What Will Canby Look Like 5 Years From Now?

 

What Will Canby Look Like 5 Years From Now?

Okay, I need to tell you something most people in Canby have no idea is happening.

While everyone's been busy with regular life, the City of Canby has quietly been working on the biggest planning overhaul this town has seen in decades. And this June, it finally happened. Canby adopted a brand new Comprehensive Plan. If that phrase makes your eyes glaze over a little, stick with me, because this document is basically the blueprint for what this town becomes over the next 20 years, and it affects everything from where new houses go to how crowded the roads get.

Here's the plain language version of what's actually in it, and what it means for the town you live in.

The Plan Was Overdue, and Now It's Done

Canby's Comprehensive Plan was originally written back in 1984. A few pieces got added over the years, in 2007, 2015, and 2019, but the whole thing hadn't been rewritten top to bottom in over 40 years. This spring the city finished that full update, wrapped into a project the city itself branded as "Cultivating Canby." It's made up of three connected pieces: the Comprehensive Plan update, a Transportation System Plan update (the current one hadn't been touched since 2010), and an Urban Growth Boundary expansion.

Translation: the city just finished rewriting the rulebook for growth, roads, and future development, all at the same time.

Canby Is Growing, and the City Is Planning for It

Population projections show Canby reaching around 25,000 residents over the next 20 years. That's a meaningful jump from where the city sits today, and city planners have been studying exactly what that growth requires. Two studies drove a lot of this work: an Economic Opportunities Analysis completed in 2023 and a Housing Needs Analysis completed in 2024. Together, they found that Canby has a land deficit of 563 acres, meaning the city doesn't currently have enough land inside its boundary to meet future needs for housing, parks, and jobs over the next two decades.

That's the "why" behind the next piece of this story.

The Urban Growth Boundary Expansion, Explained

Every city in Oregon has what's called an Urban Growth Boundary, which is a line on the map marking where the city is allowed to grow over a 20 year period. Land outside that line is protected for farm and forest use. Canby has been going through the formal process to expand its own boundary to make room for that projected growth.

The city has already established a study area and is working through the required state level analysis to determine where that boundary should move. Planning for the actual expansion area is set to begin in early 2026. Once that process moves forward, the city will build out what's called a concept plan, which lays out where new housing, job centers, parks, trails, natural areas, and connecting roads will actually go, along with the requirements for how surrounding land eventually gets folded into the city through annexation.

So What Does This Mean for the Next 5 Years?

None of this is hypothetical anymore. The new Comprehensive Plan is adopted. The boundary expansion work is actively underway. The direction for the next couple of decades has been set on paper, and the early groundwork for where and how the city physically grows is happening right now, mostly out of public view.

That doesn't mean bulldozers show up next month. Big city planning moves slowly and deliberately, and there are still steps ahead, including the boundary location analysis and the concept planning process. But the framework guiding where Canby expands, where new infrastructure gets built, and how the city manages that growth over the next 20 years has officially been set in motion.

So if you drive around Canby in five years and the town looks a little different, this is the paperwork trail that explains why.

Stay in the Loop

This is exactly the kind of local news that shapes a community, and it rarely gets the attention it deserves. I like digging into what's actually happening in our city halls and planning offices so you don't have to sit through the meetings yourself. If you found this helpful, follow along for more local updates on what's shaping Canby and the surrounding towns.

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Jennifer Schurter serves buyers, sellers, and investors throughout South Clackamas County and the North Willamette Valley, including Canby, Oregon City, Wilsonville, Aurora, Hubbard, Molalla, Woodburn, Newberg, Sherwood, Tualatin, West Linn, Lake Oswego, and the greater Portland metro south. Her goal is simple: to be the most knowledgeable, most responsive, and most genuinely helpful real estate agent in the area, every single time. Jennifer is a licensed Oregon real estate broker with Real Broker LLC.

Have questions or want to get started? Connect with Jennifer here. She'd love to hear from you.