Protecting Washington From Oregon’s Fate – What’s the cost of growth in Montana?

Washington State can learn from Oregon’s fate and protect the vital 1990 Growth Management Act, says CJ Gabbe, by better understanding the benefits of planned growth and the costs of deregulation

Reckless laws endanger land use

Last November, Oregon passed Measure 37, creating a process by which property owners can receive monetary compensation for any action government takes to prevent unlimited development. Oregon’s Measure 37 is inspiring advocates of runaway growth to develop similar ballot measures in other states that manage growth and protect livability, including Washington.

The measure’s surprising passage in Oregon highlights the need to refocus on how growth management protects property owners here in Washington. Land-use planning must be preserved, not weakened or stripped, to ensure the quality of life that Washingtonians have come to expect.

Measure 37’s passage, with more than 60 percent of the Oregon vote, was assured by some reasonable-sounding language and compelling stories. "Governments must pay owners, or forgo enforcement, when certain land-use restrictions reduce property value," read the measure’s ballot title. Behind this seemingly positive language lay a legal nightmare.

As a result of the measure, protected rural and resource land is at risk for development. In Hood River County in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, a pear-growing family is seeking permission to turn their prime agricultural land into an 842-house subdivision or be compensated $57 million for their "reduced" property value.

C.J. GABBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Full Story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/225464_gmapreserving24.html

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The Costs of Growth

Gallatin County doubled in population in the past thirty years, making it the fastest-growing region in Montana. While the county’s 2.6 percent annual growth rate falls far short of the 8.3 percent rate of Loudoun County, Virginia, or the 4.3 percent rate of Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada, it is still enough to cause stresses and strains.

A common response to such stress is to ask city or county officials to pass “growth-management” ordinances. But more than three decades’ experience with such laws in cities from Boulder, Colorado, to San Jose has shown that they do more harm than good.

Boulder attempted to slow growth by limiting the number of annual building permits to a fixed percentage of the number of homes in the city. To control what happens outside its borders, it purchased a greenbelt of open space equal to several times the land area of the city itself.

San Jose drew an urban-growth boundary around itself and (with the help of Santa Clara County) practically forbade development outside that boundary. Other cities have imposed design codes, minimum-density zoning, and other rules designed to insure that they “grow up, not out.”

by Randal O’Toole

Full Story: http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=453