areas to grow and be prosperous. Hopefully, this decision can allow us to move beyond talking about the edges of the region, so we can focus our attention on the needs and challenges in our centers and corridors, which is where 95 percent of development is occurring.
I look forward to working on Metro’s Community Investment Initiative to come up with new and innovative ways to invest in our communities to provide the necessary infrastructure and amenities to maintain this region’s high level of livability. The more that we can do to realize the development and employment potential of our centers and corridors, the more successful we will be in meeting our livability and sustainability goals—while simultaneously reducing the pressure to develop our urban reserves.
David Bragdon
Metro Council President, 2003-2010
The Metro Council and Core Four (local governments) diligently followed the state agencies' direction from start to finish of an arduous three year process. It is baffling that at the conclusion of that effort the state would abruptly change signals and invalidate so much of the work which the state's own agencies had guided. In my personal opinion, the remand is just another symptom of the broader aimlessness and lack of direction that has characterized Oregon state government for many years now.
Teri Cummings
City Councilor, West Linn
Can you imagine the pile if Metro invited urban/rural reserves participants to bring all maps, graphs, reports, public comments and articles back for recycling? My materials collected from over 120 Metro, Clackamas County and local meetings since Oregon's initial 2008 Big Look have actually filled a wheelbarrow! Now think of all the dollars agencies must have spent to produce those materials and the number of wheel barrows it would take to haul those dollars away.
As a city councilor with a very tight budget, I resent that West Linn has been forced to use litigation to protect Stafford for the fifth time. Cities were told Metro would only designate urban reserves in areas cities wanted to expand to in the future. For more than 20 years, Tigard, Lake Oswego and West Linn have opposed expansion in favor of protecting Stafford's rural character as a buffer between surrounding cities.
ODOT notes the Stafford corridor of Interstate 205 is in failure. Although this is the state's primary north -south interstate truck route, ODOT lists no solutions. Metro's density goal is 12 housing units per acre in urban reserves. Lacking a plan for mass transit, worse gridlock is guaranteed to affect businesses and residents in surrounding areas.
Already warned that deals were set for Stafford, I stubbornly attended meeting after meeting anyway, foolishly wanting to believe that the official "factors" set for determining urban and rural reserves would be followed. Stafford failed most urban factors. The rural designation was clearly more fitting. Tualatin had done the math. Expenses to provide services to a little more than 1,000 buildable acres did not add up. West Linn's most recent survey indicated only 8 percent approved urbanization. Lake Oswego and Wilsonville registered disapproval. But apparently, none of that mattered.
The recent LCDC report is silent on why the state's official "factors" were tossed aside for "political checks and balances" which favored making Stafford urban despite strong opposition. I believe we deserve to know exactly whose political checks were balanced.
Taking the "Big Look," I do not see any good reason for land grab on critically needed farmland but strangely enough, the land grabbers of Stafford are completely unknown. Too bad cities like mine can't wheel the load of "factors" to Metro and LCDC and haul our money back home.
Dave Waffle
City Manager, Cornelius
As City Manager of Cornelius I am frustrated at seeing a long-term, political and planning decision disassembled by the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). As one of our elected officials stated about this comprehensive package, “I didn’t know this was a buffet!”
Cornelius elected officials and staff presented a thorough and sufficient record of data, maps and analysis to demonstrate that the "7I" area north of Cornelius was suitable for urban development. The problem is that this record, which was good enough for Washington County and Metro to approve an urban reserve designation, never made it into the official findings that Metro gave to LCDC for their decision. There were three main reasons stated by LCDC for omitting the area north of Cornelius from urban reserves. All could have been shown to be false by looking at the record that was available to the commission.
A simple flood plain map of the area shows Area 7I is neither surrounded by, nor a protrusion into, “foundation” farmland. The Dairy Creek floodplain, which is five to 10 times wider than its Council Creek tributary, forms the boundary and natural resource buffer along the east and most of the north of Area 7I. On the contrary, 7I is tucked down in an acute angled corner of Dairy Creek and the city of Cornelius. The map would also show that 7I contains almost no floodplain, contrary to the Commission understanding that it included significant floodplain.
