A rendering from a city survey shows what Highway 43 could look like in the future with code changes.

Eyeing an October finish line, city of West Linn planners are more than halfway through the project that could remake Highway 43.

The city initially kicked off its Vision43 project in December 2023, but as associate planner Chris Meyers told the West Linn City Council at a meeting Jan. 21, community engagement actually began a couple months prior to that.

According to Meyers and Councilor Carol Bryck, community engagement has been a key component of the project. Bryck said engagement for Vision43, which has taken place through multiple surveys, open houses and discussions with neighborhood associations and community advisory groups, has gone above and beyond previous city planning efforts.

When complete in October, Vision43 will offer a new conception for Highway 43 from I-205 to the West Linn border with Lake Oswego. The plan will also include new city policies and land use code to help bring the vision to a reality.

Meyers clarified that Vision43 is not an infrastructure project — it won’t fix the potholes that plague the corridor or add turn lanes and bike lanes.

So what will the project do?

Vision43 will change codes for commercial and mixed-use properties along the roadway, predominantly expanding lot coverage so that such buildings can take up more than 50% of their lot, moving parking to underground garages or behind the buildings, and increasing height limits for the buildings. The idea is for these changes to allow multiple-story buildings with businesses on the ground floor and apartments on the upper levels.

Consulting firm MIG is also conducting an analysis of pedestrian and bike connections in the area to generate ideas for making the corridor more bike-ped friendly.

In the coming months, Meyers said the Vision43 team will have a set of new codes and policies to present to the public for more feedback.

Meyers added that the city may conduct a tax increment financing feasibility study for the area. Tax increment financing, also commonly called urban renewal, is a tool governments can use to fund public infrastructure projects over multiple years. West Linn already has a tax increment financing district in place for the Willamette waterfront area.

As another long-term goal, the city is considering a project at the old Bolton fire station — one of the only properties the city owns along Highway 43. Meyers identified 2027 as a possible year to begin planning that project.

Councilors stressed the importance of engaging with various entities that could be impacted by changes to Highway 43 like Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue and the West Linn-Wilsonville School District, as well as business owners and commercial property developers.

Bryck added that even with all of the city’s outreach, there are still misconceptions about the project in the community.

“I’ve read through a lot of the comments that came in with the survey and in spite of all of the outreach there’s still a lot that people don’t understand about the project,” Bryck said. “There were many people thinking we’d force all the residential properties along the corridor to become commercial properties, not understanding that we have those focus areas that are already commercial. So we still have some work to do and I’m hopeful that some of the new renderings and things like that we come up with help people see the vision a little more clearly.”