Lane County, Suffering from Job Losses, got a GREAT Plan Just when it Needed One

March 16, 2016

Mark Rust, AICP, Lane County Associate Planner

Lane County,  like many other areas of Oregon, has been struggling to pull its way out of the still-slumping economy since the recession that began in 2008. Initial job losses were staggering — from 2008 to 2011 Lane County lost more than 16,000 jobs, which pushed the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent in the County (by November 2012).

The Great Recession decimated the recreation vehicle manufacturing industry in Oregon on top of the losses already experienced in the timber industry. Lane County — which stretches from Florence on the Oregon Coast to the Three Sisters mountains in the Cascade Range and includes Eugene and Springfield — was hardest hit by the job losses because 53 percent of the state’s RV manufacturing jobs were in Lane County when the industry was at its peak in 2005.

Although jobs in the RV industry were relatively stable at 6,000 to 7,000 until 2008, during the severe national recession RV manufacturing was hit hard as credit dried up, investment returns declined and jobs were lost. The result was a drop in demand for many products including RVs, and RV manufacturing employment in Oregon dropped to 1,610 by April 2009, a loss of 79 percent from its peak.

In response, the Lane County Board of Commissioners in 2011 directed the Lane County Planning Department to explore ideas to increase development and employment within the former “mill town” that is the unincorporated community of Goshen. Additionally, the County leaders embarked on an update to the County Strategic Plan. During several work sessions involving the public and private sectors, they determined that new strategic goals would be SMART – specific, measurable, aggressive yet achievable, relevant, and timely.

Participants at these meetings noted that the rural, unincorporated community of Goshen offers a rare but achievable opportunity to contribute to significant and lasting regional economic revitalization, based on unique site characteristics. When the Board of County Commissioners adopted five new goals, one of them was specific to Goshen:

By 2017, Lane County will transform the existing industrial land in Goshen to support increased levels of development resulting in jobs that pay no less than 150 percent of the median wage.

While the goal is bold, it is grounded in reality. State and local governments are limited in what they can do to promote economic development. Businesses create jobs and wealth, but state and local governments can increase regional competitiveness by offering the most attractive environment possible for business. Government can play a central role by providing suitable, buildable employment land, adequate infrastructure, and by removing regulatory barriers where appropriate.

The potential of Goshen has been recognized in the region since early settlers began inhabiting the area in the mid-1800s. In fact, the significance of Goshen as a prime area for commerce based on the numerous location advantages dates back to when Goshen was first selected as the location for a stage coach stop.

Since that time, Goshen continued to develop as a significant location in the southern Willamette Valley as evidenced by the decisions to locate the Oregon Coastal Military Road (modern day Highway 99), the railroad (existing CORP/Rail America line), a post office and lumber mills in Goshen.

Currently, with more than 300 acres of largely contiguous industrial land, Goshen has Interstate 5 and Highway 99 frontage, access to the north and south as well as Highway 58 access to the east. Highway 58 is a designated freight route, which connects to Highway 97 south to California.

Goshen also has the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad running north and south through the community, next to Highway 99. A main Bonneville Power Administration substation is less than a half mile away at the northern edge of the community. And it has a healthy water supply and established water district, access to fiber optics infrastructure and a natural gas main line.

The Goshen area also has good proximity to labor markets because it is just a few miles from the Eugene-Springfield metropolitan area and is also near Creswell and several other unincorporated rural communities. Lane Community College is about 2 miles distant, and the University of Oregon in Eugene is within easy reach.

Given its economic potential, it is clear that the reason Goshen industrial sites were not redeveloped, even during the years of rapid economic growth prior to the recession, was the presence of regulatory barriers and inadequate sewer infrastructure. Lane County chose to pursue a goal exception to Goal 14, Urbanization, to allow urban levels of development and lift the “small scale” and rural limitations of the industrial uses allowed in Goshen to permit better utilization of its unique characteristics, which have qualified the area as a Regionally Significant Industrial Area (RSIA) as designated by the State of Oregon Economic Recovery Review Council.

