The Hillsboro Herald has been tracking the recent moves of our City leadership and the State of Oregon to gain additional land to expand the semiconductor industry. Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Senator Janeen Sollman and others, was a landmark piece of legislation that passed a few months ago. This bold move gives the Governor of Oregon the ability to move a pen on the map and include high-valued farmland on Hillsboro’s West flank into the Urban Growth Boundary. These sorts of expansions generally take years and are often appealed and highly contentious. Should a request come to the Governor for a large parcel to be added to the UGB, it will only require one short hearing, and a decision will be made.
The recent news reels have hailed a $90 Million dollar gift from the State of Oregon (the people via taxes) to Intel to expand the Aloha Intel Campus and the massive Ronler Acres Campus just to the North of Orenco. Here are some links to articles on that announcement.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/07/31/intel-oregon-business-semiconductor-government-chips-fund/
https://www.globalsmt.net/world-news/intel-plans-90-million-expansion-in-oregon/
Expansion at those facilities would make sense and keep resources at locations already designed and committed to these sorts of uses. Once the State commits, the Company can qualify for Billions in Chips Acts money- and will have an easy path to move ahead financially. There will be environmental challenges because the expansions will require Intel to get what is known as a Major Source permit. That sort of permit allows the company Intel “to more than double its greenhouse gas emissions from Oregon sources, which would classify its Washington County manufacturing as a “major source” of regulated pollutants” according to this article https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-plans-massive-fab-expansion-in-oregon#:~:text=Intel%20is%20requesting%20permission%20to,than%20formal%20commitments%20from%20Intel . We have all seen the massive clouds of steam and off-put rising from the Fab, which becomes a real spectacle, especially at night. Big jobs and big money will follow should this all go as planned. Much of the money is all but free, the workforce is here, the brain trust is here, and it sure looks like a greenlight is being switched on.
Several articles recently published have included a statement released by someone that mentions that Hillsboro wants to annex hundreds of acres of new farmland. Our series from earlier this year regarding Senate Bill 4 outlined where the growth can occur and where we think this can happen. News from various sources we have in the field, including some landowners, is that something big is about to happen. People talk in the real estate game, especially where Urban Growth lines are about to move.
“This is as quiet as it has ever been when land deals are happening. I have been around this for 40 years as a landowner and people normally talk; my sources tell me things,” said one local property owner who asked not be named. “My gut tells me something big is about to happen”.
Here is one of the articles that mentioned this.
For example, Hillsboro, the Oregon headquarters of Intel and focal point of the state’s semiconductor industry, wants to annex hundreds of acres of farmland for a major manufacturing facility. The News Guard- Lincoln City Oregon
One likely expansion could happen quickly and efficiently. We wrote about this before. It is about 700 acres immediately adjacent to both Jackson School and Evergreen Roads. While some testimony was given during the SB 4 hearings that this area would be for semiconductor support services. Having said that, nothing is stopping the City and the Governor from dealing on this site and placing heavy industry right along one of our most desired and livable residential areas. You can read that story right here: https://hillsboroherald.com/jackson-school-neighborhoods-will-be-flanked-by-factories-if-city-plan-is-approved/ The 700 acres are shown as the Green Area below.
Any of the areas above, except the Red Area near Helvetia, can not be brought into the Urban Growth boundary if the Governor chooses. The facts are that Hillsboro is on the verge of both massive expansion of the existing Fabs and potential mass expansion of the UGB – and that is the state of play. The people in power that brought us to this place are getting what they wanted and the rest will have to play out. Nothing may happen, because these expansions of the UGB need to be done by the end of next year.
Having been in real estate, development, and land use in my primary career for 45 years, I agree with the landowner. Something big is about to happen. It is too quiet. We will watch and see what happens next.
What Have You Heard? You can inform us by commenting below, emailing us confidentially at hillsboroherald@gmail.com, or calling me at 503-799-8383.
Actual quiet up here.. to the point that there are two new homes being completed on that green-zone boundary and a new church foundation being laid near Glencoe and Evergreen.
