December 1, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Oregon
Housing projects on farmland hinge on ‘vested rights’
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The fate of two housing
subdivisions planned for farm
zones in Oregon’s Yamhill
County depends on the land-
owners’ “vested rights” in the
unfinished projects.
The Oregon Court of Ap-
peals was recently asked to
overturn the county’s approv-
al of the two projects, which
involve building 50 homes on
nearly 80 acres.
More than a decade after
Oregonians voted on signifi-
cant changes to state land use
laws, the legal repercussions
continue to be sorted out on
the ground.
In 2004, voters approved
Measure 37, which required
governments to compensate
landowners for zoning re-
strictions imposed after they
bought their properties, or to
waive those regulations.
Due to the tremendous cost
of providing compensation,
counties predominantly grant-
ed waivers to landowners,
raising concerns about major
conversions of farmland to
housing.
The controversy led vot-
ers to approve Measure 49
in 2007, which allowed land-
owners with valid Measure 37
waivers to have three to 10
homes on their property, de-
pending on a variety of con-
ditions.
Those who wanted to de-
velop larger housing subdi-
visions could only proceed if
they were far enough along
with the projects to have
“vested rights” to complete
them.
In the two Yamhill County
cases, a state judge ruled that
Ralph and Norma Johnson
had vested rights to develop
homes sites on about 40 acres
and that Gordon Cook had
vested rights to develop home
sites on about 39 acres.
A central question in both
cases is whether these land-
Farmers hope to alter transmission line’s route
Project wins
approval to cross
federal land
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
energy corridor, though that
would likely add to its length,
he said.
Aside from the transmis-
sion line, its presence is as-
sociated with road-building,
weeds and other disturbances
to agriculture, he said.
Irrigation wheel lines and
center pivots would be dis-
rupted by the transmission
line, as would aerial pesticide
applications, said Bennett.
“It affects people’s proper-
ty values by putting up a pow-
er line in their viewshed,” he
added.
Farther to the West, in
Morrow County, farmers have
at least partly resolved con-
cerns about the transmission
line’s effects on agriculture.
Growers were hoping for
12 miles of the transmission
line to be located on the edge
of the U.S. Navy’s bombing
Yakima
oped parcels, so the “vested
rights” findings should be
overturned by the Oregon
Court of Appeals.
Despite legal uncertainties
about Measure 37’s implica-
tions at the time, the landown-
ers decided against building
the homes themselves, said
Ralph Bloemers, attorney for
Friends of Yamhill County
and other critics.
“They only pursued sub-
division. That’s the bed they
made for themselves and
that has legal consequences,”
Bloemers said.
WASH.
Area in detail
Lewiston
12
Kennewick
range near Boardman, Ore.,
82
97
Walla Walla
rather than on farmland.
WASH.
IDAHO
ORE.
Due to the presence of
a R. Boardman
C o l u mbi
tribal cultural resources with-
Pendleton
84
in the bombing range, how-
ORE.
ever, the southernmost five
La Grande
395
miles must cross the road onto
95
private property, said Carla
McLane, Morrow County’s
Baker City
planning director.
“They have to balance all
IDAHO
those impacts to have a viable
26
project,” McLane said.
Ontario
As the transmission line The Bureau of Land
84
travels farther south of the Management has granted a
20
Boise
Caldwell
bombing range, it would first right-of-way to Idaho Power’s
Nampa
cross land used for irrigat- 300-mile high-voltage power line
ed farming and then dryland
project, which would run from the
ak
farming, she said.
e
Riv
Project
Irrigated agriculture of- Boardman, Ore., area to its
er
Hemingway
substation
approxi-
substation
ten involves growing several
Selected
crops per year, so the trans- mately 50 miles southwest of
N
transmission
mission line would be more Boise. The project must still gain
Klamath Falls approval from state regulators.
line
route
20
miles
prone to interfere with those
operations than dryland agri- Source: Bureau of Land Management
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
culture, McLane said.
Power line
project wins
federal approval
Sn
The route of a 300-mile
high-voltage power line has
won the federal government’s
approval, but some Eastern
Oregon farmers hope state
regulators can still alter its
course.
The U.S. Bureau of Land
Management has granted a
right-of-way allowing Idaho
Power’s transmission line to
cross roughly 100 miles of
federal land, but Oregon’s En-
ergy Facility Siting Council
must still sign off on its over-
all path.
“They picked a route but
the state doesn’t have to go
along with that,” said Mark
Bennett, a rancher and com-
missioner for Oregon’s Baker
County.
The line between Board-
man, Ore., and the Nampa,
Idaho, area is expected to cost
up to $1.2 billion, with con-
struction projected to start in
2021.
About 70 miles of the
transmission line would run
through Baker County, with
more than 80 percent of those
miles on “exclusive farm use”
property, said Bennett.
