The Big Look: Examining Oregon's Land Use Laws

[intro music] >> Oregon is a really special place. Just the physical beauty of it, the change from one area to the other. If you start at the Pacific Ocean and head east you'll see so many different types of land forms and vegetation types and the snow peaks and everything in a pretty short drive. And there's not many states that I know of that you could do that same thing. >> The outdoors, the lack of congestion. So we're accustomed to open space. And kind of an unfettered lifestyle. No rush. >> I like the social interaction. There is such a rich fabric that we have in the city. And you can jump on the streetcar in the morning or head out at 4:30 and go for a bike ride and home by 6:00. And, you know, I just enjoy that aspect of life.

>> It's gone through tremendous growth, it's somehow retained a small town feel. I can still go downtown and walk down the street and see people I know. >> The views of Mt. Jefferson. There's good people here, good farmers here, they're good people. That's what makes it special. >> Oregon's land use laws came about because Oregonians value the beauty and the quality of land, and- and the livability of the state. >> The system originated out of the concerns of the 1970s about population growth and urban sprawl. >> Prime farmland in Oregon was being converted to housing. And Hector Macpherson, who was a leader in this land use movement, a Republican from Linn County, went back to the legislature and said 'we've got to stop this.' The whole the Willamette Valley with this prime farmland will be covered with houses if we don't do something about it.

>> There was a keen interest in how our communities and cities grew and the coast and there was a term used years ago about the 20 miracle miles on the coast and that was seen as an expression of sprawl. And there was concern by people who said 'you know, we need to manage and try to control that a bit.' >> And that was really the beginning of the Oregon Land Use Planning Program. >> It truly has worked to protect farm and forest. >> It has contained sprawl unlike any other land use planning program in the country. We have directed our growth into our urban centers. We have improved our transportation. We have bicycle friendly areas and pedestrian friendly areas that, I think, without the urban growth boundary we wouldn't have. We would have simply sprawled out on to green fields just the way that everyone else has. >> Many people around the country, and around the world, see Oregon's land use system as one of the best that's going. [Music plays] >> In the early 70s agriculture and timber were two of the biggest industries in the state, which

they do continue to be large. Agriculture is still in the number two industry and timber has gone down quite a bit because of restrictions on federal lands, but the private timber industry is actually bigger than it was in the early 70s. >> But technology based economy has moved up and taken a much higher profile. >> Unlike most states, manufacturing is growing in Oregon. The percentage of that growth outstrips other forms of the economy in some cases. >> What's taking place globally has had an influence on the state of Oregon, and that's different than it was in the 70s. >> The task force is a very diverse group of 10 Oregonians from different parts of the state, different philosophical perspectives, different types of professions. >> Its purpose is to look at Oregon's land use system and determine what reforms might be needed. >> It was appointed by a bipartisan coalition. >> It

recognizes that the system has been in place for thirty five years. It's undergone stresses and strains and changes. >> I think it has been a great group of people to work with because we've stayed neutral and listened and tried to analyze what we think the problems are and then to try to suggest some of the solutions. [Music continues to play] >> People in Oregon are generally very favorable to the Land Use Planning Program. However they do recognize the importance of private property rights. >> In the 70s when we, uh, forestry was a really big industry in Oregon, and that is not the case anymore. And so there's more pressure now on those lands to be used for other purposes. And the system that we have in place has not allowed that to happen, and that has created a tremendous amount of controversy. >> We've had a number of ballot initiatives that have shown that... >> That causes some

rubs in some of the rural areas as well, from people who would like to develop their property. >> Oregon uses kind of the stick instead of the carrot in the past. And, and very highly regulatory. >> It is such a complex process that citizens don't feel that they really have a handle on what the process really is, without hiring an attorney and spending several thousand dollars. >> It's kind of like layers and layers and layers of regulation after 30 years that we've lost sight of the goal. >> We need to address the deficiencies in the Land Use Planning Program in order to be able to correct the things that really bothering Oregonians about it. And it's been 30 years. We need to do something a little different. >> We as a task force identified four sort of overarching values that the system serves. And I think most Oregonians would agree that those are-

those are appropriate goals. >> They're concerned about the economy, and they're concerned about their economic future. There's a sense of fairness and equity that we have. There is a concern about having communities that are livable, they call them. And there's clearly a concern about environmentally where we're going. Those seem to be themes that keep coming to the surface as we interpret what people are telling us. >> These four overarching themes are, we would hope, a source of consensus, rather than division. >> If your starting point is that you can all agree on that, or most of you can agree on that, that's a good thing. The question and the difficulties start to come in when you get down to the specifics of what makes that happen. You know, do you use regulation and rules, or do you use--or do you place more emphasis on, --on incentives and tax breaks, and that sort of thing. And, you know, that's where paths diverge and arguments begin. But, you know, I think there is certainly enough common

