Bend newspaper favors city sprawl, not sustainability

Bend is a great city in central Oregon. My wife and I have envisioned ourselves living there someday.

But the Bend newspaper, the Bulletin, should recognize that editorializing in favor of LA-like sprawl rather than sustainability isn't going to encourage environmentally-minded people to move to the area.

There's plenty of places in the country where subdivisions checkerboard the countryside and big box stores dominate the shopping landscape. In fact, Bend already has done a good (actually, bad) job of uglifying itself along its major highways.

Yet today the not-so-wise editorial board of the Bulletin whipped itself into a frenzy, castigating Greg Macpherson -- a member of the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) -- for daring to suggest that Bend's desire to increase the size of its Urban Growth Boundary by 40% needs some rethinking.

Here's some of what Macpherson said in a Bulletin opinion piece last Wednesday, which was republished today. (Annoyingly the Bulletin doesn't make its content freely available online. I had to fork out 50 cents to access the Macpherson piece and the editorial, which I've appended at the end of this post.)

Urban Growth Boundaries are a great Oregon innovation — one of the ways the state earned its reputation for environmental leadership. UGBs separate town from country, farm from shopping mall, and forest from subdivision. They also help ensure that cities carefully consider how to grow, to keep costs down while providing land for needed jobs and housing.

...The requirements of Oregon's statewide planning program can help Bend become an even better place to live. Infill of vacant space inside the existing UGB will cost residents less for new roads, sewers and water lines. More compact development will improve access to public transportation. Large undeveloped spaces will be preserved for the educational and industrial uses that enhance economic opportunity. Lower-cost public services will make housing more affordable. A reduction in the average vehicle miles traveled per resident will reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Oregon's statewide planning goals promote all these aims and more.

In any planning process, it's important to embrace the opportunity for positive change. In 30 years, Bend should not look like a larger version of just what it is now. It should adapt to a changing economy and evolving lifestyles. The decision on the size and location of its UGB is an important part of this process.

Not exactly a wildly radical statement.

The Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), which is overseen by the LCDC, sent back Bend's Urban Growth Boundary expansion proposal for more work. The voluminous record of the review can be read here. A press release summarized why the proposal got an "incomplete" grade.
Download Bend UGB press release

When I scanned the 169 page DLCD order remanding Bend's proposal, a lot of good arguments for doing this caught my eye. Seemingly the city doesn't need anywhere near the amount of land that it wants to urbanize, choosing sprawl over sustainability for no good reasons.

Bend should realize that it is part of Oregon, not an independent principality run by the Bulletin, the Chamber of Commerce, and real estate developers. The editorial board got all huffy about -- gasp! -- applying state land use laws to Bend.

The DLCD has reviewed Bend’s proposal to expand its urban growth boundary and found it wanting. In a nutshell, the DLCD wants Bend to develop much more densely than the city’s residents and elected officials do, the ideal apparently being a miniature version of Portland bounded by mile after mile of forest and desert.

...Macpherson now lectures the benighted citizens of Bend about the benefits of land-use restrictions that will make their housing more affordable, their carbon footprints more dainty, their infrastructure cheaper and public transportation more workable.

Problem is, this would require Bend to develop in a way that most people who live here oppose, which is why their elected representatives on city council approved the UGB expansion they did. Macpherson glibly dismisses the desires of Bend residents by spouting pablum: “In any planning process it’s important to embrace the opportunity for positive change.”

Hmmmm.

So the Bend Bulletin editorial board apparently is in favor of unaffordable housing, more global warming, expensive infrastructure, and unworkable public transportation.

Wow, if I really believed, as the editorial claims, that this represents the desire of the city's residents, I'd immediately scratch Bend off of my list of possible places to move to one day.

What's also crazy about the pave it over attitude of the editorial board is this: the Bend housing market sucks. In 2008 it was the second most over-valued market in the country. Not surprisingly, in 2009 Bend crashed back to reality, hard. 

With one of the nation’s slowest housing markets, Bend has led the state of Oregon to the fifth-worst housing market in the country for default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

...Deschutes County — where Bend is located — experienced one foreclosure per 168 homes, 14 percent worse than Wayne, County, Michigan, home to Detroit and the troubled auto industry.

