Growth Boundaries? Portland’s Cautionary Tale

Urban growth boundaries may be one of the hottest land-use planning tools to break onto the political landscape in 30 years. In California, San Jose and 10 other cities in the Bay Area have already adopted some form of a boundary to limit new development outside of their urban areas.

Now, voters in at least five Ventura County cities will have a shot at approving or rejecting the concept. All county voters will have a chance to vote on an initiative limiting county-level rezoning for farmland and open space.

Although most California initiatives are too recent to adequately evaluate their impacts--the first round appeared in 1996--another West Coast city provides a cautionary tale for Ventura County residents.

Portland, Ore., is considered the pioneer and most successful example of growth boundaries in action. There, says the emerging conventional wisdom, foresight and a strong planning ethic have forged an urban policy that has netted one of the nation’s healthiest and most livable communities.

Portland’s growth boundary--a line outside of which growth is heavily discouraged or even prohibited--is actually a regional boundary: It covers 24 cities in four counties. It has also become a pawn in a largely political gambit to change the physical and social character of the Portland area.

The boundary, created in 1979, was initially considered a tool for “in-fill,” developing vacant land in already built-up areas. About 35% of the land inside the initial growth boundary was vacant, and the boundary was expected to accommodate at least 20 years of projected growth. Once filled, the boundary was supposed to expand to release additional land for development.

After 19 years, Portland’s regional planning authority, Metro, is not increasing the boundary sufficiently to meet new demand. Although 4,800 acres were added last fall, this represents an increase of just 2%. Meanwhile, the region’s population is expected to grow by 80% to 2.7 million people by 2040. Metro is now mandating dramatically higher population densities in existing cities to accommodate projected population growth.

The growth boundary is already having an impact on local housing prices. Portland State University planner and economist Gerry Mildner found that Portland’s housing prices rose by 61.5% from 1990 to 1995, faster than the U.S. median of 18.2% and 50 other large metropolitan areas including Seattle; Denver; San Antonio; Chicago; Charlotte, N.C.; Phoenix; Jacksonville, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; and Houston. Land prices in Portland have more than doubled since 1990.

All this might be worth it if the growth boundary helps preserve open space. Of course, open space is protected outside the boundary because property owners can’t sell their land for development even if they want to. Inside the boundary--where most people live--open space is not protected.

In fact, the whole point of the growth boundary is to fill up open space and farmland within the boundary. In Portland, a local government is attempting to rezone a golf course for high-density, mixed-use development to meet Metro’s density requirements. John Charles, environmental policy director for the Cascade Policy Institute in Portland, says: “Growth boundaries cause such a shortage of land that developers will eventually do in-fill projects on odd-shaped parcels and other lands that would not ordinarily become developed. This loss should not be minimized because vacant lots have almost as much value as parklands for many urban residents.”

Ventura County residents need look no further than Sacramento County to see how the politics of growth boundaries might evolve in Southern California. Sacramento County adopted an urban service boundary in 1993, hoping to contain land development by controlling roads, sewers and other infrastructure. The boundary was supposed to be a guideline, not a hard line beyond which growth would not occur.

Now tremendous pressure has emerged to prevent any development beyond the boundary. Take the case of Deer Creek Hills. Deer Creek is a master-planned housing and golf course project that dedicates 70% of its land to open space. The project, in the words of a top county planner, is the type that “everybody would be falling all over themselves to approve” if it were inside the boundary. Opponents are fighting it on the principle that any expansion of the boundary--no matter how well conceived or planned--is tantamount to caving into to environmental degradation and sprawl.

These conflicts are an inevitable consequence of politicizing land-use decisions, of which the urban growth boundary is simply the next step. A market-oriented approach to land use offers a way out of this tension and conflict.

Concerns about open space can be addressed through voluntary programs such as purchases of development rights or conservation easements through private land trusts.

Spontaneous market forces naturally direct developers to meet consumer preferences for homes and communities. By releasing land for new development based on what homeowners want, and what property owners and farmers are freely willing to sell, real estate markets ensure an adequate and affordable housing market. This is a process that should be supported by public policy, not constrained.