Critical study of I-933 biased, say supporters of measure

A University of Washington institute released a highly critical study of Initiative 933 Tuesday, amid charges from the property-rights measure's supporters that the analysis is tainted by funding from special interests.

I-933, on the November ballot, would require state and local governments to compensate landowners for many regulations that restrict what they can do with their property. The new study, sponsored by the UW's Northwest Center for Livable Communities, says ambiguities in the initiative would create a "highly uncertain regulatory environment" lasting for years and forcing courts to make most land-use decisions.

The report also estimates that I-933 could cost taxpayers nearly $8 billion, more than $1,000 per state resident, in its first few years. The state budget office released a similar estimate last week.

The study was bankrolled by seven Washington foundations that have environmental interests, including three with connections to people who have together contributed more than $250,000 to the campaign opposing I-933.

"The people funding the opposition campaign paid for a study, and they got what they paid for," said I-933 sponsor Dan Wood, government-affairs director for the Washington State Farm Bureau. "They're trying to buy credibility for their message."

Glenn Pascall, who coordinated the research, said there was a "complete firewall" between the foundations and the researchers. And Daniel Friedman, dean of the UW's College of Architecture and Urban Planning, said the sponsors had no influence on the outcome.

"We have great conviction about its impartiality and accuracy," said Friedman, whose school oversees the Livable Communities center.

More on I-933


The UW Northwest Center for Livable Communities' study of the initiative's legal and economic impact is available online at: www.i933study.washington.edu.

A public forum on I-933 and a similar measure already on the books in Oregon will be Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. at Kane Hall, Room 130, University of Washington.

University faculty members conduct $1 billion a year in research funded by outside interests, said Norm Arkans, the UW's executive director of media relations and communications. So the I-933 study isn't any different, he said.

"You rely on the integrity of the faculty member and the work they are doing," Arkans said. "The most important thing they've got is their reputation."

In many ways, this latest flap is a rerun of 1995, the last time a property-rights measure, called Referendum 48, was on the ballot.

Back then, three environmental foundations — which also are now among the seven funding the I-933 study — commissioned a different UW institute to do a report on R-48. The principal author was Pascall.

The report concluded R-48 could cost billions. R-48 backers said it was biased.

Even so, the study became the centerpiece of the campaign to reject R-48. And when R-48 lost, supporters — including the Farm Bureau — said they had been hurt by the study and by the credibility the UW name gave it.

Pascall, who served as revenue director for Republican Gov. John Spellman in the 1980s, said Tuesday that the new study's economic analysis was conducted by experienced academic researchers, and its legal analysis was done by land-use lawyers who represent an array of backgrounds. None had taken a position on I-933 before the work began, he said.

Of the six land-use attorneys, two serve as legal advisers to the Building Industry Association of Washington, which has contributed to the I-933 campaign.

The six attorneys concluded that I-933 doesn't allow governments to waive regulations adopted to comply with key state environmental laws as an alternative to paying landowners. If agencies don't have the money for compensation, they wrote, regulatory paralysis would result.

Still, if waivers were allowed, the study says, it would create "another, larger set of aggrieved people," including neighboring landowners whose property values would drop because of undesirable development next door.

Wood has asserted that waivers are allowed under I-933. He also has said the measure would apply only to regulations adopted after 1995. But the lawyers involved in the UW study concluded that I-933 is worded to allow landowners to seek compensation for at least some regulations adopted before that date.

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