Community Announcement – Hillsboro Herald – Press Release from Friends Of Smart Growth-
Editorial Comment-
The following is a posting by FriendsOfSmartGrowth.org – This meeting is the ONLY opportunity our communities have to gather on this land use growth issue- the City of Hillsboro and Senator Janeen Sollman are running a bill through Salem to fight for 1,700 Acres of pristine farmland to be added to the Urban Growth Boundary. This process is circumventing community input and will not accept public comments from the people of Hillsboro or Washington County! This is a land grab of epic proporation and Senator Sollman and Mayor Beach Pace of Hillsboro, as well as County Commissioner Pam Treece, who is running for control of Washington County, have all accepted sizable political contributions from some of the land owners of the 1,700 acres- this in and of itself excludes the credibility of these leaders. This looks more like a Monopoly game than any form of good policy-making. Everyone needs to wake up to this issue.
PRESS RELEASE – Sollman’s Sixth Attempt at Hillsboro Land Grab – This time for Data Centers:
Attend the Informational Session on January 30, 5-6 pm at the Unitarian Church of Christ in Forest Grove to learn more
Senator Janeen Sollman is at it again. After major public opposition to her last failed attempt at a land grab of 373 acres northwest of Hillsboro, and with no public hearings on the subject in the meantime, Senator Sollman is going over her constituents’ heads to ask the legislature to bring in even more land. This time, she says it’s for advanced manufacturing, but the reason for bringing this land into the city is different in every bill – it’s not about the businesses or jobs, it’s about the land.
Land values northwest of Hillsboro will increase from about $20,000 per acre to about $1 million per acre. Landowners in the 1,700 acres banded together under the Northwest Hillsboro Alliance to advocate for bringing their land into Hillsboro’s Urban Growth Boundary ever since they were told by the legislature that the land would remain rural for the next 50 years in the “Grand Bargain” of 2014. And they are very close with Sollman. Their proposals, which Sollman has pushed almost every session that she’s served in the legislature, would give them massive wealth, but saddle the city with infrastructure costs for decades.
Our reporting on the leaked memo from Mayor Beach Pace found that Hillsboro’s speculative and extremely high-level development prospectus would not break even for 34 to 35 years, if at all. That is generations in the tech industry, and by that time, tech and data centers would look extremely different.
While we have yet to see the actual bill, Sollman and Hillsboro claim that Senate Bill 1586 would exclude “stand-alone” data centers. But data centers are not prohibited – the outline they shared with the legislature allows any number and size of data centers as long as they are “accessory to an advanced manufacturing facility.” Given what the city has done with its 1,100-acre, 50-year industrial land supply in the last 12 years – filling it with 29 data centers and counting – that is an exception that will likely drive the rule.
Adding insult to injury, Sollman’s bill would extend the already extremely generous Enterprise Zone property tax credits from 5 years to 10 years. Tax breaks like this are depriving the state and local government of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Hillsboro School District lost $128 million in tax revenue to these tax breaks in 2024 alone. And the state lost $330 million in revenue last year due to these breaks. Hillsboro and Sollman’s 6-page development prospectus claims that the cost of development will be borne by taxes from the new industry, but it is unclear how that will materialize, even over the long term, if these tax breaks are extended.
In all, this is backroom deal to give away Hillsboro’s land, water, and taxes in exchange for very few jobs and a plan that isn’t so much “economic development” as an economic windfall to a few landowners and already wealthy businesses. The Senator should pull back her bill immediately, and it should not be considered by the legislature.
To learn more about the history of this land grab, what’s at stake, and how you can raise your voice, attend the Informational Session organized by Friends of Smart Growth.
What: Informational Session on Sollman’s Land Grab
When: Friday, January 30, 2026, from 5:00-6:00 pm, followed by a march to the town hall from 6:30-8:00 pm
Where: Info Session at United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way, Forest Grove
Town Hall at Pacific University’s McCready Hall, Forest Grove
Website and RSVP here, Facebook post here
Please note that the only topic that will be discussed at the Town Hall is ICE. No other questions will be entertained. But Senator Sollman has held no other public hearings on her bill that would have massive impacts on the people of Hillsboro. There is no other opportunity between now and the start of legislative session to give her feedback on her proposal. Protest signs and chants will be kept outside the town hall out of respect for the hearing and the topic. But the message to Sollman will be clear – her constituents do not want her to give away land, water, and taxes for a low-jobs industry when there is plenty of land already inside Hillsboro.
