From sadie.carney at state.or.us Fri Dec 8 10:30:56 2017 From: sadie.carney at state.or.us (Carney, Sadie) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 18:30:56 +0000 Subject: [LandUse-News] Land Use News for December 8, 2017 Message-ID: <5BFC63B298A82F4F9C841F27468D2DF02C0CE618@DLCDSXCH05.dlcd.state.or.us> Welcome to this week's roundup of the Land Use News! The Land Use News is an electronic news clipping service provided by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). Land Use News emphasizes local reporting, agency announcements and commentary on land use in Oregon and other states. The links to copyrighted news stories in Land Use News are not archived by DLCD, and the archiving policies of these sources vary. The stories, if available, reside on the site of the original news source. Please direct requests for archived stories, or permission to reprint them, to the original news source. Past Land Use News weekly e-mails may be found here: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/landuse-news Anyone may subscribe, unsubscribe, or change their subscription to the free service by visiting this site: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/landuse-news. ________________________________ State approves Comp Plan update, appeal planned Portland Tribune The Multnomah County Neighborhood Association, which filed one of the most significant objections, is already preparing to appeal the approval to the appointed Land Conservation and Development Commission that oversees the department. The association must file its appeal within 21 days of the approval. The commission could consider the appeal at its March 15-16 meeting in Salem. Christmas tree shortage causes higher prices this year Pamplin Media Group The amount of trees cut and sold by Oregon growers dropped more than 30 percent and farms decreased from 699 to 485 between 2010 and 2015, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture data. Nationally, around 3,300 Christmas tree farms operated in 2016 compared to about 17,500 in 2006, according to research from the Freedonia Group. It's census time for Oregon farmers, ranchers KTVZ "That comes from strong participation in the census by producers. Programs that help farmers and ranchers in Oregon rely on good data to support that assistance. There is no better source for detailed information than the census." Acreage data continues to be of special interest to officials in Oregon, where population pressures have created a strong debate on land use and protection of farmland- particularly in the rich and fertile Willamette Valley. Central Oregon Zoning Pits Mule Deer Against Churches OPB News A rural central Oregon county is wading into a long-running zoning debate that pits mule deer against churches. Mule deer numbers have been declining since the 1970s as development encroached on their traditional winter range, according to comments submitted by Central Oregon Landwatch, which opposes zoning changes. Enough Love The Source Weekly (press release) (blog) Whether for hiking, biking, climbing or just taking photos, there's no doubt that Smith Rock State Park is an appealing stop in Central Oregon. Travel Oregon capitalized on that with its "7 Wonders of Oregon" marketing campaign, including the park as one of the wonders of Oregon. That campaign is one of the reason Al Dertinger, a Terrebonne resident, believes the park has gotten so much busier. Redmond Realtor Zika files to seek House District 53 seat KTVZ Redmond Realtor and city Planning Commission member Jack Zika announced Tuesday his candidacy for the Oregon House District 53 seat being vacated by fellow Republican Gene Whisnant of Sunriver. "As a Realtor and planning commissioner, I understand our housing crisis and am committed to advocating for solutions that will alleviate it. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tells US housing secretary Ben Carson to 'step aside' OregonLive.com Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Wednesday launched a series of tweets at U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson for saying on NPR that government funding is not the only solution to the West Coast's growing homeless population and affordable housing crisis. Central Oregon families struggle to find affordable housing KTVZ BEND, Ore. - It's a story we've heard many times before: the struggle to find housing in Central Oregon -- and then the fight to be able to afford it. Samantha McCracken said Tuesday she has been trying to find a shared living space with another single parent, and it hasn't been easy. "The waitlists are huge, getting into somewhere. And then finding somewhere that's clean and willing to take a single mom on a single income is difficult," she said. Portland's 'infill' plan must be bolder: Letter to the editor OregonLive.com The residential infill project needs to be bolder and go farther. Denser development should be allowed everywhere, not just where transit is already good. Other than the gamble of light rail, transit follows development, rather than leading it. Critics demand public vote on infill Portland Tribune Supporters include affordable housing advocates, local home builders and the 1000 Friends of Oregon land-use watchdog group. "The other way to add housing is to sprawl, but that's no good - it just means longer commutes, more cars, more pavement, more infrastructure costs on the public and less nature within reach. Every home we add to our current urban area is one that doesn't slice up a farm or forest," says Medline Kovacs, program coordinator for Portland for Everyone, a project of 1000 Friends of Oregon that supports most of the recommendations. Work begins on affordable apartments in NorthWest Crossing Bend Bulletin Azimuth, which broke ground in NorthWest Crossing in November, almost didn't become a reality this year because of turmoil in the market for low-income housing tax credits, which are a key source of financing. And now Oregon's