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New state housing numbers push Jacksonville to consider expanding its urban growth boundary
Summary
City planners told the Citizen Advisory Committee that new Oregon Housing Needs Assessment figures raised Jacksonville's 20-year housing target from prior estimates (~90) to roughly 406 units, prompting discussion of whether infill, rezoning or UGB expansion will be required.
City planners told the newly convened Citizen Advisory Committee that state housing figures in the Oregon Housing Needs Assessment (ONA) substantially increase Jacksonville's 20-year housing requirement and make it unlikely that existing parcels or a single candidate site will meet the need.
"For Jacksonville, you have a housing production number over the next 20 years of, like, 400 units," one participant said; staff later cited a current ONA-based target of 406 units. Ian Foster said the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) had previously identified about 363 units and that earlier local analyses based on population forecasting suggested closer to 90–94 dwelling units; the ONA methodology includes historic underproduction and produced the higher figure.
Foster told the CAC the city will test efficiency measures — such as rezoning, increasing densities or financial incentives for developers — before expanding the UGB, but staff concluded those measures would not create the production value needed to meet the ONA numbers. He cited physical and regulatory constraints that limit infill: Jacksonville's national historic landmark district, hillside slopes, parcels with slopes over 25 percent, wetlands and locations without sewer service such as parts of Westmont.
The city's buildable-lands inventory was summarized in the meeting: Foster said the inventory shows roughly a 150-acre surplus of low-density residential land but a 25.7-acre deficit of medium- to high-density land. That gap, together with the higher ONA target, prompted committee questions about whether the city should consider multiple candidate areas rather than a single expansion site.
Linda, a CCI liaison, flagged public-safety considerations: she said Jacksonville faces an "urban wildland interface" risk, recalled level-2 evacuation warnings and urged the committee to consider the town's small fire and police departments and mutual-aid limits when evaluating potential expansion areas.
Foster said new state rules related to the ONA took effect Jan. 1 and the city will update distributed documents under the grant; he reiterated the city's target of wrapping up grant-funded work by December 2026 and noted that statutory timing requires cities to use the ONA numbers if an adoption-ready plan is not in place by Jan. 1, 2027.
Next steps for the CAC include reviewing the revised housing capacity analysis and buildable-lands inventory, working with consultants to develop site-evaluation criteria, and vetting candidate areas and efficiency measures before any recommendation is forwarded to the Planning Commission and City Council.
