In our continued coverage of the actions and aspirations of Hillsboro leaders, we bring you a New Year update on what is happening in the North Hillsboro area. Now, let’s be clear. This area below, shown in red, is NOT land that is in Hillsboro. This is land that is NOT in the urban growth boundary. This land is still considered prime farmland in the Rural Reserves, which is to say it was not planned to come in anytime soon. But last year, the State of Oregon Joint Committee on Semiconductors, led by Hillsboro Senator Janeen Sollman and others, held hearings and found a way to identify Hillsboro as the primary recipient of massive growth in future semiconductor and industrial land expansions. To be clear, I am pro-jobs all the way. But I am also a lifetime resident of Hillsboro and believe we citizens have a right to continue to live here in safety and without health and environmental compromises. That is not what is happening with these new proposals.
Have a look at the map below. The massive INTEL Ronler Acres Fab, Hillsboro’s, and the State of Oregon’s largest employment facility is in the upper right corner. To the left of that and below is the rest of the industrial areas developed so far in Hillsboro, which have created tens of thousands of jobs. This process has taken many years. But things are accelerating quicker now. Intel has just applied for a Major Source permit to expand that facility and double the amount of carbon and other environmental output they produce- some of which can be extremely dangerous to humans- that is not debated by anyone.
In green are some approximate parcels in Jackson East that the City just voted to purchase. The area is a highly contested one that Hillsboro leadership rezoned to Industrial in the past three years, effectively forcing people off of their mini-farms. In December, the City approved using funds from the North Hillsboro Urban Renewal District to buy out some of these owners. Over 200 acres and about 25 landowners will decide to leave their homes soon or to stay and live amongst chemical plants and chip fabs. Those buyouts are ongoing this year as city leaders work to clean up the mess they created by this forced rezoning. In the name of jobs, these people have to go- that is pretty much the way this all went down.
Now shown in red is the massive land area that Sollman and her Senate crew found a way to bring into play through the Senate Bill 4 Chips Act. Of course, the landowners were heavily involved with Sollman. They also held meetings with Mayor Callaway, Councilwoman Pace, Washington County Commissioners, and everyone who could be influenced to help make this decision to get them rezoned. Do I blame them? Hell no- we are talking about land values that sit at $20K per acre that will explode to $500-700K per acre should the rezoning come. This is billions in potential upside. But when money comes and opportunity knocks, it seems everyone throws out all other reasonable concerns. Our City economic development team is pursuing or has obtained agreements to study the development conditions and lands within the redline. This is a move to ready it for new industry players and to see if the land can be sold this next year to new employers using Chips Act funding. Look for news to break by mid-year on some major announcements.
Concerns I have, and many others do too:
- The Blue Dots on the photo are schools- do we really want Fabs and Chemical plants adjacent to them? I say no.
- Jackson School, Jones Farm, Fishback Creek, and many of our finest housing stock and neighborhoods are all adjacent to this area. Putting fabs and chemical facilities will harm these neighborhoods and the values there.
- This area should be available for expanding our housing. There is no finer place nor easier place to extend services and roads- and US 26 is 2 minutes to the North. That will all disappear when and if these lands are expanded onto.
- The farmland is valuable. That is without question. But if that has to change, these proposed Industrial uses are not what should be here.
The Reality Is-
The bottom line is that the current leadership of the City has agreed that this is what we are doing. I do not see that they have any right or obligation to go outside our city limits and actively try to grow our town. Jobs at all costs and above all else is no way to grow a town. And why do the people of Hillsboro have to continue carrying the load of these new industrial users? Industries that we now know use the majority of all of our water and power and whose workers flood our roads every morning and evening.
One brave person, Councilwoman Kipperlyn Sinclair, recently voted NO on a council action to approve the expansion of the North Hillsboro Urban Renewal District and its 300 Million dollar funding increase. That seemed to shock Mayor Callaway, Pace, and others. I know for a fact that this NO vote was the first one in years at City Council. That should concern all of us. Sinclair’s vote was driven by her concerns that there have been no environmental impact studies as to what this massive industry growth will do to us and our Hillsboro. She is right; others could have listened to her but did not have the guts to do it.