Gotta request. Going forward please orient the maps so that North is Up? I’m used to looking at maps, and am familiar with the area — when I look at the maps above they make no sense unless I stand on my head.
Other than that thanks so much for your great and solitary local coverage to my home town. 1700 acres? We’ll all miss it when it’s gone.
with warmth,
Jim
Good suggestion. Or place a North arrow on the map.
Sollman can’t have it both ways.
If she wants to have a group hug about ICE – something she can’t do anything about and probably wouldn’t if she could – then the following question should be put to her:
“You want to stop ICE from harassing, detaining, and deporting a lot of Oregon’s farm labor, among other workers, okay… So why do you want to pave over protected farmland in a world that’s losing over 24 billion tons of soil each year?
Because by paving over farmland for data centers – ahem “advanced manufacturing” – you’re making ag labor all the more vulnerable to ICE and their supporters, who in addition to their racism and xenophobia, are basically deleting what plutocrats and their technocrats view as obsolete workers.”
These two things, while seemingly unrelated or peripheral, are indeed very much related or at least adjacent.
Not that Janeen thinks at that level, but the question should at least be asked and the thought seeded.
Also, if we’re going to protest Trumps’ disregard of the law, then why are local Democrats ignoring land use law here?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. We know why. and it’s repugnant. I’m sorry to say that the hypocrisy isn’t surprising, given the state of the Democratic Party.
As for other local Dems behind this, theiy’re simply technocratic liberals who have a millenarian like zeal for “progress” but probably couldn’t tell you what that means, other than a blind faith in tech… or their biggest donors and party leadership.
Why vote for Republican Lite at full price, when the full version is available at half price?
Oh my God- PAUL! You are a Gem- when can you start writing with us!! This is so very spot on! Very….
Whatcha paying? :D
Before anyone dismisses this and our general concerns with dull and moth-eaten smears of “anti-progress”, “Luddite” (as if most anyone knows anything about the historical Luddites), “anti-science”, “NIMBY” (as if that can never be righteous) or worse “class envy”, let me add that I’m not against the existence of data centers or “advanced manufacturing” per se and I doubt most locals are.
But why are we giving it away so cheaply? We’re sitting on a 21st Century digital goldmine and they’re agreeing to terms that will take 30-35 years to break even, maybe? For something that looks to destroy, not create, lasting and good paying jobs. That’s highway robbery and a public betrayal.
We also don’t have the grid to support it. Moreover, what are the guardrails? Kotek has paid lip service to the toll it takes on our environment, and on our water and electric utility. But, because reasons, taxes are off the table. Why?
And can we not imagine anything else for North Hillsboro?
This is extractive and Hillsboro will be paying for it, literally and figuratively.
If whatever meager taxes the state pulls in from this is going to be redistributed to the rest of the state, then what’s in it for Hillsboro and WashCo?And why should we settle for less, paying for it and risking the most by being downstream from this? Going forward, why should voters trust someone like Sollman to look out for their interests in this regard? I personally wouldn’t trust Janeen with a popcorn stand at the county fair (and from what I hear, neither do 4 unions who are looking to primary her).
Many questions need to be asked and many things demanded. But I guess we’re not allowed to ask, or really know anything. The disdain for the law and the people is palpable.
This is what tech feudalism looks like. Elected office holders (villeins or scolocs) have a blind faith in tech and handpicked “experts” (their priesthood), when they’re not acting under the benevolent guidance of their biggest donors and party leadership (their lords), and I’m sure the White House is involved, too (royalty). But “something something progress” is often the rationalization for it all and us pleb-serf laypeople would just never understand. So it’s gaslight railroading, with society and democracy debased.
