In a rare joint meeting and public hearing, the Washington County Commission and the Metro Council reached a new tentative agreement late Tuesday on future “urban and rural reserves.”

   Up until six months ago, the County and Metro officials thought they had an agreement on where our urban region should grow in the next 50 years, and the areas that needed to be preserved for farming or timber.  The 28,476 acres proposed as “urban reserves” would expand the current urban growth boundary by about 11 percent if fully developed in the next 50 years, and it would consume about two percent of the region’s agricultural acreage.  At the same time, the population of the tri-county region is expected to grow by at least 70 percent.

  But last October Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) balked at the region’s ambitions for 624 acres north of Cornelius and 28 more acres north of Forest Grove to be marked “urban reserves,” and the Commission authorized the region to find other areas to accommodate future employment capacity.

  Going back to their drawing boards, County officials came up with a plan to replace the 624 acres north of Cornelius with 585 acres north of Hillsboro and Highway 26, locating it close to existing transportation and needed public infrastructure.

   During the nine-hour public hearing this week, more than 50 witnesses signed up to testify, including Westside Economic Alliance’s executive director Jonathan Schlueter, who explained the importance of future employment areas:

Given the small amount of employment land in Washington County’s 13,500 acres of ‘urban reserves,’ it is imperative this (Cornelius) employment land be replaced.  With more than 87,000 of your constituents in Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties currently unemployed, we cannot short-sheet future economic opportunities in our county or region.

   But after listening to hours of public testimony, the Metro Council and County Commission could still not agree on replacing the urban reserves north of Cornelius with the 585 acres north of Highway 26.  Finally, to break their stalemate, the officials agreed to split the baby.

   By the Commission's vote of 3-2 and the Council's 6-1 vote respectively, members of the Washington County Commission agreed to designate 265 acres north of Highway 26 as “urban reserves,” while the remaining 320 acres will remain “undesignated.”  But to allow the city of Cornelius to expand and develop a viable tax base sometime in the future, county and regional officials reluctantly agreed to leave 350 acres as “undesignated,” while the remaining 274 acres previously intended for urban uses, were instead designated as “rural reserves.”

   The combined effect of these latest decisions will be a further reduction of the future employment capacity in our tri-county region by another 360 acres.  However, this latest agreement is still subject to more public hearings in Multnomah and Clackamas counties and will face close scrutiny by members of the Land Conservation and Development Commission this summer.

For additional information about the revised urban and rural reserves recommendations, visit Metro's website or see WEA’s testimony to the Metro Council and Washington County Commission.