2023 – The Mayor And The City Power Players Pushed The Legislature For Massive Land Expansions Outside Hillsboro
The Herald tracked Mayor Callaway and other City Staff as they charged the Capital with an all-out plan to grab up thousands of acres to our North. See Dan Dias, Hillsboro Community Development and Economic Development Director, stump for inclusion of these lands in front of the Joint Committee On Semiconductors. He wants it all in to promote it worldwide! Caught in the crosshairs are the children and people of Hillsboro who will not have a voice in this matter. Mayor Callaway actually went out of his way to insist that the legislature deny citizens their right under Oregon Law to appeal such massive expansion decisions- and he was successful in that effort.
See Mayor Callaway’s letter to the State right here- Mayor Callaway Letter to State Semiconductor Panel– Below is an excerpt from that letter.
The fact is we are the masters of our destiny.
But we are screwed until enough of us stand up and call out political and financial manipulations, lack of transparency, back door deals, and this foolish blind faith that our leaders have in that we can triple our industrial land base and not pay the price.
Some new leadership is needed in Hillsboro. The current group has proven they can spend money and pass a lot of new ordinanaces. But we need more open discussion and discourse on these life-changing matters. As it is, Council members will not respond to emails or questions, and while we can all get our 3 minutes at Council meetings, they will never respond or engage us. That tells us something is wrong. I know all of these folks, and they are good people. Having said that, none of them are exercising their voices or elected powers to stop high-level staff members in the city government from running these catastrophic policies and agendas. Sinclair tried, and I hope she keeps trying. Alcaire and Martin need to stand up soon, and I hope they do. So far, it has been crickets or words with not much action.
In my view and opinion, they are not proving they can adequately lead us into the future- at least not a future where we can maintain our quality of life as we have known it. I love our town and all we have, and I am not afraid to speak up. In doing so, I have paid a price in many ways and am blackballed on all fronts by our City. The walls are up; you will pay if you fight that fortress on 1st and Main. But in doing so, you will gain a great deal. I encourage you to raise your hands and your voices and be involved. I encourage you to help protect our Hillsboro. Let me know if you are with me! Dirkknudsen@gmail.com
I know our kids and grandkids deserve it, and I assure you I am planning to do more. Not less.
Happy New Year everyone!
I’m with you. I’m a 30+ year Hillsboro resident. While I understand growth is inevitable it doesn’t need to be pushed. Instead of giving millions of dollars to tech companies that have plenty of their own money, why aren’t we subsidizing local farmers to grow food crops and providing low cost housing for the workers those farmers would need? Food security should be as important as national security.
You bring up a good point. And all ai can point to is that the current leadership exist for the tech firms and land owners or aren’t strong enough to say anything…. its is a combination of the two really.
I appreciate that! This is hard work and I am gaslit both in my business pursuits and in my Civic efforts. That just fuels me. The more that happens the closer I get to saying what I really think. That will be a day od days when it happens. So far I just tease out pieces of me. The concept of being honest, transparent, fair, equitable, and for our City are actually real to me- not just words I use to make myself seem legit. Others in town making decisions? Ahhh—- not so much!
Because farming doesn’t employ nor pay enough. Good jobs with strong wages is what the area needs. Further, tax incentives is the cost of doing business if you want to attract good paying jobs and lure them away from other states and regions that are offering equal or better incentives. A better question is why is the state soaking you with taxes and has zero to show for their highest robbery.
Farming is still a necessary, valued vocation—or. do you think data farms will start growing produce and raising livestock sometime soon?
Secondly, tax incentives are a poor businessman’s cost of doing business. Hillsboro landed Intel in the ’90s. Genentech is, what, a toll booth away from moving elsewhere? Everything else is data centers or in service of Intel or its data centers.
Hillsboro isn’t starting to lose to Ohio and Upstate New York because of incentives or even its local tax rate: It’s losing because it tried to build a metropolis in a farm field and ended up with a bunch of tract housing around a fab. Even the Rust Belt ended up with more than that for its investment in factories.
