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Residents urge council to intervene after volunteer plantings threatened by railroad/ODOT rules
Summary
A longtime Canby resident asked the council to help preserve volunteer plantings along Highway 99; councilors and staff said ODOT and Union Pacific rights-of-way and expired permits limit city authority and likely require removal.
A Canby resident told the City Council on Feb. 5 she was concerned volunteer plantings and landscaping on Highway 99 might be removed after conversations between city staff, the Oregon Department of Transportation and Union Pacific Railroad.
Tamara Driver, a Canby resident for more than 20 years and a member of the Canby Garden Club, told the council she was saddened to read that the city’s beautification plantings “perhaps [are] being mowed down” and asked whether council members could help negotiate with ODOT or the railroad to spare volunteer landscaping.
Council and staff said the city has exchanged multiple emails with ODOT and Union Pacific. Councilor Patton explained that some plantings fall inside Union Pacific’s right-of-way and that expired permits and the railroad’s strict control of its easement likely mean the vegetation will have to be removed. Patton said, “The railroad, the plants are in the railroad easement, which some of them are, which was never allowed to begin with.”
Officials said they would continue to work with the Canby Beautification volunteers and with ODOT and UP to determine whether replacement landscaping or other mitigation is possible, but they cautioned the city’s ability to act is limited where railroad easements apply.
The exchange was recorded during the citizen input portion of the meeting and no formal council action was taken on the matter.
