A divided Metro Council voted Thursday to support the Lake Oswego City Council's request for a 10-acre urban growth boundary expansion to allow for a new indoor tennis center.
The council voted 4-2 to approve the request, which will allow for a new eight-court tennis center to be built near Stafford Road and Atherton Drive.
The request from Lake Oswego followed a somewhat unusual path, with the Metro Council serving in a quasi-judicial role in deciding whether the application met state requirements for out-of-cycle urban growth boundary expansion requests. The council approved a UGB expansion in 2011, and isn't set to review the boundary again until 2014.
In between, cities can apply to move the boundary if a need arises that wasn't anticipated during the regular UGB review cycle. Lake Oswego said the need for a new tennis center met that criteria.
About a dozen proponents of the tennis center attended Thursday's hearing, some bringing tennis rackets to show their support for the proposal.
Cyndi Murray said she drives all the way to Vancouver to find open tennis courts.
"I'm a player when I can get court time," she said. She said she's never won the lottery to get court time, but one of her teammates has. "We play at 7 a.m., because that's when we can get court time."
"We desperately need this facility," said Lake Oswego resident Doug Jost.
But Jim Zupancic, a land use attorney representing a newly-opened athletic club about four miles away, said the need didn't justify an urban growth boundary expansion.
"There's a demand. No question. I suppose I could sit here representing Burger King saying there's a demand for more cheeseburgers, or perhaps maybe those who would be seeking a church or perhaps a school could say there's greater need because there's a demand," he said. "If that's what's required, I think we're going to find a creep of the urban growth boundary because of the fact that people are here saying there's a demand."
Zupancic, whose client's website says it charges $125 a month plus a $900 registration fee for adults wishing to become members and use its 10 tennis courts, said he didn't think the standard for an out-of-cycle UGB expansion had been met.
"And if it has," he warned, "perhaps the floodgates will open and you'll have a number of other applications of people that will say 'It's my need, my special demand that may need to be met.'"
It was an argument that Rex Burkholder and Carl Hosticka, the two longest-tenured Metro councilors whose tenures end later this month, were sympathetic to.
"I'm uncomfortable with using this process to meet a need that I think should have been identified and met through the regular legislative process, either before or in our next round," Burkholder said.
Hosticka said he worried about the impact of the expansion on planning for the nearby Stafford Basin.
"I'm very cautious about making a decision," Hosticka said, "and think the applicant should meet the most rigorous definitions of all the terms. In that case, the statement that there's a need that can't wait, I'm still not persuaded of that."
But four Metro councilors – Shirley Craddick, Kathryn Harrington, Barbara Roberts and Council President Tom Hughes – were.
"I've never been persuaded by the whole 'We're establishing a bad precedent' argument, because I think this particular decision is based on the specifics of this particular parcel of land," Hughes said.
Councilor Carlotta Collette was absent from the vote while on a trade mission to Brazil.