42 Comments Add your own

• 1. Gordon F. Corbett  |  October 14th, 2005 at 4:38 pm

  First had the Federal “Kelo” decision. Now Measure 37 is over-ruled. Our rights are hanging by a thread. We must make our legislators repeal Oregon’s land-use legislation. That repeal will protect the rights of Oregonian property owners now endangered and set the stage for compensating those whom Oregon’s governments have already robbed.

  Then, we must make our Federal Executive branch abrogate any treaties requiring Congress to pass land-use legislation and then make Congress repeal land-use laws they have already passed.

  Our rights are sancrosanct. We must make our lawmakers and our courts respect them.

• 2. Gordon F. Corbett  |  October 14th, 2005 at 4:47 pm

  First, we had the Federal Supreme Court’s “Kelo” decision. Now we have the Marion County judge’s decision over-ruling Measure 37. Clearly, the courts do not respect our rights. We must seek redress in the legislative and executive branches.

  We must make our Oregonian legislature repeal Oregon’s land-use laws so as to protect the rights of property owners already endangered and to set the stage for compensating those already robbed.

  Finally, we must make our Federal Executive abrogate all treaties requiring Congress to pass land-use legislation, and then make Congress repeal all land-use laws already passed.

  Our rights are sancrosanct. We must make our lawmakers and judges respect them.

• 3. Jay Miller  |  October 14th, 2005 at 11:04 pm

  I can hear Oregonians In Traction whining already about “judicial activism.” So-called lawyers like Ross Day may eventually learn that they haven’t got a clue how to write a law that can withstand even a half-baked challenge like this one.
  These arrogant windbags need to turn the whole thing over to the “Big Look” in SB 82 so that competent lawyers like Jon chandler can do something real instead of doomed and wasteful attempts like Measure 37.
  At least all those calls to Oregonians in Action about “How can we have a Measure 37 in our state? ” will come to a crashing silence.
  Good riddance to a jackass measure because it will be upheld all the way up!

• 4. May Johnson  |  October 15th, 2005 at 1:13 pm

  How can one person be allowed to overrule the will of the people? This is a free country, and supposedly ruled by the people. Lets do away with LCDC altogether, and give back property rights to the people who paid for the land, and continue to pay taxes on it. As for Oregonians in Action, they are the best support we have. But for them, we would not have gotten this far. And if the neighboring property owners don’t like what we do with our property, let them buy it and pay taxes on it. The farmers in the area like land use laws. It gives them access to inexpensive farm land . Much cheaper to rent, than to own. We need major changes in our laws and it seems it is time to start putting them in effect.

• 5. Jay Miller  |  October 15th, 2005 at 3:40 pm

  Since they’re feeding you, you’d better hope that farmers pay farmland prices and not developers’ or speculators’ prices.
  And how far has Oregonians Inaction gotten us? Exactly the same place that we were 30 years ago!
  Finally, if you really believe that neighbors should pay for land because someone wants to put in a pig farm or a casino next door, then you really don’r believe in ANY zoning.

• 6. Gene Johnson  |  October 16th, 2005 at 10:06 am

  Mr. Miller, you must be a farmer, or a displaced californian. The farmers I know in my area actually brag about the low cost of rent they are paying to use another person’s property, and the reason they get away with it is precisely because of land-use laws. To put the shoe on the other foot, why should a person who buys a piece of property, say 6 acres in size, be allowed to develop that piece, when the neighboring landowner, who owns 35 acres, be forced to farm? What is constitutionally correct about that? Or why should a landowner within the UGB be allowed to develop, when someone across the street, outside the UGB, be denied? If a person cannot use his or her property as they see fit, or as they had planned to prior to the land-use planning laws, then I see no reason for the state not to reinburse them for the loss of income which could have been generated had they been allowed to use their property as it was allowed to be used at the time of purchase.
  By the way, if property zoned as agricultural is to be used specifically for farming, then the landowner could very well raise as many pigs next to their land-use advocate neighbors as they want.

