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New timeline for Voluntary Periodic Review of County’s Comprehensive Plan

January 28, 2026 in News

Benton County has made a strategic decision to adjust the timeline for the planned Voluntary Periodic Review of the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. Work initially slated to begin this month will be postponed while the County conducts economic analysis and hires and trains key staff.

A comprehensive plan is a long-term policy document that guides growth, land use and development. It outlines goals while providing the legal foundation for zoning and development decisions.

Voluntary Periodic Review is used in Oregon law to describe the periodic evaluation and revision of a local comprehensive plan. According to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), VPR ensures that comprehensive plans respond to changes in local, regional and state conditions, coordinate with other comprehensive plans and comply with statewide planning goals, statutes and rules.

While counties are not required to update their comprehensive plans on a set schedule, Benton County has chosen to engage in this effort in response to growth and changing community needs.

The Benton County Comprehensive Plan was last updated in 2007. Significant demographic, economic, environmental, legislative and sociopolitical changes in the last two decades have created a strong need to modernize it. The County’s goals for this effort include:

  • Aligning land use policies with community priorities
  • Ensuring compliance with Oregon’s statewide planning goals
  • Integrating resilience, equity and sustainability principles across all policy areas

Once the comprehensive plan is updated, the County will amend the Development Code to implement these policy changes.

In 2024, the County began preparations for the VPR process with the intention of publishing a revised plan around 2028.

Phase 1 was completed in 2024 and 2025. Funded through a DLCD Technical Assistance grant, this robust pre-planning phase included:

  • Development of an Inclusive Outreach Plan
  • A bilingual, countywide priority issues survey distributed twice (~800 responses as of January 2026)[BS1] [TA2] 
  • Listening sessions across multiple communities
  • An equity and inclusion self-assessment
  • Identification of VPR tasks and discretionary planning items

Phase 2 of the project was expected to begin in January 2026 with a state-supported funding package, as indicated in the 2025-27 budget adopted by the Benton County Board of Commissioners.

As the County began planning and implementation for this phase, it became evident that three unforeseen factors had created challenges for the project timeline:

  • The County has been unsuccessful in hiring a new Community Development Director — a key leadership position for this project. A new recruitment was just launched for the position.   
  • Reductions in federal and state funding that began in January 2025 have resulted in fewer financial resources than expected for the project. The County forecasted $350,000 from the state to support Phase 2 of the project, but in December 2025, was notified it would receive $50,000.
  • The Conditional Use Permit (CUP) application to expand the Coffin Butte Landfill has required shifting staff resources away from the comprehensive planning project to meet the unanticipated workload and extension of time. 

In response to these challenges, the County has developed a revised plan to delay the start of Phase 2 by one year. The $50,000 in state funding will be used as identified in the grant application to complete one discrete and foundational task prior to the rest of Phase 2.

The County will conduct a Fiscal and Economic Opportunities and Impacts Analysis with an emphasis on enabling and supporting a resilient rural economy. This analysis will provide an essential baseline for the comprehensive plan update and may directly inform development of a new Capital Improvements Plan to be integrated with the County’s biennial budgeting process.

This one-year delay will enable County staff to complete a major project task while finishing work related to the CUP application for the Coffin Butte Landfill and administering a process to recruit, hire and onboard a new Community Development Director. 

Staff and the Board of Commissioners will also have time to reevaluate the current budget to determine how best to fund the project The goal is to fully kick off Phase 2 of the project in January 2027.

Voluntary Periodic Review of the County’s Comprehensive Plan continues to be one of the highest priorities of the Benton County Board of Commissioners. While a project delay is not ideal, the County believes it will support the best possible result considering current conditions. 

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