There’s every indication that Measure 37 is going back to the voters of Oregon this November. Here’s the Oregonian:
Democratic legislators decided Thursday that they’ll ask Oregon voters to dramatically scale back rural development under Measure 37, rather than rewriting the property rights law themselves.
The full Legislature still has to approve the decision from the Land Use Fairness Committee. But the deck is stacked, with Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate. And sending a ballot measure back to voters this fall would give lawmakers political cover.
“We’re giving the voters the opportunity to say, ‘Yes, this is what we meant,’ or ‘No, it wasn’t,’ ” said Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, co-chairman of the committee.
Of course, as Prozanski well knows, in two recentpolls, and in numerous wrenching stories, Oregon’s voters have made clear their feelings about the measure: it’s not what they meant. Now it looks like the majority will have a chance to undo some of the harm of Measure 37 by voting on a more reasonable version of the law. I’ll provide details here as they become clear.
In related news, Arizona’s new pay-or-waive law (which was modeled on Oregon’s Measure 37), is beginning to cause problems…
The city of Tucson is grappling with an unusual zoning problem. The University of Arizona’s huge student population is spawning “minidorms” that are appearing around residential neighborhoods. So the city council wants to tweak some laws to provide for relief for residents — perhaps a historic district or limitations on where and how new “minidorm” developments occur.
Problem is, a handful of property owners stand to make a bundle off the sort of development that the neighborhoods object to. So they’re claiming that a re-zone flies in the face of Arizona’s new pay-or-waive law, Proposition 207. And they’re right.
Under Proposition 207, there’s no reason to think that the Tucson city council can change zoning. At least not without doling out cash payments to property owners who claim they’ve been harmed by the change.
I think the Tucson case is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, Arizona is the only state to pass a pay-or-waive law since Oregon. And even though the new law has only been on the books for a few months, it’s already causing problems. More to the point, the reason 207 is causing problems is because the city is trying to deal with a new problem, something unanticipated that the existing laws don’t cover.
Dealing with the unexpected is precisely why we need land-use laws with democratic governance. Things change. Old problems get fixed, and then new problems arise. New technologies or economies change the way we live and think — and we need flexibility to sort out new problems. But pay-or-waive is a straightjacket: Proposition 207 has put Arizona in a time capsule labeled 2006. And especially in a fast growing place, the rules of 2006 will be ill equipped to grapple with the issues of 2010 or 2020 or 2050.
Eric de Place
Hey readers: sorry about those ads that were attached to this post for a couple of hours. When I copied & pasted text from the Oregonian, I accidentally included a bit of html for their advertisements (and the code was invisible in wysiwyg format). So that’s why you may have seen ads for the new Chevy Silverado—and certainly NOT because Sightline wants you to buy one.
Arie v.
I agree this has been gut-wrenching for Oregon. Legistlators were to have to play political tight rope and draft common sense legistlation that didn’t alienate rural voters or core environmentalists.That would have taken hard work and been politically risky, so better to pass the buck to the intiative process.IMO this:1. Legitimizes the initiative process as a way of creating legistlation.2. Creates a slippery slope by setting a precedent for future initiatives elsewhere.3. Will either not go far enough or go too far and require a multimillion dollar promotional campaign as we had with I933.4. Sidelines/marginalizes stakeholders. I distrust seeing anything that smells of an “easy answer” when it comes to land use regulations. That’s how we got here in the first place.
suzannenott
Well, I’m glad to see that something is happening, but, as Arie v. states, the legislators sending a “patch” to initiative is NOT leadership. Rather, it is a way of sidestepping the responsibilities voters gave legislators when they elected them. People really expect hard work out of the individuals whom they elected (and pay), not a side-step in dealing with important, controversial issues.
jesse.d.jenkins
I have to agree with Aire and Suzan, I’m disappointed that the legislature couldn’t come up with a fix themselves and I hate to see the initiative process that landed us in this mess in the first place further legitimized. Still, I’m happy to at least be able to vote to fix M37 this November, and I think given public sentiment about the bill, we may actually get a better fix from the ballot than we would from the legislature.I’m happy to see at least some progress be made towards a fix to this M37 debacle though. Oregon wouldn’t be the Oregon we know and love without our land use laws, laws that are straightjacketed, as the article says, by ‘pay-or-waive’ laws like M37.
spitintheocean
So , after the defeat of I-933 , I heard a fair amount of enviromental rumblings that perhaps Washington legislature could address some of the great disparity that is inflicted on small landholders in Wash state by the GMA . Any update on what bills were floated to alleviate the economic pressure to inholders and how the bills fared this blue legislative session ?
Eric de Place
spitintheocean,Good question. There are some encouraging signs on that front. I’ve blogged about two of them, here and here. In addition, a collaborative effort between some of the 933 opponents may result in a temporary moratorium on certain controversial ordinances. I’m fuzzy on the details of this last item, so I haven’t covered it yet. But I’ll do something on it soon (just as soon as I have some time to look into it carefully).
a-kos
I actually think this is the right move. Since M-37 was originally passed by Oregon voters, it only seems fair to submit ‘scaled back’ version of the law to voters. Clearly, Oregon voters want something similar to M-37 that is more limited and won’t dessimate public coffers.
a-kos
Sorry, I meant to write ‘decimate’. I feel like such an idiot when I mispell words.
Arie v.
The quality of the process Oregon goes through is as important as the outcome. I don’t think of the initiative process as meeting the bar. (I was going to say something about the viaduct vote, but I won’t.)M-37 was a shot below the belt, but if the new initiative turns into a reflexive political countermanuever stakeholders will be alienated. Then this will turn into a long slog for decades to come.
Dan
We see, also, in the man-made climate change debate, that we don’t know how as a society to even begin to attempt to solve societal problems. In my view, you need to start with strong leadership and I see it less and less as I get older.
Bernie
What we will now see is another run of Measure 37 type filings, or at least applications for permits, from M37 eligible property owners. This run will be before the next election whereby many that would not even have filed, will now do so. All of these type filings will have to be granted relief under the existing Measure 37 voter approved laws. So basically if anyone thought there was a lot of filings up until December 4, 2006, just hold on. The filings will come in two waves, (1) before the election as older landowners will not know what rights they will have taken away during the election, and (2) before any new legislation goes down as law. Currently most of the larger landowners have waited to see how many of the court cases play out, a new vote will push the owners to file for everything they can get. I would not be surprised for this new number of M37 type filing to be 5 to 10 times the amount of what we have currently seen filed.
Red Cloud
Referral: as written, it will be referred to the people. While enactment would be desirable, Oregonians don’t like to have their “will” meddled with.Substance: The bill contains compromises that cause many of us to gag. Farm and forest practice language molifies many of the big doners to 37, but whihc is something that can be fixed. Anyone with a claim that has been approved is given the right to build up to three homes. If you want more, you are limited by the loss of value incurred since the offending regulation went into effect. That means looking at the value a year before and a year after. If there is a 10% drop, the amount above 10% brought up to the present using the T-Bill rate drives the upper end of RESIDENTIAL construction the owner can have, with a maximum of 20 homes.The compromises were the consequence of two successive defeats at the ballot box.