Let’s stop thinking that giveaways will make abusive partners stay and start thinking about how the next partners we draw will make this more of a community and less of an industrial park with three blocks of downtown.
Farming is a necessary vocation – it just doesn’t provide jobs for a community. And farming food is just a bit different than farming grass seed when we talk about necessary crops.
I’m curious if you have lived in the Rust Belt. I have. I grew up in a now dead GM town in Michigan. People got fat and happy, thought nothing would change. When Southern states started offering incentives for factories to move we didn’t think we had to offer companies anything to stay or new companies anything to come. One by one the factories left and nothing replaced them.
Today 7 of the 8 GM factories are closed and the city has to beg money from the state and feds to find money to knock down abandoned and rotting homes. The fancy new High School of my parents generation was in disrepair by the time I attending in the 90’s. We wore jackets in the winter because the school district couldn’t afford to heat the building to a comfortable temperature. Every classroom had at least 1 trash can collect drips when it rained. We had no home games because other school districts refused to play on our dilapidated field, courts, and track.
When Eaton closed the factory my father-in-law worked in (relocated south with everyone else) they leveled the buildings down to the slab a month after they moved the equipment out. Why? Because they knew the building was worthless because nobody was going to buy a factory in a dead rust belt town and bare land has lower taxes than land with a building.
Pretty much everyone of my generation that could leave town did – following the jobs out of town. Only a handful of my childhood friends still live in my home town. On the plus side – there is no traffic. You can drive 15 miles across town in 20 minutes. People also don’t have to worry about housing affordability – you can buy a house for $50K or less.
I don’t think people that worry about too much growth and too many good paying jobs have experienced life were there are no jobs and growth is negative.
1. “Farming is a necessary vocation – it just doesn’t provide jobs for a community.”
Agriculture is a $1.3 trillion portion of the domestic economy and nearly 6% of the overall GDP. By comparison, the entire semiconductor industry accounts for for $246 billion. Meanwhile, Oregon produces 75% of all grass seed in the world and generates $1 billion in economic activity from it. Your neighbors could have taught you that.
“I’m curious if you have lived in the Rust Belt. I have. I grew up in a now dead GM town in Michigan.”
And yet your key business takeaway is still “place all eggs in one basket.” Puzzling.
Your town and others like it fell into their position by giving the world to one corner of industry and having no Plan B in place when they took your subsidies to places with more…um… pliable labor conditions. Perhaps if they hadn’t left your public schools a shattered husk, you would’ve learned the merits of a diverse economy and the lessons of the robber barons.
I grew up in New Jersey, and saw what happened to cities like Paterson that staked all of the hope on textiles and took generations to recover. I also the state diversify its economy and court multiple industries to help avoid the same fate as its Rust Belt cohorts. I moved here from Boston, where growth of multiple industries withing the urban core have led to revitalization of cities and towns in the region that once relied heavily on manufacturing and extraction economies.
Hillsboro has managed to not only hitch itself to one segment of the tech economy, but has done little to end its reliance on one key benefactor… even basing the majority of its CHIPS funding on Intel expansion. “Project Azalea” brought no new players to town. Abundant acreage led largely to data storage.
Now Oregon is told that not only are Hillsboro and microprocessor manufacture the only way forward, but that expanded facilities for its largest tech inhabitant on farmland directly adjacent to residential communities is best for all involved.
It’s a different package now, but you’re being sold that same Rust Belt dream twice. Ask Lincoln school students how tech expansion has helped their resources, then ask HSD has worked out for the district once Gain Share funds dry up within the next year.
Very salient point! You Sir, are not allowed in City Hall I am afraid. But you can always come with me and we can storm the walls together!
Dirk, thank you for bringing this to the attention of many people unaware of what is happening. Councilwoman Kipperlyn Sinclair also needs to be commended for standing up and protecting our valuable farmland.
She is a strong person. She has am authentic voice and I hope she continues to use it!
