COURTESY COLUMBIA RIVER CROSSING PROJECT
The Columbia River Crossing would replace the Interstate Bridge connecting Portland and downtown Vancouver.
The Metro Council will take yet another look at the Columbia River Crossing next week, with a scheduled vote on the land use approval for the massive transportation project.
Councilors thought they were done with the project last year, when the regional government gave its blessing to the code changes needed to authorize the CRC. But the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals said Metro overstepped its bounds with the sweeping land use approval, and the Oregon Supreme Court upheld LUBA's partial remand of the approval.
A public hearing, and another vote on the approval, is scheduled for the Metro Council's April 12 meeting.
In its August 2011 approval of the project, called a land use final order, the council OK'd the land use for the project from its southern limit near Delta Park to the Washington state line on the north. But CRC opponents successfully argued that Metro's authority for the approval only extended to the urban growth boundary, which abuts the northern shore of Hayden Island.
The revised land use order removes references to the state line, and ends Metro's approval at the urban growth boundary.
If the amended land use final order passes muster with the state, this is likely Metro's final major approval of the Columbia River Crossing. The project, a $3.5 billion effort to rebuild Interstate 5 from Delta Park to State Route 500 in Vancouver, is scheduled to break ground in 2014.