Urban & Rural Reserves

Background on Urban and Rural Reserves: Saving Farmland & Building Livable Communities

Oregon is blessed with some of the world's best farmland. Agriculture in Oregon provides tens of thousands of jobs and healthy, locally grown food for farmers markets, restaurants and grocery stores. Oregon agricultural products are also exported around the world, making agriculture a critical element of the state's economy.

Managing urban growth makes our cities and towns more livable, reduces air and water pollution, increases our transportation options and helps prevent sprawl from gobbling up valuable farms, forests and natural areas. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by keeping our "carbon footprint" smaller.

Better Planning for a Better Future

The population of the Portland metropolitan region is expected to grow by one million people by the year 2030. Our region faces a tremendous challenge - how to provide future housing, jobs, schools, parks and other amenities and still maintain our cherished quality of life.

The 2007 Legislature gave the Portland region a valuable new tool to shape our future: the ability to designate urban and rural reserves. Metro and the counties of Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington will jointly designate which land will be protected and which land will be developed over the next 40-50 years.

Urban and rural reserves could improve the existing process of urban growth boundary expansion by providing greater predictability for farmers, landowners and communities as to where future growth will occur - but only if we all participate in the decision-making.

We have a unique and important opportunity to shape the future of our region for generations. If done correctly, the decisions on urban and rural reserves will:

Protect our most valuable farm land from future development;
Ensure that future growth will create vibrant communities and greater opportunities to walk, bike, and take transit for our transportation needs;
Help the region reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming pollution.

Update on the Process - August 2010

In June 2010, Metro and the counties of Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington submitted their joint decision on urban and rural reserves to the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). Click here to visit Metro's website for the findings and ordinances. Here is the final Urban and Rural Reserves map that was submitted to LCDC. There were multiple factors considered in making these choices, agreed upon by a diverse group of stakeholders. Click here for a list of factors considered to designate urban and rural reserves.

The reserves decision will guide where the region will grow for the next 50 years. For a thoughtful description of the reserves decision, we recommend reading Metro Councilor Robert Liberty’s summary. Click here to read his piece in the Oregonian.

Citizen participation and testimony helped to make a largely good decision in some parts of the region – in Clackamas and Multnomah counties. In Washington County, thousands of acres of the state’s best farmland, in the heart of the Tualatin Valley, have been designated as urban reserves, or left without the special protection of rural reserves. We think they can do better. Click here to read our final testimony to the Metro Council.

Key objections to the proposal:

The farm land north of Council Creek in the Cornelius and Forest Grove area should be designated as Rural Reserves, not urban reserves. This is the best of the best farm land, and is the core of Washington County’s agricultural economy. Protecting these acres as rural reserves still leaves about 500 acres for future urbanization in this area, which is more than enough for a long term urban land supply.

Thousands of acres of Class I and II farm land are currently proposed for urbanization in the Evergreen area, north of Hillsboro. These lands are currently being farmed, while there are acres of unused lands and empty buildings for sale and lease inside the existing urban growth boundary of Hillsboro and nearby cities.

The decision leaves thousands of acres of farm land along Highway 26 as “undesignated” – they qualify for rural reserves, but Washington County, North Plains and Hillsboro want to leave open the possibility that these lands could be urbanized in the future. There is already too much farm land designated as urban reserves; there is no need shown for “extra” lands.