Adair Village and Benton County staff used a joint work session to review a proposal that would add roughly 50 acres to Adair Village's urban growth boundary (UGB), staff said, and reminded elected officials that a public hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6 before either governing body deliberates.

Staff planner Greg Verrett, deputy director for Benton County community development, opened the presentation by describing the joint legislative process and the specific steps left in the record. "So, this is a work session to discuss the ... Adair Village urban growth boundary amendment proposal," Verrett said, and he emphasized staff's intent to provide findings and background materials to the boards ahead of the hearing.

Why it matters: county staff and the planning commissions say the Adair Village area lacks sufficient buildable land to meet state-required 20-year housing supply targets. Darren Nichols, Benton County community development director, summarized regional numbers that drove the proposal: "Oregon is short, roughly 110,000 housing units across the state. Benton County right now is short around 5,000 housing units," he said, citing the regional housing needs analysis used by staff.

Staff described the analysis that produced the acreage recommendation. The county's buildable lands inventory shows about 52 vacant acres inside the current UGB but only an estimated 38to47 acres are realistically available because of constraints. Staff said roughly 65 acres are needed to meet the 20-year residential demand, producing a deficit of about 17to27 acres; the recommended addition of about 50 acres is intended to provide flexibility while accounting for wetlands, buffers and other constraints.

Site details and constraints: staff identified two parcels (referred to in the presentation as Property 1/EBS and Property 2/Lyle) as the best fits under Goal 14 locational criteria and lowest overall infrastructure cost. Verrett said Property 1 has a conservation easement covering about seven acres and roughly five developable acres, and that a landowner proposal to permit a road and trail connection would support the city's trails plan and access to Benton County Park. Property 2 contains an area of floodplain of about five acres that would not be developable, staff said.

Process and public input: Verrett told officials that both the city and county planning commissions recommended approval after reviewing the staff findings and that public engagement has included farmers markets, open houses (with low attendance), mailed notices and written and oral testimony to the planning commissions. Staff cautioned that the UGB amendment itself does not automatically trigger site-level traffic mitigation or a traffic impact analysis; those are typically required during annexation, subdivision or development review stages.

Issues raised: participants and public testimony flagged transportation and connectivity concerns along Highway 99 and local dead-end streets, natural-hazard questions about the Corvallis fault line (staff noted mapped information is available but did not recommend addressing it at the UGB step), and potential loss of agricultural soils. Staff said the subject properties were judged to be relatively impaired for long-term agricultural use due to wetlands, access and configuration, which informed the locational analysis.

Next steps: staff will provide the full findings and background documents to councilors and commissioners before the Dec. 6 hearing. Following the public hearing, each governing body will make its own decision; Verrett noted that ordinance adoption requires a second reading when applicable and that elected bodies may continue deliberations or close the hearing and decide at that time.

The work session closed with staff offering to take follow-up questions by email and with an adjournment. The December 6 public hearing is the next formal step in the joint process.