Fighting Sprawl, Oregon County Makes Deal With Intel to Limit Job Growth

HILLSBORO, Ore., June 8— When county officials sat down with the Intel Corporation to develop a package of tax incentives that would keep the state’s largest private employer here, the two sides struck a deal that had some fairly standard provisions. Intel would invest up to $12.5 billion in new equipment and plant upgrades over the next 15 years, and the county would grant $200 million in property tax breaks.
And just one more thing, the county asked: Please don’t create too many new jobs.
In an unusual arrangement that reflects both the flush national economy and Oregon’s particular obsession with controlling sprawl, the computer-chip maker has agreed to pay a ”growth impact fee” if it exceeds a ceiling of 1,000 new manufacturing jobs on top of the 4,000 it already provides here in Washington County, part of the growing Portland metropolitan area.Under the package, which county commissioners are expected to approve next week, Intel will pay the county $1,000 per excess worker per year if it surpasses the job limit. County officials say they are thrilled to keep the existing jobs here but really are not interested in a major expansion, which would put new strains on schools, roads, utilities and many other services in an area that is trying to hold on to the patchwork of farms, forests, orchards and other undeveloped space that make it a particularly attractive place to live.”This whole process was geared toward consolidating our victories,” Charles D. Cameron, the Washington County Administrator, said of the negotiations with Intel. ”We’re more concerned about retaining the economic strength we have rather than creating more.” Or, as Walter C. Peck, a county spokesman, put it, if Intel had been ”talking about 5,000 new jobs here, the sense is they wouldn’t have gotten to first base” with any request for tax breaks.

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