County ‘Core 4’ members split on urban reserves talks

With discussions at an impasse, counties decide to negotiate directly with Metro

By Christian Gaston

Pamplin Media Group, Feb 11, 2010 (2 Reader comments)

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It’s not exactly what people wanted to hear.

When the “Core 4,” a group of elected officials tasked with figuring out which lands in the region should be set aside for future urban development met on Monday, it was supposed to be their big show.

And in a way it was, but instead of agreeing on a final proposal that would put a two-year-long planning process on a countdown clock, they agreed to disagree.

The idea behind designating urban and rural reserves was to add future certainty to which areas in the region would remain “open” – for agriculture or other uses – and which would be developed for housing and industrial intentions.

At the heart of the latest disagreement were three areas that have been hotly contested throughout the process: land north of Cornelius stretching over Council Creek, the Stafford Triangle, which abuts Tualatin, and a piece of land on the western edge of Multnomah County.

“We are beyond close,” said Core 4 member Jeff Cogen, “we are really, really close.”

But it was clear that Cogen’s fellow Core 4 members were reaching an impasse over the last two weeks when tensions began to develop between Clackamas County Core 4 member Charlotte Lehan and Washington County’s Core 4 representative Tom Brian.

Lehan felt that the Stafford Triangle should be set aside without a designation, instead of being put into an urban reserve, and she wanted Washington County to pare back its urban reserve designations.

And even though the Stafford Triangle was marked as an urban reserve on a map that the Core 4 tentatively agreed to on Monday, Lehan said, “We’re still going back and forth on Stafford.”

Tualatin leaders, along with those from West Linn and Lake Oswego, had been adamant in their opposition to making the Stafford area an urban reserve. They say their opinion and community aspirations didn’t seem to matter in the reserve designation process, or at least not as much as they wanted.

“They pretend like we’re going to use a scientific process,” said Tualatin Mayor Lou Ogden. “But when it comes down to it, it’s all horse trading.”

All told, the land left up in the air (not counting the Stafford Triangle) amounts to one half of a percent of the total reserve designations, which include 270,937 acres of rural reserves and more than 27,000 acres of urban reserves.

While the meeting didn’t decide the fate of that final acreage, it did set up a plan. Over the next two weeks, each county and Metro will hash out a plan for the remaining land and the counties will wind up voting the plan into effect (or not) at the end of the month.

The plan, proffered by Cogen, dismantles the Core 4 and moves the process forward. Metro’s Core 4 representative Kathryn Harrington praised Cogen’s proposal.

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