Over the next 20 years, the Portland region can expect about 400,000 more people inside the urban growth boundary as people move here and have children. Planning for that growth will be the focus of the Metro Council in the months ahead.
The first step in managing growth is to fully understand it. As a part of managing the urban growth boundary, Metro is tasked with creating an Urban Growth Report to measure if there is enough land to handle housing and employment for the next 20 years.
The draft 2014 Urban Growth Report was presented to the Metro Council by staff at the July 22 work session.
Read the report
"This is all about preparing for the growth that is inevitably going to come to the region," said Ted Reid, project manager for the Urban Growth Report. "This is a place that has a great quality of life and we think it's going to keep attracting people here."
According to Reid, the report is a descriptive document of what they are seeing out in the region. And it is not just a Metro effort.
"We've tried to incorporate local perspectives into the analysis," Reid said. "Basically every assumption that we're making in this analysis has had someone's eyes on it other than Metro staff."
Representatives from around the region, both from municipalities and the private sector, have helped Metro staff craft the report. And this week it was the Metro Council's turn to examine the document and ask questions about handling the region's growth.
Growth
So how many people are supposed to be coming to the area? Metro started with a forecast for the seven-county Portland metropolitan area and, as a part of the report, looked closely at how many people will be added inside of the urban growth boundary.
About 300,000 to 485,000 people are forecasted to come to the communities currently within Metro's jurisdiction. Metro staff produces a range because there is uncertainty in predicting 20 years into the future.
"We use the range because we know some of our assumptions are going to be wrong," said Reid.
The range gives a more realistic picture for policymakers as they decide how to respond to growth.
The midpoint of the range, and the amount of growth most likely to occur, is 400,000 new residents to the area. To compare, 400,000 people would be equivalent to about doubling the populations of Hillsboro, Gresham, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Tigard and West Linn.
Metro also produces a forecast for the amount of jobs that will be added to the region in the next 20 years. Staff expect between 85,000 and 440,000 additional jobs in the region by 2035. That range is much larger because there are more variables in predicting job growth.
The important question for the Metro Council that was discussed this week is how this influx of people and jobs impacts land use decisions.
Is there enough land?
The Metro Council will use the information from the Urban Growth Report to decide whether it's necessary to expand the urban growth boundary to bring more developable land into the region. To assist the Council with that decision Metro staff examined how much capacity for growth there is within the region.
Under current zoning laws and local plans there is capacity in the region for 1.3 million residences, and about half of that capacity is in use today. However, Metro staff did not count all of that excess capacity into the plan because that would assume that all buildings would redevelop to their current zoning capacity.
In conjunction with local staff, Metro analyzed what properties were more likely to be redeveloped and estimated the potential supply and demand for single-family and multi-family homes in different growth scenarios. For the middle growth forecast, there is a surplus of 1,700 units for single-family housing and 22,400 for multi-family.
The only housing deficit occurs in the event of high growth, in which case there would be a shortage of 6,100 units of single-family housing. However, there would be a surplus of 33,600 units of multi-family in that same scenario.
The report suggests that there is already enough supply for land to accommodate growth for the next 20 years, but that isn't necessarily what councilors are hearing.
"What I'm hearing from developers is that 'there is nothing for sale and I can't build anything, so you need to expand the urban growth boundary,'" said Councilor Carlotta Collette. "We have to explain that land is available, but it just may not be for sale."
Councilor Bob Stacey agreed and said preparing the land for development was key.
"Land readiness is the opportunity," said Stacey.
The report also highlighted the issue of land readiness and the problems from previous expansions of the urban growth boundary.
The most noteworthy example of this problem is the case of Damascus. After being added into the urban growth boundary in 2000 the community has been mired in planning efforts and development has been slow.
With such uncertainty surrounding development in the community, Metro staff did not count all of the housing capacity in Damascus. The community has capacity for about 20,000 households but only 10,000 were counted toward the regional supply and the report questioned whether housing from Damascus should be included at all, but Metro Councilors felt it was reasonable that at least some development would occur.
"It is very probable for them to get to at least 50 percent capacity in a 20 year period," Councilor Kathryn Harrington said. "Bethany (in Washington County) went to full build out in a very similar time period."
Areas around Oregon City, Sherwood and Wilsonville were also discussed. Land abutting each city was added to the urban growth boundary in 2002 but, for varying reasons, the land has yet to be annexed by the cities or developed.
This has lead Metro staff to question the wisdom of adding land to the urban growth boundary. According to the report, 94 percent of new residential units built from 1998 to 2012 were built inside the original 1979 boundary.
"There are ways to create the kinds of communities you want other than adding acres of land," Reid said. "Adding raw land alone doesn't create a community."
Councilor Shirley Craddick agreed and pointed out that an adjustment to demand for single-family housing would help with the need for more land in the urban growth boundary.
"How do we help the region look at multi-family housing in a more positive way?" Craddick said.
Changing communities
The report also highlighted challenges facing the region, including the impact redevelopment has on housing affordability. Metro Council will further discuss these types of issues in the coming months.
"We need to be able to have a conversation about how we balance housing supply, cost and equity," Carlotta said.
The report found some troubling aspects for low-income residents of the region. Outlying areas saw large decreases in median family income from 2000 to 2012. Places like Aloha, Cornelius and Gresham saw decreases of 10 to 50 percent, while inner Portland neighborhoods saw income increases of 10 to 90 percent.
Reid said this is a trend being seen around the country as wealth returns to the central city, reversing the trend of outward development that has defined metropolitan areas since World War II.
"What we point out in this report is the need for housing affordability preservation," Reid said. "So if we are going to have this focus on redevelopment and infill, how do we ensure that we preserve some amount of affordable housing in these places knowing that property values are going to go up."
The focus on redevelopment and infill harks back to the region's vision for how to grow and use land as efficiently as possible.
Reid stressed that the Urban Growth Report describes the trends in the region but doesn't give policy solutions, that's a job for the Metro Council and local jurisdictions.
"The growth management decision that the council makes is a piece of all of this but it can't solve all of these problems," Reid said.
Metro Councilors emphasized the need for a collaborative solution to these issues during their discussion. And hiding from the data wasn't an option.
"As we move forward it's important to make conclusions based on the data," said Councilor Craig Dirksen. "Not how we feel about the data."
Dealing with the change from growth will be on Metro Councilors' minds but our region isn't the only one dealing with this problem.
"Any region that's deemed attractive to people is going to be grappling with this question of change and how to shape it in a way that makes life better for people who are living there," Reid said.