I’m glad the Hillsboro herald is publishing this story,
because I haven’t seen any other publication from the city about the expansion. Thanks for helping to keep the community informed!
Thank you Gerry. Someone needs to say something. But everything from City Hall is carefully managed and handled to not let out too much. And of course meetings outside of business hours are not things people like getting out!
If alive today, ” Hillsboro Revered Citizen”, Sharon Cornish, https://hillsboroherald.com/hillsboro-revered-citizen-sharon-cornish-passes, would most likely testify that her cancer was of the environmental type and came from the well drinking water on her property. Both fearless and relentless Sharon would be all over this, exposing the unelected Dias staff who presents these agendas to a spineless (gutless) city council, (save Kipperlyn Sinclair) city manager, and mayor for approvals.
I agree that Hillsboro must have new leadership, more conservative, and that the current group, including a 2025 mayoral candidate, are arrogant and have been bullying its citizens. It is difficult to understand how “nice people” treat us with such tactics. They are not “nice people”!
If alive today, “Hillsboro Revered Citizen”, Sharon Cornish would most likely testify that her cancer was of the environmental type and came from the well drinking water on her NW Hillsboro property. https://hillsboroherald.com/hillsboro-revered-citizen-sharon-cornish-passes/
Both fearless and relentless Sharon would have been all over this issue, exposing and challenging the unelected Dias staff who presents these agendas to a spinless (gutless) city council, save Kipperlyn Sinclair, city manager, and mayor for their approvals.
I agree that Hillsboro is in dire need of new “leadership”, Conservative, and that the current group, including a 2025 mayoral candidate, are arrogant and have been bullying its citizens.
It is difficult to understand how “nice people” would treat us with such tactics. They are not “nice people”!
Yes Mike, Sharon (Mom) would have been all over it. Although, she knew it would come eventually. Silly us, who thought the government would keep their promise of leaving us alone for 40 years (Grand Bargain legislation). I wish I had the strength and tenacity of my mom and Kipperlyn.
If not for Dirk @ The Hillsboro Herald, those of us in the red mapped zone still would not have been informed of these plans. A small group are pushing to sell for huge profit, at the expense of others who don’t want forced out.
The people in this area started voting for socialists that want that big tax bonus and the bonus kickbacks they get like Tina Fagan. The people have got what they voted for: fentanyl, crime, homeless industrial complex, and politicians that base their decisions on their enlightened socialist “feelings.” The voters of Washington County, Hillsboro, and Beaverton need to stop voting for DEI agenda socialists and get back to the common sense representation that used to exist in our area.
As one of Annette’s neighbors in the red zone, one of the folks who signed Sharon’s petitions when she went door-to-door over the acreage that constitutes our neighborhood and one of the many who bought in as the old timers were trying to sell out… this has all been hilarious to watch.
We have people who’ve never fed livestock or tended a field telling us what “prime farmland” looks like after this stretch has produced fescue, alfalfa and oat long after the speculators started sniffing around.. We’ve had neighbors put up at least three new multimillion-dollar homes and a new church within the boundary even as the city plots out parcels for potential smokestacks. We have people here with very different ideas of how this is all going to play out, but who once all labored under the opinion that it would one day inevitably turn into a neighborhood that could include all of them.
Eyeing the plot for a fab or campus goes back on the promise even to the collective of sellers. To hear those folks talk about walkable neighborhoods and amenities for people who live in North Hillsboro suggested that they—some of them, anyway—actually have concerns about what comes next. I think many of them envisioned more homes, grocery stores and schools. I don’t think any of them envisioned paving it all over for industry, especially the low-job-output industry that’s dotted the rest of North Hillsboro from Brookwood to Jackson to this point.
We’re starting to separate the legacy Hillsboro farmers and longtime civic names from their money-grubbing offspring, and it’s been a fascinating evolution of the discussion. Watching officials grin their way through descriptions of the second coming of Orenco, only to sell everyone out for Ronler Acres II, has also been an interesting development.
