At an extended Metro Policy Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 27, local elected officials and regional representatives discussed policy questions relating to urban and rural reserves and also made recommendations to the Metro Council on a number of specific areas around the region. Before digging into details of specific areas, MPAC members were cautioned by Metro Council President David Bragdon to remember why they supported this process in the first place and what the region stands to lose if the process fails.
"The old method can require expansions where they don't make sense or where they aren't wanted, and it can prohibit expansions in communities where they do want it. That doesn't provide certainty for local governments or for property owners," Bragdon said.
State approval of the urban and rural reserves process led to an exceptionally collaborative process by which Metro and Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties (the "Core 4") would determine reserve areas for the next 40 to 50 years. After years of work, negotiations and compromises, Core 4 members have whittled areas of disagreement down to roughly 1,000 acres still under discussion. If Core 4 members aren't able to come to agreement by the end of February, however, the process will revert to the former decision-making method by which the Metro Council will consider urban growth boundary expansion from limited expansion areas every five years.
"The legislature gave us permission to designate reserves, but it didn't take away our obligation to work with the old method of adding land by soil type if we aren't good enough to plan for the future in a new way," Bragdon said. "Here's what state law tells us: if this process fails, we will have to do something none of us want to do – which is to go back to the old way of doing things."
Bragdon reminded MPAC members of the broad based support from local governments and private sector interests for the reserves process, including unanimous support from MPAC, and called upon them to ensure that the opportunity is not squandered. TriMet representative Rick Van Beveren concurred that "none of us want to go back to the previous scenario."
Washington County chair Tom Brian clarified that the reserves process is not an urban growth boundary decision, but rather a "reservation area for a 40 to 50 year period." The Metro Council will still consider expansions to the urban growth boundary every five years. Expansions would be pulled from urban reserves areas as needed but concept planning, infrastructure and local governance must be established before the areas are able to be developed. Brian advised property owners not to "run to the bank or sell the goats right away" based on a reserves designation because the land might not be brought into the urban growth boundary right away, if at all.
Before adjourning after nearly four hours, MPAC agreed to schedule an additional meeting on reserves to finish discussing specific proposal areas in order to provide the Metro Council with a full set of recommendations prior to the final Core 4 meeting on Feb. 8. The meeting date, expected to be next week, will be posted to the MPAC web page and Metro calendar when finalized.