REDRAWING BOUNDARIES.

Byline: Jack Moran The Register-Guard

It's no secret that elected officials in Eugene and Springfield don't always agree on the pace of growth in the metro area.

The development-friendly Springfield City Council is typically open to looking at ways to build on the outskirts of town. Meanwhile, Eugene's slow-growth councilors want to focus on redeveloping their city's urban core and filling in vacant or underdeveloped lots.

That philosophical divide has caused friction because the two cities are enveloped by a joint urban growth boundary that neither city can significantly expand to include more buildable land unless the other city agrees to it.

Now comes a proposed change in state law - initially drafted by the Oregon Home Builders Association - that would tear up the 35-year-old joint urban growth boundary arrangement. Instead, Eugene and Springfield would each have their own growth boundary and each city would be able to expand it without the other's consent.

Springfield officials fully support the bill - HB 3337 - which they say would give each city more autonomy in planning.

"Any time you can gain control over your own destiny when you're talking about land use, it's a good thing," said Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken, a proponent of the legislation drafted by an attorney for the builders group and sponsored by Rep. Terry Beyer, D-Springfield.

But Eugene city leaders - who, unlike their counterparts in Springfield, were not approached by the builders' group before the bill was initiated - oppose the plan.

"We did not get notification that this piece of legislation would be taken to Salem," Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy said. "I feel pretty strongly that we shouldn't tear apart our metro-area partnership."

The core of the dispute appears to be, in part, about whether or not there's enough buildable residential land within the Eugene-Springfield area urban growth boundary.

Land within the growth boundary generally is open to intensive development, and land outside of it typically is not. Springfield has been keen to study whether the residential land supply is adequate - which could lead to a push to expand the urban growth boundary. But Eugene is unwilling to study the residential supply.

The adequacy of the land supply is a key element in hot-button issues such as home prices, suburban sprawl, downtown revitalization, and public infrastructure and service costs.

East of Interstate 5, Springfield officials have listened to the pleas of local home builders and are weeks away from learning the results of a study that will show how much land their city will need for new homes over the next 20 years.

A majority of Eugene's council, on the other hand, disagrees with that approach and voted earlier this year not to order a similar analysis until state officials require it, regardless of the building community's claims.

Rather than support freeing up land on the outskirts of the metro area for new subdivisions, the Eugene council's policy is to curb sprawl by increasing development density inside the city.

Eugene's position on the land study issue disappointed Springfield councilors and local builders. Both groups suspect that residential land in the metro area is in short supply, which can push up housing prices and force young families to look to outlying communities for affordable homes.

Besides splitting the metro area into two growth boundaries, the bill would require both Eugene and Springfield to complete separate residential land supply studies within two years of the law's effective date. The legislation would apply to no other Oregon city.

"This bill would unreasonably treat us differently from anyone else in the state," Piercy said.

Under existing state regulations, cities have great flexibility on how often they conduct land supply studies, and the state rarely intercedes to mandate a study.

Earlier this week, the seven-member state House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee voted 6-1 to send the bill to the House floor, where it is expected to be introduced early next month.

The proposal's land study requirement does not pose a problem for Springfield, which, with financial help from the Home Builders Association of Lane County, has nearly completed a citywide residential land analysis that it began last year.

But such a study would be a chore for Eugene officials, who don't view the issue as a high priority and have been under the impression that the state Department of Land Conservation and Development won't require such an analysis for several more years.

"We are in compliance and doing what is expected of us right now," Piercy said.

Eugene and Springfield in 1999 completed a joint state-approved study of residential land in the metro area. It was based on 1995 data and concluded that the supply for new homes would last until 2015. State law requires metropolitan areas to review their land inventory periodically to ensure that a 20-year supply exists to accommodate housing and business expansion.

Bob Rindy, a policy analyst for the state Department of Land Conservation and Development, said the agency would prefer the metro area's growth boundary be kept intact.

"We informed the (House) committee that we would like to encourage regional planning, rather than single plans" for each city, Rindy said. "We would like to see them keep one boundary and work on (a residential land study) over the next two years."

But, he added, `This (legislation) isn't something we're going to oppose. In general, this department ... has maintained that urban growth boundaries need to be replenished on some regular basis, because a 20-year land supply has the effect of keeping housing affordable and keeping sites available for new industry.'

During the past two years, the Home Builders Association has urged each city to update its residential land study, but found only officials in Springfield open to the idea.

The Springfield council hired Eugene-based consulting firm ECONorthwest to complete an analysis of projected housing demands in Springfield for the next 20 years.

The city is paying half the cost of the $35,920 study, with the builders' group funding the remainder.

Meanwhile, Springfield planners are counting up the amount of buildable land on their city's side of the urban growth boundary.

Results of both studies should be available next month. Preliminary results indicate there is an approximate 500-acre shortage in Springfield's 20-year residential land supply, city planner Mark Metzger said.