The often repeated claim that this is the best of the best farmland in the county was proven false by the deep record that was (incredibly) not available to LCDC. The “foundation farmland” designation was a very general one reported by the State Department of Agriculture. Washington County rural planning staff accomplished the only sophisticated study of the quality of that farmland. It designated Area 7I Tier II for agriculture suitability, with Tier I (the best) farmland found elsewhere, north of Dairy Creek and south of the Tualatin River where the big blocks of the best farmland lie. Moreover, a simple zoning map, if it had been allowed in the findings available to LCDC, shows that 32 percent of area north of Cornelius is Exception Area – that means it is recognized today by the County and State as partially urbanized (not prime agriculture) land.
One option for the city of Cornelius is to solicit support of Washington County and Metro to ask members of LCDC to reconsider the decision to exclude area 7I and permit Cornelius to have the same opportunity offered to the city of Forest Grove. That opportunity is to show the evidence for the Urban Reserve designation approved for it by Washington County and Metro. That evidence, left out of LCDC’s decision process exists and is clear and plentiful.
Jerry Willey
Mayor, Hillsboro
The urban and rural reserves process was historic and unprecedented. The three counties worked together to plan how and where the region will grow for the next 50 years and everyone worked diligently to find balance and a common sense approach to competing needs. The reserve designations approved by Metro and submitted to LCDC provides certainty for future growth and investment. The goal was never an “either/or” end game but rather a plan that included urban and rural reserves.
By approving the North Hillsboro urban reserves, LCDC clearly recognizes and supports the need to provide large industrial lots for our growing high tech, bio-pharmaceutical and solar industries. With these reserves, our region and state will be able to compete globally for new companies looking for large sites. New companies mean more jobs in manufacturing and in spin-off construction and commercial activities.
LCDC captured the spirit of the state reserves laws by striking a “conservative balance” in the amount of rural reserves and urban reserves designations it approved. The relatively small 50-year industrial urban reserves requests of Cornelius and Forest Grove are well within that spirit. To balance its jobs-housing ratio and to become a “Great Community”, Cornelius needs its urban reserves. Similarly, Forest Grove’s modest request demonstrates their aspirations to be a complete community offering opportunities to live, work and play in the same locale.
The process was long, thorough and collaborative. I hope LCDC will factor those elements into their acknowledgement decision.
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Now it's your turn.
What do you think the answer is? How do you agree or disagree with the responses so far? E-mail your response to this week's question to [email protected]. Be sure to include your name, the community you live in and your phone number so your response can be verified. This is a moderated conversation, and comments are expected to elevate the discussion.
Members of the public who participate will be entered into a random drawing for a great Metro prize. This week, one lucky commenter will get a waterproof Bike There! map of the region's bike routes!
Carl Keserik
Northwest Portland
To quote Sam Adams:
"I think that LCDC’s decision to accept the regional agreements for Multnomah and Clackamas counties is the right decision. I am glad LCDC saw the wisdom of the Multnomah County Board, Northwest Portland neighborhoods, and Portland representatives not to designate urban reserves in portions of western Multnomah County near Forest Park. These areas are environmentally significant to wildlife habitat, water quality, natural landscapes features. It’s features like those—together with farming activities—that have long defined our sense of place in the region. Future development in these areas would also have added to traffic on constrained roads over the Northwest Hills."
Every one of Mayor Adams' assertions can be scientifically and factually refuted.
Yet, rather than objectively ascertain the facts, the Multnomah County Citizens Advisory Committee relied exclusively on hearsay testimony, as a careful and objective reading of the record shows.
This is the kind of 'talk-speak' that dominated the Multnomah County Citizens Advisory Committee, which blatantly and transparently manipulated the advisory process in order to support its preconceived and politically-desired outcome.
Apparently, not even the resignation of the Metro president is enough to alert fair-minded people to the mendacious tactics of certain members of the Citizens Advisory Committee - members who were pre-screened and could be counted on to toe the party line (or, in this case, the county line).
By asserting that "environmentally significant" factors stop at the Multnomah/Washington County Line (a political demarcation), Mayor Adams has lain bare the lack of 'intellectual cleanliness' that characterized the reserves process in Multnomah County.
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