“It not only affects that
farming ground, it’s affecting
the visual corridor as well,”
Bennett said.
Farmers and ranchers in
the area would prefer the
transmission line to bypass
Baker County by traversing
an existing Central Oregon
owners could sell the subdi-
vided lots and have other peo-
ple build the houses, rather
than constructing the dwell-
ings themselves.
Friends of Yamhill Coun-
ty, a conservation group, and
other critics of the housing de-
velopments argue that under
the language of Measure 37,
waivers of zoning restrictions
were not transferable.
During oral arguments on
Nov. 21 in Salem, Ore., op-
ponents of the two projects
argued that landowners are
barred from selling undevel-
S na
ke
Riv
er
Appeals court
asked to overturn
subdivisions in
Yamhill County
Declining workforce hits businesses hard at time of peak demand
By GEORGE PLAVEN
EO Media Group
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
Like many agricultural businesses, Smith Frozen Foods is dealing
with a current labor shortage.
WESTON, Ore. — Finding enough
workers is getting to be more of a chal-
lenge for Michael Lesko at Smith Frozen
Foods.
The company, which processes and
packages frozen vegetables near Weston,
is capable of storing more than 130 mil-
lion pounds of product on site, including
corn, lima beans, onions and carrots. Har-
vest season typically begins around June
1 and runs through the end of November,
when the demand for seasonal labor is at
its strongest.
Lesko, director of human resourc-
es for the company, said the plant has
roughly 100 regular employees and typi-
cally hires 200 seasonal workers through
harvest. Those positions, however, are
becoming more difficult to fill, he said,
adding that it has left the plant short up
to 10 workers on any given shift over the
past year.
“It’s been difficult keeping people, by
all means,” Lesko said. “We were look-
ing for people to start in June and work
through November, but that’s becoming
more and more rare.”
Labor woes are not unique to Smith
Frozen Foods. It is an issue that has af-
fected all corners of the agricultural in-
dustry, from the farm to the processing
plant. Earlier this year, the Capital Press
documented workforce worries around
the West.
In Eastern Oregon, AgriNorthwest
and Threemile Canyon Farms declined
to speak specifically about experiences at
their operations, though Matthew Vick-
ery, land and government affairs director
for AgriNorthwest, did acknowledge the
labor shortage “is a growing problem for
everyone in agriculture.”
Dallas Fridley, regional state econo-
mist for the Columbia River Gorge and
Columbia Basin, provided information
from the U.S. Department of Labor’s
National Agricultural Workers Survey,
which was last updated in 2013-14.
According to that report, approxi-
mately two-thirds of hired farmworkers
were born in Mexico, and 80 percent of
all farmworkers were Hispanic. Some 53
percent, had work authorization, and the
vast majority, or 84 percent, were settled
in the country.
Nursery association honors
government, agency backers
Capital Press
Five people, including
former state Agriculture Di-
rector Katy Coba, have re-
ceived the 2017 Friends of
Nurseries awards from the
Oregon Association of Nurs-
eries.
The association gives the
annual awards to elected of-
ficials or to key government
agency personnel who are
“solution-oriented, who con-
sider the nursery and green-
house point of view and who
act as a partner, regardless of
party affiliation,” executive
director Jeff Stone said.
The association represents
more than 800 nursery grow-
ers, retailers, suppliers and
landscapers. Ornamental hor-
ticulture is one of the state’s
biggest agricultural sectors,
with more than $900 million
in annual sales. Almost 75
percent of the industry’s pro-
duction is shipped out of state.
Friends of Nurseries
awards this year went to:
• Coba, the first woman
and the longest-serving direc-
tor of the Oregon Department
of Agriculture. She headed
ODA from 2003 to 2016, and
Stone called Coba a “key
ally” of the nursery indus-
try who worked to maintain
domestic and international
market access.
• State Sens. Tim Knopp,
R-Bend, and Kathleen Tay-
lor, D-Portland. They served
on the Senate Committee on
Workforce as it considered
labor rules that would affect
nursery and greenhouse busi-
nesses. Because they listened
carefully, the
final version
of legislation
was not harm-
ful to the in-
dustry, Stone
said.
Katy Coba
• U.S. Sen.
Jeff Merkley,
D-Ore., who secured fund-
ing in Congress for a “smart
sprayer” research project
that could prove to be “game
changing technology” for the
industry, Stone said.
• State Rep. Ken Helm,
D-Beaverton, who Stone de-
scribed as a “quick study”
on issues important to the
industry.
• The nursery association
also announced a “New Leg-
islator of the Year” award,
presented to state Rep. Karin
Power, D-Milwaukie. Stone
said Power demonstrated a
“keen mind” and deserved
recognition as a freshman
legislator with a balanced
perspective.
He added Power had
shown herself to be “solu-
tion oriented and open to the
nursery perspective.”
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