• 7. dlerickson  |  October 16th, 2005 at 5:04 pm

  Mr Miller
  In case you haven’t noticed, there is not much food being grown in Oregon any longer. Because of our wonderful free trade agreements, most of our food is coming from Mexico and any other country with dollar an hour wages. If you look around nursery stock and vineyards have taken over because there is actually a profit to be made in those industries. This is not farming, this is not feeding you. Our berry farm is no longer growing berries because we could not make a living at it. There are no longer any processing plants in the Gresham area, where there used to be three. Why? because no one is growing food, just trees. Yes our farm is still there, it is now being rented to a nursery stock grower at probably less than half of what most people pay for their house payment each month. Due to land use planning and the artificial low value of farm land, it does not even generate enough money to pay the taxes due to the county each year. It sure is wonderful to own a farm, so all of Oregon can have a pretty green field to look at, at our expense. And yes before anyone else says it, we could be nursery growers (or maybe brain surgeons) but don’t have the experience for either job. If you want farmers, be willing to pay the costs for food to make it profitable.

• 8. Tom Franzel  |  October 16th, 2005 at 5:34 pm

  My comments are similar to Miller and Erickson. Although living in Oregon for the last 15 years, before we lived in Clark County, WA, where we bought land which we still own. In 1979, Clark County, to avoid Oregon’s absurd, predatory treatment of rural property owners, passed a Comprehensive Plan which allowed 5 small lots and one “remainder” for each 20 acre rural parcel regardless of soil type, topology etc. Unfortunately In 1994 the State of Washington copied Oregon. We were “downzoned” to one lot on 23 acres, TWO MILES FROM TOWN. This has to stop.

• 9. Jennifer Martell  |  October 17th, 2005 at 8:21 am

  So 1000 “friends” of Oregon thinks they are protecting the farmland? Well what about the farmer? Farmers in Oregon are going to become extinct. NAFTA, high minimum wages and high state taxes are squeezing the farms out. Sure the farms are pretty to look at, but at whose expense? I know a farmer who was hoping to be able to sell some of his land, that is surrounded by development, to bail out the rest of the farm from debt. But that property has been devalued, again.

• 10. Jim Labbe  |  October 17th, 2005 at 11:58 am

  I take issue with those who claim that Marion County Circuit Court decision is somehow a travesty of democratic justice in over-turning a vote of the people. The iniative process, while an important institution in our democracy is a plebicite; a plebicite is not and should not be the only way people collectively express their will our democracy.

  Land-use planning in Oregon has been a product of dedicated citizen advocacy within the land-use planning framework that recognizes the interdependence of local use decisions at the regional and state-wide level. It is a product of thousands of citizens dedicating their time and energy in shaping local, regional, and state land-use policies over the last generation.

  I should add that the Oregonians in Action spin doctrine that says state-wide land use planning in Oregon was hatched and implemented by pointy-head planners or elitist urbanites is the most egregious revision of history.

  As a native Oregonian who has worked and lived in rural Oregon I can say emphatically that we would not have Statewide Land-use Planning in Oregon if it were not for farmers who have been amoung its strongest advocates. It was the farmers, not urbanites, who ran there tractors through Salem to protest Measure 7 and protested this bad idea so vocally.

  MEASURE 37 proposed to instantaneously waive land-use laws established by citizens and our elected officials over years of community planning. In a single vote of a very misleading ballot title, MEASURE 37’s “pay or waive scheme” essentially undermined the deliberative democratic process by which Oregonians have passed state and local laws in their local communities to protect their neighborhoods, their property, and their environment. This was the radically anti-democratic essence of Measure 37 which the Circuit Court over-ruled last Friday.

  The Curcuit Court basically said that representative democracy can not be nullifed. You can force the democratic institutions forged from our representative democracy to pay to govern.

