Anne Davies <br />February 4, 2014 <br />Page 5 <br />"(g) Goal 18 "Beaches and Dunes". . <br />Consequently, the only "resource lands" are agricultural and forest lands. Lands that fall under <br />the other Statewide Planning Goals are deemed to be "nonresource" lands for purposes of the <br />priorities. Another way to think about it is to realize that Goal 5 resource land is blind to the <br />UGB; Goal 5 resources are to be identified both inside and outside the UGB. There is nothing <br />about Goal 5 land, such as sand and gravel resource land (or mined out sand and gravel resource <br />land) that prescribes whether it should be inside or outside a UGB. <br />To summarize this straightforward application of the statute and Goal 14: If any area is brought <br />into the City of Eugene to meet the identified Goal 9 or Goal 10 land need, it must include the <br />land in this area in the first priority. While ORS 197.298(3)(c) allows for a city to include land <br />of lower priority in conjunction with land of higher priority, for the purposes of maximizing land <br />use efficiency, the statute does not readily allow a city to skip higher priority lands to include <br />lower priority lands instead. All of this property is in the highest priority for inclusion in the <br />UGB. <br />Relevant Interpretations: <br />It goes without saying that the City needs to strictly follow the statutory priorities for adding land <br />to the UGB. In recent years the LCDC and the Oregon Court of Appeals have issued rulings <br />involving the application of ORS 197.298 and Goal 14 in the UGB expansion process. Two <br />points are readily apparent from these decisions. First, the reviewing bodies are rigidly applying <br />the requirements set forth in both the statute and the goal. For a local govern rent to simply go <br />through the motions of the process but not make decisions that conform to the statutory and goal <br />requirements does not satisfy the requirements. Second, these reviewing bodies are rigidly <br />adhering to the fiindamental principle under Oregon's land use framework that urban growth <br />should not come at the expense of resource land unless absolutely necessary. As a result, local <br />govermnents must justify why it is necessary to expand onto resource land instead of onto <br />available nonresource land, and that justification will be closely scrutinized. Time and time <br />again, decisions that elect to bring in resource lands instead of exception areas are being sent <br />back to the local govermnent for further justification and/or modification. <br />In 2010, the LCDC issued an order to the City of Bend and Deschutes County regarding a <br />proposed UGB expansion for the city. See attached Exhibit G. That order explained that, while <br />the statute and Goal provide some room for flexibility in the selection of lands to be brought into <br />the UGB, the LCDC concluded that the methodology and approach used by the City of Bend <br />improperly excluded a substantial amount of land planned and zoned as exception lands in favor <br />of including large amounts of lower priority lands. Exhibit G, page 115 of 156. As the LCDC <br />order for Bend demonstrates, the hurdle for bypassing higher priority lands altogether in favor of <br />lower priority lands is extremely high. <br />Perhaps the most comprehensive explanation of the UGB expansion process in recent years is <br />presented in the Court of Appeals decision 1000 Friends of Deegan v. LCDC (Melblinnville), 244 <br />