OAR 660-009-0025: Designation of Lands for Industrial and Other Employment Uses

Cities and counties must adopt measures adequate to implement policies adopted pursuant to OAR 660-009-0020. Appropriate implementing measures include amendments to plan and zone map designations, land use regulations, public facility plans, and transportation system plans. (1) Identification of Needed Sites. The plan must identify the approximate number, acreage and site characteristics of sites needed to accommodate industrial and other employment uses to implement plan policies. Cities and counties may also designate mixed-use zones to meet multiple needs in a given location. (a) Plans relying on safe harbor employment growth forecasts do not need to provide a different type of site for each industrial or other employment use. Compatible uses with similar site characteristics may be combined into broad site categories. Several broad site categories will provide for industrial and other employment uses likely to occur in most planning areas. (b) Plans may include sites for one or more target industries. Associated target industries with similar site needs may be combined for site identification. Target industry site needs must be typical of industry site characteristics. Plans including target industry site needs should demonstrate consistency with Oregon Business Development Department (OBDD) guidance or other industry standards regarding typical site characteristics. Examples of sources include but are not limited to industry reports, citation of existing developments, or OBDD publications. Sites identified through the target industries approach may not be planned for retail development other than as allowed under OAR 660-009-0025(9)(a)(C). (2) Total Land Supply. Plans must designate serviceable land suitable to meet the site needs identified in section (1) of this rule. Except as provided for in section (5) of this rule, the total acreage of land designated must at least equal the total projected land needs for each industrial or other employment use category identified in the plan during the 20-year planning period. (3) Short-Term Supply of Land. Plans for cities and counties within a Metropolitan Planning Organization or cities and counties that adopt policies relating to the short-term supply of land must designate suitable land to respond to economic development opportunities as they arise. Cities and counties may maintain the short-term supply of land according to the strategies adopted pursuant to OAR 660-009-0020(2). (a) Except as provided for in subsections (b) and (c), cities and counties subject to this section must provide at least 25 percent of the total land supply within the urban growth boundary designated for industrial and other employment uses as short-term supply. (b) Affected cities and counties that are unable to achieve the target in subsection (a) above may set an alternative target based on their economic opportunities analysis. (c) A planning area with 10 percent or more of the total land supply enrolled in Oregon’s industrial site certification program pursuant to ORS 284.565 satisfies the requirements of this section. (4) If cities and counties are required to prepare a public facility plan or transportation system plan by OAR chapter 660, division 11 or division 12, the city or county must complete subsections (a) to (c) of this section at the time of periodic review. Requirements of this rule apply only to city and county decisions made at the time of periodic review. Subsequent implementation of or amendments to the comprehensive plan or the public facility plan that change the supply of serviceable land are not subject to the requirements of this section. Cities and counties must: (a) Identify serviceable industrial and other employment sites. The affected city or county in consultation with the local service provider, if applicable, must make decisions about whether a site is serviceable. Cities and counties are encouraged to develop specific criteria for deciding whether or not a site is serviceable. Cities and counties are strongly encouraged to also consider whether or not extension of facilities is reasonably likely to occur considering the size and type of uses likely to occur and the cost or distance of facility extension; (b) Estimate the amount of serviceable industrial and other employment land likely to be needed during the planning period for the public facilities plan. Appropriate techniques for estimating land needs include but are not limited to the following: (A) Projections or forecasts based on development trends in the area over previous years; and (B) Deriving a proportionate share of the anticipated 20-year need specified in the comprehensive plan. (c) Review and, if necessary, amend the comprehensive plan and the public facilities plan to maintain a short-term supply of land. Amendments to implement this requirement include but are not limited to the following: (A) Changes to the public facilities plan to add or reschedule projects to make more land serviceable; (B) Amendments to the comprehensive plan that redesignate additional serviceable land for industrial or other employment use; and (C) Reconsideration of the planning area's economic development objectives and amendment of plan objectives and policies based on public facility limitations. (d) If a city or county is unable to meet the requirements of this section, it must identify the specific steps needed to provide expanded public facilities at the earliest possible time. (5) Institutional Uses. Cities and counties are not required to designate institutional uses on privately owned land when implementing section (2) of this rule. Cities and counties may designate land in an industrial or other employment land category to compensate for any institutional land demand that is not designated under this section. (6) Compatibility. Cities and counties are strongly encouraged to manage encroachment and intrusion of uses incompatible with industrial and other employment uses. Strategies for managing encroachment and intrusion of incompatible uses include, but are not limited to, transition areas around uses having negative impacts on surrounding areas, design criteria, district designation, and limiting non-essential uses within districts. (7) Availability. Cities and counties may consider land availability when designating the short-term supply of land. Available land is vacant or developed land likely to be on the market for sale or lease at prices consistent with the local real estate market. Methods for determining lack of availability include, but are not limited to: (a) Bona fide offers for purchase or purchase options in excess of real market value have been rejected in the last 24 months; (b) A site is listed for sale at more than 150 percent of real market values; (c) An owner has not made timely response to inquiries from local or state economic development officials; or (d) Sites in an industrial or other employment land category lack diversity of ownership within a planning area when a single owner or entity controls more than 51 percent of those sites. (8) Uses with Special Siting Characteristics. Cities and counties that adopt objectives or policies providing for uses with special site needs must adopt policies and land use regulations providing for those special site needs. Special site needs include, but are not limited to large acreage sites, special site configurations, direct access to transportation facilities, prime industrial lands, sensitivity to adjacent land uses, or coastal shoreland sites designated as suited for water-dependent use under Goal 17. Policies and land use regulations for these uses must: (a) Identify sites suitable for the proposed use; (b) Protect sites suitable for the proposed use by limiting land divisions and permissible uses and activities that interfere with development of the site for the intended use; and (c) Where necessary, protect a site for the intended use by including measures that either prevent or appropriately restrict incompatible uses on adjacent and nearby lands. (9) Target Industries. Local governments that estimate land demand using site requirements of target industries in an economic opportunities analysis must adopt land use regulations that: (a) Designate and preserve specific sites for use by target industries by zoning ordinance or local measure. (A) Sites designated for target industries may be developed for unanticipated employment uses based upon adopted findings in a legislative or quasi-judicial land use decision that the proposed use offers the community equal or higher local: (i) economic benefit; and (ii) community benefit. (B) Unless a local government adopts a post-acknowledgment plan amendment consisting of an updated economic opportunities analysis to rezone target industry sites: (i) Sites designated for target industries that do not develop with the anticipated industrial use may not be rezoned for commercial or residential use. (ii)Target industry sites zoned for other employment uses may not be rezoned for retail commercial or residential use. (C) Local land use regulations establishing sites for target industries may include provisions for non-industrial development that is subordinate to and supportive of the primary industrial development. (b) Protect designated target industry sites by limiting land divisions and permissible uses and activities that interfere with development of the site for the intended use; (c) Protect, where necessary, a site for the intended use by including measures that either prevent or appropriately restrict incompatible uses on adjacent lands. (10) Sites designated for target industry use under OAR 660-009-0025(1)(b) that are subsequently developed, occupied, and vacated by target industries or locally approved unanticipated employment uses allowed by paragraph (9)(a)(A) may be redeveloped for or occupied by any economic sector.