Growth - Stimson plan for Iowa Hill moves ahead despite uncertainty future of land use laws

Article by Christian Gaston, Forest Grove News-Times, August 22 2007

Bill Farrin writes his concerns for the developers at a Stimson meeting on Thursday, Aug. 16. Farrin lives along Cold Spring Creek and is worried about water usage and rights.

The room was packed and the temperature rising at St. Peter’s Lutheran School south of Cornelius last Thursday evening.

More than 60 people crowded into a conference room to hear Stimson Lumber Co.’s latest plans for converting 1,100 acres of timber land on Iowa Hill into 40 luxury homes.

Hal Keever of W&H Pacific, which will run the development process for Stimson, had a couple ground rules for the hour-long meeting:

“I’m not going to talk about Measure 37 and I’m not going to talk about Measure 49,” he said, referring to the land-use reform passed by voters in 2004 and an upcoming ballot measure that would largely gut it. “If you ask those questions I’m going to go on to the next person. I don’t know anything about those measures. This is not a political meeting.”

While most landowners and neighbors in attendance abided by his request, it didn’t seem to cool any emotions and it certainly didn’t quell the buzz after Keever and his team left, when neighbors organized future meetings to discuss how they can combat Stimson’s development plans.

The breadth of Stimson’s development plans shocked many observers when just before a Measure 37 filing deadline last year, the Portland-based company filed claims to develop 36,000 acres of timber land throughout the county, including several near the company’s mill just east of Hagg Lake.

Since then, the company has pursued the claim on Iowa Hill, a sprawling tract of timber land along Dixon Mill and Iowa Hill roads.

Andrew Miller, Stimson’s chief executive offider, said that’s by design. The company granted Washington County additional time to process its other claims earlier this year and Miller said he doesn’t expect to utilize the building rights from those claims any time soon.

“Other than a few select spots, we’re just not going to develop in Northwest Oregon,” Miller told the News-Times. “The idea that we’re going to build lots around Hagg Lake is just preposterous.”

But on Iowa Hill, it’s a different story. A year from now, Miller hopes to see construction.

“Our goal is to have a plan that could be approved by early next year,” he said. “We’re early in the process, but this is something that we want to get done in five to six months,” Miller said. “If it all went the right way we could have bulldozers out there in spring,” Miller said.

What Stimson could build on the rolling property perched above farmland and small rural lots is dictated, at least for now, by the terms of Measure 37. That law basically allows property owners to ignore state and local regulations that were implemented after they purchased their land. (The law allows local governments to pay the landowner in order to enforce the regulations to compensate the owners, but Washington County, like most jurisdictions, has said it has no funds to do so.)

In the case of Iowa Hill, Stimson is seeking to create a rural subdivision of more than three dozen 26-acre lots. Each lot would be a home site, but the owners would need to raise some sort of crop to meet state agricultural income requirements in place when Stimson bought the land. Whether it’s timber, Christmas trees or Pinot noir would be up to the prospective buyer.

The size of the lots and the income requirement will likely translate into slow sales, Keever said.

“I’ve told Stimson this is an eight- to 15-year venture,” he said.

But the slow rate of the development didn’t alleviate neighbors’ concerns, which touched on everything from water to runoff to transportation and traffic issues.

The big question for nearby property owners is what the development will mean for Dixon Mill Road, which Stimson’s current plans mark as the main access point for the new development.

Neighbors worry the project will change Dixon Mill, from a partially paved, meandering county road to a major thoroughfare.

“When Stimson opens this up, it’s going to open up the whole valley,” said Carol Hart-Canon, who lives along Dixon Mill Road. “That’s a lot more traffic.”

Keever said that the traffic impact of the new development will be a major consideration for the county, but that he won’t know what it is - or how to mitigate it - until a study is completed in the coming months. But, Keever said, it’s unlikely the county will require major improvements to the road.

“I doubt they would require it to be paved, because, where do you stop?” Keever said.

Keever also stressed that some elements of the preliminary plans are likely to change if the project goes forward. For example, on a map shown at the meeting, residents were worried that Hummingbird Lane, an extended driveway that currently dead-ends off of Vandehey Road seemed to be a through street that fed the development. “That doesn’t mean that Stimson has an easement or will get one,” Keever said.

“We’re showing several access points at this point,” he explained. “Some we have legal access to, some we may not.”

Water, too, was on the minds of nearby homeowners, many of whom are supplied by wells on their property.

“If they dig wells you don’t think that our water is going to go away?” said Lucy Fomenko.

Keever responded that it’s still early in the development process and he’s not sure what kind of water system will be put in place. “We’re exploring individual wells or community water system,” he said.

Other than where the new residents will drive or where they’ll get their water, the mood in the room seemed to wonder who these new neighbors might be.

Chuck Price, who has owned his property adjacent to Stimson’s land since 1965, said that he’s had a great relationship with Stimson, working with them to keep out hunters and others who arrive with their Hondas and other all-terrain-vehicles.

But he worries once Stimson’s out of the timber game, he and other landowners will see an upswing in trespassing.

“We expect that these are upper-middle-class families, which means three to four Hondas and deer rifles,” he said. “My concern is that with 40 (new) families, we’re going to become an attractive diversion.”

John Lee, who lives on Dixon Mill, shared Price’s concerns, saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

But the fact that Stimson’s property already has so many residential neighbors is part of why the company is interested in unloading it.

“There are some of our neighbors who are very upset about this, because they’ve used our acres as a park,” Miller said.

According to Miller, those ATVs have been tearing up Stimson’s timber land for years and the company was planning to move off the property - which Miller said isn’t ideal for growing timber anyway - even before Measure 37 was passed.

Miller said that the company would still be able to parcel out their Iowa Hill tract without Measure 37, albeit at a slower pace.

“Iowa Hill, ignoring the Measure 37 claim, has zoning features that allow development,” Miller said. “It would take us 10 years to do it, but we’d still end up with 40 lots.”

Stimson may have to revert to those pre-Measure 37 plans if voters approve Measure 49, which would rework most of the provisions of Measure 37’s land-use rules.

Miller said that Stimson will participate in the effort to defeat Measure 49, which state lawmakers put on the November ballot. Miller characterized the measure as an effort on the part of Democrats, who control the statehouse, to limit what timber companies can do on their land.

While Miller, who did not attend last week’s meeting, conceded that Measure 49 might slow the company’s plans for Iowa Hill, he said residents of the area need to know that changing the law won’t stop development there or in other areas being affected by residential growth.

“The news for them is it’s going to be there one way or another,” he said. “We’re patient, we’ve got the resources and we’re going to do it. It happens everywhere.”