affordable-housing agency and developers are scrambling to ensure that similar projects can take advantage of tax0exempt bonds, which would be eliminated by a tax-reform package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Tax overhaul could chill US affordable housing construction KIRO Seattle PORTLAND, Ore. - Municipal governments worry the tax overhaul in Washington, D.C. could chill the construction of affordable housing as homelessness reaches a crisis point on the West Coast. Officials with the housing authority in Portland, Oregon, said Tuesday the U.S. could lose nearly 1 million units of affordable housing over 10 years if the final bill eliniates the tax0exempt status for a type of bond commonly used by developers to finance affordable housing. West Coast Housing Crisis Drives Up US Homeless Population CBS San Francisco Bay Area While the overall homeless population in California, Oregon and Washington grew by 14 percent over the past two years, the part of that population considered unsheltered climbed 23 percent to 108,000. That is in part due a shortage of affordable housing. In booming Seattle, for example, the HUD report shows the unsheltered populations grew by 44 percent over two years to nearly 5,500. While housing prices may be high in your area, they're actually becoming more affordable overall Washington Post The Black Knight report looked at state-level data to analyze differences between various housing markets. Only Hawaii, California, Oregon and the District have higher payment-to-income ratios now than their longer-term benchmarks. Jordan Cove imperils Oregon The Register-Guard Page after page, DOGAMI describes Jordan Cove's information as incomplete, unclear, incomprehensible, misleading, outdated or contrary to modern science and engineering. DOGAMI asserts that Jordan Cove has a flawed understanding of the potential Cascadian earthquake and tsunami, to the point that public sagety is at risk. East Oregon commissioners to weigh in on forest plan in DC Capital Press Fearing increased stubble height along endangered species-bearing streams in public grazing allotments would reduce grazing and harm local economies, Harney County Commissioner Mark Owens and other members of the association asked Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, to intervene on their behalf with the federal agencies. State must resolve conflicting solar, farmland policies Capital Press Oregon has strict land use laws and policies meant to preserve farmland. In 2007 Oregon adopted a renewable energy standard that requires 25 percent of the state's energy to be produced by renewable sources by 2025. Trump urged to shrink Cascade-Siskiyou after Utah monument reductions kgw.com "These places, like so many other public lands (including Oregon's own Cascade-Siskiyou), hold cultural, environmental, economic, and recreational value that belong to all Americans, not just a select few. Honoring Native American cultural artifacts and celebrating the incredible biodiversity of these places should be of paramount importance for our nation's leaders. Instead, the administration is opening the door for private industry to strip them bare," Blumenauer said. Homeowners caught up in Portland sidewalk infill measure aimed at developers OregonLive.com The unexpected bill was a Local Transportation Infrastructure Charge, created in 2016 to help fill out the city's patchy sidewalk grid. It requires property owners who build on a street without curbs or sidewalks to either build the street improvements themselves or pay $600 per linear foot of street frontage. Leading Oregon renewable energy advocate to resign Portland Business Journal Rachel Shimshak, a leading figure in the Northwest's transition to renewable energy over the past two decades, is stepping down as executive director of Renewable Northwest, effective June next year, the advocacy group announced late Wednesday. No, Your City Is Not Overcrowded Planetizen In Manhattan (where I live), one common argument against building any new housing is that the city is "overcrowded" and needs fewer people. This argument is not possible to disprove, since "overcrowding" is a subjective concept: my idea of crowding is your idea of energetic. Having said that, the "overcrowding argument: against new housing is based on a questionable assumption: the idea that if you don't build housing, people will just magically disappear from New York and other cities, causing the city to turn into some sort of small-town paradise. Mapping the Country's Debt Planetizen An interactive map from the Urban Institute invites comparisons in the geography of debt. Sierra Foothill Conservancy in Mariposa County Awarded $2205000 as Cap-and-Trade Funded ... Sierra Sun Times The Council launched the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALC) in 2014 and works with the Department of Conservation to identify potential projects. The $33.9 million in grant awards approved this year will preserve 46,253 acres of irreplaceable agricultural land and, by limiting development, reduce emissions by eliminating nearly 55 billion potential vehicle miles over a 30-year period. Editorial: Busting our land use rules? Sonoma Valley Sun Urban growth boundaries, community separators, growth management ordinances, and zoning regulations, not to mention sewer plant capacity, water availability, traffic and other infrastructure systems; all these are intrinsically related to how we use the land and the rules that govern that use. Thus protecting agricultural land from sprawl with UGB limitations requires policies of in-fill and higher density within the UGB. Sadie K Carney | Rural Policy Analyst/Communications Manager Director's Office Oregon Dept. of Land Conservation and Development 635 Capitol Street NE, Suite 150 | Salem, OR 97301-2540 Direct: (503) 934-0036 | Cell: (503) 383-6648 | Main: (503) 373-0050 sadie.carney at state.or.us | www.oregon.gov/LCD/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: