Dear HCN,
As a planning
director for Linn County, Ore., for 13 years (1981-94) I felt a
responsibility to respond to Rebecca Clarren’s article,
“Planning’s poster child grows up” (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s
poster child grows up). There are a few inaccuracies; however, I
found the article to be well-balanced. On the whole, the planning
program in Oregon has been working well. The success is most
apparent when comparing the magnitude of urban sprawl in Oregon
with what one sees in the other states in the West.
The
problems we are experiencing in Oregon result in part from
solutions that are overly prescriptive and come from extensive and
complex rules and laws promulgated by the Land Conservation and
Development Commission and by the Oregon state Legislature. During
the late 1980s and early 1990s, agricultural lands rules were
developed largely on a statewide basis and were placed on the
ground without sufficient consideration of the incredible variety
of circumstances occurring over the state. The implementation of
the state laws and rules in their current form results in many
unfair sets of circumstances. Urban growth boundaries are also hard
to amend due to the complexity of the rules that apply to the
process.
Although I am not in the middle of the land-use
process today, I am concerned about the future of the program. The
state needs to concentrate on providing oversight of local planning
and a policy framework related to issues that are clearly statewide
in nature, similar to the concentration on agricultural
preservation and urban-growth containment that were the focal
points of the program in the early years. However, many land-use
decisions need to be made at the local level, where there should be
more flexibility in decision-making that is sensitive to local
people and circumstances.
Marvin E. Gloege
Corvallis, Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Oregon should put more land-use decisions in local hands.
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