Jim Homolka, president of Re/Max Equity Group Inc., called Bend a classic example of a market that soared too high. “The market got overheated and overpriced and it just stopped,” he said. Last fall, Re/Max Equity Group elected to close its Bend office after concluding it will take too long for the market to recover.

Yet somehow the Bend Bulletin (which I'll bet is echoing it's lord and master, the Chamber of Commerce, given how advertising revenue drives newspaper decisions nowadays) concludes that the solution to overbuilding and urban sprawl is...(drumroll, please) more overbuilding and urban sprawl.

Well, hopefully the sensible citizens of Bend will pressure city leaders to do what is right for the long term, not what short-sighted politicians and business types are advocating.

Like almost everyone who loves central Oregon -- we're part owners of a cabin in Camp Sherman, about 45 minutes from Bend -- I don't want to see the Bend area become a miniaturized version of southern California, with the countryside eaten up by sprawling subdivisions and the city dominated by ugly strip malls, traffic jams, and a declining downtown. 

Sadly, this seems to be what the Bend Bulletin wants. Hopefully the state's land use planning process will continue to protect what the editorial board doesn't care about: a beautiful, sustainable, livable Bend.

Bend should embrace ‘positive change' and develop more densely

By Greg Macpherson / Bulletin guest columnist

Published: June 05. 2010 4:00AM PST

Editor's note : This piece, which appeared on Wednesday, accompanies the editorial above.

Urban Growth Boundaries are a great Oregon innovation — one of the ways the state earned its reputation for environmental leadership. UGBs separate town from country, farm from shopping mall, and forest from subdivision. They also help ensure that cities carefully consider how to grow, to keep costs down while providing land for needed jobs and housing.

The city of Bend established its UGB in 1981. In 2009, the city expanded the Bend UGB by 8,462 acres, an increase of about 40 percent. However, the expansion cannot go forward without approval by the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission.

Recently, the LCDC concluded its review of the Bend UGB expansion. We labored through reams of written analysis and finished four days of argument by the city and the many other parties who appealed the decision on no fewer than 62 issues.

We learned a lot about Bend's dramatic population growth over recent decades. It was easy to understand the attraction of the area on the bright, sunny March and May days when LCDC met in Bend.

We learned about the hot market for single-family homes through most of the last decade and the slump that hit as the national housing bubble burst. These market forces have left Bend with a surplus of high-end homes and a shortage of the affordable housing needed for the service workers who make up much of the local work force.

Some presenters told LCDC that Bend is different from other Oregon communities and should be allowed to accommodate the lifestyles so attractive to newcomers. They argued for more flexible interpretations of state rules for UGB expansions.

There is no question that Central Oregon is a special place. A scenic backdrop of snowy peaks, access to outdoor recreation and sophisticated consumer offerings combine to give it tremendous appeal. Livability clearly is a major driver of Bend's economy.

At the same time, the requirements of Oregon's statewide planning program can help Bend become an even better place to live. Infill of vacant space inside the existing UGB will cost residents less for new roads, sewers and water lines. More compact development will improve access to public transportation. Large undeveloped spaces will be preserved for the educational and industrial uses that enhance economic opportunity. Lower-cost public services will make housing more affordable. A reduction in the average vehicle miles traveled per resident will reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Oregon's statewide planning goals promote all these aims and more.

In any planning process, it's important to embrace the opportunity for positive change. In 30 years, Bend should not look like a larger version of just what it is now. It should adapt to a changing economy and evolving lifestyles. The decision on the size and location of its UGB is an important part of this process.

Recently, LCDC sent the expansion of Bend's UGB back to the city for it to reconsider some aspects of its decision and to strengthen the city's case supporting it. In that process, the city will need to reconsider some of its assumptions about how it will grow and choices about where that growth will occur.

Fortunately, the city has very skilled leaders and planning professionals. By applying their talents to the next phase of the work on the UGB expansion, they can make Bend an even greater community than it is today.

Greg Macpherson, of Lake Oswego, is a member of the Land Conservation and Development Commission.

----------------------------------------

LCDC member’s insulting lecture

Published: June 05. 2010 4:00AM PST

If you thought Oregon’s land use laws provided for a sober and objective analysis of cities’ plans for growth, check out Greg Macpherson’s In My View piece, “Bend should embrace ‘positive change’ and develop more densely.” It appeared originally Wednesday, but we’ve decided to run it again. Why? Because the only thing better than being patronized once by a powerful state official is being patronized twice.

