Metro chief operating officer Michael Jordan presented the main recommendations provided in his report, "Making the Greatest Place: Strategies for a successful region," to a packed house at the Metro Policy Advisory Committee meeting on Sept. 23. The main purpose of the presentation to MPAC was to present the highlights of the comprehensive report and identify those topics and questions that MPAC members wish to explore further before advising the Metro Council on policy decisions this fall.
"The recommendations are intended to move from planning to action," said Jordan. "The main theme that runs through the entire report is that the policy and investment choices you make will help maximize the capacity of the existing urban growth boundary."
Jordan covered four significant areas of the report:
- the Regional Transportation Plan, which seeks to link transportation investments to the kinds of communities that those investments are designed to serve
- the capacity of the existing urban growth boundary to accommodate the next 20 years’ worth of housing and employment growth, which is described in the urban growth report and will inform decisions by the Metro Council on whether to move the urban growth boundary in 2010
- urban and rural reserves, which will provide addition land outside of the urban growth boundary for up to 50 years of additional growth (urban reserves) as well as long-term protections for valuable farm and forest land (rural reserves)
- performance measures designed to help local and regional policy makers track how well public policies and investments serve the kinds of community, economic, environmental and other outcomes desired by the region’s residents.
The findings in Jordan’s report will inform policy decisions to be made by the Metro Council later this year and into 2010 relating to the:
- adoption of the Regional Transportation Plan
- acceptance of the urban growth report and measures to be taken by the Metro Council and local governments to increase the capacity of the existing urban growth boundary to accommodate growth
- designation of urban and rural reserves.
A few of the issues raised for further discussion include:
- What effects will holding a tight urban growth boundary have on those cities outside of the urban growth boundary?
- If we set regional performance measures for growth management, what enforcement mechanisms will Metro have on local governments to make sure we’re meeting regional targets?
- How can Metro make sure that large-lot industrial lands that are brought into the urban growth boundary remain industrial and are not converted to other uses?
- What strategies can most effectively address housing affordability for all income levels throughout the region?
More information will be discussed at the next MPAC meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 14. MPAC members will meet in an all-day retreat on Friday, Oct. 23, to discuss these and other topics in greater detail in order to provide policy recommendations to the Metro Council.
In addition to the presentation on the COO report, Richard Whitman, director of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, presented information to the committee on potential risks and consequences that MPAC, the Metro Council and the boards of commissioners of the three counties should consider in the designation of urban and rural reserves. Some of those risks and consequences include:
- Too much urban reserves could encompass large amounts of valuable agricultural and other natural resource lands and undermine long-term conservation efforts.
- Too few urban reserves could leave more undesignated lands, and it would take some exceptional circumstances to bring undesignated lands into the urban growth boundary before all of the urban reserves are used up.
- Smaller urban reserves could lead the region to look at adding more urban reserves among undesignated lands within the next 40 years.
- Rural reserves could lock out too much land from coming into the urban growth boundary for 40 to 50 years.
- There are very limited actions that counties could take to allow for any additional development activity in rural reserve areas.