On Thursday, the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission will begin its review of the revised proposal for urban and rural reserves in Washington County. This revised proposal, which the Metro Council and the Washington County Board of Commissioners agreed to in March, identifies more than 13,000 acres of land for future urban development over the next 50 years while setting aside more than 151,000 acres of land as rural areas for the same 50 years.
In late July, the staff at the Department of Land Conservation and Development, or DLCD, recommended that the commission acknowledge (or approve) all of the proposed urban and rural reserves for Washington County.
The public meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Council Chamber at Metro Regional Center, 600 NE Grand Ave. in Portland. Following a presentation by DLCD staff on its report, representatives from Metro and the three counties will provide comments to the commission, then the commission will hear from those who filed written objections to the proposal. Only those who filed objections to the proposal will be allowed to testify.
Last October, the commission acknowledged the urban and rural reserves proposals for Clackamas and Multnomah counties. For the Washington County proposal, the commission rejected a proposed urban reserve north of Cornelius and raised concerns about a proposed urban reserve north of Forest Grove. The commission did not acknowledge the proposed rural reserves, providing Metro and Washington County with an opportunity to redraw the map to provide additional urban reserve land to make up for the areas the commission rejected.
On March 15, the Metro Council and the Washington County Board of Commissioners agreed to a revised urban and rural reserves map that included much of the original urban and rural reserves, with the following changes:
- In removing the 623-acre urban reserve north of Cornelius, the northernmost 263 acres of that area were designated as rural reserves, and the southern 360 acres were left undesignated;
- Of the urban reserve north of Forest Grove that the Commission raised concerns about, 28 acres that lie east and north of Council Creek were changed to undesignated, while the remaining portion of that urban reserve (Urban Reserve 7B) remains as urban reserve;
- 352 acres of previously undesignated land north of Highway 26, south of West Union Road, east of Groveland Road and west of Helvetia Road were designated urban reserve, while another 233 acres to the west of Groveland Rd. and north of Highway 26 remain as undesignated land, and
- The rural reserve designation of 383 acres south of Rosedale Road, west of 209th Avenue and north of Farmington Road was removed; the portion was left undesignated.
The revised map includes approximately 13,500 acres of urban reserves in Washington County. Combined with the urban reserves in Clackamas and Multnomah counties, this proposal offers about 28,000 acres of land for possible urban growth boundary expansions over the next 50 years. This amounts to about an 11 percent expansion of the current urban growth boundary over a period when the population is expected to grow by more than 50 percent, requiring most future growth to support existing communities.
Additionally, the Washington County map provides 151,000 acres of rural reserves. Combined with the rural reserves in the other two counties, that amounts to a total of nearly 267,000 acres of farmland and natural areas that will be off-limits to urban development for the next 50 years.
The Commission is scheduled to begin its deliberations Thursday afternoon and will either reach a decision or continue its deliberations to Friday morning and make a decision then. If the Commission fully acknowledges the revised proposal, the Metro Council may use the acknowledged urban reserves when it considers whether to expand the urban growth boundary later this fall.