I'm not that worried about subdivisions the size of five Beavertons. It's the one that's a third of a Beaverton -- that one's going to be a stinker.

The subdivision argument is a red herring. I mean look at Forest Heights and Bethany, those were both mow down the hillside and put houses subdivisions and both pre-M37. M49 just means you have to buy off the right commissioner.

BTW, who is behind paying for this? It seems pretty well funded for a pro-govt measure.

What strikes me as odd, Jack, is your apparent blind spot on this one.

Measure 37, for the first time in a few decades, disempowered the planners whom you so aptly criticize. Measure 49 would put them right back in charge, so they can go trippingly on their way giving us more Beaverton Rounds, SoWhats and Whatnots.

I, for one, am pretty freaking sick of folks from New Jersey coming here and telling us that we have to give up our property rights so they can have a scenic easement on our property. (I'm of course talking about Newhouse, not you, Jack. Don't get so defensive)

BTW, who is behind paying for this? It seems pretty well funded for a pro-govt measure.

No mystery there; local people with money and some concerns for the community.

Newhouse?

Newhouse just bought into it. Literally. It seems to me it was a buncha SNOBs who initiated the "give up our property rights" (that is the LCDC thing, isn't it?...that's what you're referring to?) thing. The ones who want to keep it like it was before the Jerseyites got here. The Californians.

It seems like each wave of immigrants wants to close the door behind themselves and proceed to remake the state into what they left behind....forgetting why they moved here in the first place.

Funny, landusewatch.com is gasping for air that BOJACK MAY ACTUALLY UNENDORSE! Hehehe... Jack, you need to get a hold of yourself. You're not that important.

That's the first piece of election porn I've seen that doesn't depend on multiethnic children (usually in bicycle helmets, for some reason) to tug at my heartstrings. Or my ballotstrings. Whatever.

Are you sure you didn't miss them? They have to be in there.

That is some very, very poor design work there.

I can just picture Rub Kremer (or his twin Liars Liars on), really giving this vote some thoughtful consideration.

Now so can you.

The irrefutable FACT:

With M37 left alone and fully intact, Oregon will still have a more extensive and regulated land use planning system than any other State.

That should be acceptable and not cast as the end of days for Oregon.

But with this campaign of misinformation portraying M37 in need of M49, too many voters have been made to believe our valleys, farms, forests a all zoning protections will be lost forever unless M37 is stopped.

Never mind our lovely NW neighbors Washington and Idaho manage to maintain their landcscape, environment and humanity with far less controls than what this propoganda claims we will have with M37.

In reality, every city in Oregon, where most Oregonians live, has far more to fear from the planning establishment than M37. Year in year out as the planners push for more overcrowding of our communitees we grow less capable of avoiding the emerging chaos and preserving Oregon as Oregon.

There is some good news in all this. Friday I talked with a bright, college educated woman. She works at the post office. Thinking she was a manager I asked further. No, she works with bulk mail like catalogs, election flyers and all that. With the decline in first class mail (when did you last get a letter from someone?) it's junk mail that keeps folks working at family wage jobs, right here in the USA. (no, I don't work for the junk mail industry or the USPS)

Measure 37, for the first time in a few decades, disempowered the planners whom you so aptly criticize.

And gave the power to out-of-state developers and rich real estate speculators from California. No thanks. Unlike Rob, I'm in no hurry to turn my state over to rich bankers from out of state. I'm funny that way.

I'm voting no on #49. It's the wrong fix, shifting land regulation from the local level to the state level. Heck we haven't even had any significant #37 development to speak of to judge the full outcome of #37. Furthermore, I live in an old development called Richmond neighborhood. It's great with its mature canopy of trees and gardens. I can't see why we should be opposed to extending such development across the Willamette Valley instead of shoving folks into high density, concrete build ups like the Pearl District. #49 should have been directed at blending development with the environment instead of just stifling it altogether.

Wow, Dave J you are a piece of work! It gave power to out of state developers? What, the ones who have owned their land since 1972?

What you are against is giving the "power" to develop property to the owners of the property.

You are funny that way.

"M49 just means you have to buy off the right commissioner."

I agree.

My mother keeps asking me what I think is the right vote on this issue. I keep telling her I think it is these underlying issues we should be addressing, which probably cannot be solved by the electorate.

Allan L. No mystery there; local people with money and some concerns for the community.
JK: Note quite. In the million dollar category:
1. Rich winery owner who probably wants to lease more land without paying what its worth.
2. Multinational land corporation that locks up land. They also don’t want to pay what its worth.
3. Local real estate developers who have bought up land and don’t want more land available to compete with them.
4. Homer Williams.

It is not about nature, it is about big money through using the law to steal land.

Every home in a new neighborhood on vacant land is one less skinny house in our existing neighborhoods. One less car clogging our roads, one less subsidized condo.

