Metro Ready To Approve Urban Reserves Plan
Two years of political brawling and bargaining over where the Portland metro area will grow in the next 50-years could be settled by the end of the week.
On Thursday, the Metro Council votes on a plan to creating new urban and rural reserves in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties. Leading up to the big show on Thursday, each of the county commissions will meet separately this week to ratify the plan.
The current plan calls for setting aside 270,000 acres of land as rural reserves. These are areas being preserved for farmland and nature. It also includes 28,000 acres for urban reserves- areas where most development will take place. These are areas outside the Urban Growth Boundary.
In terms of the overall acreage, not much has changed since Metro’s Core 4 committee drew up this plan in late December. Farming and conservation groups tried to convince Metro and other government officials to reduce the size of urban reserves in half, to about 15,000 acres. But that effort mostly fell on deaf ears.
See: Farmers, Conservation Groups Come Together On Urban Growth
Save Helvetia, a grassroots group representing farmers and residents in north Washington County fared a lot better. The original proposals from Washington County set aside 10,000 acres in the Helvetia as urban reserves. In the proposal before Metro, that’s been pared down to 300 acres.
But the group is warily watching a 700 acre section of land north of US 26 that’s been labeled as “undesignated”. Metro is using that label as a way of keeping its options open, should the demand for developing land turn out to be stronger than expected. Considering that Metro is planning for 50-years, some flexibility makes sense.
Cherry Amabisca with Save Helvetia says it also creates uncertainty for the farmers in that area, making them less willing to take on long range projects like planting orchards or vineyards. “Once an area is labeled undesignated,” she says, “farmers don’t invest.”
So while she’s pleased that most of Helvetia is safe, “We can’t relax because that undesignated area is still at risk.”
For More Information See:
Blue Oregon: Urban and rural reserves battle may have barely begun
Here’s the schedule of meetings.
Washington County Board of Commissioners
6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23
155 N. First Ave., Hillsboro
Clackamas County Board of Commissioners
10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 25
2051 Kaen Road, Oregon City
Multnomah County Board of Commissioners
11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 25
501 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland.
Metro Council
2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25
600 NE Grand Ave., Portland
