Three Oregon Cities Showing What Public Adoption Can Look Like
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Small moves. Real results.
Launching a new public-facing tool is only half the work. The other half is making sure residents can find it. Three Oregon cities have done that especially well with UrbanForm and the approaches they took are worth sharing, because they're simple, replicable, and they work.
Boardman: Give It Its Own Home
The City of Boardman created a dedicated UrbanForm page under City Administration - its own destination with a plain-language description, a direct link, and a video walkthrough.
Glenn McIntire, Boardman's Building Official, summed it up well:
"It gives us the ability to respond more efficiently to applicants and keep projects on schedule. I found it really intuitive — a joy to use."
That staff endorsement matters. When residents and developers see that the people inside City Hall trust the tool, they trust it too. And the video walkthrough removes first-time friction before it becomes a phone call to planning.
Bandon: Lead With It
Bandon put UrbanForm front and center on their Community Development Department page - the first thing visitors see, with an embedded map preview, a search bar, and a Get Started walkthrough.
This placement sends a clear signal to residents: this is how we want you to find zoning information. When UrbanForm is the first option people see, it becomes the first option they use.
Bandon was part of a three-city Coos County initiative that digitized 14,867 parcels across Bandon, Coos Bay, and North Bend. Theresa Haga, Executive Director of CCD Business Development Corporation, put it simply:
"Tools like UrbanForm give us new ways to be ready for growth."
North Bend: Treat It Like Recurring News
North Bend featured UrbanForm as a homepage news highlight visible to every visitor, framed as a community benefit.
The headline positioned it as something the city is proud to offer. That framing matters. It reaches people who weren't already looking for zoning help - residents, developers, neighbors - and lets them know the resource exists. Their announcement described it plainly: a tool that turns zoning from "huh?" into "got it."
What the Numbers Show
Across 19 Oregon partner jurisdictions, UrbanForm is averaging 2,692 sessions per month. One county alone has logged 10,080 parcel inquiries in the last 12 months.
Those aren't vanity metrics. Each one is a zoning question that got answered without a phone call to planning, a resident who found what they needed, a developer who came to the counter better prepared, a staff member who spent that time on something else.
Visibility is what drives those numbers. The jurisdictions with the strongest adoption are the ones that made UrbanForm easy to find.
The Common Thread
Each of these approaches is different. What they share is intentionality; a decision to make UrbanForm visible and easy to find, not just available.
For Amanda Perron, Community Development Clerk at the City of Lafayette, it's part of the morning routine:
"I open it each day alongside ORMAP to answer resident questions and review site plans for building permits."
Palak Pandey, City Planner at North Bend, says:
"UrbanForm is my go-to resource every day. It's literally always open on one of my browser tabs. When community members call with property questions, I can pull up zoning, setbacks, and floodplain information in one place instead of jumping between GIS, the county assessor's website, and our own records. It has streamlined how I respond to inquiries and how I present information to our planning commission. For a growing city like North Bend, having that kind of access at your fingertips makes a real difference."
That's the outcome worth aiming for. A tool that staff rely on and residents find on their own.
Ready to Make It More Visible in Your City?
If you're already live on UrbanForm and want help getting it in front of more residents - a page setup, a department site update, whatever fits your city's structure - we're happy to do it with you.
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