It's Time to Get Involved in Metro Process

Business community’s input is vital during urban growth boundary periodic review

Mike Tharp, Associate Vice President, NAI NBS

Everyone in the business community who is interested in fostering the Portland-metropolitan region’s economic vitality and long-term stability needs to care about the adequacy of our regional urban growth boundary, which encompasses 25 metropolitan cities and urbanized portions of Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties where future urban growth will be allowed to occur under Oregon’s land use system.

Every five years, the state charges Metro, our regional government, with analyzing future demand for housing and jobs to ensure that at any given time there is at least a 20-year supply of residential and employment land within the UGB. A strong economy is a product of the adequate availability of both affordable housing and family-wage jobs, which are needed to achieve the quality of life valued by the region’s citizens.

The process for projecting job growth – in the retail/service, office, institutional and industrial sectors – and then translating it into acreage is very complex. The process includes: balancing past experience and future trends locally, regionally, nationally and internationally; considering site- and location-specific characteristics of various employment sectors; and accounting for market, regulatory and “aspirational” characteristics.

The latter is an expression of the state’s and region’s value on compact urban development and efficient use of resources and infrastructure such as water, sewer and roads. A similar, but somewhat less complicated, process is used to determine residential land need. As the lead agency charged with periodic review for the Portland-metro area, Metro must both quantify residential and employment land demand and identify existing capacity – both vacant land and opportunities for infill and redevelopment – within the current boundary.

If there is a shortfall of land, Metro must decide where and by how much to expand the UGB. The last such expansion occurred in 2002, when most of the additional demand was accommodated by bringing the 12,000-acre Damascus/Boring area into the regional UGB. Due to a lack of adequate infrastructure funding, little growth has occurred in this expansion area over the past seven years.

In this current periodic review, the Metro Council has until the end of 2010 to adopt its solution for accommodating the required combined 20-year land supply for housing and jobs. As an added complication, Metro has been authorized by the state to identify an additional 20- to 30-year land supply, referred to as “urban reserves,” that is most suitable for urban development and, thus, where all future growth beyond this five-year review will be directed.

Urban reserves will be matched by a comparable supply of “rural reserves” – high-value farm, forest and natural resource land – that should be protected from future growth.

Given the complex technical, regulatory and political environment for the periodic review, particularly for the employment land element, it is critical that representatives of the business community (end-users and those who facilitate the sale, leasing, development and management of commercial, industrial and institutional buildings) stay involved in the Metro process at every level.

Only by participating “early and often” can the business community influence and shape the outcome. What is the desired outcome? A sufficient supply of employment land distributed throughout the region that responds to market demand at a reasonable cost and with access to basic infrastructure and a trained workforce. Anything less will strangle the region’s continued growth, particularly in the face of the current downturn.

Many members of the business community are closely monitoring this round of the regional UGB periodic review. Working in an informal alliance, these business groups have:

• Funded a mapping project to identify the acreage immediately adjacent to the existing UGB most suitable for urban development and, therefore, candidate areas for UGB expansion and future urban reserves;

• Encouraged Metro to hire an independent economic team to identify regional economic and employment trends over the next five, 20 and 50 years to inform the technical analysis of future job demand and related land needs;

• Jointly funded with Metro a series of eight focus groups with end-users in several employment sectors to identify future trends in their companies and industries that will determine their location, facility and infrastructure requirements; and

• Supported several public works projects such as the proposed I-5/Columbia River Crossing Replacement Bridge and Sunrise Corridor projects as well as lobbied for improved state and federal transportation infrastructure funding.

There are a myriad of ways in which individuals, companies and trade organizations can participate in this process, such as: staying informed, joining the informal coalition of business groups, funding research projects to support the business community’s technical research, and providing written and oral testimony at key decision points.