Tualatin council agrees to back Clackamas County land-suitability study, directs Stafford Urban Reserve not be included as pilot area

Tualatin City Council on June 23 directed staff to sign a letter of support for Clackamas County’s land suitability assessment grant application to Metro, while specifically asking that the letter say the city does not want the Stafford Urban Reserve adjacent to Tualatin to be included as a pilot study area.

The council’s informal tally was 5 in favor and 2 opposed after a presentation by city staff; councilors indicated the letter should show goodwill to county planning efforts but also protect Tualatin’s long-standing agreements covering the Stafford area.

City staff member Steve Koper presented the county’s revised scope, saying the work had been pulled back from early drafts that city staff feared would have amounted to “concept planning.” Koper said the county’s stated aim is to evaluate whether land inside urban reserves and certain rurally zoned lands inside urban growth boundaries are potentially suitable for future urban services. He told councilors the draft scope includes a high-level “serviceability analysis” (task 3) — a basic look at infrastructure such as roads and pipes — and an option for up to three “pilot analysis areas” for more detailed study (task 4).

Koper said Clackamas County revised the scope after cities pushed back on earlier, more detailed concepts and that the county has committed it would not include an urban reserve in a pilot project without the affected city’s support. “The county’s goal was to look at particularly the urban reserves,” Koper said during his presentation. “Task 3 is a serviceability analysis … and task 4 gives the county the option to study up to three areas for a more detailed analysis.”

Council discussion split along lines of whether the city should simply support the grant application or use the letter to explicitly prohibit study of Stafford. Council President Pratt and several other councilors supported signing the letter as a gesture of regional cooperation; Pratt asked about the grant size and said the county’s request was “in the hundreds of thousands.” Councilor Brooks emphasized infrastructure constraints in Tualatin, saying, “My big concern is that right now there's no financing for traffic or roads,” and argued the city should call out Stafford specifically if it supported the grant at all.

After discussion, the council agreed — by an informal 5-to-2 count — to have staff sign a letter of support for Clackamas County’s Metro grant application and to include explicit language stating that the Stafford Urban Reserve should not be included as a pilot analysis area without Tualatin’s consent. Councilors did not record a formal roll-call motion in the transcript; staff characterized the result as council direction to proceed.

Background: Clackamas County invited cities in and near its urban reserves to participate in a land-suitability assessment following earlier concerns that some cities had expanded urban growth boundaries without fully evaluating land already within UGBs. Council members cited the three-party and five-party intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) that govern development timing and concept planning around the Stafford area when arguing the city must retain control over any concept planning for that reserve.

Next steps: Staff will prepare the letter of support for Metro and will include the council’s indicated language excluding the Stafford Urban Reserve from pilot-area consideration unless the city gives explicit permission. The county’s revised scope and the draft letter are included in the meeting packet and will be used as the basis for the letter to Metro.