PORTLAND – Metro councilors seem to be leaning toward a modest urban growth boundary expansion for residential land.
The council addressed the urban growth boundary as a board for the first time at a Tuesday worksession, and at least four councilors said they were comfortable with saying the region will need about 15,000 new residential units to meet state capacity requirements.
Oregon law says the Metro region must have enough land within its urban growth boundary to meet 20 years worth of anticipated growth. The Metro Council gets to decide how much growth is anticipated, then decide how best to meet that need; state regulators review Metro's findings to see whether they're realistic.
In the past, Metro staff has given the council a specific number of units that planners think the region will need over 20 years. This year, though, planners presented the council with a range options – a low-end and high-end number of units Metro staff thinks the region will need in 20 years.
The middle third of that range is where planners think the state is most likely to approve Metro's growth plans.
The council didn't take a formal vote on the urban growth boundary Tuesday. Councilors instead focused on their preferences for the scenario Metro planners should look at as the council heads toward a December vote on the boundary. They also related the opinions gleaned from meetings of the Metro Policy Advisory Committee.
The range approach isn't all that's different about Metro's first comprehensive look at the growth boundary in eight years. The agency is still adjusting to life after its 2002 urban growth boundary expansions into North Bethany and Damascus. The immense planning and infrastructure funding challenges in those areas have prompted councilors to eye expansion into areas most likely to be developed, near cities capable of handling that planning and infrastructure funding.
Damascus and North Bethany also prompted the development of urban and rural reserves.
"To me, this is a decision less about how much land do we think we need, and more about who's really doing the kind of community we've been talking about," said Carlotta Collette, the acting council president. "I see us arriving somewhere at the low end, low-to-middle, and being careful about where we pick those places. Some places seem to be ready to deliver."
Councilor Rex Burkholder, however, cautioned against using readiness for development as the only benchmark in forecasting growth.
"I think we have a housing shortage right now, and it's not a because of a shortage of land, it's because of a shortage of financing," Burkholder said "There's a real gap and it's going to be a lot worse soon."
With Metro targeting expansion areas to have 15 units per acre – roughly double the density of most single-family home neighborhoods in the Portland city limits – parts of those new developments would have to have multi-family housing.
Kathryn Harrington, the councilor who represents northwest Washington County and three of the four proposed residential expansion areas, said it was important for Metro to shoot for that middle third of the range.
"If we end up elsewhere than the middle third, we lose a lot of regional partnership commitment to working on the harder problems of the Community Investment Strategy and our climate change work and our various regional initiatives," she said. "I think we're going through an intense period of transition. We want to continue to bring our partners along and with us.
This story was not subject to the approval of Metro staff or elected officials.