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North Bethany Main Street PAC meets

An Urban Design Plan (UDP) for the North Bethany Main Street area is being developed by the Washington County Department of Land Use & Transportation (LUT) with assistance from a project advisory committee (PAC) comprised of community stakeholders.

The first PAC meeting took place in mid-October. Participants and visitors received project information from LUT staff and made comments and suggestions. The PAC’s role is to critique design ideas, not to come up with an Urban Design Plan from scratch.

The PAC includes members of Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District (THPRD), Clean Water Services (CWS), Community Participation Organization (CPO) 7, commercial and residential developers, LUT Long Range Planning Section, and the Otak consultant team for the project.

PAC members will review and provide comments on drafts of the plan. Two open houses—one in winter and one in spring—will be held to solicit public comment on the drafts.

The Main Street area contains all of the land with North Bethany's highest-intensity commercial land use designation, the Neighborhood Commercial-Mixed Use (NCMU NB) District. The Main Street area also contains portions of land with North Bethany's highest-density residential designations—Residential 25 Units or More per Acre (R-25+) District and Residential 24 Units per Acre (R-24). In addition, the Main Street area contains portions of the Park Blocks and the future East Community Park.

The UDP will address design and dimensional standards for the Main Street area as required by the North Bethany Subarea Plan's Main Street Program Guide, including building orientation and setbacks, building height limits, building articulation and façade treatments, location requirements for off-street parking and loading, and streetscape elements.

Creation and adoption of the UDP will allow commercial and mixed-use development to occur in the Main Street area. LUT staff expects to present a land use ordinance to the Board of Commissioners for adoption of the North Bethany Main Street Urban Design Plan in spring 2018. Once the ordinance is in effect, LUT can begin accepting development applications for properties within the Main Street area.

The next meeting of the PAC will likely be scheduled during the second week of December. Members of the public may attend PAC meetings, and can comment and ask questions if time allows. The county website for the project has links to more information about the project, and also a link to sign up to receive updates (scroll to the bottom to find the link).

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