ground in the state that we can sustain our system and improve it over time. And, like I said, make sure that our state stays an attractive place to be. [Upbeat music plays] >> Resource lands our primarily farm and forest land >> Lands that are today a part of the rich natural resource base that Oregon enjoys. Agricultural lands, forest lands, open lands, scenic lands, environmental lands, all of that, in our mind, represents sort of this resource. And it's not exclusive to a particular area in a state. There can be resource lands inside of urban growth boundaries for that matter. >> The land use system has done a good job protecting agriculture, over all.

The concerns I have is if it's changed you're never going to go back and get back the agg-ground that all of a sudden you lost. The benefits of keeping our great places here in Oregon, our natural resource lands and our habitat lands, are very wide ranging. From having access to locally grown food and forest products, to maintaining our clean drinking water supplies. And having exercise opportunities for kids and families. >> I think things that work well is that the land is protected and kept in reasonable sized chunks for farming. It's not being divided into one and two acre lots, which are very hard to reassemble and very expensive. >> My mom grew up on the north side of Eugene in what used to be the country. And when I-5 and Beltline were put in, it cut their farm into four pieces. And now it's all houses and well within town. But they were forced to sell it all eventually, after having the cops called on them when they were, you know, trying to farm it for

noise and whatnot. >> As you can tell the sheep are bellowing. Well not every white picket fence is going to want to live next to sheep bellowing. >> They might put up with it for a while, but when you're out at 3 in the morning swathing a field that needs to be swathed, you know, that might be their last straw and then they decide they want to sue you. >> We're an industry, and we're noisy and sometimes were dusty, and we work all hours when it's time to harvest. >> The requirements on farmers to be even more effective and more productive has altered to some extent the ability to farm and be a productive economic farm unit on lands of lower soil quality. >> Every farm probably has an area that could be taken out and put a house or two on and save the prime farm lands. But we've had a disagreement over the decades of what

is the good farmland. >> The hillside thin soils where not necessarily meant to be highly protected. But actually for a vineyard site it's excellent soil. >> We have many people wanting to buy a piece of this rocky ground to put a house. But current laws won't allow me to do it. >> A mile and a half or a mile from here the soils are just solid clay. You can't do anything with that. You know building houses, or what have you, will be fine. So flexibility is really important. >> From the very beginning there were only three classes of land: farm, forest or urban. And I can tell you that right outside of where we're filming here, there's thousands of acres that aren't any of those. And there was never any recognition of transitional lands, or lands that aren't highly productive or highly urbanized. So it forced everything into three boxes and, again, one size didn't fit everything that's out there. >> Oregon has a land use system that's based on minimum lot sizes so that we protect much of our farmland in forest land from development by not allowing people to develop more than

one house per, say, three hundred twenty acres. And that keeps a large tracts of farm and forest land intact. >> We've looked too much at the size of the property, one house per 80, or per 120, or something, and uh, not looked at how that particular land piece might be different a little bit than everybody else. >> If you're going to have people coming to Oregon we have to put those people somewhere and currently they will be next to the cities in the urban boundaries, which is where the better farmland is. >> When land comes out of production, and the water rights are no longer there, there's a trickle down effect. >> Water's a pretty valuable commodity and people are starting to realize that more now. >> In this area we can't irrigate these hills because we don't have that much water. >> As far as forestry is concerned, forestry has a lot of different uses.

That's where our watershed is, that's where our clean water comes from. It's a natural resource habitat. And those areas still need to be protected for a variety of purposes. >> Converting forest land into something else, cutting down that last crop of trees and developing the land, that's what the highest best use has meant. And until we can figure out how to turn that around, and make sure that everybody's agreement that highest and best use means more than just an economic thing, it also has to do with environmental issues and social issues. And the highest and best use is continuing to maintain good forest growing land and timber production as forest. >> The Statewide land use laws in Oregon really gave a lot of emphasis to protecting agricultural land and protecting timber land. But when it came to any kind of land that didn't meet those criteria, there was almost no protection given at all. >> Although these are private lands we're talking about, the resources that flow through them are public.