Removing the existing regulatory barriers was the primary focus of the planning effort undertaken as The GREAT Plan, the Goshen Region Employment and Transition Plan. Under State Planning Goal 14, development is primarily required to be within Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), and the land outside of UGBs is to be preserved for resource land uses such as farm, forest, mining, etc. However there are also exception lands, those lands outside of UGBs when they were established but were already “developed” or “committed” to some non-resource use. The areas were therefore given an exception to any applicable resource land goals of the Oregon Planning Goals, namely Goal 3 for Agricultural Lands, and Goal 4 for Forest Lands and zoned for rural uses.

These exception lands are heavily regulated by state law and are generally precluded from urban levels of development since they are outside of an Urban Growth Boundary. Development is limited to uses that serve only the community, the surrounding rural area or persons traveling through the area, or small-scale, low-impact uses.

For a location like Goshen with its transportation, workforce and educational attributes, these limitations do not make sense. Goshen has a rare combination of attributes that give it a distinct, competitive advantage for industrial development.

In April 2012, the County formally initiated the plan exception process. Facing opposition for some neighbors, but mainly 1000 Friends of Oregon, Lane County Landwatch, as well and some reservation within the State agencies themselves (Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD)), Lane County began preparing the work necessary to justify the exception. The process started with multiple community meetings in the small rural fire hall in Goshen and moved to meetings in Salem with department directors, state legislators, and representatives from the Governor’s Office.

In addition to the land use challenges being addressed, Lane County was working with a revised Transportation Planning Rule that had not yet been tested. The new language provided an option to find that there was no significant impact from the proposed rezone. However this was not an easy argument to make with ODOT. Ultimately Lane County provided the required analysis and findings to demonstrate the there was no increase in traffic.

After several years of work, the Board of County Commissioners approved the Exception and Zone Change for Goshen. This decision was appealed by Lane County LandWatch to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). LUBA remanded the decision on three assignments of error including addressing wetland issues in the Environmental, Social, Economic and Energy analysis, justifying the supporting commercial uses proposed to be allowed, and addressing the feasibility of providing sewer to the industrial lands.

This last assignment of error, sewer feasibility, proved to be the most challenging to overcome. With the help of the Lane County Economic Development Department, a private consulting firm was hired to conduct a sewer feasibility analysis. With the completion of the sewer feasibility report, the addition of new findings addressing the other two assignments of error, and re-adoption of the entire proposal by the Board of County Commissioners, the Exception and Zone change where acknowledged, without further appeal, by DLCD in July 2015.

After more than four years of work, Lane County is now positioned to permit the first new development under the new regulations. Along with the exception and zone change, an entirely new set of zoning code regulations (a copy of the adopted ordinance and code can be found at www.lanecounty.org/goshen) was adopted to facilitate the urban levels of development that are not typically allowed in rural unincorporated areas. Lane County projects that 2000-3000 industrial manufacturing jobs could be created on the existing industrial lands.

Some may feel that urban levels of development do not belong outside of an urban growth boundary, and that the adopted amendment will contribute to urban sprawl. Lane County was intentional in looking at Goshen recognizing that allowing increased levels of development in Goshen, an already impacted industrialized area, could help prevent even more prime resource lands, farm or forest from being brought into UGBs to meet the regions employment needs. Through more fully utilizing existing impacted lands that are already served by extensive infrastructure, the Goshen area can help reduce vehicle miles traveled.

By recognizing the importance of a regional approach, the Oregon Business Plan emphasizes the limitations imposed on industrial development by state land use law.

“Economies are regional in nature, yet in most regions our current land use system uses cities as the primary unit to determine industrial land needs. The population and growth projections of an individual city may have little to do with region-wide opportunities to site industrial facilities . . .”[1]

This refers to the fact that under Oregon’s land use system, cities must analyze their 20-year industrial (and other) land needs based upon city, not regional, population and growth projections. Oregon’s city-focused land use system could be one reason that the state is facing a shortage of developable industrial sites.

[1] Time to Deliver, 2011 Leadership Summit December 12-13, 2011, Oregon Business Plan, page 22.