Beyond the Chip: Understanding Oregon’s Land Use Policy

MOUNT VERNON — When annexation and land use issues arose in the Mount Vernon City Council, former Councilman Mike Hillier often referred to the informal idea that the city would not expand beyond Upper Gilchrist Road.

When residents comment on proposed housing developments, the common theme is that they didn’t buy their land just to see a developer building apartments across the street.

These scenarios highlight the decades-long controversy over sprawl, growth, farmland loss, property rights, and expectations.

Oregon’s land use policy does not solve urban expansion on farmland. However, it slows down the process and helps residents manage expectations.

In 1973, the Oregon Legislature enacted statewide land use planning laws, the first such policies in the country.

State law requires every city and metropolitan area to create an urban growth boundary (UGB). The growth boundary helps protect rural areas from urban sprawl.

Land within the boundary is set aside for city services such as schools, police and fire departments, parks, and water, sewer and stormwater utilities. Oregon needs enough land within the UGB to sustain 20 years of growth.

When officials created the first UGB for the Portland region, 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 as urban or rural reserves. Oregon has no townships.

Urban reserves are areas suitable for future urban development over a period of 50 years. Rural protected areas are forests, productive farmland, or land with significant features such as floodplains, wetlands, or rivers. Urban development cannot take place on rural reservations for 50 years.

Land use policy and urban growth frontier

Oregon Metro is the Portland region’s regional government that oversees land supply in the greater Portland area. The residents of the metropolitan region elect representatives to a metro council.

David Tetrick joined Metro two years ago after working in Beaverton’s economic development. His parents are local and moved from Nebraska when his father got a job at Intel.

“Under Oregon land use law, we are required to provide a 20-year housing and employment forecast every six years,” he explained.

These forecasts examine national trends in job growth in various industries, the advantages and disadvantages of communities in those industries, and population migration.

“We are truly a migration-oriented region. “Our birth rates are not high enough for us to continue to grow as a region,” he said. “So it’s about people coming to the region to find new opportunities.”

The analyzes are incorporated into a city growth report.

“We need to take these projections and ask, ‘Do we have the land capacity to meet this 20-year forecast?’ If we don’t do that, we will have to expand,” he said.

“The need is there, but we have some flexibility in how we want to address it.”

Since the late 1970s, Portland’s urban growth boundary has expanded approximately 36-fold. Many expansions were 20 or fewer acres.

Eleven expansions covered 30,422 acres across the three counties to create jobs and more than 70,000 housing units.

Urban growth vs. rural character

Tetrick acknowledged that it is difficult to have conversations about preserving rural character and the need for more housing.

“Our state land use laws are very restrictive. They are meant to make us cautious about growth. And that can be a really good thing,” he said.

“But it can also be a big challenge to make the case that it is time to expand and grow our urban area. Because people really care a lot about what their community looks like.

“I can understand that impulse, and sometimes I still have to disagree with it, because we need more housing, we need more commercial space, we need more industrial opportunities,” he added.

Andy Duyck is a farmer and board member of the Washington County Farm Bureau. He resigned after 24 years as a Washington County commissioner.

He also runs the Duyck Machine Shop and makes many parts used to test Intel chips.

Duyck noted that Metro has never fully expanded the urban growth boundary.

“But if they did, it would grow much faster than it is already growing,” he said. “That’s the dilemma we’re in, because if you’re a farmer you don’t want it to grow faster.

“If you’re someone who needs a house, you’re definitely craving something more.”

The expansion process

Tetrick said when Metro expands the UGB, it doesn’t simply draw new lines on a map.

“If a city had no funding for infrastructure or no way to develop it, then it would simply sit empty and we will not have any meaningful development from it to meet the growth needs of our region,” he said.

Instead, Metro asked cities whether they were ready to expand and how they planned to meet demand. The city of Sherwood responded yes.

The city has asked Metro to expand the urban growth boundary to 1,300 acres for Sherwood West.

Sherwood West borders rural reserves.

“Frankly, not everyone on the rural reservations wants to see towns grow,” said Bruce Coleman, former director of economic development for Sherwood, adding that communication is crucial.

“It’s just something where you have to deal with your neighbors.”