More farmers organize against land-use limits

Oregon pear farmer John Benton owns 53 acres of land beside the Columbia River windsurfing resort of Hood River. It should be worth $11 million, he says. Instead, he is broke.

Oregon's strict land-use rules were loosened when voters approved a 2004 ballot measure allowing farmers like Benton to sell land for homes or commercial development. The measure has been suspended while the state Supreme Court reviews it.

Conservationists are fighting the exemption for farmland, saying it will spoil forests with strip malls and subdivisions of identical suburban homes, or McMansions.

One Oregon landowner got approval to build 1 million square feet of commercial space, almost as big as the state's largest shopping mall, before a county judge ruled that the measure violated the state constitution.

The battleground is widening. Farmers in Washington state filed a proposal late last month for a ballot initiative on property-rights protection.

"Washington and Oregon are historically states that have had a substantial land-use regulatory program," says Bruce Kramer, a law professor who teaches land-use planning at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. "If the initiatives can be successful there, that would suggest there will probably be attempts to impose similar regulations throughout the U.S."

The 2004 passage of Measure 37 in Oregon marked one of the biggest victories for property owners since at least 1994.

Over the past three decades, Oregon has passed land-use restrictions more extensive than any other state, according to a study by Georgetown University's Environmental Law and Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

The state created an "urban-growth boundary" on the outskirts of cities, seeking to avoid the sprawl familiar to residents of Houston or Phoenix.

Proponents of Measure 37 billed it as a way to compensate family farmers hurt by the restrictions.

It requires the state to either pay owners compensation or forgo enforcement of land-use rules when zoning restrictions reduce a property's value compared to what it might have been worth under the rules that existed when the family first bought it.

Land zoned for farming typically isn't as valuable as land that can be used for residences, offices or factories.

"I'm broke right now," says Benton, 58, whose family has been growing pears for three generations in the Hood River Valley.

He's lost money

He says he has lost money every year since 1997 and wants to sell five acres. He estimates that the entire 53-acre property, with views of Mount Hood, is worth $600,000 as farmland, or about 5 percent of its value as residential or commercial property.

"What we have created in Oregon is a dual property value," he says, with land like his worth "nothing at all."

After Measure 37 became effective Dec. 2, 2004, the state Department of Land Conservation and Development received 1,065 claims requesting $2.2 billion in compensation and covering at least 66,000 acres, says Ronald Eber, a farm and forestlands specialist at the department. About 86 percent of those who filed claims intended to build homes.

With no compensation fund under the ballot measure, the state waived land-use restrictions on 90 percent of 373 claims processed so far, Eber says.

Among the claims approved was a 1 million-square-foot shopping center, derided by conservationists as a mall in the woods, on a two-lane highway in rural Polk County.

In Marion County, commissioners rejected a proposal to build a casino, hotel and golf course near a town of 400 because of concerns about traffic and storm drainage.

Oregon stopped accepting new claims Oct. 25, after the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that Measure 37 was unconstitutional because it imposes limitations on the government's ability to regulate land use.

The case was brought by a group that includes an advocacy group and neighbors of farm claimants trying to develop their land.

The Oregon Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments last month.

Some farmers oppose Measure 37.

"Our fear is that we are going to lose farming in the Willamette Valley," says Tad Vanderzanden, a grass-seed grower.

Rising residential development, for example, will reduce the likelihood that a farm-equipment dealership will remain in an area, he says.

Kramer, the law professor, says land-use rules benefit the public by limiting costs for services.

"They build their houses out there," he says. "Well, you need fire stations, police stations, water, sewers, schools."

Washington state effort

Farmers in Washington state aren't waiting for a resolution in Oregon to pursue their own property measure. On Jan. 24, the Washington Farm Bureau, which represents 35,000 farm families, filed a draft of its Property Fairness Initiative with the Secretary of State's Office. It would require agencies to include an estimate of damage to affected parcels when regulating land use.

"What we are trying to do is to bring back some fairness and balance," says Dan Wood, director of government relations. The group will need signatures from 235,000 registered voters to qualify for the November ballot.

Aaron Ostrom, executive director of Futurewise, a Seattle conservation group, says he plans a vigorous opposition because the measure is a first step toward opening up more land for development.

"Washington residents don't want to create a bunch of loopholes for developers," he says.