The water, the air, the salmon and the fish. >> There's no way on God's green earth we're going to protect natural resources, or restore them--in many cases we need restoration as well-- without a baseline of regulatory programs to ensure that across the landscape, both urban and rural, we are in fact protecting those natural resources. >> Adding some regulations to restrict things to protect resources... Personally I think we're we're past that, or we should be. That we should be figuring out ways to remove disincentives and provide incentives, rather than regulation--new regulations to protect the things that we really want. >> Where we think there's important habitat lands we really need to sit down and come up with some strategies that are fair to the landowner, as well as be protective of the great resources that we have here in the state. >> We're going to have to give up something for development. It's a matter of doing it in a way that nothing is, we don't lose one particular

type of land base at the expense of another. And so we have to be, so we have to be very careful about how we allocate that. And, you know, you look at Europe, you look at some of these other countries, where they've struggled with this for thousands of years. What you find is you find very concentrated development in very small areas. And you learn how to live within those areas. And then you go out to the other areas to either enjoy to farm or whatever you're gonna do. >> Think about how unique Oregon is on the commodities and the crops that we raise. So you can enjoy that, your children can enjoy that, and it's not just going to be telling stories from generation to generation: "Oh I remember we used to have this." >> We think that the environment is a resource worth protecting and investing, and that land use is a steward of the environment.

>> I would hope that 30 years from now this will still be a vineyard. And whether or not there's a winery here. I just think, I can't see why one would want to change that. >> They're anticipating a doubling of the population. We need to recognize that there is going to be two of everything, except perhaps our forests and farms. We can't recreate double those. But there will be double the people here and double the demand on all of those places. >> This land in 30 years, it should be, should be all houses. It would increase the tax base because it's not a viable farm. >> When I was growing up I was always taught you give back to society. And you protect the most precious things for survival. And that's our land, our water, and our air. >> We attempt to manage growth by having growth occur within cities' urban growth boundaries.

>> What we try and do is is cluster development, so that you're reducing your infrastructure costs, and also reducing the sort of cost on the environment as a whole. And at the same time you're preserving resource lands by doing things that way. And you can actually see it from a night view from space. What you see are fairly tight development patterns. Bright spots of light surrounding a city. And if you compare that to, say, Idaho, what you see is maybe a bright spot of light with sort of tendrils that go out in all directions. And in Oregon you don't see those tendrils. That's the one measurable component of the system that's pretty hard to argue. >> If we can create livable cities that people gravitate to and really want to live in, people won't feel in order to get access to nature that they have to live on an acre or five acres somewhere out in the rural landscape, and then commute back into the city to work. The rural environment, and the urban environment, will both be

better off. >> We are committed here to preserving agriculture outside the city. And part of that is being as efficient as you can be at using your, the land that is inside the city. >> We're not interested in being six stories high inside urban growth boundary. We would like to maintain our community, the feel of the community, and still use the land wisely. >> We need to think about development opportunities that will allow people to walk to where they work, to where they play, schools, shop within 20 minutes or ride a bicycle, or take a street car, or a light rail line. Anything but drive the car. >> So what does density mean in Bend, it's not the same thing in Portland. Well why is that? Why can't we just make it that dense here. Well, it's somewhat cultural. It's what people expect when they come here compared to when I--when I go to Portland I know I'm going to a big city. I accepted that fact. And I either liked it or I didn't. But I knew that's what I got. Well people in Bend, and in for that matter

central Oregon, they're not quite looking for that density. >> We haven't really found the way to even affordably pay for the infrastructure that growth requires, whether it's sewer, water or transportation. >> There is no magic wand that you can wave that can get somebody else to pay for infrastructure. For years we thought we had that call the federal government, and they paid for an awful lot of it, and maybe someday they'll get back in that business. But until they do we're going to have to find some way to fund that ourselves. >> If we can develop buildings that have a smaller impact, a lighter impact on our infrastructure, whether it be transportation, sewage, water or energy, you know we're making positive strides not just for Farmers Joe, but for those of us here in the city as well. >> So whether it's green infrastructure, or whether it's transportation network, we need to make sure that the dollars are being directed in a way that helps the plan and the community's aspirations get fulfilled.

>> In many respects industrial land is like agricultural land. That is, it isn't just enough how many raw acres you have, but how many do you have in any one place, can you get the economy of scale you need to have, can you meet those needs? And what's going to be next door? Because whether you're running a farm or a factory, if someone puts a housing development next door, you're to have a lot of problems. >> Let's look at some of the smaller communities that lost their lumber mills. The answer of the state was 'more tourists.' Well tourists are there for a short time, they're gone, what do you do in the winter months? There's no job, there's no, there's no economic engine to drive that community. And you can't have that engine if you don't have land to do industrial things on and lands have homes on. >> The industrial development would be good. It certainly has economic value to Oregon, but our farm land is also extremely important to us. So we're dealing with conflicts here. >> Cities within Central Oregon have grown so much in the last 10 years that we no longer have the 20 year buildable land supply with our UGBs, and that has caused land prices to

