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Portland's 50-Year Growth Plan
Submitted by reform4 on Fri, 2008/01/18 - 12:16pm.
I had an interesting discussion at the Candidate Expo with Mr. Victor Jernigan, a well-known developer in Knox County. We discussed growth issues, impact fees, etc. I had mentioned that it would be helpful to look at other areas that have similar geography to Knoxville but have already gone through growth phases, to see what they did, what worked, and what didn't work. I mentioned one area with similar geography is Portland, OR, where they are dramatically limited in the growth of roadways, more so than us. He mentioned that he had read that Oregon had the worst schools in the country and a terrible growth policy.
That was a bit surprising. Portland?
I knew some people who live out there and have been out there for work, and poor education didn't seem to be an issue. I found one study (from a fairly conservative group) that actually ranked Portland first for job/population growth (which, of course, has driven up housing prices until recently). Education Week had a negative report for Oregon in general, but the measures were fairly odd- Kindergarten enrollment, 4th grade math (why just that grade). Many of the rest had to do with education procedures (licensing standards, formal teacher evaluation process, etc), but nothing related to taxes/funding. I don't see how bureaucratic measures of an education system seem fair.
Elsewhere, I saw some well-founded criticisms of Oregon schools (a drive towards more highly paid teachers without additional funding, leading to larger class sizes, fewer books, less infrastructure). Clearly, the issue of how Portland/Oregon manages growth and their education policy are two completely different beasts!
Interestingly, though, Portland is using a 50-year growth strategy to maintain a liveable city, which is pretty far looking. We have to ask the same questions- as 100,000 new people move into Knox County, what do we want the end result to look like? Clearly, even if we don't have metro government anytime soon, there has to be close work with the City of Knoxville in our long-range planning. If a move to Metro government fails, how do we best get the County to get on-board with some of the City initiatives, like the Sustainability task force?
(And that's not to say Portland is the only place to look at, or that Portland got things right- I've always been fascinated at how they deal with the terrain that limits their roadway infrastructure!)
Of course Victor Jarnigan thinks Oregon has a terrible growth policy. It's geared toward actual, you know, planning, and not toward giving developers whatever they want.
Umm... no. But he did say he was going out to Portland next week, and that their growth plan "has been a failure." I don't recall if he meant to link the two (e.g., study why it had been a failure?). I'm curious about the definition/measure of "failure" that is used. I suspect cross-border sprawl is one issue, and that's exactly my point- if there are things that went awry, Portland's a good place to study what went right (a lot of things from my read of thigns) and what went wrong, and how do you prevent the unintended consequences (say, sudden growth explosion in outlying communities that further stress our roadways).
-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B Link...
Next time you see him ask him how he defines "Portland." Portland can be criticized in all kinds of ways, but at least they think about things there. The growth boundary has been pretty successful for Portland, though it has, unintentionally, cause sprawl elsewhere. Jernigan need not worry. There are plenty of kindred souls to him in Oregon who see sprawl as "freedom."
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
It's true that the Portland urban growth boundary has caused sprawl elsewhere - but only over the border in Vancouver, Washington. Oregon has statewide growth boundary laws, so unregulated sprawl has nowhere to go in-state.
Washington has a growth management law also although newer (the Oregon law has been around since the early 70s; the Washington law since the early 90s) and somewhat less strict than Oregon's. I would expect that it would be starting to limit Vancouver sprawl as well.
There's a whole recent history of push back against the Oregon program, and even more recent push back against the push back. I'll elaborate if anyone is interested.
PLease do. I am not the one to do it, but a thick book linking conservative interest groups to the "push back" against urban growth boundaries and open spaces laws needs to be done. It is a den of scum and villainry with deeeeeeeep pockets and the ability to make The Blessed Virgin look like a dirty hippie commie who wants to take your guns and land.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
This will take a fairly long post, and I'm busy this afternoon, but will post later this evening. I wrote my thesis on the Oregon, Washington, & Tennessee growth management laws (yes, Tennessee has one, although it mostly deals with annexations). And the spouse is a native Oregonian, so we kind of keep up with this stuff.
