Who defends our Town Centers?
by Virginia Bruce

Update July 13, 2012: Washington County Hearings Officer denies Bethany Taco Bell appeal, so the drive-thru is approved.

Who does a town center belong to? Does it belong to the business owners, the owners of the buildings, the owners of the land where the buildings are located, the jurisdiction that controls development, or to the community that frequents the town center? When a community feels ownership of a town center, regardless of who actually controls the land, that sense of ownership helps to create a vibrant community core. A healthy, vibrant town center will foster a community where residents want make an investment—where people want to live, work, shop and play.

Community plans for the Bethany Town Center were drafted in 1983. The community worked with Washington County Staff and property owners to create plans for a pedestrian-friendly urban village. Rather than creating an auto-centric strip mall, the vision was to create a walkable community center with services located within walking distance of the surrounding residential areas. During early implementation of the community plan, promises were made that the county would ensure that it would develop as a pedestrian-friendly urban village.

In 2012 the community learned, late in the approval process, that the property owner had signed a lease with Taco Bell for a drive-thru fast-food restaurant as the final tenant of the shopping area. Although this drive-thru fast-food restaurant does not fit the vision of the original community plan and does not comply with the promises made to the community, code allows for this type of facility. Although folks have been lured to buy homes in Bethany based upon the planning promises and vision, apparently this carries no weight with Washington County in determining the future of our town centers.

Cedar Mill has even thornier problems. It developed with two fairly separate main areas along Cornell, at Murray and at Saltzman. It lacks several features normally considered critical to a successful Town Center—public spaces, a concentrated complex of businesses that people can walk to and from, and an alternate grid of streets that would provide for good circulation, along with the obvious lack of a city to guide the process.

When the county adopted our Town Center ordinance, the goal was to create a framework that would guide development and redevelopment to eventually create such an area. As each property was ready for redevelopment, these guidelines were to be applied, to ensure a good outcome. In the words of the county’s own document*, “The objective is to shape future growth in such a way that each town center becomes, over time, a more compact node of multiple activities.”

During the Cornell Road improvement project, the county allowed a variance for the station that lets them have a 5' sidewalk, as opposed to the rest of the area which has 12' sidewalks.

Early this year, county planners decided to allow Jackson Oil to expand their Shell station property to accommodate a large convenience store at Barnes and Cornell. This decision, upheld on June 27 by a hearings officer, represents a serious blow to any notion of having a real Town Center. Not only does it endorse the reduced sidewalk in front of the station, it will likely preclude the Barnes Road northerly extension for the foreseeable future. The shop behind the gas pumps hardly fits any definition of a walkable, street-centered community.

In the staff report and in the hearings officer statement, strict interpretations of code became tortuous excuses to approve the expansion. The county said they had to allow this use because to deny it would open them to charges of a “taking” of the value of the property. Instead, they’re taking any hopes we might have had that we are working toward a Town Center.

This lack of support from the county makes us question the value of the Town Center ordinances, which place serious constraints on landowners and businesses that want to redevelop property in the Town Center area. Why should our businesses be subject to these requirements, when the county planning staff won’t defend the most basic notions of good Town Center planning? Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate whether a Cedar Mill Town Center is a realistic goal. If it is, then we need to find different mechanisms for achieving it.

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