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Oregon's property-rights battle heating up
For landowners chafing at land-use restrictions, law to limit regulations is a dream come true
By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times
HILLSBORO, Ore. n Harvey Kempema is giving Oregon's Washington County commissioners a choice.
Option A: Waive county zoning rules and let him split his old dairy farm into 5- or 10-acre lots, as he says he could have done when he bought the land in 1973.
Option B: Write him a check for $2 million.
This sounds like an angry property owner's pipe dream. It's not.
Last November, Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved Measure 37, the nation's most sweeping property-rights law. Since then, hundreds of eager landowners such as Kempema have flooded city halls and county courthouses with claims demanding that government drop restrictions and let them develop their property or pay them not to. "I never in my life thought I'd see something like this," Kempema said.
Before Measure 37, such landowners' development plans would have been fantasies. They violate Oregon's pioneering land-use laws, often hailed as a national model for curbing sprawl and protecting farms and forests.
Measure 37 trumps those laws. No statute in the country more drastically limits government's power to regulate what people can do with their property.
Planners and lawyers still are sorting out just how the new law will work and how far it reaches. No earth has been turned yet because of Measure 37.
But its landslide, 61 percent victory in a state as green n and as blue n as Oregon has sent ripples across the state and across the country.
Property-rights advocates in Washington, bristling at rules adopted under the state's Growth Management Act, hope to put a similar proposal on the ballot in 2006.
Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, Measure 37's sponsor, said he is also working with activists in Florida, Wisconsin and South Carolina.
"If it can happen in Oregon ... it can happen anywhere," wrote Portland lawyer Edward Sullivan, a leading opponent of Measure 37.
Many Oregon landowners have been seething for decades at restrictions the state imposed on their property in the name of managed growth. For them, Measure 37 is a dream come true.
It lets property owners file claims against governments whenever a land-use or zoning regulation restricts how they can use their land and reduces its value.
State and local officials can either compensate them for that reduction in value or waive the regulation and let the owners do what they want.
Compensation isn't a likely option for cash-starved governments. Measure 37's backers knew that.
"People don't want money," Hunnicutt said. "They want to be able to use their land."
Measure 37 doesn't apply only to new regulations. It's retroactive: Landowners like Kempema can file claims for rules imposed any time after they acquired their property.
Much of Oregon's political establishment n business, labor, environmentalists and the governor n fought Measure 37. They warned it would shred policies that have helped keep Oregon livable for more than 30 years. They outspent the initiative's supporters by more than 2-to-1.
But on Election Day, Measure 37 won in 35 of the state's 36 counties n including Washington County, just outside Portland, the kind of place where the new law's impact is likely to be felt most.
For landowners chafing at land-use restrictions, law to limit regulations is a dream come true
By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times
HILLSBORO, Ore. n Harvey Kempema is giving Oregon's Washington County commissioners a choice.
Option A: Waive county zoning rules and let him split his old dairy farm into 5- or 10-acre lots, as he says he could have done when he bought the land in 1973.
Option B: Write him a check for $2 million.
This sounds like an angry property owner's pipe dream. It's not.
Last November, Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved Measure 37, the nation's most sweeping property-rights law. Since then, hundreds of eager landowners such as Kempema have flooded city halls and county courthouses with claims demanding that government drop restrictions and let them develop their property or pay them not to. "I never in my life thought I'd see something like this," Kempema said.
Before Measure 37, such landowners' development plans would have been fantasies. They violate Oregon's pioneering land-use laws, often hailed as a national model for curbing sprawl and protecting farms and forests.
Measure 37 trumps those laws. No statute in the country more drastically limits government's power to regulate what people can do with their property.
Planners and lawyers still are sorting out just how the new law will work and how far it reaches. No earth has been turned yet because of Measure 37.
But its landslide, 61 percent victory in a state as green n and as blue n as Oregon has sent ripples across the state and across the country.
Property-rights advocates in Washington, bristling at rules adopted under the state's Growth Management Act, hope to put a similar proposal on the ballot in 2006.
Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, Measure 37's sponsor, said he is also working with activists in Florida, Wisconsin and South Carolina.
"If it can happen in Oregon ... it can happen anywhere," wrote Portland lawyer Edward Sullivan, a leading opponent of Measure 37.
Many Oregon landowners have been seething for decades at restrictions the state imposed on their property in the name of managed growth. For them, Measure 37 is a dream come true.
It lets property owners file claims against governments whenever a land-use or zoning regulation restricts how they can use their land and reduces its value.
State and local officials can either compensate them for that reduction in value or waive the regulation and let the owners do what they want.
Compensation isn't a likely option for cash-starved governments. Measure 37's backers knew that.
"People don't want money," Hunnicutt said. "They want to be able to use their land."
Measure 37 doesn't apply only to new regulations. It's retroactive: Landowners like Kempema can file claims for rules imposed any time after they acquired their property.
Much of Oregon's political establishment n business, labor, environmentalists and the governor n fought Measure 37. They warned it would shred policies that have helped keep Oregon livable for more than 30 years. They outspent the initiative's supporters by more than 2-to-1.
But on Election Day, Measure 37 won in 35 of the state's 36 counties n including Washington County, just outside Portland, the kind of place where the new law's impact is likely to be felt most.
