The Metro Council and Washington County Commission invite public input and feedback on the revised urban and rural reserves map for Washington County that was released on Feb. 22. On Tuesday, March 15, the Metro Council and the Washington County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the proposal, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Washington County Public Services Building, 155 N. First Ave. in Hillsboro.
Interested community members are welcome to attend and take part in this public hearing. Those who cannot attend the public hearing can also weigh in through other means:
- Send comments via e-mail to [email protected]. Comments received by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11 will be included in a public comment report that will be provided to Metro Councilors and Washington County Commissioners before the March 15 hearing and included in the public record.
- Call 503-813-7577 to leave a voice-mail message for the elected officials with views and perspectives on the revised urban and rural reserves proposal.
- Call or write directly to members of the Metro Council and the Washington County Board of Commissioners with comments and views on the reserves proposal.
On Feb. 22, Metro Council President Tom Hughes and Washington County Chairman Andy Duyck announced a revised urban and rural reserves map for Washington County. An earlier urban and rural reserves proposal for Washington County, along with similar proposals for Clackamas and Multnomah counties, were submitted to the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission in 2010. LCDC approved the Clackamas and Multnomah county maps but remanded the Washington County map. LCDC rejected one proposed urban reserve north of Cornelius, asked for further justification of an urban reserve north of Forest Grove, and allowed Metro and Washington County to come up with additional urban reserve areas to provide sufficient land for jobs and housing to meet the region’s needs over the next 50 years.
The new map features the following changes from the 2010 map:
- The prior urban reserve north of Cornelius (624 acres) is removed. Most of that area (430 acres) is now proposed to be rural reserve, with 194 acres of undesignated land (land that is neither urban reserve nor rural reserve).
- Twenty-eight acres of proposed urban reserve, north of Forest Grove, were converted to undesignated land.
- A new urban reserve of 585 acres is added on formerly undesignated land adjacent to an existing urban reserve north of Highway 26 and south of NW West Union Road.
- A new undesignated area of 383 acres is added, from former rural reserve land, south of SW Rosedale Road and west of SW Farmington Road.
In total, these proposed changes would add 38 acres of new rural reserve and remove 67 acres of urban reserve from the earlier proposal submitted to LCDC last year. If adopted by the two governing bodies and acknowledged by LCDC, there would be 13,817 acres of urban reserve in Washington County (and 28,548 acres across all three counties) and 151,574 acres of rural reserve in Washington County (with a total of 266,992 acres of rural reserve across all three counties).