Submitted by Doug Neeley*

  During my tenure on the Oregon City Commission, I have consistently fought against expansion of Oregon City's Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to the south of Henrici Road into the Beavercreek watershed and to the south of Holly Lane Road in the Abernethy Creek watershed. I want to share with you some of the current discussions related to future urban growth expansion and their implications to Beavercreek.
  Metro is now considering establishing hard edge boundaries beyond which Metro jurisdictions should never expand. One idea being considered by Brian Newman, Metro Councilor for much of the Clackamas County area within the Metro region, is to permanently confine Metro expansion to the north of the Clackamas River to the Deep Creek confluence and then to the north of Deep Creek. He is uncertain about how to handle the Oregon City area. I have suggested to Councilor Newman that he consider no expansion in the Oregon City area into the Clear Creek watershed (the community of Redland being within that watershed.) A southern boundary might be Beaver/Parrot Creek. Oregon City has already expanded into northern portions of the Beavercreek watershed.
  Beavercreek has always been a candidate for Metro expansion since it is largely zoned Rural Residential by Clackamas County. In the last round of this year's consideration for urban growth expansion for industrial lands, Beavercreek was still being considered. Fortunately, the only land taken in was north of Henrici Road.
  The community is still under future threat from urban expansion. When studying which lands to bring into the UGB this year, Metro requested advice from the Oregon State Department of Agriculture. Jim Johnson of that department put together a team that classified the study areas into four groups, from the lowest to the highest in terms of the team's concerns about the impact of industrial urban expansion on agriculture. Beavercreek was in the lowest group of concern (actually the lowest group was a group that was of no concern to the team).

  While areas to the south and east of Beavercreek may be protected from Metro expansion, this does not hold for the areas between Oregon City and Beavercreek. I