Land Use Planning and Measure 49

Generally I don't write about local, Oregon issues in this blog because I know most of my readers come from other places. Land use planning however impacts us all as it determines how wisely or otherwise the lands near where we live, where we shop, where we vacation will be developed or changed.

Many years ago Oregon established a system whereby ordinary citizens could submit levies to the voters. In some ways, that is the most democratic system possible... or could be. Instead of representatives deciding all of our laws, we vote on some of them directly. Sometimes that comes about because of the Legislature and sometimes it's through gaining enough signatures. Any measure submitted to ballot must be vetted that it is legal under our Constitution and that all of signatures are the real deal.

When a measure gets to the people, there is no requirement that they get informed, check whether ads are misleading (the most money doesn't always mean something is good but it sure does tend to make a difference), or care what the impact of a law might end up being. Democracy takes work and a lot of people aren't willing to put that into it. Some don't even bother to vote. Some vote carelessly; and of the two, I think the latter is worse.

The ballot measure system has led to some good laws for Oregon and to some of our worst boondoggles. Measure 37, which passed in 2004 and finally was decreed legal in 2006, falls under the latter category as far as I have been concerned. It decreed that any zoning regulations that occurred after you purchased land did not apply to you unless you were paid for the loss in value you might have suffered (determined by you). It does not ask you to pay for zoning regulations that might improve the value of your land. Nor will it compensate those who bought their land after yours but now find their value lessened by your development choices.

Measure 37, however, sounded good enough to the government-is-always-the-bad-guy crowd, that it passed-- throwing out some of Oregon's land use laws which protected farming and timber lands since 1973. Sometimes the land use laws probably were too coercive, but land that is protected can someday still be developed but once tree farms are taken out of production, once farming land is turned into houses or big box stores, there is no going back.

There are people who don't like government regulating anything-- unless of course someone else wants a big box store next door to their home. As for me, I wanted reasonable and thoughtful land use planning. I had seen what happens when there is no planning-- helter-skelter development anywhere, farmland disappearing, factories next to houses and on and on.

Yes, some of that can happen even with land use planning and without a doubt there have been wrong uses of zoning, but what Measure 37 did was create a special group of people who today believe they have the right to do anything with their land, forgetting that even before 1973, when farmland was first uniformly protected, there were zoning regulations. They also conveniently forget that as a compensation for limitations on development and to keep farmland farming, and forests growing trees, the property receives a lower tax rate than residential. That has amounted to quite a compensation for farm, ranch and timber lands which nobody is proposing be repaid.

So that leaves Oregonians today with a new measure to vote on in November-- Measure 49. It was submitted to the people by the Legislature as a partial fix of some of the worst results from the prior law. It would still allow rural property owners, who owned their land before 1973, to build several homes on their land, transfer the right to build those homes, but would block large subdivisions on farming or timber lands.

For those who want no zoning at all, might I suggest a fast food restaurant next door. Amazing how people can see more clearly about some things when are touched by them directly.

So if you live in Oregon, please read the arguments in the Voter Pamphlet, carefully consider the truth of what Measure 49 will do, what the results will be with land use laws being thrown out for a select group of owners (timber lands in particular), and vote Yes.

If you don't live in Oregon, please consider that land use planning is actually to our benefit. We should be informed and support reasonable laws to protect orderly development. The alternative is not pretty and the more crowded together we become, the uglier it will get.