Measure 37 and More
Oregon’s Land Rush, A Gorge Court Case, and Light-Hearted About Biofuel
By Dan Richardson, 12-05-06
A note to our more sensitive readers: This article contains mildly opinionated statements, and an exclamation point. I made up one word, too.This week includes a deadline for Measure 37 development claims in Oregon (not the deadline, but a significant one, in that hereafter claimants must have a use for their land that central-planning types have actually turned down, and not just pie-in-the-sky statements on their claim forms), and hundreds of landowners, big and small, have rushed to demand the right to pole-vault over Oregon's hurdleanimous land-use laws.
The Oregonian’s Laura Oppenheimer wrote a worthwhile overview of the land rush.
One interesting quote is from state Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, who supports Measure 37 and says that many Oregonians have “a lot of misunderstanding” about the law. (It’s simple enough in concept: People should be able to use their land however they want, the heck with the neighbors and with land-use laws enacted since they bought the land.)
Says Garrard, “I feel it is the Legislature's responsibility to do something about it."
Well, sha-freakin’-zam!
You mean the Legislature should actually take action on an issue of concern to thousands of citizens? One that people have voted in support of, three times? (Besides M-37 in 2004, Oregonians have passed property rights measures in 2000 and 2006.)
Oh ye of Periclean stature, you’ve given us the Big Look. That’s a wise and worthwhile examination of the state’s land-use system. But what we need, sooner or later, is the for Legislature to quit looking already, and start doing.
• • •
Also Monday, the O hammered M-37’s bait-and-switch, wherein voters passed the law seeking justice for honest, small-time property owners, but ended up empowering corporate developers. I’m talking about companies like Plum Creek Timber, of Seattle, who have filed housing development claims on 32,000 acres of coastal forest.
(Insert Greek chorus here:Why, oh why, can’t the government just leave the little guy alone?)
Quoth the editorial, “Two years after the voters approved it, Measure 37 appears to be not so much rectifying injustice as inflicting it. Oregonians, even now we hope, are waking up and recognizing we've been had.”
The paper’s apparent wake-up that M-37 is a pro-development squeeze later in the game than others’, but it’s welcome nevertheless.
• • •
There’s much ado this week, then, about land and development in Oregon. And it’s not all about somewhere else: On Thursday, Dec. 7, the Oregon Court of Appeals will hear arguments in a civil case which asks, which has precedent, Measure 37 or the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area rules?
The case won’t stop there, of course.
The court, as higher courts are wont to do, will likely take some weeks before issuing a ruling. And I suspect, given the numerous governments and interested organizations involved, that the state Supreme Court will have to take up the question eventually.
• • •
If land use doesn’t get you fired up — though it should — perhaps you'd perk up over something along these lines: Peak oil, oil addiction, the Iraq war, wealthy Mid-East regimes, air pollution and global warming.
What do they have in common (besides, you know, oil and money)?
Perhaps a common solution: Biofuels.
We’ve taken a very modest crack at the issue of alternative fuels from time to time, but nothing comprehensive. Enter Grist, the environmental news and commentary web site. The site is running an impressively ambitious series on biofuels.
Articles in the series range from how oil became the lifeblood of our civilization — with sober warnings on blindly embracing replacement technology — to which cars can run what alternative fuels. The series is insightful, useful, and, at times, fun.
Yeah, seriously.
Good show, Grist, ol’ boy. [End of article]
Dan, if the Israeli's are correct about their oil shale process, they will produce usable fuel at about $20 bbl. See: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2006/gb20060705_516609.htm
Looks like dino fuel is here to stay. Can you dig it? ;)
Yep Craig, It is amazing when you hear in this forgotten county that North Dakota just hits a 2000 a day oil well. Then eveyboby keeps saing'n the tune Bio O' Bio.. is it hip? Nice article Dan...
Comment By Craig Moore, 12-05-06Hi Colonel, was that strike in the Bakken formation? I see where ND has gone "industrial hippie" and legalized hemp production. http://www.westfargopioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=11219
Comment By bearbait, 12-08-06Dan...ya gotta know that Oregon land use system did not prevent farm land from being developed, nor did it preserve open space. Land use process law just kept the supply of land for development always in a short supply position. All that best, deepest soils farm land in Washington county became HiTech campus and housing and strip malls, all the way to the coast range foothills. But the guy with the scab rock place on the hill that is poor timberland and not farmland at all can't sell view lots because some rich guy in town does not own it....yet....and the regulators want it for open space on the cheap. The 1000 Friends of Oregon, the group that pushed for statewide land use, were actually the 1000 rich guys from Portland who, not unlike a Weyerhaeuser, want to make sure that if a dollar is made from that land, they get most of it.
The timber companies love the land use law because it keeps their taxes low. Now that imported wood from managed lands overseas, and tropical forests being raped for guns and blood, have taken over the US market, and domestic lumber prices are depressed to 1980 levels, the timberland is not quite as valuable as it once was. Besides, most of the private industrial lands are maxed in production, with a forester standing next to seedlings telling them to grow faster. And the public lands are mostly off limits to any unregulated use but landscape fire. Especially no logging allowed. That is the new open space. Public land is, after all, over 60% of the land in Oregon. The urban open space issue is sort of insane when looked at on a landscape basis. People don't choose to live there because it is emply space. They want to build a house on that empty space. Plum Creek would like to sell that land and make a pile of money for their stockholders. That is their responsibility.
The liberals want nobody to build, but they want open borders and all the goodies for illegal aliens. The State of Oregon issues ID and drivers licenses to illegals, knowingly. Democrats in control can do those things. It is a minor irritant until you have to loan your kids money so they can buy preschool for their kid, but the illegal alien's kids get free Head Start pre-school for migrants. That list is almost endless. And if we were not up to our butts in subsidized rent, food, education, schooling plus all the other social and justice services, we might not be short of land to build on. 300,000 cheap workers ain't that cheap. All this is a land use issue. We all occupy what was once wilderness. More of us will surely reduce those open space acres by the thousands, land use rules or not.
If, as a nation, we are not going to address immigration and population controls, land use restrictions are just a means for a favored few to make an inordinate amount of money off land sales while denying that opportunity to the masses. And Oregon voters figured that out on their own. They did pass the measure by a majority vote of the people. If that is not good enough, then we are in Cuba and don't know it.