Carla, are there any GBLT groups in Helvetia? Just thinking, maybe establishing a GBLT group would be a good start, and then work on raising their property taxes to fund Organic Farming techniques and clean energy.

Solidarity & Peace, Karl

Kind of ironic that on this issue, the conservatives and progressives have taken the opposite sides of this issue. Preserving traditional ways of life is a textbook definition of conservatism and making room for a booming population and its needed infrastructure equals progressivism.

I have never quite gotten the concern over "sprawl" that permeates the discourse here. I can drive 5 minutes from Salem in any direction and be in relatively undeveloped areas. 5 more minutes East and West and you only see a highway as a sign of any development.

The fact remains that our 5 or so major population centers are going to continue to grow and we should let them. I am not saying there shouldn't be a growth plan in place, but the plan should not restrict how much growth there is.

I have never quite gotten the concern over "sprawl" that permeates the discourse here. I can drive 5 minutes from Salem in any direction and be in relatively undeveloped areas. 5 more minutes East and West and you only see a highway as a sign of any development.

It's that concern over sprawl that created those undeveloped areas. They are the legacy of Oregon's land use laws.

If Metro and the cities had the guts to do it (which they don't), the simple answer to sprawl is to force substantial density increases. Except for lack of political will, there is no reason why the state and affected governments could not enact laws to the effect that until the entire area inside the existing urban boundary reaches the same population density as mid-town Manhattan or downtown Chicago (or pick your favorite big city), no further expansion will be allowed, no matter what. Single family developers would scream bloody murder, and obviously a lot of people who want to continue to enjoy the suburban and semi-rural lifestyle will vote with their feet and move elsewhere, but you can't stop that. But you will avoid sprawl.

The population will continue to rise. If Portland metro governments are going to try to continue to satisfy the old fashioned demand for suburban style detached single family housing, I don't think sprawl can be stopped. Big cities grow upward, not outward, and ultimately people living in those cities end up living in 30 story co-op apartment buildings, not single family homes on 1/3 acre lots.

I like Greg D's idea. Make families live in 200 sq ft apartments in the city so that y'all can have your urban utopia.

"I have never quite gotten the concern over "sprawl" that permeates the discourse here. I can drive 5 minutes from Salem in any direction and be in relatively undeveloped areas. 5 more minutes East and West and you only see a highway as a sign of any development."

People used to say the same thing about San Francisco 40 or so years ago, nowadays there are times whe a five-minute drive can be limited to a couple of blocks. And the people of Portland and its metro area don't seem to have enough sense to refrain from making the same blunders.

Take care not to follow the example set on the east side of the mountains, recently labeled "The Housing Hurricane".

There's no need to grow "out", just up.

Another problem with growth is the financing of infrastructure. The system is grossly unfair and flawed. Developers build large numbers of houses, but cities only collect a small percentage of the revenues through system development charges (SDCs) that will eventually be needed to pay for the roads, sewer, schools and other needs. Recently, people in Bend (and presumably other cities) complained about not having enough money to pay for the infrastructures it now needs - and this is from people who opposed increases in the SDCs charged to developers. In particular, in the case of schools for which there are no SDCs people move in with children and create needs for new schools and the bill is passed on to other residents who have had nothing to do with creating this need. Recommended reading: Eben Fodor's "Better Not Biggerf."

The problems with disagreements don't arise with the need to preserve farm and timber land, while managing growth.

The problems are from the zealous extension of reasonable needs for genuine preservation and management into the unreasonable. Mislabeling or misrepresenting of marginal lands as farm or forest has led to extreme prohibition and needless overcrowding of our communities. But this is where it becomes a M37-like battle. The left demands the unreasonable, touts it as the only way to preserve and casts the oppostion as wanting no preservation.

There is plenty of land all around the UGB, inside and out, that is neither farm, forest or wetland/habitat. Most people would prefer to use more of these areas in various way and avoid overcrowding the suburbs.

Unfortunately when it comes time to vote on these things or politcians, the false choice that the only alternative to keeping the same reckless over crowding status quo is "pave everything over". And we get this worn out rheotric about how well we plan here.

Of course Washington County has growing pains. Like the rest of the region. UGB expansions going clear back to 1998 have been tied up in central planning gridlock. I say deliberately in order to focus (force) development and infill where and how SB 100 never intended to direct. Mandated minimum densities have over reached resulting in chaos that a few rail transit lines will never remedy.

Que the angry, "what's you're alternative, LA or Houston"

Which drives the discussion into useless cirles.

There are few, if any, locals proposing halting all preservation, planning, zoning and management.

But there's a large variation of approaches between nothing and what we have. We could start by halting the presumtion and misrepresentation that all of the land currently preserved is farm or timber land. It's not.

Carla Axtman:

But once we develop this fertile farm land, we can't bring it back.

Bob T:

Yet no one seemed to care when most fertile farmland along NE Airport Way (that grew actual crops to eat) was paved over for light industrial complexes so that farmland outside the UGB could continue to grow grass seed, or farmland paved over in Orenco to supply (it was hoped) many riders for the MAX line that was built through that area where few people lived, ignoring existing denser areas of eastern Washington County. It's all BS.

