Oregon’s Ballot infamous
Measure 37 created an old-fashioned land rush as property owners,
developers and opportunists raced to file claims for compensation
before the recent deadline. An estimated 3,600 claims were filed
with the possibility that the last-minute rush added 1,000 more.
The total cost of the claims may top $7 billion, though no one can
be sure until all claims are processed, which will take months.
Measure 37 requires that property owners whose land came
under added restrictions after they bought it must be exempted from
those restrictions or paid for the “lost value.” That lost value is
the difference between the value of the land today and the value it
might have today if restrictions had not been imposed. This is a
sweet deal for people who have held land for decades, and it has
led to some interesting claims.
The Plum Creek timber
company, for example, wants to build houses on 32,000 acres of
coastal timberland it recently acquired through a merger. A Eugene
gravel company wants to build a subdivision on land near its
quarry. The owner of a mining claim close to a town wants to mine
rock. The owner of a farm in Clackamas County wants to put a
subdivision on his farm, regardless of the consequences to the
neighboring farmers. Another claim demands to build a casino resort
on farmland.
Measure 37’s real purpose is unmasked: Pay
property owners blood money to obey present zoning law or exempt
them from the restrictions.
Chaotic land use rules are
not new to Oregon. A hodgepodge of conflicting uses was the rule
rather than the exception during the post-World War II building
boom and the suburban sprawl it created. Frequently, the first
notice neighbors had that zoning had been changed was the sound of
bulldozers tearing up the ground next door. Measure 37 is now
returning us to those thrilling days of yesteryear.
That
was a time when neighbors had little say in how land was used
around them. A developer decided what was best, and neighbors
simply adjusted to the consequences or sold. These were the
conditions that prompted the Oregon Legislature to pass its
landmark land-use law in 1973. It protected farm and forestland
from incompatible uses and restricted urban growth to existing
communities with established services.
Supporters of
Measure 37 don’t talk about the cost of their law because they
don’t expect that outrageous compensation will ever be paid. In any
case, the state hasn’t the billions to pay these claims, and
developers who backed Measure 37 expected restrictions to be waived
instead. Developers really don’t want to listen to the neighbors.
But elected officials had better start listening to the neighbors.
The Measure 37 backlash is building.
If city and county
governments start waiving restrictions because they cannot pay
compensation, the neighbors, faced with chaotic incompatible uses,
will draft an initiative and repeal Measure 37, or demand that the
Legislature raise the money to pay the claims. The only serious
means of raising the billions necessary is a real estate
transaction tax, which the real estate industry will certainly
oppose.
But cash for compensation is really the wrong
discussion. Oregon never really had the right discussion. Measure
37 was sold through images of the developers’ pathetic pawn,
Dorothy English, an aging widow who couldn’t build her dream house.
It’s clear now that the measure’s real purpose was to allow
development where development has not been permitted, whether it is
incompatible with the neighbors or not.
Evidence of
buyer’s remorse is obvious. Although 61 percent of those who cast
ballots voted for it in 2004, a poll commissioned by Defenders of
Wildlife and the Izaak Walton League just before last month’s
election showed only 29 percent of those polled would vote for
Measure 37 again, 48 percent would vote against it, and 21 percent
were unsure of how they would vote again.
The Oregon
Legislature will find it impossible to “fix” Measure 37. It was
drafted to be vague in order to disguise its true purpose. It was a
legal quagmire, created in the cynical notion that there would
never be enough money to pay compensation and so regulations would
have to be waived. Better-written Measure 37 clones were on the
ballot in four states last month, and in Washington, California and
Idaho they failed. One measure passed narrowly in Arizona.
The Oregon Legislature needs to repeal Measure 37. Its
supporters could draft a clear and honest version, buy their
signatures and put it on the ballot. Then Oregonians can have the
kind of debate we should have had two years ago.
Russell Sadler is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News in Paonia,
Colorado (hcn.org). He is a freelance writer in Eugene,
Oregon.
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