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AGC
POSITION ON URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARIES
ISSUE: URBAN GROWTH
BOUNDARIES (GOAL 14) AND THE AVAILABILITY
OF DEVELOPABLE COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL LAND (GOAL
9)
Urban Growth Boundaries were
established by Statewide Planning Goal #14, which
requires all cities to estimate future growth and
needs for land and then plan and zone enough land to
meet those needs. By law, Metro is responsible for
developing plans that implement the Statewide Land
Use Planning Goals for Multnomah, Washington and
Clackamas counties and the 24 cities within its
borders. Metro has adopted a 20 year planning window
for land within the UGB. Other jurisdictions
throughout Oregon have adopted similar planning
windows; however, Metro has become the "bell
weather" for how others will deal with urban
growth boundaries and the availability of
developable land for housing and
commercial/industrial projects.
BACKGROUND:
Goal 14-Urban
Growth Boundaries
In 1997, Metro completed a Urban
Growth Report (UGR) that recommended that the UGB be
expanded by approximately 7,000 acres. It was
decided that approximately half of that amount would
be brought into the UGB in 1998 with the other half
being annexed by December, 1999.
In 1999, Metro revised its UGR and
concluded that the UGB did not need to be expanded
by the remaining 3,500 acres recommended from the
earlier report. A coalition of development
organizations created the Partnership for Sensible
Growth who, in turn, hired Randall Pozdena,
EcoNorthwest, to evaluate the 1999 UGR. Posdena's
"Observations on Metro's Urban Growth
Report" was presented to the AGC Board on
October 22, 1999. In it, he concluded that Metro's
methodology for calculated land need was flawed and
that somewhere between 8,000 and 20,000 acres needed
to be brought into the current UGB to meet a 20 year
supply of land.
In early 2000, the NMFS 4(d) rule
was issued with a suggestion that all habitat of the
listed salmonids should be protected by 200 foot
riparian buffers on each side of the stream. Metro
has used this suggestion in the NMFS 4(d) preamble
to propose a Streamside CPR program that designates
approximately 900 miles of perennial and
intermittent streams within the UGB as resources
that need to be protected by 200í buffers on both
sides (this amount includes some streams that showed
up in the Flood of í96). The effect of these
buffers, if implemented, would take between 4,500
and 45,000 acres of land out of the vacant land
inventory within the UGB.
Given these two developments affect
on the UGB, Metro requested and was granted an
extension until October 31, 2000, for determining
the actual amount of land needed to be added to the
UGB.
Goal
9-Supply
of Commercial/Industrial Land
In 1995, the Homebuilders'
Association sponsored an amendment to Oregon's
land use law that requires community planners to
include a 20 year (20yrs is a historic number, it
could easily be 30 yrs) supply of vacant and
buildable land for residential development within
their urban growth boundaries. HB2709 passed and was
signed into law. In 1999, AGC joined with other
Commercial Real Estate Economic Coalition (CREEC)
members to sponsor SB 87, which would have further
modified Oregon's law to require that there also
be a 20 year supply of commercial and industrial
land within the UGB of any city of 25,000 or greater
population. SB87 failed. Note: Much of the previous
allowance for industrial/commercial was unbuildable
for reasonable costs ie: too steep or in flood
plains.
Currently, community planners
throughout the state are being pressured to control
"sprawl" by encouraging dense development
within urban growth boundaries; however,
environmental issues have also taken many acres of
developable land out of the inventory. While
planners are required to balance competing interests
represented by all 19 of the Statewide Planning
Goals, Goal 9 is largely being ignored.
In 1999, CREEC joined with the Port
of Portland, Oregon Economic Development Department
and Metro to fund a Regional Industrial Lands
Survey. The survey inventoried lands suitable for
industrial development and found that the supply of
unconstrained lands (before deduction for Title 3
and NMFS 4(d)) within UGBs is approximately 2,300
acres (approximately a 7-9 year supply throughout
the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area). Clark
County has 58%, Clackamas County 2%, Multnomah
County 19% and Washington 21% of these lands and
over 80% of the supply is in parcels less than 10
acres.
In the current environment where
infrastructure investment has been severely
restricted, it makes no sense to plan for housing in
areas that require long commutes to jobs and further
exacerbate highway congestion. To maintain a healthy
economic environment throughout Oregon, we must have
adequate land for job-producing activities, and this
land must be proximate to land zoned for housing for
those workers.
RECOMMENDED
ACTION:
AGC should actively track and report
Metro's activities relating to meeting the October
31, 2000 deadline and should stay actively involved
in and supportive of CREEC's initiatives in this
regard.
A land use task force comprised of
3-10 members of the B/I Council and the H/H/U
Council should be developed to support current
activities of Bob Durgan and to get more AGC members
involved in land use issues at Metro and statewide.
AGC should develop a Board policy on
Urban Growth Boundaries to provide direction to
members speaking on behalf of AGC in various forums
throughout the state. The Building/Industrial
Council proposes that the policy be:
AGC
supports land use regulations that fairly balance
the need for compact urban development that
maximizes infrastructure investment and minimizes
negative impacts on adjacent resource lands and
significant natural resources. However, all
land use practices which reserve land for housing
the workforce must take into consideration the need
for an adequate supply of suitably sited vacant and
buildable commercial/industrial land. State
and local land use policies shall ensure that such
lands are supported by adequate transportation and
other infrastructure to accommodate suitable
development of the land.
AGC should (through its land use
task force) track activities at DLCD and LCDC with
regard to revisions to Goal #14 (currently underway)
and should work with Steve Pfeiffer, Stoel Rives, to
take an independent request for administrative
rulemaking to the Land Conservation and Development
Commission (LCDC) to strengthen the requirement of
Goal 9 that community planners include an adequate
supply of commercial and industrial land in their
comprehensive plans.
AGC may solicit support from CREEC
and other development groups throughout the state to
support Goal 9 changes.
Contact:
Cindy Catto
AGC, cindyc@agc-oregon.org
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