Regional leaders Thursday further spelled out their position on a proposed bill that would fast-track the Metro Council's 2011 urban growth boundary expansion in Washington County.
The Metro Council gave a thumbs-up to a draft letter to legislators addressing H.B. 4078, a proposal from Rep. John Davis, R-Wilsonville, and Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, to "validate" the Metro Council's 2011 UGB vote and the state's 2012 review of the plan. Along with Davis and Clem, the bill has six co-sponsors.
That UGB expansion has been held up in court for more than a year, and developers who own land in the expansion areas have warned that it could be 2019 before legal challenges to the expansions are out of the courts. H.B. 4078 would legislatively end those legal challenges, a move that itself could be contested in court.
In the letter, which has yet to be finalized and sent to Salem, Metro Council President Tom Hughes proposes three amendments to the bill, all of which are aimed at speeding up the UGB review process.
First, Hughes calls for the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission to issue a written order formalizing its decision within 120 days of voting on a UGB expansion plan. It took more than a year for LCDC to issue its order on its 2011 approval of urban and rural reserves.
Second, Hughes asks the Legislature to create an expedited schedule for legal review of Metro decisions on UGB expansions, similar to an expedited review that other land use decisions get. Finally, Hughes asks for the Legislature to create a specific deadline for the Court of Appeals to issue a final decision on the existing appeal of the 2011 UGB decision.
The latter suggestion came from Metro Councilor Bob Stacey, a longtime land conservation advocate.
The letter's goal, Hughes said, is to further emphasize that the Legislature should not be in control of setting the urban growth boundary.
"We thought we would express our thanks for everybody noticing what a good job we did on the urban growth boundary expansion, and suggest that our ultimate aim would be to keep the Legislature out of the business of setting the urban growth boundary," Hughes said at Thursday's work session. "We do think there's an opportunity to fix a problem that has existed, which is to set a time limit on how long the judicial review process is going to take."
The council has been walking a fine line on the bill, trying to emphasize that they agree that there's a problem with the length of the review process, but support efforts to speed up the review process. Still, they don’t want to cede local control of UGB reviews to Salem. An earlier draft of the bill said the Legislature was "establishing" the urban growth boundary, versus the introduced version, which merely "validates" Metro's decision.
"The Metro Council has a longstanding policy of opposing state legislation that would preempt local land use decisions," the draft letter says. "We are concerned that the Legislature's intervention in this instance may not actually result in greater certainty, but may further complicate the issues surrounding what land is in the UGB and how such decisions should be made."
The letter, said Councilor Craig Dirksen, "strikes a good balance between expressing understanding of and frustration with the existing process, and also expressing concern about the potential ramifications of intervention by the Legislature."
Councilor Kathryn Harrington echoed her concerns from earlier this month, saying Metro should avoid going too far in sounding it was issuing like a directive to Salem rather than offering suggestions on legislation.
"I think it captures the notion that we don't want to preempt them from being legislators, but we don't want them to preempt the authority we have," said Councilor Carlotta Collette after reading the draft letter.
Hughes has yet to finalize the letter and send it to Salem. The short 2014 session of the Legislature convenes Feb. 3.