Politics “Property Rights” Initiatives Gut Land-Use Law
If there was any doubt that “property rights” initiatives such as Portland’s Measure 37 and Washington’s proposed Initiative 933 lead to development run amok, the Sightline Institute has laid them firmly to rest, with these maps showing development in the rural area surrounding Portland before and after Measure 37 (which allows property owners to do pretty much anything they want on their land, regardless of environmental and land-use laws, or forces taxpayers to pay them to follow those laws). The first map shows development around Portland before Measure 37 passed; each dot represents ten new rural residents. Obviously, most of the new development was concentrated around Vancouver; development near Portland was limited by Oregon’s strict growth-management law.
The second map shows development around Portland after Measure 37 passed. As you can see, rural and exurban housing development shifted dramatically; now most new development is massed in the rural areas in Oregond outside Portland—a direct result of the initiative, which gutted state and local land-use laws. Washington’s Initiative 933, on the ballot this November, is even worse: not only does it require taxpayers to pay land owners to follow nearly every state and local environmental and land-use law, it makes no allowance to enforce federal laws like the Clean Air Act; includes no exemptions for public nuisances; and actually allows property owners to jeopardize their neighbors’ health and safety, as long as the threat is not “immediate.â€
Fuck, moved two years too late to vote against it...