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| Poor planning: history repeating itself |
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| Point of View
George Forsman
Rural Canby |
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As a former resident of the Bull Mountain area suffering the effects of being an approved Measure 37 claimant in Canby, I relish the current quagmire facing LCDC and the state by the cities of Tigard and Damascus. It had taken almost 50 years to see this come full cycle; the State of Oregon’s complete failure of planning growth.
One must review our history to recognize our current planning mess. First of all, in 1950, Tigard had a population of around 3,000 when it was considered the largest unincorporated city in the USA. Around 1954, Tigard incorporated when the city of Portland tried to annex it. The mistake made by Tigard, in 1962, was in allowing King City to incorporate itself into an independent city. Contributing to this mess was the Washington County Commissioners. They allowed developers to impact growth within the county. That led to the development of Barrington Estates and others subdivisions on Bull Mountain and Beef Bend roads. Now these areas have their own city sewer district, and city water furnished by the City of Tigard.
The city of Portland was the driving impetus in creating LCDC, back in 1973, to save our most valuable farmland. However it has yet to impose the high density requirements upon itself. Instead, it has pushed its growth requirements upon the surrounding communities. We are seeing the full effects of zero planning by LCDC and the city of Portland.
One must sit back and realize this is not only happening to Tigard, Damascus and Happy Valley but elsewhere throughout the state. We are now just beginning to realize the effect of zero planning on farming areas such as Donald, Newberg, McMinnville and other rural communities around the outlying area of Portland.
In reading the Oregonian’s articles, it appears that both Bull Mountain and Damascus have the same population size. But unlike Damascus, Bull Mountain really has no plans for implementing any plans for growth as proposed by LCDC. As I recall, Bull Mountain is the only one outside Metro’s urban growth boundary. Consequently, Bull Mountain will not be encountering Damascus’s growth problems.
For the record, I can predict that Damascus’s visions of grandeur will never materialize. Reason being, they have put the cart ahead of the horse. In other words, the infrastructure of sewer, water, roads, libraries, city facilities, and schools must be in place prior to building a single house. No one has considered how The Oregonian’s projected $1.5 billion in infrastructure costs translate to the individual home and property owner.
The Oregonian’s assessment of 8,000-9,000 population translates to approximately 3,000 property owners, now residing the Damascus City’s area. This projected bonded indebtedness, not counting the operational costs the new facilities and present property tax assessment, translates to a projected property tax increase of some $30,000 per year, per home and property owner alike, until the 50,000 new residences and buildings are constructed and occupied. Question to ask yourself: can you afford to subsidize these new homeowners?
This same scenario has just recently happened in Tampa Florida, where I had vacation there is past winter. They have been experiencing a huge building expansion caused by population. It has caused property values to double and triple within the past 5 years. So when perspective homeowners found out their new property tax bill had risen to $10,000 per year, many have found out that they can no longer afford their homes. Consequently, their homes are being sold.
This is precisely what occurred to the Redland School District some 25 years ago. The owners, there, disenfranchised themselves from the Oregon City School District. At that time, they wanted the Oregon City School district to building schools in Redland, instead of busing the kiddies to Oregon City. Once they created their own school district, Redland could not afford to build a school due to the high property tax assessments. Unlike Tampa, they were not willing to in debt themselves with costly property tax increases. The net result is that Redland does not have a school, and still buses their kiddies elsewhere, and much further than Oregon City. Now they attend David Douglas and other schools where class rooms are available.
Like Damascus, Redland was not told about the costs. It is this scenario which causes all havoc in planning when the planners do not tell the whole truth. Therein, history untold and never analyzed repeats itself.
Ask yourself, why hire bureaucrats who do not possess the courage to educate the uninformed? |
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