  I say this as someone who support thoughtful, deliberative reform of our land-use laws to make them more fair and justice to present and future generations.

  If people don’t like our land-use laws they should get involved in making better reflect their own sense of justice. They should not demonize their fellow oregonians as “elistist” and pursue misleading and divisive ballot measures like M37 that, as Marion County Circuit Court found, violate the basic tenets of our representative and participatory democracy.

• 11. Josef  |  October 17th, 2005 at 2:10 pm

  “VICTORY: MEASURE 37 OVERTURNED!”

  Okay, stupid q time: Why the headline.

• 12. Peter Bray  |  October 17th, 2005 at 2:12 pm

  Because it is a victory that the court recognized M37 as unconstitutional.

• 13. Gene Johnson  |  October 17th, 2005 at 3:12 pm

  Mr. Labbe and Mr. Bray; What is constitutional about a government, with no vote of the people, changing the use of a piece of property without the landowner’s consent or knowledge? Also, when land-use-planning was originally enacted, landowners were to be compensated for any loss of value to their property caused by a change in use due to zoning. That never happened.
  I know from experience that planning and zoning is sometimes used to punish people who “offend” certain government agencies, and it is also used to reward their friends. There is no agency which zoning/planning departments have to answer to, and that makes it far too easy to abuse. M37 is the only thing which allows long-term landowners the chance to use their properties as they originally intended.
  Farmers do not want a measure such as M37 because it will mean they will have to start purchasing, instead of renting, property and taking advantage of property owners, usually elderly people, who have no choice but to use their property for farming, even though there is little profit in farming any longer. That’s the reason the farmers drove their tractors in front of the capitol building in protest of M7, and that’s why they are against M37, as am I and apparently the majority of people posting here, and the majority of the voters of this state. There is a rumor of beginning impeachment proceedings against the judge who made this ruling, and I would be all for it.

• 14. Lee Gresse  |  October 18th, 2005 at 9:10 am

  Yes on M37’s campaign was deceptive. The bill deserves to go down in flames.

• 15. Gene Johnson  |  October 18th, 2005 at 9:36 am

  What was so deceptive about it?

• 16. PanchoPdx  |  October 18th, 2005 at 4:14 pm

  The land use planners always want something for nothing.

  They know what’s best for everyone, individual property owners be damned.

  They think this decision saves them from their day of reckoning, but it will just delay it a little longer.

  While the backlash grows….

• 17. Jim Labbe  |  October 18th, 2005 at 10:36 pm

  Mr. Johnson,

  There was an extensive debate over compensation of landowners leading up to the passage of SB100 in 1972. It resulted in the property tax deferrals for farm and forest land that have exist today.

  I have not seen one Measure 37 claim that has considered the cost of deferred taxes when pricing claims based on what could be built on a property before the land use restrictions went into place. Is that fair? Is it fair that population growth and the exension of public infrastructure has increased the value of property far beyond what it was when the zoning went into place. I don’t think so.

  I think you can make the case that we need better mechanisms to better distributes the increases in property values that result from planning. That means a compensation system that reasonably compensates some landowners who have legimate. Measure 37 lets landowners claim a price based on the speculative value of their land in the present. That has led to numerous outrageous claims for compensation and the total negation of laws that protect the rights of other individuals as well as community values like water and wildlife (public property).

  Mr. PanchoPdx,

  You can rail against planners and government all you want, but that that is to ignore the real issues of fairness to other property owners, the community at large, and to future generations that led to land-use planning in the first place. The truth is our land-use laws were not hatched by power hungry planners, but in response community concerns about real problems resulting from destructive or incompatible land-use.

