The City of Lake Oswego has placed Measure 3-618 on the ballot asking voters to sacrifice a portion of the hard fought charter-protected Stevens Meadow Nature Preserve for a road improvement project that failed to consider design options that would have avoided destruction of this natural area. The LoveLOParks Steering Committee is voting ‘NO’ on Measure 3-618.
Last Updated: April 13, 2024
Stevens Meadow Threatened
Clackamas County is in the final stages of design for the Stafford Road Improvements Project. The City informed LoveLOParks this week that the County’s chosen design requires constructing a portion of Childs Road on the Stevens Meadow property, a Chapter X charter-protected Nature Preserve. Chapter X specifically prohibits new road construction and emphasizes protecting Stevens Meadows (and 14 other properties) as important natural areas.
At the City Council meeting on April 16, Clackamas County presented the design and proposed property impact. Council discussed how best to proceed and providing policy direction to City staff. In City staff’s Council Report, staff identified the following options for City Council to consider:
- Council could sell the needed property to Clackamas County
- Council could refuse to sell the property to Clackamas County
- Clackamas County could attempt to condemn the property
There’s no debate that our community supports safety improvements, but it doesn’t have come at the expense and destruction of our Nature Preserves. Engineers, provided the proper constraints, develop solutions all the time that achieve both goals. Preservation and safety can co-exist simultaneously. And, that is what voters’ intended when they codified into law Chapter X’s significant land use regulations that directs the City to protect 15 Nature Preserves, a mere 290 acres combined, from all development inconsistent with preserving them as natural areas.
It is concerning that City staff have allowed this important project to reach this late stage without enforcing compliance to Chapter X. City staff had an obligation to influence Clackamas County’s road improvements to comply with the constraints imposed by Chapter X’s significant land use regulations. Once again, City staff have been silent and failed to be forthcoming to our community while design considerations were being drawn up throughout 2023 that impact the Stevens Meadow Nature Preserve. Instead, City staff continue this gamesmanship of forcing an unpopular agenda to carve out portions of our Nature Preserves for development — a blatant disregard to the majority in our community who’ve mandated by law that the City protect our Nature Preserves.
Chapter X placed the authority with voters, in those rare instances, to consider all development not explicitly allowed by Chapter X within a Nature Preserve that is inconsistent with the preservation of a Nature Preserve as a natural area. City staff suggesting that City Council sell the impacted portion of Stevens Meadow to Clackamas County is not within the spirit nor intent of Chapter X to preserve this Nature Preserve for the future benefit and enjoyment of citizens.
The LoveLOParks Steering Committee, along with many living in the Stafford area, believes there are alternative solutions that comply with Chapter X and don’t involve Stevens Meadow. However, we have advised the City Manager that should City Council consider selling the impacted portion of Stevens Meadow, the City Council must seek voter approval with a very narrowly focused and specific referendum for the impacted area as the City promised on November 2, 2021 – “Any future property-specific changes will include voter approval.”
We encourage you to submit your thoughts about the proposed impacts to Stevens Meadow with our City Council at CouncilDistribution@lakeoswego.city or by submitting testimony at the Council at next week’s April 16 meeting.