Well, it's 3 days later and I still haven't had time to do the research to refresh my memory on this, but here's what I recall. If I'm off on a detail or two, the broad strokes are correct.
Oregon passed a state land use law in the early 1970s. Among other things it require urban growth boundaries for all municipalities. It also sets up something called exclusive farm-use zoning. This is a very restrictive agricultural zone intended to protect farmland from timbering, mining, and large scale development. EFU land is taxed at a lower rate.
The law survived four or five challenges via referendum over the years, and was even supported by the Portland Home Builders (the law makes development regulation very predictable, and developers cherish predictability) and the Oregon Farm Bureau.
Then in the 90s a conservative group called Oregonians in Action came up with the idea to force local governments to compensate land owners for any lost value on land they were not allowed to develop - or give permission to develop.
The first referendum, called Measure 7, passed (after all,it sounds fair, and much was made of little old ladies who wanted to let their 7 children each build a house on their farm) but the Oregon Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional on a technicality. It was rewritten as Measure 37 and passed.
Then all heck broke loose. Muncipalities of course had no $$ to compensate folks for measure 37 claims, so they were forced to permit all kinds of development. Folks who thought they were protecting little old ladies woke up to find gravel pits in their neighborhoods and big subdivisions on the farm across the street. It was the law of unintended consequences come to life.
So this fall, Measure 49 was on the ballot. 49 was designed to fix the most egregious problems of 37. It limits a landowner to three home sites on property classified as high-value farmland or forest land, or in a groundwater-limited area, if pre-1970s regulations did not bar them from development when they acquired the land. In other rural areas, a landowner is allowed to develop as many as 10 home sites on a maximum of two separate areas.
In other words, it gives some protection to individual land owners, while still protecting farmland and limiting sprawl.
Thanks for digging up all those details. As I said, the best lesson we can learn from other municipalities is the "unintended consequences" of poorly written legislation (or loopholes purposely introduced by lobbying).
-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B Link...
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2008/01/18 - 5:18pm.
Portland is light years ahead of Knoxville. The light rail system is free in the downtown areas and a connected system of street trollies pretty well covers a large area of town. Neighborhoods are well defined and well represented. The rail line goes to the airport and the stations are well lit and safe. Prop 40 was just passed that closes some of the loopholes developers found in the latest round of regulations to control explosive growth. The general public in Oregon seems to be better educated about the role of urban planning and is more involved in public decision making. While Portland is not utopia, it is far ahead of anything in Tennessee.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2008/01/19 - 7:33pm.
Portland's growth plan HAS been a failure--for developers like Jernigan. He often speculatively buys land that is ripe for development (such as the area around Midway). If Knox developed a progressive growth plan it would cost Jernigan lots of money. Most Knox developers dream of unfettered development for all of Knox County as seen in west Knox or Atlanta.
Did Jernigan offer some places he thought were good models for growth and education system?
Of course Victor Jarnigan thinks Oregon has a terrible growth policy. It's geared toward actual, you know, planning, and not toward giving developers whatever they want.
Umm... no. But he did say he was going out to Portland next week, and that their growth plan "has been a failure." I don't recall if he meant to link the two (e.g., study why it had been a failure?). I'm curious about the definition/measure of "failure" that is used. I suspect cross-border sprawl is one issue, and that's exactly my point- if there are things that went awry, Portland's a good place to study what went right (a lot of things from my read of thigns) and what went wrong, and how do you prevent the unintended consequences (say, sudden growth explosion in outlying communities that further stress our roadways).
-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B
Link...
Victor Jernigan is an expert on education?
Such a Renaissance Man.
(sarcasm alert)
Next time you see him ask him how he defines "Portland." Portland can be criticized in all kinds of ways, but at least they think about things there. The growth boundary has been pretty successful for Portland, though it has, unintentionally, cause sprawl elsewhere. Jernigan need not worry. There are plenty of kindred souls to him in Oregon who see sprawl as "freedom."
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
It's true that the Portland urban growth boundary has caused sprawl elsewhere - but only over the border in Vancouver, Washington. Oregon has statewide growth boundary laws, so unregulated sprawl has nowhere to go in-state.