“can we not imagine anything else for North Hillsboro?” Oh Paul, not only was there a time when the neighborhood wasn’t looking to give it away so cheaply to any data center that came along, but there was a time not long ago when it was actually looking to turn a big swath of those 1,700 acres into housing and a school. In fact, they still have that plan up: http://nwhillsboro.org/concept-plan.html
You’ve made excellent points about the loss of soil and agricultural jobs, but the one comforting thought I’d had from my position on the southernmost point of those 1,700 acres is that the land would eventually give people a place to live and learn. You should’ve seen the meeting: People discussing walkable neighborhoods, added amenities, bicycle paths and trail links to other portions of the city… transit.
When, exactly, we lost that vision to “something, something progress” I’m not certain, but the push for SB4 and the sudden urgency behind parking industrial parcels (including relatively jobless data centers) across from residential areas gained momentum once sale prices hit $1 million per acre. The multigenerational needs of the city and the generational wealth of northern landowners are often in direct conflict.
It’s blurred traditional lines of political demarcation, and operates from a position of fear rather than advantage. You are correct: Hillsboro’s cable infrastructure and energy access should force the city and county to extract more from both development and industrial interests. However, the fear that the big payoff won’t come before certain stakeholders slip this earthly plane lead to pressure from those interests and hasty decisions across the state’s political spectrum.
Could’ve been a model community. Hopefully not too late, but the failure of imagination and misplaced will of a few are at cult levels of obsession.
Progress isn’t just the name of a community in Beaverton that was turned into a quarry that was turned into a mall.
Here on the fringes of the Urban Growth Boundary, “progress” is measured in plots of land “filled.” If municipalities in Washington County don’t “fill” industrial parcels—and it doesn’t matter what kind of buildings or how man jobs do the filling—it isn’t “growing.” If those municipalities aren’t “growing”—and that growth isn’t measured in working population, tax ratables, or metrics other than acreage “filled”—than they can’t get more land outside of the boundary to “fill.”
To be clear, there’s a distinction between “fill” and “develop.” If Washington County cities were actually interested in development, we wouldn’t have large swaths of their largest urban areas devoid of basic infrastructure like sidewalks, sewers, gas lines, or reliable electricity. We wouldn’t have high rates of light industrial vacancy or a strong reluctance to embrace residential infill in the densest portions of those cities. We wouldn’t have outer communities to our west and south that have to worry about basic needs like water. To “develop” these existing areas would bring them to a standard that just might invite further development and inbound migration.
But to simply “fill” what the city and county view as “vacant” agricultural land is to plant a concrete flag on it and claim it as “industrial” or, most laughably, “urban” without doing any of the work necessary to earn those definitions. There is no “progress” here: Only piecemeal “fill” that the region hopes developers will one day connect out of the kindness of their hearts. When agriculture is viewed as “fill” that just hasn’t happened yet and urban centers are deemed unfillable, you get what we’ve seen during the last decade and a half: A growing number of voices saying in a less-than-Northwest-Nice tone “What the hell is the plan here?”
If technocratic liberals were serious about climate and any sort of environmental justice, then developmental standards would be far different. It’s not about driving an EV or Prius with a self-congratulatory sticker on the back. It’s not about neoliberal solutions that don’t work, but increase profits for Mars or moon base cosplaying billionaires, while individuals are asked to pick up the slack, when not suffering the indignity of a finger wagging lecture as they decide between insulin or the heating bill. None of that is working, and won’t work. But what could help a great deal is a new model for neighborhood development. But instead of that, Hillsboro and WashCo punted, and are settling for sprawl and a south Hillsboro residential development that will require people to drive cars on bottle necked roads to Hwy 26, that’s if anyone can get off the 8th circle of hell that is TV Hwy. Or, it’s infill of ugly block apartment or condo buildings in awkward locations, in our ongoing tribute to home building mediocrity. Anyway, the bicycle path on CPR is nice… that’s if anyone can safely get there. And the Crescent Trail bridge to Top Golf! Neat.
Data Centers add nothing to our community. They actually will take away from our community Have we learned nothing from giving tax breaks to large corporations. I have been so caught up in national politics that this one just went right by me. I do not support data centers in our community