Title: Portlands Urban Growth Boundary Explained | Living in Portland
Headings: Portlands Urban Growth Boundary Explained
Portlands Urban Growth Boundary Explained
Portlands Urban Growth Boundary Explained
The Metro Council by law has to keep 20 years of developable land within the urban growth boundary. Three years ago, the Metro Council took a look around greater Portland and saw two things: Thousands of acres of vacant, developable land, and thousands of units of apartments under construction in Portland.
What’s the urban growth boundary?
Why does Portland have one?
How does it work?
Portland’s shared UGB
How can we handle our growth and limit our sprawl?
Doesn’t the UGB cause density?
Does the UGB cause rents and house prices to go up?
I heard that Metro has expanded the UGB dozens of times. What’s the point of having a boundary if it can be expanded indefinitely?
Is there a limit to how far the UGB can expand?
Can the UGB expand because one of the region’s 24 cities is growing particularly quickly?
The Metro process
What’s the urban growth report?
How does Metro pick where to expand the UGB?
The 2018 analysis
What’s new in this year’s UGB review?
Where might the UGB expand this year?
How does the council choose?
UPDATE: January 2019 the following expansion was approved by Metro.
Beaverton / Cooper Mountain
1,242 acres, 3,760 homes
Hillsboro / Witch Hazel South
150 acres, 850 homes
King City / Beef Bend South
528 acres, 3,300 homes
Wilsonville / Frog Pond
271 acres, 1,325 homes
For more information on these developments:

Content: In theory, the UGB could expand in perpetuity, but the reality is that for the next 50 years, the UGB is unlikely to expand beyond the 23,000-or-so acres of urban reserves around greater Portland. Can the UGB expand because one of the region’s 24 cities is growing particularly quickly? It can, but only under certain circumstances – primarily, that the city must show that it has a plan to support new development on newly urbanized land and that the region as a whole needs more acreage for development. More on that below. The Metro process
What’s the urban growth report? Every six years, Metro has to put together a report on growth in greater Portland – how much we’ve had, how much we expect, where people are living, and how much land there is for future development. It’s a complex, peer-reviewed snapshot of growth in the metro area, aimed primarily at calculating how much land is needed for 20 years of future growth. The last urban growth report was done in 2015 and was heavily informed by the budding surge in apartment construction in greater Portland. It found that the region easily had enough land to accommodate 20 more years of growth. Suburban leaders and developers were somewhat skeptical of the apartment boom and asked Metro to revisit the UGB in 2018, three years earlier than usual.