I’m already on very public record as not wanting to be forced out. But 2023 was spent going to open houses and figuring out how to save parts of this farmhouse and rehouse our goats. It looks like 2024 might be more of the same.
P.S. One quibble: “To the left of that and below is the rest of the industrial areas developed so far in Hillsboro, which have created tens of thousands of jobs.” Are we talking about the temporary construction jobs to build them or the jobs that the facilities actually provide? Because while there’s no questioning the small armies required to build that portion of North Hillsboro, the grey boxes they left in their wake do not hold tens of thousands of human beings. In 2019, they didn’t hold 100, and it might be marginally more now.
The city’s use of that land at minimal jobs per acre makes me less than confident in its abilities to lure considerable jobs to the plots of industrial-zoned land that remain.
No. I was referencing Intel Ronler as the anchor of those jobs. You are correct. Take them out of the equation and what we have are lightly employed warehouses, a coffee roaster, a fancy gold driving range, a Go Kart track, and multiple data centers that employ no one. Oh…but let’s not forget the new 7-11 and the sandwich shop, or that big Baseball facility that generates so much money and jobs, according to City Hall. I guess I better dig in and actually find out how many jobs we really have once Intel is removed.
How about the 500 people that work at Acumed?
How many people work at the new Amazon distribution center? There are hundreds of deliver vans in that parking lot that all need a drive let alone the people inside doing the sorting.
Good for Acumed! Now remind us how many people Flexential employs on nearly quadruple the acreage. Or how many K1 Speed and TopGolf employ on similar plots.
And how many people work and the Amazon distro center compared to any QTS facility near it? And what do those distro center jobs look like? Maybe like this: https://fortune.com/2023/10/25/amazon-worker-injuries-warehouse-study/
So we’re at a handful of jobs per acre and we’re to believe that “growth” is going to look different on new plots than it did on the last ones?
How many jobs per acre growing grass seed? You mentioned above that Oregon grows 75% of the world’s seed and generates $1 billion. How much revenue comes in per acre of grass seed vs per acre for a chip fab? 500 acres of seed or 500 acres of a chip fab – which brings in more jobs and revenue to Hillsboro?
You also mentioned above that I didn’t learn not to put all my eggs in one basket. That is not the case. The huge difference between the small town of 150K that I grew up in and Hillsboro, is that Saginaw, MI is actually is a small island is a sea of corn fields. Meanwhile Hillsboro is a small part of 3 million person metro with a diversity of industries. If Intel was to pack up and leave HIllsboro (which they could) there are still millions of other jobs within a reasonable commuting distance. People would still want the homes that are in Hillsboro.
Would it be good to add diversity to the industries in Hillsboro – that is true. It also makes no sense to turn down the chance to bring in more chip jobs that pay REALLY good money.
How many head of livestock are fed by the 12 jobs produced at a data farm? How many acres of oat are cultivated? What is the export value lost to paving over that farmland? Also “500 acres of a chip fab?” When someone other than Intel opts to build “500 acres of a chip fab” here sometime in the 21st Century, maybe that’s a tradeoff worth considering. But considering the only “acres of chip fab” available are being fed off of expiring benefits from the mid ’90s, I’m not seeing the apples-to-apples (or seed to chips) comparison between tech and ag here.
“Small town of 150K.” Pal, that’s not some little backwoods idyll… that’s a grown-ass city. And it was grown enough to realize the error of dumping all of its resources into one industry not once, but twice. Boy does that story sound familiar: Base your whole economy on lumber, watch that go bust, put all of your chips on GM, watch that peter out. And now you want that for Hillsboro, too: And are graciously offering up other people’s land for the effort. Well, as one of the landowners in the area in question, let me politely decline your offer.
“People would still want the homes that are in Hillsboro.” People would want abandoned factory sites, polluted water supplies and underfunded civic goods just to live a 20-minute Max ride away from Portland? Sorry, buddy, but Boston can tell you that Brockton’s proved that false. Passaic and Paterson haven’t been booming bedroom communities for Manhattan, either.
