Clark County commissioners recently put a cap on projected growth to control the sprawl until they can pay for the needed roads and transportation at the same time. Vancouver's population growth will stay at 1.5 percent a year for land-use planning over the next 20 years, or about 133,800 more people through 2022. The low growth measure is slightly less than the state median forecast of 1.8 percent for both commercial and residential growth, but equal to Metro's forecast for greater Portland of 1.5 percent. We want to be less of a bedroom community than Portland. That was part of the reason we went with that forecast.
Residential development brings a higher burden of services than commercial or industrial.
The decision comes at a time when Clark County is updating its comprehensive plan to bring more balance between commercial business, jobs and housing. A marketing campaign slated for this fall aims to attract more jobs to Clark County via property owned by Hewlett-Packard and Consolidated Freightways, two businesses that have relocated across the Columbia River in recent months. We need to create more jobs here. There's a need for increased employment opportunity and tremendous outflow in the Portland area. They want to create employment.