On Nov. 2, when Oregonians
closed the book on the most forward-looking planning law in the
nation, they did not just amend a statute, they changed the ethos
of a state that had for 30 years celebrated open spaces, greenways
and livable communities over development.
And they likely
started a copycat war throughout the West against zoning and
planning.
The passage of Ballot Measure 37 introduces a
novel concept: State and local governments should pay citizens to
obey established land-use laws. If cash-strapped governments
can’t do so — and few can — those laws must be
waived.
So, if a person owns acreage outside the
urban-growth boundary of a town and wants to build a strip mall,
nothing can stop him from making his contribution to malignant
sprawl unless he can shake down the city treasury. A landowner who
decides to plop a go-cart track, a car wash or a movie theater on a
vacant neighborhood lot can do it — unless the city greases
his palm.
Ironically, the ballot measure provides no
compensation for a home- or property-owner whose land may lose
value because of unregulated development in the neighborhood.
Measure 37 creates a lesser-of-two-evils choice for local
and state governments: Either cannibalize services for kids,
seniors and police, or stand aside as unbridled development gallops
forward. The practical result will be a sprawl-induced increase in
automobile mileage and emissions, decaying downtown businesses, and
disappearing open space and farmland. But the good times will roll
for fast-buck artists who can invest in a second home somewhere far
away where they won’t have to look at the mess they created.
When Oregonians passed Measure 37 by a lopsided margin of
60 percent to 40 percent, they signaled that they had become a
different people.
Thirty years ago, we Oregonians used
laws to promote things we enjoyed in common — open spaces,
livable neighborhoods, economically viable downtowns and merchants.
We said, “Our home will be different than other states. We will
protect our farmland, our open spaces, our neighborhoods and our
livability.” That was in 1973. It became known as “The Oregon
Story.”
I was majority leader of the Oregon House at the
time. On the morning of Jan.8, a feeling of history in the making
filled the House chamber as the legendary Tom McCall, perhaps the
most popular governor in Oregon history, stepped to the microphone
to address the opening session of the Legislature — and
proposed the most sweeping change in land-use laws in the nation.
McCall declared: “Sagebrush subdivisions, coastal
‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia in
the Willamette Valley all threaten to mock Oregon’s status as
the environmental model for the nation. Oregon … must be
protected from grasping wastrels of the land. We must respect
another truism: that unlimited and unregulated growth lead
inexorably to a lowered quality of life.”
It was a time
when the environmental movement had emerged as a potent force,
Richard Nixon had created the Environmental Protection Agency, and
the environment was Topic A in the media.
McCall was a
magnetic leader, a lovable progressive Republican who had just
inherited a Democrat-controlled Legislature. The combination of a
visionary governor and a new, reform-minded legislative majority
created a rare alignment of the sun, stars and moon, and the bill,
introduced by a Republican state senator, a farmer named Hector
McPherson, passed with relative ease.
For the next 31
years, the “grasping wastrels of the land” have largely been held
in check. But not any longer, unless next year’s Legislature
somehow summons the will to change the law, which may be difficult
given Ballot Measure 37’s overwhelming success with voters.
Some commentators have rightly pointed out that
McCall’s land-use planning law became inflexible and
cumbersome as it was amended through the years. They are also
correct that from time to time, it seemed to be enforced with
indifference to property owners.
I agree with them when
they say that governors and legislators could have addressed the
law’s problems but failed to do so. Those officials share the
blame for the loss of the law that, more than any other, made
Oregon, Oregon.
But the real culprits are the economic
interests that backed Measure 37, who stand to make out like
bandits from unbridled development — the grasping wastrels
who will leave future generations of Oregonians spiritually poorer
than their immediate ancestors. Open spaces in Oregon — and
throughout the West — may never be the same.
Les AuCoin is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a
retired professor of political science, an Ashland, Oregon writer,
a former U.S. congressman from Oregon and a former majority leader
of the Oregon House of Representatives.
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