Urban Growth Boundary | Grants Pass 2030

There is detailed state law governing UGBs, and Oregon law requires every city to have a UGB with a 20-year land supply. Cities and counties must adopt comprehensive plans for UGBs that address a variety of issues described in state law. Plans must address land use, transportation, public facilities and services, natural resources and open space, etc. In general, certain urban services such as sewer, water, etc. are only provided to urban or urbanizable lands within UGBs (and some other designated unincorporated community boundaries). Also, in general, cities can only annex those lands within UGBs, since they are the lands planned for urban development and provision of urban services.

State law allows for local control of how UGBs are managed. Grants Pass and Josephine County have an intergovernmental agreement that governs coordination for planning and development for the UGB.

• The city's first UGB was established in the early 1980s. It has continued to meet the land needs beyond the estimated needs for the original twenty year period (1980-2000) with only a few small changes over time.
• In the mid-1990s, the city began "periodic review", and completed review and updates to the Comprehensive Plan. At that time, it was not necessary to change the UGB to meet needs through 2010.
• In 2006, the current review of the Urban Growth Boundary and Comprehensive Plan began. The first part of the review determined that much of the need through 2030 can still be met within the current UGB, but there is also a need for additional land in the UGB to meet needs through 2030. Therefore, the next steps are underway to determine how to best meet the needs.

Regardless of the state law, planning is important to ensure issues are pro-actively identified and planned for to protect our quality of life. Planning isn't done overnight-it takes time. There are several steps and this occurs over a period of years. We want to plan for important issues before they become urgent, and allow time to get it right.

This work isn't just about the size of a boundary, but what will occur over the next 20 years. The plan will address the needs for adequate lands for employment and family-wage jobs, housing needs for the workforce and an aging population, and quality of life to ensure Grants Pass retains the sense of hometown and remains a desirable place to live, work, raise a family, and retire.

Between 2000 and 2050, the ratio of working Americans to retired Americans will decline from 5:1 to 2:1. This trend has major implications for how communities will be planned over the next several decades to meet the needs of an older population. On average, Grants Pass and Josephine County already have a higher median age than the state or country. Household size and composition is changing. Most growth in Grants Pass and Josephine County is due to people moving here, despite the large number of people also moving to other areas. Many are near retirement and many are families with children.

As people who are already here begin to retire from all parts of the workforce, it will be necessary to ensure there are people to fill those jobs and new jobs if the community is to remain economically vital and provide family-wage jobs and services desired by residents. As with other sectors, many people will retire from the health care sector at a time when there is growing demand for those services. Quality of life is important to those who live here now, and it is also important to employers and employees deciding where to locate. Quality of life makes good economic sense.

The area has some challenges created by its geographic setting. The natural topography that contributes to the beauty also makes it challenging to find enough large, flat sites to attract some new businesses and to enable existing businesses to expand.

The Rogue River, the natural hilly terrain, and the railroad also create some challenges in creating a well-connected transportation network that allows for traffic to be distributed. While most of the system has that connectivity, there are obvious bottlenecks that concentrate traffic which don't have easy solutions.

This is about 16% of the current UGB. This additional need accounts for a balance to meet some of the need in the current UGB and some through expansion. Feedback from the community indicated that meeting the need entirely within the current UGB would result in building too densely, but that some measures are needed to reduce the size of a UGB expansion and avoid sprawl.

We are now seeking public input to help look at the different options and evaluate which of those are the best options. The process includes work with a volunteer committee representing a variety of perspectives. They serve as the first level of public involvement. The Committee looks at technical issues as well as public input before considering and making recommendations at each step. They have hosted a public workshop and public open houses, and made recommendations. The committee's recommendations are considered and final decisions are made through the public hearing processes with the Urban and Rural Planning Commissions, Board of County Commissioners, and City Council. The work is then "acknowledged" by the state and becomes part of the updated Comprehensive Plan.

We have developed a range of concepts as a starting point for preliminary evaluation and public input. We want to know what you think about these concepts, and whether you think one of these, some variation, or a different concept represents the best growth pattern. We will then use that input together with technical data to develop a preliminary preferred alternative. We will then seek input on the preliminary alternative to help refine it.

Your participation will help identify issues with different ideas, identify common areas of agreement and preference, and to help understand important quality of life issues in addition to technical considerations. All of the input received will be considered to help formulate recommendations as different concepts are evaluated, selected, and refined. Please check the project website or contact staff if you need additional information or have questions.

Public facility issues are reviewed as different possible growth patterns are considered. In addition, once a boundary location has been decided, detailed work will begin to update the public facility plans that will specify what improvements are needed as new growth occurs.

As part of this work, there will be important discussions and decisions about how and when urban zoning would be applied to properties newly included in the UGB. It is important that you provide input in each phase of this work.