Growth Spurs Corvalis Housing Pinch

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Huge job growth has left this city with a severe shortage of affordable housing, pushing development to nearby towns even less able to deal with the population boom in the Willamette Valley.

A decades-long requirement that each annexation be approved by voters has helped create a healthy and picturesque downtown, riverfront parks, vast open spaces and a network of bike paths.

The city boasts well-paying jobs in high technology, research and higher education based around Oregon State University and Hewlett-Packard.

But housing has gotten scarce, blurring the boundaries between cities.

"The small towns are getting the expense of residential development," Mayor Helen Berg said. "We're getting the advantage of having the businesses."

But other cities, such as Jefferson and Philomath in the mid-Willamette Valley, and Newberg and McMinnville in Yamhill County, are using Corvallis as a model to deal with rapid growth. All now require annexation votes.

Others are debating annexation regulation, and a citizen initiative will put the issue on the ballot next year in Albany.

Some cities, such as St. Paul and Scio, are limiting growth by choosing not to expand sewer or water systems. Salem residents will vote in November on a measure that would make developers and builders responsible for the full costs of development.

State officials predict the valley will be home to 700,000 more people in 20 years, enough to fill six cities the size of Salem.

"We're using up land faster than anticipated," said Peter Watt, manager of the state's Willamette Valley Livability Forum, a group of valley leaders that is trying to focus political and public attention on growth pressures.

"And with the steady growth that's projected, there's going to be a lot of pressure on urban growth boundaries to expand, probably significantly."

H-P workers such as Carl Benvegar and his wife, Marcia, wound up living in Albany instead of Corvallis.

Marcia Benvegar said she gave up looking for a house in Corvallis when she found few choices, even at $225,000. "As they went up in price, they didn't get better," she said. "They were just bigger dumps."

The outward push from Corvallis has spread beyond Albany to Lebanon, a city with abundant land for development located 17 miles east of Corvallis. The growth trend is so strong that Hewlett-Packard of Corvallis has become the largest employer of workers in Albany and Lebanon.

"It's subtle, but then you look one day and say, `By gosh, where did all that traffic come from?' " Lebanon City Administrator Joe Wendell said. One intersection in his city, where commuters take off toward Corvallis, now draws 24,000 cars a per day, more than double the town's population.

Despite such problems, no government planning agencies are considering the future of the valley as a whole. The valley's 14,000 square miles of land are regulated by 10 counties, 101 cities, three regional planning agencies, one tribal government, and 10 state and federal agencies.

Voluntary associations of local governments in most of the valley lack the power of Metro, the Portland-area regional government. Local leaders fear a public or political backlash if a valleywide government is created.

"Planning is probably the easy part," said Jon Chandler, lobbyist for the Oregon Home Builders Association. "The hard part is making it happen."