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Urban sprawl gobbles Oregon Staff and wire reports Urban development and sprawl encroached on 16 million acres of farmland and forests -- including 150,400 acres in Oregon -- during a five-year period in the 1990s, according to a new federal report. The acres lost between 1992 and 1997 were greater than the 13.8 million acres lost during the entire decade from 1982 to 1992, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Nationally, the nation now loses 3.2 million acres of farmland and forests a year to development, more than double the annual loss in the previous decade, according to the department's Natural Resources Inventory, which is updated every five years. Oregon has seen a slower rate of development than most states. It ranked 34th in the proportion of acreage converted to urban uses between 1992 and 1997; the state ranked 27th in the 1982-92 period. State officials and others praised Oregon's land-use laws for curbing the loss of forests and farmland, even though the state has had one of the highest rates of population growth in the country in recent years. "In Oregon, the first resort for development isn't virgin forests and prime farmland, like it is in a lot of other states," says Randy Tucker, a spokesman for 1000 Friends of Oregon. The report "shows the success of our planning program," he says. Most of the state's losses have come in the Willamette Valley rather than Southern Oregon. The report doesn't break down lost acreage by county, and county planning officials said no recent data was available. But Rogue Valley planners and observers say Jackson County hasn't seen rapid urban sprawl despite its population growth. "I don't know that we've really had a lot of loss in Jackson County," says Scott Clay, a former Jackson County planner who now works for 1,000 Friends of Oregon. As evidence that urban sprawl hasn't been a big problem here, city planners point to the fact that the urban growth boundaries of Medford, Ashland and Central Point haven't changed much in the 1990s. Urban growth boundaries are used to plan where cities grow. Ashland hasn't expanded its urban growth boundary since it was officially established in 1981. John McLaughlin, the city's planning director, says the city still has plenty of buildable land and doesn't expect to expand the boundary anytime soon. "We're saying our existing urban growth boundary that was adopted in 1981 is still valid for the next 20 years as well," McLaughlin says. Medford has added to its urban growth boundary only once since it was established in 1976 and recognized by the state in 1981. The city added 1,200 acres of buildable land in 1990, most of which will eventually be part of the development known as the Southeast Plan. Jim Eisenhard, Medford's planning director, says very little of the land added in 1990 has been developed -- so the city's growth has essentially been contained to the old boundary. "Virtually all the development that has taken place since 1976 is within the boundary established in 1976," he says. "We are feeling very good about it." Central Point's urban growth boundary hasn't changed much since its inception in 1983, aside from a 23-acre addition for a baseball field, according to Tom Humphrey, the city's planning director. The boundary was planned for 20 years and hasn't expanded, though the city has grown dramatically. "We've just been growing within that boundary," Humphrey says. "We are working into that 20-year supply." Naumes Inc. has proposed that Central Point bring about 40 acres inside the boundary, a request that is still being debated. Humphrey also says the city may need to expand the urban growth boundary soon. The city plans to implement more mixed-use and transportation-oriented development to most efficiently use the land within the growth boundary. Nationwide, built-up areas now account for 7 percent of the 1.5 billion acres of private land, up from 5 percent in 1982. In all, 30 million acres were converted to urban uses between 1992 and 1997. In Oregon, the percentage of developed land rose to 4.3 percent of the 30 million acres of nonfederal land in the state, up from 3.2 percent in 1982 and 3.8 percent in 1992. Oregon now has 1.3 million acres of built-up land, according to the report. Most of it is in the Willamette Valley. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA