Forest Grove readies push for big UGB expansion

Metro studies 8,000 acres of reserve land across the region, but some cities want more than the agency’s considering

By Christian Gaston

The Forest Grove News-Times, Jul 21, 2010, Updated Jul 21, 2010 (2 Reader comments)

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When Metro planners started asking around at city halls across the region about a how much land local leaders might want to bring inside the urban growth boundary near their city limits, the general response on the east side was ho-hum.

Gresham wasn’t particularly excited about adding land to its portfolio, nor was Oregon City.

And no one wanted to talk about adding the Stafford Triangle to the region’s land bank.

But in Washington County, city leaders were chomping at the bit to get their hands on some virgin land. And at a recent work session of the Forest Grove City Council the plan was to go “whole hog.”

While the City Council didn’t take an official action during the work session, a consensus developed to ask Metro for a big slice of land in the urban growth bounday decisions set for December, allowing the city to potentially gobble up land between Highway 47 and Thatcher Road all the way north to Verboort, or more than half of the city’s urban reserves.

That rankled councilor Victoria Lowe, the sole hold-out on the council opposed to what was referred to as the “whole hog” plan. Lowe said that in several reserve meetings she attended, rural property owners said they worried that once an area was earmarked as an urban reserve, it would immediately be gobbled up for development by a neighboring city.

Officials from Metro and local governments, she said, assured property owners that these areas were being looked at for future development – 20 to 30 years out, if at all.

“Now,” she said, “we’re asking for it all, practically on Day One.”

The idea also struck Metro President David Bragdon as a bit pie-in-the-sky. He said the terrible market for residential housing didn’t open up much opportunity for builders to actually build on a large UGB expansion near Forest Grove. Bragdon questioned the scale of the city’s proposal. “Sixty percent,” he said, “of a 60-year reserve right away?” But Forest Grove Mayor Pete Truax said the city needed to add new industrial land to meet its development goals, and pointed out that Metro hasn’t awarded the city with a significant UGB expansion in years. Metro councilor Kathryn Harrington, who represents Washington County, said she understood why Forest Grove would push for an expansion to the UGB nearby.

“I think there is a pent-up interest,” Harrington said. “If we look at the UGB activity over the last few decades, so little has been in the area of Forest Grove.”

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