It takes company towns generations to undo the legacy of damage wrought by the initial sale of their soul, and Hillsboro’s already seeing it. Do you know what Gain Share funds are? Do you know how they impact this community and the kids who live here? Do you know what it means when those funds run out? I’d say read up, but you’re going to get a crash course in the very near future.
There are many reasons to turn down “chip jobs,” in this community, especially when 1. A glut of them exist. 2. More only come here through relaxed zoning and environmental restrictions and 3. Bringing them in doesn’t address the most acute needs of this community: Housing costs, commercial amenities and a stable tax base for services. Bringing in another fab on a 30-year abatement and plunking it next to a residential community is not only another chase for fools’ gold, but one with dire consequences for the well being of anyone within close proximity.
Saginaw’s legacy of industrial fealty turned it into a cancer cluster: https://sph.umich.edu/news/2021posts/with-13m-grant-um-researchers-will-track-cancer-risk-from-environmental-exposures.html You’ll excuse me if I don’t want the same fate for me and my neighbors.
Jason, your point about the million + dollar new homes and church now being built…….I wonder why they were given permits to build with this potential growth pending? Unless, that parcel of land will ultimately be exempt from industry. I would be livid if I were them. Either way it’s an undesirable outcome for them. Lose their dream home to industry, or be left to stay, butted up against it.
I think about the place that was a lavender farm for a hot second, too. Those three homes are likely worth a combined 10 million and all were built after the Grand Bargain in 2014. I’m guessing all of that permitting went through because, until CHIPS came along, everyone was on the same page about this being a residential plot. Sure, they’d build more houses around you, but we saw how it played out with Fishback Creek: A lot of the long-timers at the fringes got to stay and keep their houses with them. I was 100% ready to put a fence 50 feet behind the goat pen and just say “welcome neighbors” as they built around me. I’m much less likely to do so if that neighbor’s a fab, and I’m guessing the new construction didn’t see that possibility coming, either.
Meanwhile, I feel bad for both of the churches. Evergreen just wanted city plumbing. The other church just got here. Neither’s going to have a particularly pleasant address if that plot goes industrial.
Both will get a Commercial Node status and have their lands go way up in value. So they won’t suffer. The new houses were not informed really about what was to happen. But they will likely get bought out at $18to $20 PSF for the land- that is what Hillsboro is paying to the Jackson East owners. So that will be just under $5 Million each- and for that they can go West, grab a 20 acre and a 4,000 SF custom home. So they will have options. As it is I think Dias is going to take from the corner of Evergeeen and Jackson and head to Tom V’s place and North of that. Then he can fold in everything to the East in an epic squeeze play. All he needs now is or Intel or another “Project Azalea” secret user who will not be named to show up and say they will build on these lands if the Governor just gets her pen out and moves the line- quick meeting and NO APPEAL thanks to Mayor Steve. A lot of speculation there but all teed up now! Oh 2024- you are going to be such a special year!!
Rumor is the lavendar folks want to sell out. So if the large parcel behind you goes, they will most likely, include the lavendar farm’s 15+ acres, too,
It’s all going to come to a head. We can all bet that the land owner group and the political machine behind them are going to pivot back to housing the minute they find out that Intel is not in fact coming for their land. This is not a strategy about helping Hillsboro make a good town or livable community anymore. This is all about getting paid and gettng OUT! To hell with whatever happens. Imagine spending a decade building a winery or working farm and beautiful home and then so quickly bailing for some greenbacks. I understand why people do it but it just shows that the depth of their commitment to their properties is only as deep as a few C notes laid out on the ground.
It’s hard not to consider Bill and Phyllis Price at a time like this. You’ve seen that Aligned fence up on Evergreen next to the new DPW site. That’s basically next to their old property. Bill and Phyllis made a strong argument that if all of this is coming, perhaps a landowner’s best friend and option isn’t the City of Hillsboro. In my view, that’s the standing rate per acre for people currently living on their property in our corner of the world. The lavender farm and those two new homes likely aren’t getting what they bargained for, but if someone wants to plant industry in their backyard (and actually has a company signed on to do so), this is the least they can ask for: https://washcotax.co.washington.or.us/Property-Detail/PropertyQuickRefID/R659969/PartyQuickRefID/O0097776
Now we need to open up much more land for housing to stop making housing unaffordable.
