New plan could remove regulations from private properties

The city of Lake Oswego will try a new tack as officials continue working to tweak the sensitive lands program: crafting a proposal to take to Metro that would remove natural resource protections from most or all privately owned properties.

During a Tuesday study session, the city council directed staff members to work with Councilor Mary Olson to outline ways the city already regulates properties now subject to higher environmental protections in the city’s sensitive lands program, which limits land use and development around waterways and stands of trees.

Olson said this won’t repeal the sensitive lands ordinance; instead, it will result in “a very focused and quality proposal that we can feel confident taking to Metro,” the regional government, which requires preservation of waterways and wildlife habitat.

The council’s move followed a presentation by longtime land-use attorney David Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, a nonprofit lobbying organization that fights for land-use regulatory reform and private property rights, according to its website.

Enlisted by councilors Olson and Mike Kehoe to analyze whether the city could meet state and regional requirements by regulating only city-owned properties, Hunnicutt provided his services for free, although the council’s decision allows the city to pay him for additional input over the coming weeks.

He said the city doesn’t have to change its regulations but can instead change the maps showing which areas are designated as sensitive lands. That would result in multiple benefits, he said, such as:

n The city would simply trade which lands are mapped as protected areas rather than lifting natural resource protections; protections placed on about 203 acres of residential, privately owned land would shift to city-owned parks properties.

n That shift would result in a closer alignment with Metro’s natural resource maps. He said significant portions of city-owned land — mostly parks and natural areas — are considered resource areas by Metro but aren’t regulated as sensitive lands by the city.

n Designating city-owned parks properties as sensitive lands would protect “far better land for carrying out the intent” of the regional policies, as the city could better manage protection and restoration of its own property than private backyards.

n The program would be less burdensome on Lake Oswego residents.

“You would better protect the environment by adopting our proposal,” Hunnicutt said.

Not everyone agreed.

While Kehoe, Olson, Jeff Gudman and Bill Tierney approved the proposal to craft a plan to take to Metro, possibly later this year, Mayor Jack Hoffman and Councilor Donna Jordan were opposed. Councilor Sally Moncrieff was absent.

The council has been working to tweak Lake Oswego’s sensitive lands program, in place for a decade, for the past several years, and Hoffman said Metro planners have already told the city it can’t roll back protections. To reduce protections of wildlife habitat in tree groves, he said, the city would have to consider expanding restrictive buffers around waterways.

He said he would feel comfortable taking a “creative approach” to meeting requirements but wanted to ensure officials considered whether the city would maintain existing levels of environmental protection, whether the new plan could be implemented with a specific funding source and whether the city would remain in compliance with its comprehensive plan.

“Even though Luscher Farm and Farr and those other properties may be good properties (to protect) ... you have to protect Lost Dog and Springbrook (creeks) because they flow into the lake,” Hoffman said. “I don’t think our comprehensive plan allows us to just look the other way.”

Jordan said removing protections from waterways bordered by private backyards could threaten downstream properties. She said it isn’t unusual for property owners to be upset that they can’t build a berm or plant in the riparian corridor.

But Olson said the city should remove sensitive lands designations from private properties “in exchange for putting sensitive lands on city-owned property, especially those that ... could really benefit from greater protections.”

In addition, she called for the city to take better care of its own natural areas and to restore places that are in bad condition.

Olson doesn’t believe the change would violate a “no rollback” provision in Metro’s code limiting cities’ abilities to scale back established environmental protections. She said the city previously “pulled” protections off Oswego Lake and the lake’s canals.

“We can make a conscious decision to take the rest of the private properties off the map,” she said.

Added Kehoe: “We won’t be able to change anything unless we try.”

Tierney called Hunnicutt’s report “intriguing” but asked whether he had more information about how the value of natural resources might be measured. Also, Tierney said there are times he sees a designated water resource and doesn’t understand it, but in many cases, such as along Springbrook Creek, he said, “I do see a resource there that is surrounded by private property.”

Gudman said the situation reminded him of the old TV commercials for light beer featuring rowdy disputes and the tagline “Great taste, less filling” — a 1970s campaign by McCann-Erickson Worldwide that Advertising Age magazine ranked in the top 10 of its century.

In other words, he believes it’s possible to meet the desires of private property owners and of those advocating for natural resource protections.

Gudman said the council should focus on preserving not just individual waterways but watershed health, as well as the health of the environment overall.

In other business Tuesday:

n The council adopted a blueprint to guide Lake Oswego’s parks system and recreation programs over the next decade.

Parks Director Kim Gilmer called the 2025 parks plan a “broad vision plan” that reflects a shift in community attitudes from about 10 years ago, the last time the parks and recreation system was reviewed. A decade ago, residents wanted the city to focus on building sports fields, developing pathways and acquiring open space.

“This time around ... what we heard is people want us to place a priority on maintaining what we have in the system,” she said. “We have a really nice parks system and they don’t want that to erode over time.”

In addition, the new plan focuses on exercise space, children’s play areas and natural areas, she said.

n The council approved an agreement with Lake Oswego Corporation to jointly construct projects in one of the corporation’s easement areas next to Oswego Lake, granting an exemption to the competitive bidding process typically required when contracting out this sort of work.

The Lake Corp. is installing a new alum injection system to manage water quality. The city wants to install a chemical injection system as well — to control odors emanating from its sewers.

The city will spend about $100,000 to $120,000 on the project after saving $15,000 to $30,000 by avoiding the land-use and competitive bidding process, officials said. The Lake Corp. will also provide power to a pump associated with the city’s system improvements.

In 2011, after the city installed a new interceptor sewer system, officials began receiving complaints about a stench around some parts of the lake, namely near Maple Circle manholes and a debris sump that hadn’t existed before the project.

The odor mitigation efforts will help not only lakeside residents but also those “downstream” in the Foothills area, said Joel Komarek, project manager for the Lake Oswego Interceptor Sewer.