• 18. Gene Johnson  |  October 19th, 2005 at 11:00 am

  Mr. Labbe:
  I agree, maybe the land use laws were not hatched by power hungry planners, but unfortunately, human nature and government being what it is, I feel land use laws are now being abused. I can understand the principal of keeping large sections of farmland for agricultural use, but if we want to keep our farmland in production, then I feel the government should try to work with the farmers to allow them to make a decent living off the land. If not, then I feel the owners of those properties should have the right to do what they want with their property. One of the main issues I have with land use planning is the restriction of development on a piece of land 10-30 acres in size. I can think of nothing practical to raise on such a piece of land, yet there are many instances where land such as that is zoned EFU or even SpecialAg, and cannot be used for anything other than farming. Since the government is tax-based, it seems to me that opening up such properties for development would generate much more in taxes than keeping it in farmland. As for land values, if a neighbor is on property that can be divided, developed and sold at current market values, then then adjoining property owners should be able to do the same.

• 19. Sid  |  October 19th, 2005 at 2:57 pm

  Tom F-

  If you haven’t noticed Clark County is a big land use mess. I’ve seen family farms up there pushed out of business because of random, uncontrolled rural development.

• 20. Jim Labbe  |  October 19th, 2005 at 4:15 pm

  Mr. Johnson

  I think you make some reasonable points. But I can’t possibly agree that what you say should be the case, should be the case in all situations irrepective of history or context. There are cases where Isolated farmland parcels, particularly where they are surrounded what is essentially rural resident, probably could and should be developed at reasonable densities. More attention to these situations is needed in local planning processes. We have done this to some degree in Oregon through unincorporated community planning and regional problem solving. We should do more. But absolutist approach of measure 37 is not a solution to these complex problems and contingent situations. These issues can only be effectively addressed in a thoughtful and participatory process with all stakeholders at the table… through thoughtful local planning.

  I do agree that we could develop a consistent statewide approach to dealing with the fairness issues associated with distributing the benefits of planning more equally and accounting for those situations where a landowner has a legitimate claim of hardship. I think the City Club of Portland lays out very sound principles for developing reasonable compensation policies:

  http://www.pdxcityclub.org/pdf/Measure7_2002.pdf

  I also agree that we should support farms not just protect farm land. That could and should be done a lot of ways… via monetary, trade, and direct agricultural policies. That is going to take a redirection of broader public spending priorities. But allowing individuals to do whatever they want with property, in other words, making development “rights” absolute as Measure 37 does, is not going to help farmers.

  One huge area where our land-use system has failed is in protecting ecosystem lands throughout our State’s watersheds… both inside and outside Urban Growth Boundaries. These include environmentally sensitive lands for water quality, sensitive and rare species, and natural hazard lands vulnerable to flooding or landslides.

  When a landowner fills a wetland or floodplain that has existed since the late Holocene, supports sensitive species, and helps maintain downstream water quality and flooding, he or she is taking from the commons by degrading a local watershed or ecosystem. This should not happen without adequate community review and consent. That land-use planning has done such a poor job of addressing these issues is also fairness issue that needs to be addressed in future reform efforts.

• 21. Visit the Onward Oregon B&hellip  |  October 19th, 2005 at 5:09 pm

  [...] M37, with its simplistic misleading language, passed with 61% of the vote, but was recently ruled as unconstitutional by a Marion County judge. Although the ruling angered property rights activists, it offers a much needed opening for the people of this state to better understand what is at stake. It also gives political leaders in the state the opportunity to step up to the plate and make some courageous decisions about upholding the values of livability for future generations of Oregonians. The question is, will they? [...]

• 22. Tom Franzel  |  October 19th, 2005 at 10:06 pm

  To Sid:
  Yes, I agree Clark County is a mess. I also think Measure 37 was a mess, although I voted for it. In my opinion the root cause of the mess in both places is an unwillingness on the part of the average citizen and the average politician to pay a fair price in taxes for a well balanced and ethically sound system of planning and land use. Instead, in both Washington and Oregon, the “systems” cost is born by a small minority of rural property owners who are outvoted. I support eminent domain with fair compensation, and I also support the idea in principle that it should apply to “downzoning” when it is in the public’s best intest to downzone.

