New landslide-protection rules are rattling a plan for a roughly 12-acre mix of Chick-fil-A, apartments and retail on Molalla Avenue in Oregon City. The proposal calls for a drive-thru Chick-fil-A, a 14,600-square-foot retail building and up to 210 multifamily units, but the city says the project would exceed a disturbance cap that applies inside a mapped landslide buffer. The planning commission is set to revisit the application at a special meeting this month as residents and engineers square off over how to keep the slope stable.
Staff report flags hillside risk
According to a revised staff report dated April 6, 2026, the east side of the property sits within a mapped geologic landslide hazard overlay zone, and the proposed development exceeds the city's 4,000-square-foot disturbance limit within the geologic hazard buffer, per The Oregonian/OregonLive. City staff say that finding is the key legal hurdle the applicant must clear before earthwork and grading can proceed. That constraint tightens how and where buildings, parking and drive aisles can be laid out on the east side of the site.
Developer pushes back, engineers answer
Cypress Equities, a Dallas developer, is behind the mixed-use project and says it hopes to complete construction by 2030. Company representatives told the commission they have spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” advancing the plans. The application bundles the Chick-fil-A drive-thru, the 14,600-square-foot retail building and up to 210 apartments into one package, and at the hearing developer representative Kirk Williams called the city's interpretation “devastating to our project.”
Developer engineers have proposed soldier-pile walls drilled into bedrock as a geotechnical fix, and city staff said they raised no safety concerns about that approach, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Staff described the concept by saying that, in their words, “scientifically it makes sense.”
Code constraints and parcel context
Under Oregon City code, disturbance within the geologic hazard buffer is capped unless the city grants a variance, which means the project either needs design changes or an official waiver to move ahead at the proposed scale. Public parcel data and commercial listings show the Molalla frontage is a patchwork of commercial lots facing Molalla Avenue, a setup that complicates consolidation and staging for a large project. LoopNet and Clackamas County GIS provide parcel and hazard-mapping context for the area.
What comes next
The planning commission will revisit the application at a special meeting, and any approval could require a variance, a redesign or additional geotechnical work before permits are issued. Chick-fil-A has been actively expanding in Oregon in recent years, which helps explain developer interest in the site, per the chain's October 2025 expansion announcement. For now, the project's timeline hinges on how the city and the applicant resolve slope-safety and buffer-disturbance questions. The schedule of upcoming hearings is listed on the City of Oregon City calendar, and the company's expansion plans are outlined by Chick-fil-A.
