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.
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). Unfortunately, Washington County's proposal envisioned including thousands of acres of valuable farmland as urban reserves, and 1000 Friends and our allies challenged this proposal before the state. In October 2010, the state Land Conservation and Development Commission agreed with 1000 Friends' appeal, and remanded the Washington County reserves map.
In April 2011, the Washington County Urban and Rural Reserves process entered a new phase, as a new reserves map was jointly approved by Metro Council and the Washington County Board of Commissioners. On August 19, 2011, LCDC approved the revised map at its Portland meeting. 1000 Friends believes there are grounds for an appeal, but we have not decided whether to do so or not.
Unfortunately, the proposal still does not adequately protect vital areas of Washington County farmlands. Agriculture is essential to the economy of Washington County, with over $227 million in direct sales last year, the seventh-highest county in the state. Yet 80% of the Foundation farmland proposed for urban reserves in the Metro region is in Washington County. That’s 9731 vital, productive acres of berries, orchards, and grains that could be lost unnecessarily, while thousands of acres of developable land remain underutilized within the existing urban growth boundary in Washington County.
The new map does remove part of the urban reserve outside Cornelius north of Council Creek, which was one of the primary reasons the original map was remanded by LCDC last October. (See image at left.) Unfortunately, it leaves 360 acres of Foundation farmland north of the creek as an “undesignated” area. Washington County farmers and 1000 Friends of Oregon contend this area should be designated as a rural reserve.
Other areas of particular concern are:
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a new 352-acre urban reserve in the Helvetia area north of Highway 26, reclassified from “undesignated” (see image, right)
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a 383-acre area of prime farmland south of Hillsboro that was modified from rural reserve to “undesignated.”
Furthermore, Washington County and Metro decided to “make up” the lost urban reserve acreage with new urban reserves and undesignated areas elsewhere in the county. They were under no direction from LCDC to do so, and 1000 Friends believes such a policy is erroneous and detrimental to Washington County agriculture.
Thank you to all who have participated in this process and shared concerns about the new map.
The documents below contain additional detail about the areas we are particularly concerned about.
Read the objections 1000 Friends and coalition partners submitted to DLCD in June 2011.
Other Resources about Urban and Rural Reserves:
Clackamas County's reserves web site
Multnomah County's reserves web site
Washington County's reserves web site
List of Agriculture and Natural Resource Coalition Members
