Regional Problem Solving

The Bear Creek Valley Regional Problem Solving (RPS) Project

In the mid-1990s, citizens and farmers who were concerned about the loss of valuable farmland in Jackson County’s Bear Creek Valley came together to discuss a new concept in planning for the growth of our cities: figure out where the most important farmland is, give it protection from urbanization, and then figure out how to grow the cities around it. They proposed creation of a "Farmland Conservation Zone," and suggested areas where it would be appropriate for the cities to expand.

By the year 2000, the County and the cities got involved. While the emphasis on identifying and growing around the best farmland was lost, these players spent most of the last 10 years developing the draft of a plan that identifies what lands will be available for urbanization during the next 50 years. This effort is called the Bear Creek Valley Regional Problem Solving (RPS) project.

What is in the Draft Plan?

The cities that began the project included Ashland, Central Point, Eagle Point, Jacksonville, Medford, Phoenix and Talent. The main product in the draft plan is the designation of Urban Reserves, or lands that are designated as the first priority for urbanization as the cities grow during the next 50 years. (Learn more about Urban Reserves.) Those areas are shown on the map below.

 

 

Currently there are about 31,000 acres in the urban growth boundaries (UGBs) of the seven cities (shown in gray). Of those, project documents indicate over 8,000 are still available for development. The proposed urban reserve areas total about 8,500 acres (shown in green and red). Over 80 percent of that total is zoned as agricultural land, and more than 1,250 acres (shown in red) were determined by the Project’s own panel of experts as critical to the region’s agricultural economy. At a minimum, this is some of the land that would have been identified by the previous project as land to save.

The other areas worth noting on the map were designated as “buffers” (shown in yellow). The idea of the buffers was that the cities did not want to grow together (as has already happened between Central Point and Medford and between Medford and Phoenix) in order to preserve their individual identities. For the most part these buffers were honored by the cities, with the exception of one that disappeared and a couple of others that were proposed to be grown into. No specific protections are proposed for the lands that remain in these areas.

After 10 years of discussions and drafting, the draft plan will be released for public comment at a series of hearings to be held throughout 2010. Each city will have hearings before its own Planning Commission, and then another set of hearings before the City Council. Likewise, the County will hold hearings before their Planning Commission and then before the Board of Commissioners. Click here to see the master schedule for the hearings. Once the county and city hearings are complete, the plan will be sent to the state for approval.

How to Get Involved

The most important thing to do is to learn more. The Plan that comes out of the hearings process will dictate how the cities in the valley grow for the next 50 years, and will have economic and social consequences for decades after that. 

The Rogue Valley Council of Governments (RVCOG) is keeping a master list of all the hearings for all the cities and the County, and has copies of the plan and other project documents on their website.

The City of Ashland has voted on a resolution to recommend substantial improvements to the plan. Click here to read the resolution.

For more information about the plan and its implications, contact our Southern Oregon Planning Advocate Greg Holmes at greg@friends.org or (541) 474-1155. To find out about volunteering, contact Sarah Vaile, Outreach Coordinator, at sarah@rogueadvocates.org.