Bob Tiernan Portland

"I have never quite gotten the concern over "sprawl" that permeates the discourse here. I can drive 5 minutes from Salem in any direction and be in relatively undeveloped areas. 5 more minutes East and West and you only see a highway as a sign of any development." mp97303

Try driving 5 minutes in any direction from Portland, Beaverton, Tigard or Hillsboro and take a look at the surroundings you find yourself in. Sprawl is no joke. It gets harder and harder and more time to travel, whatever mode chosen, from urban and suburban areas to the country. It hurts me to see and realize what sprawl has done in a relatively short time to the ridge Skyline Rd runs on, and Chehalem Mt. They both used to be beautiful forested hillsides....now, asphalt covered rooftops. And there's Bethany too. Once the site of beautiful rolling farmland, literally a 5 minute drive from Cedar Mills. No more.

Now Hillsboro has its eyes on the the undeveloped farm and other open lands of Helvetia as well, I suppose, as lands in a similar situation as that community. This annexation thing has gone too far. Once that land is paved over, it's hard to imagine when it might again be returned to arable or natural land again. Are we doomed to live in one endless city with a few comparatively small nature parks to remind us of what we used to have?

I read Greg D's comment with a lot of interest. The things he mentions, hopefully, will be start receiving a lot more consideration.

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In the face of today's state and federal economies, the fire currently raging across the east face of Black Butte, an area so steep and remote that it can only be fought by the largest (American made) heavy-lift helicopters - Boeing Vertal and Sikorsky Skycrane - is a pretty darned good argument against not only development in the Metolius Basin but sprawl into timbered areas anywhere.

Folks seem to have forgotten the Tillamook Burn.

Not a Vertal, a Chinook, with three times the lift. My bad.

Not everyone wants to live in a high rise in the city. All cities need the burbs to ensure young couples do not flee the minute they decide to have a few kids. Otherwise you end up with a brain drain. The burbs serve a purpose and our burbs aren't environmentally unfriendly. We have mass transit to take people from the burbs into the city and the burbs are a tight ring around the city. I think Hilsboro is the right place to expand, they do a great job of economic development and job creation and still keep their development envelope tight. I think this is an example of growth done right.

"I seem too recall a majority of locals doing pretty much that with Measure 37--giving anyone the ability to opt out of that preservation, planning, zoning and management by saying "But I was here already!"

No TJ, you're recalling the anti-M37 misinformation campaign, not what M37 would have allowed.

This is my point, above.

There's plenty of room to allow more land use without any loss of planning, management, farm, timber and other preservation. There are countless parcels and vast areas around the region where use would be without detriment. Unfortunately the boogeyman sprawl obstructs all while density sprawl in chaos form seems to be OK.

Needlessly overcrowding our communities as if it's our only choice and means to preserve is simply a completely contrived and misguided approach.

M37 would have been the perfect means to allow limited building without overcorowding existing neighborhoods. But the idea was tainted when misrepresented as a paving over. That was utter nonsense. All of the worse paving over, over crowding, chaos making we have witnessed over the past 25 years has been a product of our planning approch that infills and retards the UGB concept.

Let's not forget the "escape valve" in this whole debate, aka Clark County, where the farmers don't seem to care as much about preserving farm land. If we stop all suburban development in Oregon, would-be new single-family homeowners (and they are legion) will troop north of the Columbia. And when we refuse to build adequate bridges across the Columbia, the jobs will follow them there.

And then we'll have the "best" way to avert unwanted growth - make your community so unliveable that no one wants to live there.

The other problem the Helvetia story

To finish a thought, the "problem is illustrated by the this map, on the Washington County website.

Metro is finding that, when expanding the urban growth boundary, it must either: a) choose "exception" lands under the state land use system, where agriculture and forestry are already compromised by existing development and land division, or b) choose "resource" lands under the state land use system, in large parcels and devoted to agriculture and timber production.

If Metro chooses option a, it runs into a buzzsaw of opposition from local rural residents on their five acre lots who don't want urbanization.

If Metro chooses option b, it paves over prime farm land, or puts development on generally steeply sloped timber land, which is contrary to the statewide planning goals, among other problems.

The map of Washington County land use shows that Helvetia along Highway 26 is Exclusive Farm Use land, but farther north is already divided into smaller parcels. I would suspect that much of the opposition to including Helvetia in the urban growth boundary comes from these property owners.

Who said stop all new suburban development? Washington County is set on maximizing UGB expansion within the county. I think it's reasonable for concerned and affected parties to ask Metro to do its due diligence before approving it. Setting our land use policies based on what may or may not happen in Clark County seems foolish.

Listening to a bunch of metastasized cells debate what responsible growth is. Show you can control the population growth rate before you have the arrogance to talk about managing the environment. Scheduling an execution, I guess, counts as "managing the prison population". It's the only management you know. Keep yer dick in yer pants and leave nature to itself.

Why do I have to repost this, because I gave blueoregonrecallsam dot com as the URL? I've used that for 6 months!

But, I'm to believe, you all are capable of understanding progressive politics. Yeah, right.

"Build it and they will come" quality of live will be bad anyways. So I say, "don't build it."

I'll bet the greedy sprawl developers are just itching to ruin that watershed up there and make a couple bucks doing it.

Just say no, to development it will be bad for everyone anyways.

<h2>Have you ever thought about closing the border? The vast migration from south of the border is contributing to the phenomenal growth in population in Oregon.</h2>