By DAMIAN MANN
Mail Tribune

Jackson County cities might have overestimated by 36 percent the amount of acreage needed to double their populations in the next 50 years, a consulting firm has concluded in a preliminary review.

Portland-based Parametrix also found that 24 percent of the land proposed for future building by six of Jackson County’s cities would be land that is vital to the agricultural economy of the valley.

All the cities studied except Ashland are proposing to take in more land than they might need to handle a doubling of their populations, Parametrix’s initial study revealed. The other cities include Talent, Phoenix, Medford, Central Point, Jacksonville and Eagle Point.

In total, they are proposing adding 8,822 buildable acres for expansion, compared to 6,462 suggested by Parametrix’s review.

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Parametrix found that Central Point has only 852 acres that it could grow into without bumping into high-quality farmland. The city has proposed expanding into 1,272 acres of high-quality agricultural land mostly to the west.

"My personal viewpoint is we should protect farmland, and that is the original idea of regional problem solving," said Kate Jackson, chairwoman of the Regional Problem Solving Committee, made up of representatives from seven cities and Jackson County who are planning for future growth. The committee contracted the Parametrix study.

Jackson is also an Ashland councilwoman. Her city is the only one that doesn’t propose to grow outwards, preferring to fill within its existing boundaries.

But Central Point Mayor Hank Collins said his city, which is rapidly running out of space for more development, has no choice but to expand into farmland, which is practically the only land available outside its borders.

"Yeah, they would probably say I’m greedy," he said, adding, "That’s an Ashland perspective."

Collins said the city needs to have room to grow to put more housing stock on the market and bring prices down for working families.

He also said the Parametrix analysis used 2000 U.S. Census figures for a baseline, which doesn’t reflect the booming population growth in the past few years. Central Point’s population has grown from about 12,500 in 2000 to 14,950 in 2004, according to the most recent figures from Portland State University’s population data center.

John Evans, project manager in Parametrix’s Corvallis office, said the results of the preliminary report aren’t the final word in the study.

"We’re at 50,000 feet," he said, referring to the broad overview of the land proposals at this point. "We need to get to the street level."

Some feedback from cities has shown the report will have to be changed, he said. For instance, the city of Phoenix recalculated the land area it was requesting and came closer to the 620 acres suggested by Parametrix’s review.

Evans said other cities might be looking to expand into farmland, but it could be farmland that is no longer being used.

"We don’t know anything about the land in particular," he said. "We don’t know if this particular piece of farmland is non-productive."

Greg Holmes of 1000 Friends, a land-use planning advocacy group, said the apparent overestimation of acreage doesn’t surprise him. "I’ve been saying the same thing for two years," he said.

He said he told the cities in August 2004 that they had overestimated by 2,700 to 4,000 acres.

"I don’t want to say that any one city was wrong, but it’s too much for all of them to get all of what they’ve asked for," he said.

He said that so far the cities have been working on their own to come up with projected growth areas, but because this is a regional effort, there will have to be more work put into the final plan.

Jackson said the process of determining how cities are going to grow in the future will eventually look at the effects on transportation and at ways to balance jobs with nearby housing. In addition, she said, more current population projections will be used in the analysis.

Despite differences of opinion about how the area should grow, Jackson said, "Every city is doing the best they can for the views they reflect."

Reach reporter Damian Mann at 776-4476, or e-mail dmann@mailtribune.com.