ISSUES WITH THE NORTH PLAINS UGB EXPANSION

Mountaindale Landowners and Farmers:

North Plains wants to build a semiconductor factory on several hundred acres of farmland in the NE corner of the Dersham Rd/Mountaindale Rd. interchange (exit 55). You have all seen what happened on Brookwood Parkway—they won't stop with just one factory. We must take action now to make our voices heard! 

Helvetia Residents:

Helvetia farmland, already severely impacted by Hillsboro's northward expansions, will see redoubled impacts from continued urban sprawl by North Plains. Such impacts include urban traffic, which is hazardous to moving farm equipment, disruptive urban lighting, ground water reductions, industrial noise and increased windfall sales pressure (to 45x value). These are deal-breaking problems for farmers who provide our region with a healthy future, an essential sense of place, and give economic contributions to both local and world markets. These expansions leave the farmers no place to grow their business.

North Plains Residents: 

This UGB expansion will forever change the city's rural way of life, making it look like it's inside Metro despite being in regional plans as a rural greenbelt. The city claims that rolling out the red carpet to tech industry will raise tax revenue, but this hasn't happened elsewhere and is unlikely to happen in North Plains. Hillsboro School District is giving almost $100M per year in tax breaks to Intel and other industries alone. Plus, most of the housing that the city envisions will be unaffordable—only developers and people who want to sell the best farmland in the world for millions of dollars will benefit.

Farmland Loss:

Our amazing Washington county farmland was given nutrient-rich topsoil that is among the best in the world due to the Missoula floods 15,000 years ago. Though this rich soil was once extensive, it does have a boundary. Like our farming, the good soil follows the broad river valleys. These are the same valleys where we've built our cities.

Yet, in just five years between 2012 and 2017, we lost about 30% of this land in Washington county. And we've only lost more in the five plus years since.

North Plains' proposed expansion would cover some 855 acres of class one and two farmland—the best classes in Oregon. This farmland is some of the best in the state. Some of this is TVID land—land with irrigation infrastructure and a long history of high production.

Such farmland cannot be replaced and should only be taken if other options have been exhausted and the trade offs are very compelling. North Plains neither looked carefully at the land to be taken, nor have they shown what compelling reason they are taking the land. The metric used by the consultants focused entirely on how new residents would be negatively affected by existing farm uses and not at how these new residents would interact with the long established businesses they were moving next to or displacing. And the ordinance found that the city did not need to consider Goals 3 and 4 for agriculture and forestry “because the City does not include area designated for agricultural use.” Similar language was used for Goal 5 Open Spaces, Scenic and Historic Areas, and Natural Resources and Goal 6 Air, Water and Land Resources Quality. If this were true, no city would ever need to consider the natural resources that it’s destroying in the process of expanding. The city’s review was cursory at best, and a more thorough review, involving affected stakeholders is needed.

Novel ideas, such as taking the already ruined farmland that makes up the private Pumpkin Ridge golf course, were not even considered. In fact, expansion toward uses that are not compatible with agricultural use, such as the development around the glider air strip and the golf course, were ignored. Others, such as 20 bipartisan members of the Oregon house, suggested just such a course of action for industrial development in the Washington County area in an open letter.

Wildlife Impacts:

North Plains did not consider the impacts that this proposed UGB expansion would have on wildlife.

Mountaindale has a resident herd of Roosevelt Elk, numbering between 35-75. This herd frequently comes down out of the hills to congregate, graze and calve in farm fields. The proposed site for a semiconductor factory is exactly one mile from the fields where these magnificent elk congregate.

A scientific review by the Washington Dept. of Fish & Wildlife found: “[When human disturbance] causes elk to reduce foraging time and/or increase energy expenditure by moving away from disturbances, or simply by moving more, then they experience a net energy deficit attributable to disturbance avoidance. [Researcher] Stankowich (2008) reviewed the extensive literature on flight responses of ungulates (including elk) following disturbance and found broad evidence that human activity consistently evokes avoidance behavior in this group.” Simply put, when humans encroach on elk habitat, elk move out. The creation of a high-tech development one mile from long-established elk habitat would have a devastating impact on elk and many other species of wildlife.

Mountaindale also sits in a long-established migration path for tundra swans, who migrate through Mountaindale every year in groups of hundreds and rest in seasonal wetlands, less than a half-mile from the proposed semiconductor site. According to the American Bird Conservancy, “pollution and wetland loss top the list [of biggest threats] along [Tundra Swan] migratory routes and on its wintering grounds.” Researchers Nemes et al. provide compelling data about the mortality to migratory birds due to anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) threats during their migratory journeys. These threats include artificial light pollution, noise pollution, collisions with buildings and other man-made structures, interference with orientation and navigation, exposure to toxic substances, and many more. 

Unaffordable Housing:

The city claims that it wants this expansion to end its bedroom community status, which is expensive to service with utilities and infrastructure. The city’s 2023 Housing Needs Analysis admits that the city has an affordable housing shortage. Single family detached homes are the least affordable to buyers, the most expensive for cities to serve, and the most wasteful of the land. Yet compared to an average of 61% single family detached homes in Washington County, North Plains’ share of single family detached housing has increased from 83% in 2000 to 88% in 2015-2019. In fact, ALL housing built in North Plains between 2005 and 2016 was single family detached. The plan would allow 70% of new homes to be single family detached, bringing North Plains share to 84%. This needs to be reconsidered if the city truly wishes to serve its residents, address its debts, and use its lands wisely. 

Unneeded Industrial Land:

The proposal also requests almost 700 acres of industrial land, including land to the West of town onto prime farmland served by the Tualatin Valley Irrigation District. The city has not demonstrated a need or demand for this industrial expansion—especially since land exists within current UGBs already served by infrastructure and closer to airports for semiconductor facilities. And there is no guarantee that the land will not be used by data  centers, which use tremendous amounts of water, contribute little in taxes to the local economy, and employ few people while wasting large parcels of land. The estimated land required is purely speculative, hypothetical, and displaces an existing industry—agriculture. 

Building Smart, Not Big:

North Plains is planning to sprawl out, when it hasn't considered building in. It overlooked acres of vacant or underdeveloped land within its UGB that could have been used for housing and commercial purposes. This includes a large swath along Commercial Street. If the city can't establish a grocery store or fix sidewalks in its current city limits, it should not expand into broad swaths of land that will be very expensive to provide services to.

Expensive Sprawl:

The city erroneously assumes that industry will solve its economic woes. Hillsboro has been down this road for over 3 decades, yet an article in the Oregonian states that “[in 2017] alone, Washington County says Intel saved $193 million overall through property tax breaks on its equipment.” The article goes on to say that in 2014, “Washington County and Hillsboro signed off on a 30-year package of tax breaks worth roughly $2 billion to Intel over the life of the deal.” As just one result, “Good Jobs First, an advocacy organization that tracks government spending on economic development, found the Hillsboro School District forgoes $96.7 million a year due to local tax breaks. That is the most of any district in the nation, by far.” Id.

With cities bending over backward to forego taxes and sacrifice their public services to attract businesses like Intel why would similar businesses ever locate to North Plains that wants to use them to actually raise tax revenue?