The Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission gave few hints on Wednesday as to how it was thinking about the region’s proposed urban and rural reserves, even after hours of testimony from objectors.
The commission was in its second day of hearings on the proposed reserves, and was more interested in listening to objections raised by those unhappy about the final reserves agreement than in engaging in dialogue with objectors.
Most of the day followed a cycle: objectors would state their claim on a specific topic, ranging from employment land to population forecasts, Metro attorney (and former Department of Land Conservation and Development director) Dick Benner would argue that the reserves actually met state criteria, and the board would move onto the next topic.
The majority of Wednesday's testimony came from four people: Benner, 1000 Friends of Oregon attorney Mary Kyle McCurdy, Coalition for a Prosperous Region attorney Stark Ackerman and Washington County planning director Brent Curtis.
A sampling of the commentary at Wednesday's hearing:
"It's better to err on the side of having too much undesignated or urban reserve just to protect yourself and give yourself the flexibility of dealing with these things in the future." – Stark Ackerman, Coalition for a Prosperous Region
"Too much farmland in the urban reserve, whether it's ever used or not, compromises the productivity of that farmland." – Mary Kyle McCurdy, 1000 Friends of Oregon and Washington County Farm Bureau
"Who's going to be looking for housing in the future? It isn't Ozzie and Harriett and the three kids anymore…. We assume our residential capacity in the future, that is in the urban reserve, is going to be developed at 15 units per acre." – Dick Benner, Metro senior counsel
"There's no history of using the land supply up too fast. It's using it too slowly – for employment and for residential." – McCurdy
"To me, Washington County is way out of balance with the rest of the region." – Jim Johnson, land use planner, Oregon Department of Agriculture
"There is a sense that I get from the objectors that part of the problem is that so much of the foundation land that is designated urban reserve is in Washington County… as I mentioned earlier, we didn't do this on a subregional basis. We did it based on the factors… If there are urban reserves in Washington County it's probably going to be on foundation land." – Benner
At the end of the hearing, commissioners prepared staff for questions that might come up during Friday's deliberation. Commissioner Greg Macpherson, for example, asked staff about the ease of developing sloped versus flat land. But it was Commission Chair John VanLandingham who raised the bulk of the issues, including:
- What happens if the 50 year estimates are wrong, and Metro runs out of land to add for employment land in Washington County?
- Whether undesignated lands are as subject to land speculators as urban reserve lands
- How much of the edge of Washington County's urban growth boundary was included in urban reserves
- Whether the reserves adequately met state land planning goals, and whether the Commission can fill in gaps in meeting those goals, if there are gaps
- The effects of putting road right of ways in rural versus urban reserves.
The hearing resumed Thursday morning.