to escalate much faster than they ever were before. >> I've never been a fan of the 20 year buildable supply, and the notion that we have to get every five years a greenfield of buildable land. A lot of it is tied up in how we define buildable lands. Certainly all urban land is buildable. Buildings tend to turn over in about a 30 to 50 year cycle. There's been industries come and look at our area, at least The Dalles, and go away because we didn't have housing. >> We've seen housing costs skyrocket in the last couple of decades, as much as going up three or four times in some places. And so the folks who are most vulnerable have fewer options. >> There is a problem both in terms of the supply of housing, but also in many of our urban areas, the affordability of housing. That's particularly true, not just for low income people, and that's a problem, but even for middle income folks who have kids. >> In one city the affordable housing is nonexistent so folks move to the next nearby city and travel

back and forth, commute to work in the main city. It's just, it has created some very challenging issues from the affordable housing side. From just everyone having the prices go up so quickly. >> The way that we live and work, go to school, recreate even, in our communities today, don't necessarily reflect these sort of arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries, cities or county lines, that were drawn a long time ago. >> I would suggest that the TriMet area is a region. They have their own set of problems. You go to mid-valley, that's kind of a region. The coast, they have their own set of issues. Eastern Oregon doesn't even have the same issues, you'd have to split it up. >> The problem of course is that if you have an elected regional government, as you have in Portland with Metro, then that creates some division of authority from the local governments. If you don't have that, then you don't have a lot of teeth in your regional planning. So it's tough to do, it's difficult to get anybody to give up any of their their

power and authority. But I don't think there's any alternative but to have some form of regional planning if we're going to coordinate our land use planning to match our economic and social and cultural needs. >> I grew up in Las Vegas. I have firsthand experience of what kind of kinda uncontrolled growth looks like. And if you haven't been there, believe me, it's not pretty at times. But, so I'm a big believer in the UGB, but I just don't know why or what's the outcome or what's the the benefit of it being a tightly controlled state level process. >> I do believe in planning, but I believe it needs to be more local than state. >> I suspect the local jurisdictions would create, you know, their own set of growth principles and what hoops are they in to make you jump through. >> If you look at counties that have strong ability to regulate their land use, they have typically not done a very good

job of regulating land use at all. They just let everything happen, pretty much as it is. If somebody wants develop, they develop. It doesn't matter where you are, whether it's a special area or not a special area. It doesn't even matter if it's high productive farmland, it just gets developed. >> There are times when local is not good either. You get just what you ask for, because you can have a small group very vocal, very powerful, do have the time to show up, that can bend things local. But they still have to live where the decision is made. And that brings it back to be a better decision. >> The reality is there is no right level for these decisions to be made all the time. What you need to have is a system that allows the local governments to have the input that their local knowledge and understanding provides them, but doesn't allow for a local veto on things that have a broader regional interest, and in some cases a statewide interest. And so the real issue is not to always have decisions made at the lowest possible level. Try to make sure they're made at the right level where all of the legitimate interests are taken into account.

>> One of the things we have to ask of Oregonians is to reengage at a higher level than what has happened, I think, in recent years. People need to be very conscious about what's going on and be willing to participate. >> Take the time to be willing to expand their own view of the world. To take the view of a farmer, or a rancher, or a forester. To take the view of a person living in a city. To take the view of all the diverse Oregonians that we have and then come to understand their needs as it relates to the environment and to our great lands. >> Whether your representative or senator is Democrat or Republican, push for more equitable land use laws. Laws that make sense. >> Sitting back and doing nothing is maybe not the best option. >> It's a tremendous challenge we've got ahead of us, I'm sure. I have no doubt that we have the ability to meet that challenge. If we have the willingness to do it, and the political will and the capital will. It's going to take some investments that we haven't done in the

past. >> Everybody needs to figure out a way to weigh in on what we're doing. So that it truly represents Oregon and not one side or the other. >> We need the general public to get involved in our process to help us determine some of the final directions were looking at. >> To reaffirm the good things in our Oregon Land Use Planning Program, or to change those things that need to be changed. >> Whether they're members of one interest group, or they're members of another interest group, or they're they're shaped by their own personal experiences as well as perspectives, that they would take some time to look at the complexity of these issues. Recognize there isn't always black and white, but there are shades of gray. And I would hope they would urge their legislators to do the same and recognize that there are reforms to the system that can make it better for everybody. [music plays]

[music plays] [music plays]