The ONLY THING hat has ever proven to keep housing affordable is low cost land, not the million dollar an acre land we have now due solely to Oregon’s land use policies of restricting supply. OVER ONE-HALF of you mortgage or rent payment is due to the urban growth policy. do you really like paying $1000/month to keep the urban growth boundary?
Much more data is at: http://www.debunkingportland (dot) com/Housing.html
Well I somewhat support your claim. But we can’t have no boundaries. I would be in favor of letting land owners in who agree to sell at competiitive pricing and that have good access to utilities and roads etc- as it it now the UGB has become a joke- those that pay get in. Not a lot of great planning involved with these big decisions anymore and the systems have become ineffective and corrupt.
Thanks for your comments, Jim!
Dirk
“Low-cost land” is not what makes housing affordable. In fact, multistate developers already working in our region import the same “neighborhood” and housing models (and prices) to various areas based simply on regional demographics. If you’re within a 30-minute commute of a major tech company, there will be no hesitation to price a property the same way it would be priced in Napa or Everett.
What makes housing affordable is availability and incentives. Dirk has noted on several occasions that the City of Hillsboro, among other Oregon municipalities, disincentivizes infill in its existing urban core. Towns like Banks and North Plains, meanwhile, incentivize the construction of low-density housing that far exceeds the average cost per sf of housing in the area.
Hillsboro developers are also disinclined to build a significant number of rental units, as there are no incentives offered to renters to help drive the market value of those units. In housing, however, homeowners are offered several layers of state and federal incentives that not only help with the purchase price, but make mortgage interest a tax write-off and, thus, a more desirable monthly cost than rent that produces no added value.
Finally, there’s the enemy of the UGB that no one saw coming or discusses: Speculative investment. We used to be able to point at AirBnB and Vrbo properties and scapegoat them as the sole issue, but now it’s easier than ever for buyers in more well-heeled markets to simply snap up units in new construction in the Pearl, the Central Eastside, the South Waterfront or even South Hillsboro and just sit on it until their investment appreciates to a significant degree. Here in Hillsboro, buyers have figured out that developers will target spots near Max stations for density, and have taken to purchasing single-family homes nearby to harvest considerable appreciation once that property is targeted for condos.
In that way, the UGB has been gamed: Speculators can buy up property on the line, use considerable influence to make the case for their inclusion and reap benefits once the line moves. Sometimes, that case has merit: Beaverton’s South Cooper Mountain addition brought in high-density residential and public amenities including a new high school. If Beaverton can prevent those units from falling into the hands of even more speculators, it’ll accomplish the UGB’s goal of actually addressing growth in a responsible fashion (as contrasted with Cedar Mill, which drags on county resources while offering residents no municipal value of its own).
You are correct, Jason. No amount of “Good Planning” nor all the Urban Planning degrees in the world could account for a market where money, heavily concentrated in the hands of a few, can alter the living and housing options for an entire area. I have sold several listings for all cash to buyers represented by brokers from far away who I will never know. In many cases, I was able to establish that the buyers did not rent the homes nor move into them. Who does that? No one could account for that. And how does the Governor nor anyone stop that or alter that? She can’t – no one can. Not without a major redo in the tax and land use systems we hold so dear and base our housing markets and models on.
I’m curious where those who oppose this location for new industry would prefer those factories to go?
To me the proposed location is the obvious choice. It is close to 26 so truck traffic is easy on and off. It keeps that traffic out of town just as it does for the current industry along the north side of Hillsboro. Same for commuters driving to those new jobs from Portland or other parts of the metro. Would we rather put these factories south of Hillsboro and have all that traffic go through town? It is also close to current Hillsboro neighborhoods so people could walk or bike to work like some people working in the Jones Farm Intel campus do today. The newly renovated Jackson School road would make an excellent walking / biking route to these new factories just as it makes an excellent route to walk from Jones Farm and Jackson School neighborhood to downtown today.