  In our case, the downzoning occurred sixteen years after we bought the property, and where we originally paid about ten times the price of real agricultural land in a worse loction (say Lebanon in Oregon). Our land is unsuitable for “agriculture” but was zoned agricultural because that was a cheap way of creating open space and slowing down growth. In Oregon, almost every bit of land outside the urban growth boundaries is zoned agricultural or forest or other resource land. This is clearly a dishonest use of “zoning” to advance an agenda which aims at creating a “conservation” system which is free to the public and which politicians don’t have to stick their necks out to support, since the only people they have to worry about are the small number of people who bear the cost–the rural property owners.

  By the way: our land is surrounded by 5 acre McMansions because our neighbors mostly had the good sense to divide their land years ago. I understand that more than 70% of Clark County’s rural lots are “non-conforming.” We had the misfortune of buying into the Planning Departments “clustering ” proposal in 1978 when we still had the opportunity to divide into fives. The Planning Dept. now claims to be trumped by State law so for us “clustering” has been disallowed.

  Finally: the only editorial in the Oregonian I have ever agreed with on land use policy appeared Tuesday. Every one should read it: it puts the onus on Kulongowski to do something intelligent–that is exactly what it is needed. If he doesn’t act then I and 61% of Oregonians may wind up having to vote for something even worse than Measure 37–and believe me we will!

• 23. Sid  |  October 19th, 2005 at 11:15 pm

  Tom-
  I agree that the legislature should take this on. The problem is several of the House Republicans want to expand on Measure 37 rather than find a sound solution that works. So you may think the onus is now on Kulongoski, or at least that is how it appears, but the onus in on the House GOP. Unfortunately they want to move further away from a compromise. Don’t blame Kulongoski.

  Re: Clark County. My mom’s farm is surrounded by McMansions in Clark Co. Because the water tables were so low, the county brought public water out to the development; about 7 miles of pipeline was put down. Not cheap and very stupid, but because the property owner could legally develop the property the county had to figure out a way to get water to all the new homes. The same problem will arise in Oregon if we let the likes of Oregonians in Action have their way with the state.

• 24. Jeanette H  |  October 21st, 2005 at 10:13 am

  The measure went down because it was unconstitutional. Just because the measure passed doesn’t mean that people can vote in anything because there are enough people who want it. Shall we vote slavery back? How about taking the women’s vote back? Do you want to live somewhere where the majority has the ability to take the rights of the minority because they voted it. Honor our constitution.

• 25. Gene Johnson  |  October 21st, 2005 at 7:07 pm

  Jeanette, when it comes to voting, the majority of the vote is the winner. That is the whole concept of voting. That’s democracy. Sometimes we agree with the end result, sometimes we don’t. That’s our constitution..

• 26. Peter Bray  |  October 21st, 2005 at 10:38 pm

  Gene:

  It’s important that ignorance that is broadly disseminated such as yours is not tolerated. It is not “our constitution” that the majority vote “wins”. The constitution overrides laws via the judicial branch passed by referendum or legislature that violate core principles, such as freedom of speech, equal protection, privacy, and so on. Among other things, the constitution protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

  Do you really think that if Tennessee voted to, say, outlaw public schooling for blacks that that would be legal? No. Or if they voted to outlaw abortion? No, because the constitution guarantees a right to privacy. Or if they voted that land use laws are selectively applied? No, because that is against equal protection.

  Mike Moore had a great tv show called TV Nation. He did actual polling, and found, for example, that 75% of the public would pay to see Orrin Hatch to fight a big mean dog. Does that mean that if there was a referendum for such that Hatch would have to step into the ring?

  The fact of the matter is that Constitution PREVENTS laws borne from ignorant people voting for specious propoganda from the likes of Oregonians In Action.

