Metro-area cities, including Hillsboro, reported zero industrial sites larger than 100 acres in a statewide survey cited by a new Oregon Business Council (OBC) report. The finding underscores a shortage the group says is costing Oregon manufacturing jobs and tax revenue.

The 29-page report, released Oct. 26, calls Oregon's decades-old land-use system outdated and lays out proposals aimed at the 2027 legislative session: a $250 million industrial site readiness fund, expanded programs allowing industries to set up across multiple jurisdictions and dedicated swaths of underdeveloped land for future growth.

The push arrives as Washington County moves in the opposite direction on at least one category of industrial use. As we reported Oct. 29, the Board of Commissioners voted to restrict data center easements in unincorporated areas. The competing pressures will shape land-use decisions across the county in coming months.

'Phantom supply'

The OBC report, first reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, argues that Oregon does not lack acres zoned for industry. It lacks acres that are actually buildable. The report calls much of the state's inventoried industrial land "phantom supply," meaning land that governments count but that the private sector will not develop.

Metro's Urban Growth Report finds a regional surplus of more than 3,000 acres of industrial land, according to the OBC report. But the report contends much of that land lacks roads, utilities or electricity.

John Tapogna, president of the Oregon Business Council, put it bluntly at a webinar the week of Oct. 26. "Land without infrastructure isn't ready," Tapogna said, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. "Land cannot support homes or industry without adequate roads, utilities and electricity."

Survey: 80% report missed projects

A forthcoming survey by the OBC, the Oregon Economic Development Association and the League of Oregon Cities found that more than 80% of respondents reported missing economic development projects due to a lack of development-ready land. The OBC report says respondents represent well over half of Oregon's economic activity. The full survey has not yet been publicly released.

Of 28 jurisdictions that responded to a separate statewide industrial land survey cited in the report, only eight reported having at least one site of 100 acres or larger. Metro-area respondents, including Hillsboro, Portland, Sherwood, Scappoose, Gresham and Clackamas County, reported none.

Semiconductors at stake

The report frames the shortage as a direct threat to Oregon's semiconductor industry, the state's most valuable export sector. A June 2026 University of Oregon study for Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency, found that limited industrial land is deterring new semiconductor investment, according to the report.

Since 2020, the Semiconductor Industry Association has tracked $640 billion in industry investment nationwide. Oregon has captured only about 5% of that total, the report states, despite holding 15% of the national semiconductor workforce at the time of a 2022 state task force. Arizona has captured about 30%.

Environmental group cautious

Central Oregon LandWatch, a Bend-based environmental nonprofit, did not oppose specific policies in the report but expressed hesitant support for some recommendations.

"Some of these ideas have merit, such as better land inventories and a focus on infrastructure, and others don't," Corie Harlan, cities and towns program director for Central Oregon LandWatch, said in a statement reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

The report says it does not call for wholesale land-use reform. Bipartisan state lawmakers have suggested the land-use system needs updating, making it an issue that could be revisited in the 2027 legislative session, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Business Oregon currently offers a $25 million industrial site loan fund. The OBC report praises a recommendation from Gov. Tina Kotek's Prosperity Council to scale that up to $250 million.