What’s not being discussed is the CHIPs Act pattern that’s developing in Washington County. The big outlay here in Hillsboro, as you’ve discussed, has been to existing Intel facilities. In Beaverton, it’s existing facilities at ADI: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/07/28/oregon-semiconductor-beaverton-analog-devices-incorporated-adi-tech-jobs-manufacturing-chips-act/
What we’re seeing so far is a willingness to bolster existing infrastructure. What we aren’t seeing, and what Kotek’s people have already told local press isn’t happening in the immediate future, is expansion of the growth boundary. In fact, this piece in the News-Times earlier this month goes into just how much infrastructure the city still needs to get into those northern reaches within the boundary and those residential/industrial portions along and north of Meek: https://www.hillsboronewstimes.com/news/local/north-westward-expansion-hillsboro-looking-to-grow-urban-renewal-district-for-more-industrial-projects/article_b81b74e4-322e-11ee-a553-9b74881bd007.html
The city seems to be focused on the area East of Jackson School and north of Evergreen, which is where its most viable and campus-adjacent opportunities lie. It’s a politically savvy move for both the city and Salem, as it leaves the door open for expansion into some of the properties up there that have been asking for a spot within the boundary while preserving portions of the rural reserve that have made the most noise about staying put (and actively developing land for agricultural, residential and other purposes).
I’m not so sure that the state wants to tell one church—never mind two—that they’re going to be displaced by factories. Nor will they want to inform the owners of new multimillion-dollar homes to clear off. Give the strategy that Salem is currently pursuing, it may not need to.
Those 1,200 eastern acres make the most sense given the latest Intel expenditures, and it seems the city of Hillsboro sees that logic.
If the State Task Force and the Legislature went through all of that effort for SB4 and they only end up giving away money for likely pre-planned expansion projects (ie Intel) and benefiting the usual suspects (ie Hillsboro) then I expect there to be blowback from other cities, and perhaps industries. Hillsboro is adding $70M to the city budget while Beaverton, Washington County, and others are in retraction.
This doesn’t come up enough: The equity portion of the discussion.
The developers and their political allies are quick to assert that Hillsboro and the usual suspects are the only ones with the infrastructure to support the kind of projects they’re bringing in, but that doesn’t mesh with the examples we’re seeing around the country. In Ohio, Arizona and Upstate New York, we’re seeing areas with similar resources and far less vacant land than certain sections of Oregon land huge projects like Intel’s larger buildouts and the Micron plant that the House Speaker just visited this week.
If all of that SB4 maneuvering and the ensuing “wand waving” only benefitted Hillsboro and some extremely adjacent properties, there are municipalities and counties within the Metro that have every right to blow a gasket about it. Wilsonville’s been waving its arms in front of Salem for a while trying to grab their attention, while everyone seems content to saddle communities in Clackamas with logistical centers and little else. Their cut of the tech boom is limited to the downstream benefits of packing and driving trucks—which improves on existing extraction and agricultural business how?
There are a lot of ways this can play out, but the one scenario in which everyone in the adjacent land gets all riled up over potential UGB expansion, only to have CHIPS funds allocated to pre-planned projects, borders held and politicos lauded as moderate, sensible heroes as a result is looking more and more likely from Hillsboro’s perspective. From surrounding Washington County, Clackamas and elsewhere, it’s going to look like trickle-down benefits at best and robbery at worst.
At last night’s Civic Center meeting with Senators Sollman & Sosa, and Rep McLain – Sollman indicated all applications submitted so far have not requested additional lands outside of what the company already owns. Meaning no farm land will be annexed. The crowd in attendance clapped.
I suppose things might well change, but as of now the farm land is safe.
Good to hear. But she may be just covering for what she singlehandedly did. She will have to own it when it happens. She burned a lot of bridges in pushing SB 4 through the way she did with Hillsboro taking the brunt of all the growth and environmental costs. I think there is a way forward that we can make work for everyone and the City Staff is working hard to obtain land in Jackson East and other areas off of Sewell and Meek that are already in the UGB. Thanks for the update!