Oregon land plan surfaces

By AARON CLARK - Associated Press
Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:20 PM PDT

SALEM — According to a confidential draft of a proposal to mend Oregon’s controversial property rights law, legislators have reached consensus on several key issues and negotiators said a broader agreement could emerge in the next few weeks.

The document, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, says landowners who bought their property before March 1, 1994, and who want to build up to three homes, would qualify for a so-called ‘‘express lane’’ — putting their claims on a fast track. Estimates are that two-thirds of all claims filed so far would fall into this category.

Property owners who think they lost more than three home sites due to regulations enacted after their land purchase would be allowed to apply to build up to ten homes, though protections would be built in for valuable farmland.

The draft, titled ‘‘Framework for Fixing Measure 37,’’ emerged after lawmakers shifted to closed-door negotiations when two bills failed to gain traction in a special land use committee, despite more than a dozen public meetings and testimony from an estimated 300 people.

Measure 37, passed by voters in 2004, requires governments to pay owners for property value lost from land-use restrictions passed after the property was purchased. If governments don’t pay, they must waive the restriction and allow development.

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The bill has divided Oregonians, with everyone from timber companies to grandmothers sparring over the potential long-term ramifications of the measure.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are participating in a five-member work group drafting the proposal. Its members said they were hopeful, but noted that nothing was finalized and negotiations could break down at any moment.

‘‘There are very independently minded people and one can throw it off,’’ said Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, a member of the work group that includes Rep. Greg Macpherson, D-Lake Oswego, Rep. Patti Smith, R-Corbett and Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene and Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby. ‘‘These are deep-rooted issues.’’

Smith said one of the group’s primary concerns was reducing the hundreds of legal battles that Measure 37 has triggered, particularly over the rights of landowners to transfer development authority to buyers.

‘‘I think what we have to clarify is the transferability, that is a big issue and I think we have reached agreement on that. These will be transferable,’’ she said. ‘‘People are suing over that and we are trying to cut the litigation to the state and the counties.’’

Under the working draft, claimants could transfer development rights, but new owners would have a four-year window to carry out the development.

A thorny issue that appears to be dividing the committee is how to financially value Measure 37 claims, some of which have run into the millions of dollars.

‘‘A very tough point has been measuring what they (property owners) have actually lost,’’ Macpherson said. ‘‘Our committee received some pretty persuasive information that people have not lost what they think they lost.’’

The American Land Institute released a report earlier this month that said Oregon property owners have already been compensated for land-value loss through farm tax deferrals worth $4.8 billion since 1973. William Jaeger, an economist from Oregon State University, and others have supported the idea that claims should be valued at a far lower price than current market potential.

But supporters of Measure 37 said that type of valuation was ridiculous.

‘‘It’s a bizarre valuation of property that puts it in the position where you basically don’t have any Measure 37 claims,’’ said Sen. Larry George, R-Sherwood. ‘‘It’s just dumb.’’

Dave Hunnicutt, president of property-rights group Oregonians in Action, said he was also concerned about how the group might decide how property values should be determined.

‘‘They haven’t specified in there how they want to do their valuation,’’ said Hunnicutt, who added that if lawmakers followed advice from Jaeger then ‘‘people really won’t get anything.’’

Bob Stacey, director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon, who said he had not seen the proposal, said there was a difference between recouping money from years ago and today.

‘‘There is a fundamental distinction between what you lost in the 1970s and what you can gain today. It is critical to us that this distinction is made in any legislation and that people are not given a right that no property owners have ever been given.’’

Group members appear to still be hammering out whether to allow commercial development for Measure 37 claims, and whether the law should apply to properties located within urban growth boundaries.

George, co-chair of the Land Use Fairness Committee, said he was furious that Senate Republicans were excluded from participating in the working group.

‘‘They are trying to limit how many opposition voices there are in the discussion,’’ George said. ‘‘I guess if you are strictly vote-counting than that’s probably a legitimate way to do it, but if you are actually trying to come up with good public policy, that’s a terrible way of doing it.’’

Four work group members reached for comment on Wednesday expressed confidence in the group, and the potential to reach an agreement.

‘‘People are passionate on their perspectives on this issue,’’ Macpherson said. ‘‘In order to achieve a middle ground we need to get people who are accustomed to coming together.’’