LandWatch Lane County
Planning Commissioner Rick Duncan and
EWEB Commissioner John Brown.
In total, Lane County has about 400
claims, covering about 34,000 acres. Timber
company Davidson Industries gave $5,000 to
the Measure 37 campaign and now has filed
11 different claims with the county totaling
1,280 acres, including one large parcel near
Florence. The Lone Rock timber company
has filed three claims totaling 1,243 acres.
Rosboro Lumber Company has five claims
totaling 894 acres. The Wildish land and grav-
el company gave $10,000 to pass the measure,
and now has a 1,200 acre, $26-million claim
next to Mount Pisgah park.
To process the hundreds of pending claims
within the 180-day period as enforced by
Measure 37 penalties, the county plans to hold
mass public hearings for up to two dozen
claims at a time.
With the onslaught of claims, the governor
and Measure 37 opponents such as 1000
Friends of Oregon are calling on relief from
the Legislature in the form of a moratorium
on the law and a fix to make it apply only to
the small claimants they say voters intended.
The Legislature has failed to act on the
issue in the last two years or even since
Measure 37’s overturned predecessor
Measure 7 passed in 2000. But this year both
chambers are controlled by Democrats.
State Senator Floyd Prozanski (D-South
Eugene) is co-chair of a joint Senate-House
committee charged with bringing back a rec-
ommendation on what to do.
“We’re going to try and move quickly,”
Prozanski said. The committee has no set
timeline or direction, but Prozanski said one
possibility is a quick moratorium to freeze the
About 7,000 Measure 37 claims seek more than $6 billion
in compensation or the right to build urban sprawl
over half a million acres of scenic Oregon.
measure followed by a referral to voters in
November of a measure to retroactively limit
Measure 37 to allowing only one house per
claimant. “The voters were intending to give
homeowners and individuals a dwelling on
their property, single,” he said.
But with potential billions in profits at
stake, the developers aren’t likely to go down
without a big fight. Attorney Willis, whose
firm is representing scores of claimants, says
it’s “really funny” how opponents say they
think they know what voters intended. “It
passed with an overwhelming majority,”
Willis said. “I don’t think that the voters were
at all confused.”
The Legislature doesn’t have much of a
history at reforming disastrous ballot meas-
ures. In 1990 voters passed Measure 5 prop-
erty tax limitations with the unintended con-
sequence of decimating school finance. Two
decades later legislatures and governors have
still failed to bail out the schools.
“Whether the governor, whether the
Legislature is willing to go that distance even
with the new Democratic majority, I’m pes-
simistic,” said Robert Emmons, president of
the LandWatch Lane County environmental
group. On the other hand, he said, “a morato-
rium is the first step, and I’m fairly confident
that moratorium will be instituted.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” about
whether the Legislature will act, said Jim Just,
director of the Goal One Coalition, an envi-
ronmental group. The state has been in an
anti-regulatory mood, but “maybe the tide is
starting to change.”
If the Legislature fails to act, the courts
may have to, but that option is also messy.
The attorney general reports that his office
is handling 131 separate lawsuits regarding
the many legal uncertainties in Measure 37.
The only question that has gotten a definitive
Supreme Court ruling is that Measure 37 is
constitutional.
The biggest unanswered question centers
around transferring development rights. The
AG and attorneys for cities have argued that
Measure 37 doesn’t allow a land owner to
transfer a waiver to a developer with a land
sale.
That could mean that the thousands of
waivers the state and county are rubber
stamping in lieu of compensation are worth
little more than paper.
But the transfer question is working its
way up through the courts and hasn’t got a
final ruling from the Supreme Court.
Lauri Segel, a planner with Goal One, says
a recent circuit court opinion from Medford
against transferability is a good sign the
Supreme Court will agree that waivers can’t
be sold. “It’s just so well reasoned.”
But even if that non-transferability provi-
sion holds, there will still be plenty of uncer-
tainty.
Like in the Bernheim claim near Creswell,
critics allege developers have been using pur-
chase options and other ownership gimmicks
to get around the property transfer issue.
For one web site soliciting long-term land
owners, Realtors, builders and investors
(www.measure37.net), a developer promises
that such techniques mean “lucrative”
Measure 37 properties in Oregon are “guaran-
teed to quadruple in price in one year.” The ad
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Read us online at
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JANUARY 25, 2007 13