Two cities are making strides with legislation to bypass Oregon’s regular procedures for swapping land in “urban growth boundaries,” despite fears of a bad land use precedent.

The governments of Roseburg and Monmouth want lawmakers to pass targeted bills allowing them to replace portions of their existing UGBs with land outside those boundaries.

In both cases, the cities say their current UGBs contain acreage that’s unbuildable and must be replaced in a timely fashion to avoid exacerbating housing shortages.

“What we do now is going to impact future generations for beyond the 20-year horizon we look at in these plans,” said Nikki Messenger, Roseburg’s city manager.

House Bill 3921, which would apply specifically to Roseburg, recently passed the House and has been referred to the Senate Housing and Development Committee.

House Bill 2647, which pertains to Monmouth, has been approved by the House Housing and Homelessness Committee and is scheduled for a House floor vote on April 22.

Opponents of the two bills say they are less concerned by the details of the UGB swaps than by the principle of allowing cities to circumvent statewide land use planning rules, which are meant to protect farmland and encourage orderly development.

“It may be a little messy to involve the public, but it is part of the process,” said Mary Kyle McCurdy, associate director of the 1000 Friends of Oregon nonprofit.

If lawmakers acquiesce to the requests of Roseburg and Monmouth, opponents worry the Legislature will keep getting involved in highly fact-based local UGB swaps.

“We are concerned you will be asked to do this sort of thing again and again,” McCurdy said.

Critics fear the bills will undermine the current procedures for swapping land in and out of UGBs, even though those regulations were simplified last year.

“Soon, we will see every other city coming forward with similar proposals,” said Rory Isbell, staff attorney with the Central Oregon Landwatch nonprofit.

In Roseburg, the UGB swap would entail trading 290 acres on steep hillsides with 220 acres of flatter property that already has access to city water.

The currently available vacant parcels within Roseburg have long been for sale but are unlikely to be developed due to difficult terrain and other problems, said Ben Tatone, a local developer.

“They are the dregs and leftovers of subdivisions of years past,” he said. “We are stifled on the supply side.”

The proposal has won all the necessary local authorizations but is opposed by neighbors of the land that would be added to the UGB.

The state’s Department of Land Conservation and Development has ordered Roseburg to reconsider aspects of the plan, but the city is legally challenging that order.

City officials say they’re afraid the legal process could drag on for a prolonged time while Roseburg falls further behind in housing availability, which is already affecting its economy because workers don’t have enough places to live.

“In order to keep up, we need to have projects like this move forward. And unfortunately, we are stuck in this cycle at this point in time,” said Stuart Cowie, Roseburg’s community development director. “Our concern is we will do that additional analysis — which will take a lot of time and money — and will be subject to appeal all over again, and we will just continue to circle around this situation.”

Opponents say that’s not a sufficient reason to short-circuit the existing process for UGB swaps, since involving the public is a critical part of the state’s land use system.

“The fact objections have been filed is not a basis for the Legislature to step in and circumvent that public process,” McCurdy said.

Having statewide lawmakers intervene will eliminate local control and subvert the intent of existing procedures, which are meant to determine whether a proposal complies with land use objectives, Isbell said.

“That process, in our eyes, is evidence the state’s process is working as it should,” he said.

The circumstances in Monmouth are less convoluted because no objections have been raised against the plan, which would replace 90 acres that are prone to flooding with 75 acres that don’t have such environmental constraints.

Even so, city officials claim that completing UGB swap procedures will require four years during which housing development can’t break ground.

“Time is not just a detail. It determines whether a housing project lives or dies,” said Eric Olsen, a local developer. “Delay exponentially reduces the chances of success.”

In both situations, land that’s already inside the UGBs can’t be annexed into city limits due to landowner resistance or another problem, which is preventing development, said McCurdy.

Lawmakers should examine removing impediments to annexation rather than altering the UGB process for these specific instances, she said.

“Again and again, it’s a separate animal from the land use process but it keeps getting in the way,” McCurdy said.