April 1, 2022:
The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has awarded Springfield a grant for this project! The grant will allow us to continue working with our project partners and to expand the project by looking at wildlife habitat and identifying Water Quality Limited Watercourses in UGB expansion areas. To reflect this expanded project scope, we have updated the project title to Natural Resource Inventories & Protections for Springfield’s UGB Expansion Areas.

Springfield’s draft wetland and riparian inventory report is in review by the Oregon Department of State Lands. Next, Springfield will make any revisions needed for approval regarding local wetlands, which we estimate will come later this year.

August 18, 2021:
The project team closely reviewed the feedback we received in February on the draft inventory report by SummitWest and Terra Science. Click here for a summary of the feedback we heard through our survey. Following report revisions to incorporate feedback in response to our questions to project stakeholders about whether the locations and descriptions of the resources looked accurate, the Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) received the updated draft of the report at the end of May 2021 for review. (This updated draft is a large file and may take a while to download.) We estimate DSL approval this winter.

February 9, 2021:
With our official comment period on the first draft of the inventory report now closed, we want to express a big thank you to everyone who took time to understand more about the project and to those who provided input! Your phone calls, e-mails, virtual meetings, and survey responses added value to this work. One next step will involve the project team’s review of the feedback we heard to consider edits to draft report. We also look forward to sharing a forthcoming summary of what we heard from the 45 people who responded to the survey. You can still review the materials below (note: the links to the report will be to the same draft version that was available between January 15^th and February 8^th):

June 23, 2020:

• Springfield Committee for Citizen Involvement (CCI) Approves CommunityEngagement Plan: The Springfield Planning Commission in its role as the Springfield CCI held a Special Session on April 21, 2020 to review and provide direction on a draft of the Community Engagement Plan (CEP). A presentation accompanied this Session, and staff updated the CEP based on the CCI’s input.
• Project Team Holds Online Information Session: The original plan was to provide an opportunity for property owners in the UGB expansion areas and staff to meet in-person to discuss the project. With COVID-19 precautions in mind, this meeting changed to a virtual format. See the Meetings & Events section below for more information.
• Consultant Comes on Board & Begins Inventory: The City received several, thoughtfully prepared proposals from environmental consultants interested in completing the inventory phase of the project. The project team is pleased to announce SummitWest Environmental, together with Terra Science, as members of the project team. SummitWest and Terra Science have completed the initial field work for the inventory and will begin evaluating the resources they found to inform future written reports (Task 2 of the project timeline).

April 9, 2020:
A Request for Proposals from qualified wetland consultant firms was issued in March, 2020. Bids were opened on April 9th, 2020 and are being evaluated. The City hopes to have a qualified consultant secured in May to allow field work for the inventory to begin promptly.

Please check back for ongoing project updates.