  Peter

• 27. Gene Johnson  |  October 22nd, 2005 at 11:03 am

  Peter,
  Alright, I was mistaken to refer to the Constitution that way. However, I don’t feel the majority of people who voted for 37 were ignorant. They had the opportunity to read the measure just like everyone else, and voted for the measure as they interpreted it. Unfortunately the Legislature and the Attorney General seemed to interpret it in other ways, and attempted to change it, believeing the voters did not know what they were voting for. I don’t know if you realize it, but land use also favors one group of people over another.

• 28. Tom Franzel  |  October 26th, 2005 at 2:31 pm

  This comment is addressed to Jeanette H. #24
  The Civil War was fought because in the South the State Constitutions permited slavery, while in the North, they did not. The result was a uniform Federal Constitution which overrode states rights on that issue. Nevertheless, many people still favor “states rights” or “local control” over property rights and so far the courts have often ruled in that direction. Nevertheless many states do not steal property values from their citizens, whether it is a matter of their State Constitutions or of common sense and goodwill among neighbors. Oregon was THE pioneer in this odious business and since then a number of other states have copied Oregon, unfortunately in my opinion, such as Washington. However, many other states would not think of engaging in such predatory behavior—their citixzens will not permit it. About 61% of Oregonians would like Oregon to behave like these well-behaved, more honest states, but so far have not been able to get the State to do that. If there is an analogy at all it is this: Oregon is like a Southern State pre-slavery with respect to property rights. The oppressed slaves in this case are the small minority of residents who live or who own property outside the “Urban Growth Boundaries,” wich should be unconsititutional (on a Federal level) if compensation is not paid to those who are downzoned to make this work. Many people want the US Congress to pass a uniform “Property Rights Law” and in effect abolish the financial slavery of rural property owners. So far the Congress has not done this. Another method of obtaining relief may be through the courts, but often it takes 25 years to bring a case all the way up to the top (Lake Tahoe is an example where moratoriums were ruled “legal” but the case was poorly written 25 years earlier and didn’t address endless moratoriums or permanent downzoning. Litigants were invited to reformulate and re-submit their case but half of them were dead and the other half needed to save their money for nursing homes.) We may yet see a Federal Supreme Court case which will reign in the “states rights” so that the state cannot steal your property but it may take a while. By the way, the recent case in which the court supported “eminent domain” for development is irrelevant in the issues facing Oregon: the court said people displaced had to be paid a fair amount of compensation–too bad they weren’t ruling over whether downzoning to create urban growth boundaries needed to ba accomplished through application of eminent domain with compensation. Then Oregons in Action could disband, as they would no longer have a problem.

  If necessary we will change the Oregon State Constitution next if Measure 37 is thrown out by the courts. Surely 61% of Oregonians can get Oregon to behave like a civilized state rather than a bandit.

• 29. Jim Labbe  |  October 27th, 2005 at 3:50 pm

  Mr. Frazel

  Your comparison between Oregon’s planning system, M37, slavery and abolitionism is most creative. However it does not square with history. As I mentioned above, real conflicts between farms and ex-urban development in rural communities led to rural Oregonians, and farmers in particular, leading the struggle to establish Oregon’s land-use planning system.

  I guess I have a hard time seeing how a law that would have given unprecedented and absolute veto power to some property owners over state and local laws- balanced and vetted through the democratic process- as anything but another form of tryanny.

  I might agree with you that certain land-use laws are unfair to certain individual landowners. But what about fairness to the community, to the public a large, and to future generations?

  Are you saying that propery owners should have the right to do anything they want with there land?

  Primeval rocks, weathered and broken down by air, sunlight and water, produced the soil that has been distributed by water and wind to the Willamette Valley over millions of years. Since the Missoula floods of late Holocene- some 12,000 years ago- algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, herbaceous plants, and woody plants have grown, burned, decaded, and grown again in the process of enriching the Valley’s rich and varied loams. The soil-making process is still going on but soil scientists estimate that it takes on the order of a 1000 years for nature to make one inch of topsoil in many temperate climates.