It seems that the opposition isn’t to the location – it is to growth, new industry, more jobs, and more people in Hillsboro. Having grown up in a town as it died and depopulated – I’m with our Hillsboro leadership on this. We would be stupid to pass up thousands of new jobs that pay six figures. Hillsboro is the thriving town we have today BECAUSE we have the industry that brings good jobs instead of being just a bedroom community for Portland.
The issue with this assertion is that it assumes people who live in those communities would work in the factory. They wouldn’t. The argument for South Hillsboro was that housing prices in those neighborhoods had risen beyond attainability and owners had settled in for the long haul. As for Jones Farm, you can count the workers who commute there by bike or foot on your digits and have a few left over.
Intel cancelled its latest factory project at JF and, even with new funding, isn’t going back to the site. The non-manufacturing workers there have gone to three-day schedules and, judging by traffic patterns, headed to the Coast during the pandemic and set up shop there. Oddly, the best hope for bringing people into accessible, commutable distance of JF or Ronler was to go through with plans to convert farmland in the rural reserve to residential and commercial use.
The only way to promote “growth” in Hillsboro is to give a growing labor pool somewhere it wants to live and add to the tax base. Currently, Portland is just one of the places (including Manzanita, Nestucca, Albany, Salem, Astoria, Vancouver, Corvallis, McMinnville, Newberg) that are serving as bedrooms for Hillsboro. People work here, but do just about everything else in other places because a sea of data center and strip malls doesn’t move the needle.
Also, if Intel ever decides that Hillsboro is the superfluous portion of its equation, I’m guessing they don’t want to be stuck with a ticky-tack box in a dying tech town.
I was in my “Build Small” coalition work session last month—dozens of great minds and folks from DLCD and METRO and little old me. And my contribution was that Portland has a path forward as housing prices fall. That is to become a major Bedroom community for Hillsboro. That the best things about Portland are still relevant with some reductions in crime and homelessness. To subsidize housing or offer no or reduce property taxes for 5 years as an incentive to get people back to Portland. Imagine the best neighborhoods back better than ever, emerging neighborhoods full of new homes owners. The Trains packed with workers heading West. If people found Portland significantly less than Hillsboro they would be there- then the schools and parks and all of that could rebound. It could become a brand that Portland is the place to live and that jobs belong somewhere else. As it is Dan Dias is showing us that he and City Hall in Hillsboro do not value people and our quality of life as much as they do jobs – and that they want and will take all jobs and factories even if they produce no real benefits; like Data Centers.
Dias Callaway and Pace do not appreciate nor know who the great Tom McCall was- he was long gone after they came up. But I do. And the man was clear on his love for Oregon and the special place we are. This was a quote they should internalize. Hillsboro should not be a cheap hussie thrown at anyone with money who wants our resources. Since Hillsboro is now the county’s biggest developer, we must hold the decision-makers to a higher standard.
“Oregon is demure and lovely, and it ought to play a little hard to get. And I think you’ll be just as sick as I am if you find it is nothing but a hungry hussy, throwing herself at every stinking smokestack that’s offered.”
— Tom McCall
Again – where should new industrial land go in HIllsboro if not along Highway 26?
Hillsboro is someplace people want to live. It is a great town with almost anything someone could want within a small radius. For things like the arts or professional sports those are a short Max ride away in Portland. (Our preferred way to get the Oregon Symphony.) My wife and I moved to Hillsboro because she took a job here. Fast forward a decade and neither of us work in Hillboro but we still live here because Hillsboro has a lot to offer.
We have land already ready to go North of the Data Centers and along 26- this land that the City is promoting is over a mile or more to the West. The same lands are owned by people who contributed for years to the campaigns of Callaway, Pace, and Sollman- probably Willey, too. We have enough land for 2 more Ronlers before we ever have to cross West of Jackson- the area they are not planning for. So anyone saying anything else is lying –