SHERWOOD, OREGON — When annexation and land-use issues arose at Mount Vernon City Council, former Councilman Mike Hillier frequently referenced the informal thought that the city would not expand past Upper Gilchrist Road.
When residents comment on proposed housing developments, a frequent theme is they did not buy their land only to see a developer build apartments across the road.
These scenarios highlight the decades-old controversy on urban sprawl, growth, loss of farmland, property rights, and expectations.
Oregon’s land-use policy does not solve urban expansion into farmland. However, it slows the process and helps residents manage expectations.
In 1973, the Oregon Legislature created statewide land use planning laws, the first such policies in the country.
State law requires each city and metropolitan area to create an urban growth boundary (UGB). The growth boundary helps protect rural areas from sprawl.
Land inside the boundary is for urban services such as schools, police and fire, parks, and water, sewer, and stormwater utilities. Oregon requires enough land inside the UGB to sustain 20 years of growth.
When officials created the Portland area’s initial UGB, they had to consider the growth projections of Washington, Clackamas, and Multnomah counties, as well as the 24 cities and more than 60 special service districts within those counties.
Most land outside the urban growth boundary is designated urban or rural reserves. Oregon does not have townships.
Urban reserves are land suitable for future urban development over 50 years. Rural reserves are forests, productive farmland, or land with significant attributes such as floodplains, wetlands, or rivers. Urban development cannot occur in rural reserves for 50 years.
Land-use policy and urban-growth boundary
Oregon Metro is the Portland area’s regional government that monitors land supply in the Portland Metro Area. Residents inside the metro area elect representatives to a Metro Council.
David Tetrick joined Metro two years ago after working with Beaverton’s economic development. A native of the region, his parents moved from Nebraska when his dad got a job with Intel.
“Under Oregon land-use law, we are required to do a 20-year forecast of housing and employment every six years,” he explained.
Those forecasts examine national trends in employment growth in various industries, communities’ advantages and disadvantages in those industries, and population migration.
“We are really a migration-focused region. Our birth rates are not at a position where we’re going to continue growing as a region,” he said. “So it’s about people coming into the region to find new opportunities.”
The analyses go into an urban growth report.
“We have to take those forecasts and ask ‘Do we have the land capacity to meet that 20-year forecast?’ If we don’t, we are required to expand,” he said.
“The requirement is there, but we have some leeway in terms of how we want to address that.”
Since the late 1970s, Portland’s urban growth boundary expanded about 36 times. Many expansions were 20 or fewer acres.
Eleven expansions involved 30,422 acres in the three counties to accommodate jobs and more than 70,000 housing units.
Urban growth vs. rural character
Tetrick acknowledged it’s hard to have conversations about preserving rural character and the need for more housing.
“Our state land-use laws are very restrictive. They are designed to keep us cautious about growth. And that can be a really good thing,” he said.
“But it can be really challenging as well to make the case that it is time to expand our urban area and time to grow. Because people are really very protective of what their community looks like.
“I can understand that impulse, and I also still have to disagree with it at times because we need more housing, we need more commercial land, we need more industrial opportunities,” he added.
Andy Duyck is a farmer and Washington County Farm Bureau board member. He stepped down after 24 years as a Washington County commissioner.
He also operates Duyck Machine Shop and makes many parts used to test Intel’s chips.
Duyck noted that Metro has never expanded the urban growth boundary to its full extent.
“But if they did, it would just grow that much faster than it’s already growing,” he said. “That’s the dilemma that we find ourselves in because if you’re a farmer, you don’t want it to grow any faster.
“If you’re somebody who needs a house, you’re desperate for a little bit more.”
The expansion process
Tetrick said when Metro expands the UGB, it does not simply draw new lines on a map.
“If a city didn’t have funding for infrastructure or any way to build it out, then it will just lie vacant, and we aren’t going to get any useful development out of it to support the growth needs our region is expected to have,” he said.
Instead, Metro asked cities if they were ready to expand and how they proposed to meet the need. The city of Sherwood responded yes.
The city has petitioned Metro to expand the urban growth boundary to include 1,300 acres for Sherwood West.
Sherwood West is contiguous to rural reserves.
“Not everybody in the rural reserves wants to see cities grow, quite frankly,” Bruce Coleman, former economic development director for Sherwood, said, adding that communication is vital.
“It’s just something where you have to deal with the neighbors.”