Metro’s New Look aims to head off growing pains

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Jul 11, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

L.E. Baskow / The Portland Tribune

Population growth expected over the next few decades helps fuel new developments like Washington County’s Bannister Heights, just inside the Portland area’s urban growth boundary.

Where are we going to put the million more people expected to move here over the next 25 years?

Metro, the regional government charged with managing growth, projects the population of the Portland-Vancouver area to grow from approximately 2 million to around 3 million people by 2030.

That prediction has galvanized Metro’s elected council to begin discussing controversial ideas for ensuring that future growth be concentrated in centers along major transportation corridors and that important environmentally sensitive areas in the region be preserved.

Although Metro has no jurisdiction over Clark County across the river in Washington state, it must decide where growth will occur in most of Multnomah, Clackamas and Wasington counties.

“This is not planning as usual; it’s about making hard choices,” Metro President David Bragdon said of the discussions, which are occurring as part of a yearlong land-use planning review called the New Look.

Washington County Commission Chairman Tom Brian agrees that drastic action is needed to prevent the new people from hurting the region’s livability. Testifying before the Oregon House Interim Committee on Business, Labor and Consumer Affairs on March 8 of this year, Brian noted that his county is expected to receive a disproportionately large percentage of the new residents – up to 400,000 more people over the next 25 years, causing Washington County’s population to increase by around 80 percent to more than 900,000 residents by 2030.

“How do we create a framework for this to happen in a way that we create and sustain quality communities, a sense of place in a sea of people, safe neighborhoods, a healthy economy, and places our children want to return to? What is that framework, and how do we achieve it?” Brian asked the committee.

Some of the ideas are radical and require the approval of the Oregon Legislature. Among other things, the Metro council and officials such as Brian are discussing:

• Giving local governments the power to act like expanded versions of the Portland Development Commission and finance property-tax supported mixed-use projects on underdeveloped land.

• Taxing vacant land at a higher rate than undeveloped land to encourage property owners to spur new construction projects that would provide jobs and housing for people moving to the region.

• Allowing some farm and timber lands in the region to be developed, based on a cost-benefit analysis that shows the cost of providing public services to them is less than other, less environmentally sensitive property.

• Creating rural preserves to protect waterways, wetlands, hilltops and other natural areas from future development.

• Encouraging cities outside Portland to absorb a higher percentage of the new residents than in the past. Medium-size cities such as Gresham, Lake Oswego and Hillsboro will be asked to increase their maximum building heights. Smaller, farther-out cities like McMinnville, Newberg and Estacada will be urged to grow into more urbanized, self-contained communities.

Such talk appalls John Charles, president of the Portland-based Cascade Policy Institute. As Charles sees it, the region needs less land-use planning, not more. He blames current Metro policies for driving up home prices, making it difficult for families to afford homes with enough property for their young children.

“If the planners would just let the market work, there would be plenty of land for everyone. If you fly over Oregon in a helicopter, there is plenty of undeveloped land,” said Charles, who describes his group as a free-market think tank.

But even some property-rights advocates support the basic idea of giving local governments more authority over land-use decisions. David Hunnicutt, office manager for Oregonians in Action, said he is not familiar with the specific ideas being discussed by the Metro councilors and local leaders like Brian. But, Hunnicutt said, regional and local governments are more in touch with the people.

“I would rather see decisions made by Metro than Salem,” said Hunnicutt, whose organization sponsored ballot Measure 37, a state constitutional amendment that requires governments to compensate property owners when planning decisions reduce the value of their land.

At the same time, Hunnicutt believes that the public is not as enamored with high-density housing as Metro planners are.

“I don’t think there is a lot of love for high-density, urban-style housing. I just don’t think it’s there,” he said.

What does a million look like?

Metro Councilor Brian Newman believes it is hard for local residents to understand the impact an additional million residents will have on the Portland area.

As Newman sees it, accommodating such growth will require far more than the siting and construction of all the new homes for them. It also will require the siting and construction of new schools for their children, new businesses where they will work and new transportation systems to move them around.

To help people visualize the changes that will occur over the next 25 years, Newman has written a presentation called “What does a million mean?” that he has been delivering to anyone who will listen, including civic and planning groups. In it, Newman identifies the last time the Portland area grew by 1 million people – between 1968 and 2006, when the population increased from around 1 million to 2 million people.

“I believe that the best way to conceptualize the magnitude of the challenge in front of us is to observe how this region changed as we absorbed the most recent million residents,” Newman said.

Back in the day

The city looked a lot different 38 years ago. The tallest downtown building was the 25-story Harrison Condominium project in the South Auditorium area near Portland State University. Today it is the 20th-tallest building in Portland – soon to be the 21st tallest when the John Ross condominium tower in the South Waterfront urban renewal area tops out this summer.

Portland was the uncontested retail center at that time. The state’s first shopping center, Lloyd Center, had just been completed. Washington Square, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport Plaza and Mall 205 did not exist. Nor did any of the big box stores, including the Fred Meyer superstores, now found throughout the region.

Congestion was not yet a serious problem. The Interstate 5 freeway had opened just two years earlier with the completion of the Marquam Bridge. Because there were hundreds of thousands of fewer drivers, it was hardly ever filled to capacity, even during rush hours. It would be another five years before the Fremont Bridge was installed to complete I-405 and more than a decade before the completion of I-205.

TriMet did not exist in 1968. The regional transit authority was created the next year, taking over the financially ailing, private Rose City Transit Co., whose ridership had fallen by two-thirds since 1950.

Portland State University, then called Portland State College, was confined to a few buildings at the end of the South Park Blocks.

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