Oregon, prepare for a land-use fight, again
Measure 37 - A party-line vote by lawmakers sends a plan to change the law back to the people
Monday, June 11, 2007
LAURA OPPENHEIMER
The Oregonian
If you think 2007 is just the buildup for next year's presidential election, think again.
Oregonians will vote this November -- for the third time in seven years -- on one of the state's most politically divisive issues: property rights.
The Legislature is sending voters a plan to scale back Measure 37, the three-year-old law that opened the door to rural development. Judging from last week's scrappy finish to negotiations in Salem, the campaign will start quickly.
"It's going to be quite a fight," predicts Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, "just like land-use issues always are in Oregon."
Democrats and environmentalists are promoting the rewrite, which would limit many rural landowners to three homes and make it nearly impossible to build more than 10. Republicans have teamed up with property rights advocates to fight the ballot referral, saying it's an insult to voters who passed Measure 37.
Sound like a scene from the movie "Groundhog Day"? It's just the latest chapter in the battle over Oregon's land-use laws, which are meant to separate city and country.
Courts tossed out a 2000 ballot measure that required governments to pay landowners who have lost the right to develop. In 2004, 61 percent of voters supported the next incarnation: Measure 37. Now, governments must let people use their land however they could have when they bought it -- or pay for lost value.
More than 7,500 applications have been filed, mostly in the countryside surrounding growth hot spots, such as the Portland suburbs, Hood River and Medford. Only a smattering of small developments are under way, but larger projects are a possibility.
Campaigns are sure to put different spins on how much development will materialize and how it would be affected by the Measure 37 rewrite.
Most people haven't followed the details, says public opinion researcher Mike Riley. He polled likely voters this spring on a possible replacement for Measure 37. But he never released the data: Results were inconclusive because so many Oregonians appear to be confused by the issue, Riley says.
Each campaign needs a populist message that connects with everyday Oregonians while cutting through complicated details, Riley says.
"Not much has happened under Measure 37 that they could point to and say 'It's been great' or 'It's been a disaster,' " he says.
Not that people haven't tried. Legislators got an earful of superlatives from hundreds of Oregonians who testified this spring.
Measure 37 claimants pleaded with them to make the law work smoothly, saying they wanted to build homes for relatives or retirement income. But some of their neighbors called for reform, predicting development would snuff out farming or ruin their rural lifestyle.
Legislators came close to a bipartisan compromise. Then talks disintegrated, with each side blaming the other. In the end, Democrats -- who control both houses of the Legislature -- sent their rewrite to voters in a party-line decision. An election date still has to be set, but Nov. 6 is almost a sure thing, says Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who led the negotiations.
Adversaries have been strategizing for weeks.
Eric Stachon of 1000 Friends of Oregon, a group that promotes land-use planning, says a coalition is in place to campaign for the rewrite. He expects farmers, environmentalists and some politicians to be involved. The message, Stachon says, is simple: "This implements the will of the voters."
The Oregon Farm Bureau, which remained neutral during the last campaign, supports the rewrite, says Don Schellenberg, the bureau's lobbyist.
It's unclear whether timber companies, which provided most of the money to pass Measure 37, will campaign against the ballot referral. Wilkeson, of the forest owners' group, says members opposed the rewrite in "a close call" -- but mostly they want to prevent additional regulations.
David Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, the group that wrote Measure 37, says he's not giving away campaign secrets. As he sees it, the pressure is on the other side to prove their rewrite is a good idea.
"Once we remind voters that legislators think they're stupid and are trying to take away their vote," he says, "I think they'll be upset."
Laura Oppenheimer: 503-294-7669;
loppenheimer@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...280.xml&coll=7
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