  Is it fair or just to allow a property owner to come along and name the price society must pay him not to entirely destroy this natural heritage?

  That is the standard of justice or injustice that Measure 37 effectively established in law.

  With all sincerely ask you again, do you really think that is fair?

• 30. Gene Johnson  |  October 27th, 2005 at 4:49 pm

  Is it fair that a panel of people appointed by the governor enacted our land use policies in the 70’s without going to a vote of the people? If the people would’ve had a voice in the decision, things would have been much less confusing now.
  And besides, if you drive down hwy 22 just east of Salem right now, there is a HUGE construction project going on. The field which is being totally scraped and reshaped was a grass field last year. It makes it look like government can use prime farm land for whatever they want, but private landowners cannot.

• 31. Tom Franzel  |  October 27th, 2005 at 6:29 pm

  Dear Mr. Labbe,
  I suggest that you read what I said more carefully. I advocated that the perfectly valid power of “eminent domain” be exercised by Oregon State when there was a public need to “downzone” property for which buyers had paid a market price based upon the then-current zoning. This is what is done in more civilized parts of world, as you would quickly find out if you studied the laws and land use practices elsewhere. I certainly do not advocate that landowners be able to do whatever they want with their land: when purchased it has community sanctioned zoning which should be honored as a contract between buyer, seller and community. For the community to “downzone” later as a method of having a cost-free “conservation” system which is to the public benefit is stealing. I hope this is clear. I am not against conservation and believe in preserving our land for future generations. However, apparently unlike you, I am willling to pay tax monies to support such programs, and I believe it is unethical to place this public benefit cost on the backs of hapless property owners who were depending on the existing zoning when they bought land. The State should act as a guarantor of that zoning, not an oportunistic predator.

• 32. Jim Labbe  |  October 27th, 2005 at 11:45 pm

  Mr. Franzel,

  I really don’t appreciate being called a thief or my native state of Oregon a bunch of predators for defending what the Oregon and US Supreme Courts have regarded as legitimate public and private interests and values, but your position (as well as your manners) are indeed clearer. I dare say that you and a few others who have posted here (Peter) need to show little more respect.

  If you hold that that “downzoning is theft” then zoning is theft, period. The democratic process is a legitimate means of balancing private interests and asserting legitimate public interests. You may disagree with the values and interests but calling people thieves those who disagree does not help you case and only degrades the discussion.

  My family has owned property in the Hood River Valley since the 1920s and that was “down zoned” when the rural zoning went into effect in the 1970s. Some of our land was in orchards and others in forested steep slopes above the Hood River. My great grandfather was an orchadist. Neither he nor our neighbors felt victimized by land-use planning because they never imagined that absolute and unlimited development rights were his to claim. Land-use planning process, long and arduous as it was, protected the Hood River Valley as a special place that no one person or even one generation should despoil.

  My family has also received generous tax deferral and my great grandfather certainty to conduct his orchard business, so you can’t say he or his daughter, grandson, and great grandson (me) were not compensated. Moreover property values have increased dramatically even with the zoning.
  I know very few individuals in the Hood River Valley who might have experienced an absolute reduction in property value from the zoning in the 1970s, even if adjusted for inflation. I agree that those that actually have deserve to share better in the increases in property values that have occurred across our state, in part do to smart planning and public investment. But those decisions should be vetted case by case, not by rolling back 30 years of planning and making a run for the bank.

  Mr. Johnson,

  In the 1970s when SB100 passed, it was generally understood that statewide planning would serve to enhance public and private values and it has. There was due public process. Lots of it. Citizens were engaged and elected officials had no choice but to listen. If SB100 had been preceived as a great injustice anyone could have gathered signatures and referred it to the voters. In addition to our rights to the initiative in Oregon, we also have rights to refer of the acts of the Legislature directly to the voters. That no one petition to refer SB100 to the voters is telling. That attempts to overturn land-use planning by initiative failed once in the 1970s and again in the 1980s is also telling.