Macpherson serves on the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC), an appointed board that oversees the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). The DLCD has reviewed Bend’s proposal to expand its urban growth boundary and found it wanting. In a nutshell, the DLCD wants Bend to develop much more densely than the city’s residents and elected officials do, the ideal apparently being a miniature version of Portland bounded by mile after mile of forest and desert.

The city appealed the DLCD’s decision to Macpherson’s panel, which in turn sent the expansion proposal back to Bend for “improvement.” The city will have to take its work back to the panel at least once, and possibly numerous times. You’d think, therefore, that LCDC members would maintain a respectful silence, if for no other reason than to maintain the appearance of objectivity.

But not Macpherson. Once a politician, always a politician. The former representative from tony Lake Oswego ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2008. Gov. Kulongoski subsequently appointed him to the LCDC, and from that perch Macpherson now lectures the benighted citizens of Bend about the benefits of land-use restrictions that will make their housing more affordable, their carbon footprints more dainty, their infrastructure cheaper and public transportation more workable.

Problem is, this would require Bend to develop in a way that most people who live here oppose, which is why their elected representatives on city council approved the UGB expansion they did. Macpherson glibly dismisses the desires of Bend residents by spouting pablum: “In any planning process it’s important to embrace the opportunity for positive change.”

A graduate of Georgetown University’s law school and partner at the prestigious Stoel Rives law firm, Macpherson is no dummy. So he must have suspected that his op-ed piece, at once patronizing and insulting, would infuriate officials and councilors in Bend (as it has). And he should have realized that it would practically confirm what many people on the east side of the Cascades have said about the state’s land use system for years: that it’s the rigid product of Willamette Valley urbanites who have little interest in the east-side communities it handcuffs so inappropriately.

Why toss aside the modesty an LCDC member should observe in order to deliver a lecture guaranteed to irritate the very people it ostensibly aims to persuade? One possibility is that Macpherson, all evidence to the contrary, is out to lunch. We don’t believe that. It’s far more likely, as Bend Councilor Jeff Eager suspects, that he’s using his land-use post to burnish his ideological résumé. The LCDC is something of a political detour for an ambitious guy like Macpherson, who so recently aspired to be attorney general. Sooner or later, he’s likely to run for statewide office again. And when he does, he can now say he used his tenure on the LCDC to defend the integrity of Oregon’s land use system against an assault by the wayward people of Bend. It’s possible, in other words, that Macpherson’s patronizing little lecture was intended largely to impress future voters in Portland.

We suppose it’s Macpherson’s prerogative to use his LCDC seat as a political platform, but it does call his objectivity into question. Does he really intend to apply the law even-handedly to Bend’s proposal, or is his judgment hopelessly clouded by his apparent desire to score political points? Officials and residents of Bend shouldn’t have to wonder. If Macpherson cares about the integrity of the state’s land use system, he should recuse himself from all future decisions regarding Bend’s UGB.

Comments

[M]

Surely I can't be the only one snickering about the hypocrisy of your post, as you bemoan "sprawl" from the comfort of your 3200 square foot home on 5.1 acres.

[Brian Hines]

M, we live in an area that was developed prior to Oregon's pioneering land use laws going into effect. So there wasn't a question of trying to go around those laws, as Bend is trying to do. Our house and lot are totally legal, whereas Bend's urban growth boundary expansion isn't, or it would have been approved by DLCD.

[M]

Brian, with all due respect, that's a cop-out. All of the reasons people rail against sprawl (Increased vehicle miles travelled, lack of public transportation, increased infrastructure costs, loss of farm/forest land, etc etc) have nothing to do with whether your lot & house were put in before Senate Bill 100 passed. To hide behind that just makes you look silly.

[phastphil]

Those of us that live in Bend have suffered with the Bend Bulletin's Editorial Board for years and what's even sadder as time goes by they get progressively worse. As the saying goes they're "just to the right of Attila the Hun". What is sad is like they used to ask about the about the Wall Street Journal is: "Does the Editorial Board actually read their own newspaper?".