Washington has a growth management law also although newer (the Oregon law has been around since the early 70s; the Washington law since the early 90s) and somewhat less strict than Oregon's. I would expect that it would be starting to limit Vancouver sprawl as well.
There's a whole recent history of push back against the Oregon program, and even more recent push back against the push back. I'll elaborate if anyone is interested.
PLease do. I am not the one to do it, but a thick book linking conservative interest groups to the "push back" against urban growth boundaries and open spaces laws needs to be done. It is a den of scum and villainry with deeeeeeeep pockets and the ability to make The Blessed Virgin look like a dirty hippie commie who wants to take your guns and land.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
This will take a fairly long post, and I'm busy this afternoon, but will post later this evening. I wrote my thesis on the Oregon, Washington, & Tennessee growth management laws (yes, Tennessee has one, although it mostly deals with annexations). And the spouse is a native Oregonian, so we kind of keep up with this stuff.
Thanks! Excellent!
Well, it's 3 days later and I still haven't had time to do the research to refresh my memory on this, but here's what I recall. If I'm off on a detail or two, the broad strokes are correct.
Oregon passed a state land use law in the early 1970s. Among other things it require urban growth boundaries for all municipalities. It also sets up something called exclusive farm-use zoning. This is a very restrictive agricultural zone intended to protect farmland from timbering, mining, and large scale development. EFU land is taxed at a lower rate.
The law survived four or five challenges via referendum over the years, and was even supported by the Portland Home Builders (the law makes development regulation very predictable, and developers cherish predictability) and the Oregon Farm Bureau.
Then in the 90s a conservative group called Oregonians in Action came up with the idea to force local governments to compensate land owners for any lost value on land they were not allowed to develop - or give permission to develop.
The first referendum, called Measure 7, passed (after all,it sounds fair, and much was made of little old ladies who wanted to let their 7 children each build a house on their farm) but the Oregon Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional on a technicality. It was rewritten as Measure 37 and passed.
Then all heck broke loose. Muncipalities of course had no $$ to compensate folks for measure 37 claims, so they were forced to permit all kinds of development. Folks who thought they were protecting little old ladies woke up to find gravel pits in their neighborhoods and big subdivisions on the farm across the street. It was the law of unintended consequences come to life.
So this fall, Measure 49 was on the ballot. 49 was designed to fix the most egregious problems of 37. It limits a landowner to three home sites on property classified as high-value farmland or forest land, or in a groundwater-limited area, if pre-1970s regulations did not bar them from development when they acquired the land. In other rural areas, a landowner is allowed to develop as many as 10 home sites on a maximum of two separate areas.
In other words, it gives some protection to individual land owners, while still protecting farmland and limiting sprawl.
It passed by a wide margin.
Thanks for digging up all those details. As I said, the best lesson we can learn from other municipalities is the "unintended consequences" of poorly written legislation (or loopholes purposely introduced by lobbying).
-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B
Link...
Knoxville should only suck so bad as Portland. I love Portland.
I like Eugene. Rush hour there is bicycle madness.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Portland is light years ahead of Knoxville. The light rail system is free in the downtown areas and a connected system of street trollies pretty well covers a large area of town. Neighborhoods are well defined and well represented. The rail line goes to the airport and the stations are well lit and safe. Prop 40 was just passed that closes some of the loopholes developers found in the latest round of regulations to control explosive growth. The general public in Oregon seems to be better educated about the role of urban planning and is more involved in public decision making. While Portland is not utopia, it is far ahead of anything in Tennessee.
I visited the Portland area in 2005 and saw a lot of new, spread out suburban development in Hillsboro and Gresham.
I suppose that's due to the loopholes referred to by Anonymous.
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Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs
Portland's growth plan HAS been a failure--for developers like Jernigan. He often speculatively buys land that is ripe for development (such as the area around Midway). If Knox developed a progressive growth plan it would cost Jernigan lots of money. Most Knox developers dream of unfettered development for all of Knox County as seen in west Knox or Atlanta.
Link...
Hopefully some good local election results and the Knoxville area giving a lot of support for the Midway Road residents in their lawsuit will occur.
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