  It is hardly reasonable to demand that every bit of policy or legislation be ratified by the voters, but one could certainly argue that Oregon’s planning system effectively has, twice.

• 33. Gene Johnson  |  October 28th, 2005 at 10:21 am

  It appears to me that the only values that have been enhanced are the scenic values of rural oregon, which are paid for by landowners, regardless of what they want to do with their land.

• 34. jlabbe  |  October 28th, 2005 at 11:38 am

  I think it is a presumptious to say anyone or any generation owns the beauty of Oregon. It is the inheritance of past, present and future Oregonians. It is inaccurate to say that anyone has paid for it any more than we pay for the air we breath or have some sort of perverse “right” or guarentee to profit at its expense.

  The institution of private property is vital to privacy and commerce in our society but it is simultaneously dangerous to them and other public values when taken to the extreme Measure 37 would have taken it. The most just way to find the right balance is through the legislative process, through the institutions or our representative democracy.

• 35. Tom Franzel  |  October 28th, 2005 at 12:14 pm

  Dear Mr Labbe,
  I am sorry you were offended by what I wrote, but I do not feel I exceeded the bounds of civility, especially considering that Oregonians have been dithering for 32 years about how to address the imperfections in their land use system. Justice delayed is justice denied.

  Thank you for telling me and other bloggers about your families contributions and how they feel about them. But I hope that you do not expect to get more than one vote in the next election, and I certainly hope that you do not feel that others have a moral obligation to feel, or vote, as you do.

• 36. Henry Patrick  |  October 28th, 2005 at 2:12 pm

  In rendering the legislative branch powerless, I wonder if Measure 37 doesn’t also violate Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The United States shall guarentee every State in the Union a Republican Form of Government.”

• 37. Gene Johnson  |  October 29th, 2005 at 5:48 pm

  Nice quote. How about this one?
  “..nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
  - US Constitution Ammendment V

• 38. Jim Labbe  |  October 31st, 2005 at 4:17 pm

  How can we ensure the benefits of planning are shared more equitably?

  One solution has been under discussion for decades is to use some of the windfall profits from those who benefit from land use laws to those property owners who have not.

  When we expand urban growth boundary (UGB), the value of property brought in soars. In the Damascus area, property values rose 500 percent during the four years just before and after its was added to the UGB. Some of this windfall profit
  could be taxed to create a fund to pay for reductions in value caused by zoning of rural land for farm use.

• 39. Gene Johnson  |  November 1st, 2005 at 11:39 am

  The last thing we need is more ways to tax people. If land-use was as fair as you make it out to be, then why would a property owner with land inside the UGB have his land value raise by 500%, while a landowner outside the UGB, with the same soil types and same lay of land, have no increase in value? Sounds to me like one group of people is being favored over another.

• 40. Henry Patrick  |  November 14th, 2005 at 2:43 pm

  Yes private property will not be taken for “public use without just compensation.” But that does not mean private property rights are absolute that the community rights are subordinate:

  Preamble U.S. Constitution:

  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

  U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8:
  The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

• 41. Matthew  |  February 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 am

  I have 40 acres of in oregon, under this messure I will be allowed to divide into 4 - 10 acre lots. I personally would rather see more larger lots spread out in rural areas than see 500 homes cramed onto 100 acres of farmland causing conjestion. I can see in some situations this messure will effect Oregon in a negitive way, but I believe there is more positive things that can come. It is almost getting to the point where there are more people than there are places to build. If you want you can be an enviornmentalist, but if you want to protect our forest your should start giving out free condoms because the population is gowing to keep growing and there will be more and more people needing places to live. Not to mention that by developing my land it will cut down on the fire risk on it, an no im not talking about clearing, just thining and maintaining.

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