Dear
HCN,
Rebecca’s Clarren article
about Oregon’s 30-year-old land-use system was well-done and
covered many of the pluses and minuses (HCN, 11/25/02: Shadow
creatures). However, it did not include some basic statistics that
reveal the widespread mis-zoning imposed on rural landowners
throughout the state.
The reality is that 97
percent of all rural private land was zoned into highly restrictive
“farm” and “forest” zones with little or no regard to the
productivity of the land for such purposes, to “highest and best
use,” or to the rights of landowners. The 1973 law that established
the system indicated one of the objectives was to preserve “prime”
farmland – roughly 2 million acres. But, as the law was
implemented, 16 million acres were zoned “exclusive farm use,” of
which less than 5 million acres were cultivated farmland – which
means that over 11 million acres of land that is suitable only for
grazing at best, is off-limits to other uses. An additional 9
million acres were zoned “forest,” much of which has little or no
value for forest purposes.
To make matters
worse, despite legislative intent in 1973 to require compensation
to landowners who lost value from downzoning, no compensation
program was ever put in place.
No landowners have
ever been compensated for what they lost from the massive
downzoning that occurred.
During their efforts
to defeat Measure 7, an initiative that would have required
compensation, proponents of the system claimed that the liability
of state and local governments from compensation claims would be $5
billion per year – which, if true, reveals the huge losses both
private landowners and the public suffer from the system.
Fortunately for landowners and the public, Measure 7 allowed
governments to avoid liability for claims by removing restrictive
regulations.
Bill Moshofsky Tigard,
Oregon
The writer is vice president of
Oregonians In Action.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Oregon has been mis-zoned.
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