Oregon’s new “property rights” law, which spawned copycat Initiative 933 in Washington this fall, got more national attention today.
A New York Times story highlights the case of a man who wants to build a power plant on land he owns inside a national monument near Bend. According the law, which was passed as a ballot measure in 2004, government either waives land-use rules to let him do it or pays him $203 million. Guess which is more likely?
Being compensated for the loss of ability to profit from your own property sounds great. But the consequences are dire.
Oregon property owners have filed 2,755 claims covering 150,455 acres, according to a Portland State University institute that’s tracking the measure’s impact, the article says. The claims could amount to more than $3 billion in compensation if they were paid. Instead Oregonians are getting ready for houses and strip-malls as landowners subdivide their lots.
“Measure 37 has disabled the tools used over four decades to prevent sprawl and preserve agriculture and forest land in Oregon,” wrote Sheila A. Martin, a professor of urban planning at the university, in the article.
The story makes the case that mainstream Oregonians are flummoxed to see their model land-use laws dismantled by an end-run around growth-management laws passed by the people’s representatives. Hopefully Washington voters realize that harmless-sounding ballot measures can have painful consequences.
In Washington, the fledgling campaign against Initiative 933 is here.
