Property-rights initiative likely to spark fierce fight

The Washington State Farm Bureau filed its long-expected property-rights initiative Wednesday, kicking off what's likely to be one of the year's most fiercely contested election campaigns.

The initiative, which has been in the works for 13 months, would require state and local governments either to compensate landowners when regulations lower property values, or to waive those rules.

It's retroactive: Property owners would be entitled to waivers or compensation for restrictions imposed any time after 1995.

"At the 10,000-foot level, this is very simple," said Farm Bureau spokesman Dean Boyer. "If you take or damage something of mine, you ought to pay me for it."

Environmentalists and their allies began organizing to fight the initiative months ago. "This is really about rolling back land-use laws that have resulted in healthy farms and healthy forests and healthy cities for everyone," said Aisling Kerins of the opposition Community Protection Coalition.

University of Washington law professor William Stoebuck, an expert on government property regulation, said the initiative "contains some very great restrictions. ... "

Unless governments are willing to pay compensation, it would, "by a literal reading, cause a rollback of land-use regulations to those existing on 1 January 1996," he wrote in an e-mail.

Information

Property Fairness Initiative: www.propertyfairness.com/text.htm

The initiative, which has not yet been assigned a number, was inspired by voter approval of a similar measure in Oregon in 2004. To qualify for the November ballot, backers must submit petitions bearing the signatures of at least 224,880 registered voters by July 7.

If the initiative passes and is upheld by the courts, cash-strapped governments almost certainly would waive rules rather than pay landowners. Recent changes in zoning codes, logging regulations and laws aimed at preserving streams and wildlife all could be undercut. Building and fire codes, laws limiting the location of sex-offender housing and adult-entertainment businesses, and rules "necessary to prevent an immediate threat to human health and safety" would be exempted from the initiative's compensation-or-waiver requirement.

Response to recent rules

Dan Wood, the Farm Bureau's government-affairs director, said the initiative is a response to increasingly restrictive rules many local governments have adopted in recent years under the state Growth Management Act that aim to protect wetlands and fish and wildlife habitat.

King County's 2004 Critical Areas Ordinances, for instance, require rural property owners to leave up to 65 percent of their land in native vegetation.

"It's not right to say, 'You've got land I like to look at ... and therefore I'm not going to let you use your land,' " Wood said.

But Kerins said the initiative doesn't really aim to help small landowners. "It's really about creating loopholes for big developers at the expense of communities," she said.

Another section of the initiative requires agencies to "consider and document" the impact of proposed rules on private property and assess less-restrictive approaches. Kerins said that would mean more bureaucracy, paperwork and government spending; Wood said it's a reasonable requirement.

The Farm Bureau was one of the leading backers of a property-rights measure that a Republican-dominated Legislature approved in 1995. Opponents collected enough signatures to put it on the ballot, and voters repealed it that November by a 60-to-40 ratio.

The passage 15 months ago of Measure 37 in Oregon, a state known nationally as a pioneer in land-use planning, revived the property-rights movement in Washington and other states. No previous statute in the nation limited government's power to regulate land use more severely.

Unlike Oregon law

A trial-court judge struck down Measure 37 last October; the law is now before the Oregon Supreme Court.

Wood said the Washington Farm Bureau's initiative was drafted to avoid the legal pitfalls that have snared Measure 37. The Oregon law, for instance, allowed landowners to seek compensation for regulations adopted any time after they acquired their property — a provision the Oregon judge cited in finding the measure unconstitutional.

The Washington initiative contains no similar clause.

The Farm Bureau's Boyer said his organization has approached other groups that backed the 1995 property-rights measure, including the Building Industry Association of Washington and the Washington Association of Realtors, for support. Representatives of those organizations could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Kerins said the coalition fighting the initiative includes labor as well as environmental groups.

It has raised $60,000 so far, according to state Public Disclosure Commission records — all from the anti-sprawl group Futurewise. The Farm Bureau has established a campaign committee but hasn't yet reported any contributions.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com