Thanks
JK

Jack That said, I fervently hope that the literally millions of Nature Conservancy and Eric Lemelson and Phil Knight dollars that have been spent on this campaign are successful. I believe that the proponents of Measure 49 have it exactly right, and I'm a proud endorser of a yes vote on that ballot measure.
JK: Metro says 300,000 more people are coming to Portland. I argue that your position will put them in our neighborhood, instead of Lemelson’s neighborhood.

Thanks
JK

Pro 49ers hypocrisy doesn't just stop at condoning thousands of pounds of mailers. What about the environmental damage done by winemakers like Erick Lemelson?

Where does a vineyard's run-off and fertilizer go during a heavy rain? Right into the river, that's where -- silting up breeding grounds and destroying riparian habitat.

So far, M49 proponent have failed to address this fact. They try and tug at our heartstrings with the saving of family farms; all the while those same farms are doing just as much, if not more environmental damage than a low-density subdivision.

Compounding the fact M37 will affect 1.0% of Oregon's landmass; M49 is a complete and total joke.

Case in point: M49's favorite whipping boy is the Stimpson Lumber case. They want to develop their land and put houses on 20-acre lots. 20-acre lots -- my god, can you imagine the horror?

Rob,

A property description can be as simple as the identification of the land contained by four identified prominent rocks.

Such description does not include a stone upon which is inscribed the then existing (and generally applicable laws) at the time of any transfer of a claim of ownership between two private individuals.

Go read this 141_or_564_Morrison_v_Clackamas_County_1933. It is about a jetty next to a bridge that caused a riverbank to erode on nearby private land. It explores the issue of whether title must be transferred in order to maintain a demand for payment.

A common feature of the cases relied upon is some physical land/improvements adjoining the affected land.

It was not SB100 that was the "flood" but M37 itself. Every person who obtained land with knowledge of some present and fleeting governmental limitation -- found nowhere in the description of the property -- should have THEIR PROPERTY RIGHTS protected by asserting that there are no stone tablets found within the description of the property. Nor are there any, until M37, physically staked out on the parcel of land that was transfered between two wholly private parties (a transfer that is protected from diminishment by the federal and state contract clause). "Tear down those stone tablets" (Uttered in the tone of Ronald Reagan as to the infamous wall). Yes, focus on the "property" "rights" of folks who do not fit the definition of a potential M37 claimant . . . then get back to me.

I will trust that the stone tablets that M37 attempts to place on such land remains none-existent when the time comes for some fleeting restriction to be lifted, absent the transfer of title of such land to the government. The same applies to M49, BTW. I can ignore both, except to the extent that some clown demands compensation NOT TO BUILD, particularly when such statutory provision does not apply generally to all land regardless of the date of any transfer of describable property between wholly private parties.

"non-existent" . . . I say, as in irrelevant, for those that choose to postpone development.

Jack, you need to get a hold of yourself. You're not that important.

Hey everybody, say hello to Peter Bray the Troll. With jerks like him as friends, Measure 49 doesn't need enemies.

Chris McMullen,

Please stop fabricating lies about me. I corrected you on another site several days ago, and I am sure you read what I wrote! But something within you just FORCES you to continue to make this stuff up, right? Must be that chip implanted behind your ear, or perhaps you are controlled by aliens!

For the record, AGAIN; our vineyards are all certified organic. We've been organic since we started growing grapes. We don't fertilize with chemical fertilizers (that is legally prohibited in organic agriculture); we use organic compost once or twice a decade at most. We don't pollute waterways, period.

I've spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless hundreds of hours working to prevent soil erosion in our vineyards. I can show you a housing development not far from one of our vineyards that put tons of sediment into a stream after a botched erosion control job several years ago........

I have never leased land from anyone, so you can take that crap off the list of alleged "motivations." And I have no plans to buy additional vineyard land, now or in the future - I am way busy enough as it is, and our winery has reached its capacity.

If you actually want to learn about my business, I invite you to come out to Carlton and meet me face to face. I'm pretty damn scary at 5'4", I can tell you. I am in the phone book. Ball's in your court, as they say.

I, for one, am pretty freaking sick of folks from New Jersey coming here and telling us that we have to give up our property rights so they can have a scenic easement on our property. (I'm of course talking about Newhouse, not you, Jack. Don't get so defensive)

It's been nice having you here, Rob.

We'll miss Rob. It was nice having an eponymous representative for the developers.

I believe Jack Bog's proposed M-49 ad is the best I have seen-straight to the point.

I don't care how much money and influence is thrown into the "Yes on 49" campaign--anything that puts the brakes on that sick joke known as M-37 is A-OK with me.

Amen.

In the light of the next day, my ad isn't that bad...

We'll miss Rob.

He's a great guy, but his bad case of Gore Derangement Syndrome makes him difficult at times.

96% of this state's population lives on less than 5% of the land. And they want to cram even more folks into that slant

How confusing can this be? Only to a retard.
You buy property with X set of rules and the boys from PSU come in and change the rules and it devaluates your property you have a case. Unless that logic goes against your idealocicaly beliefs and you hate Bush so much that you are willing to sell property rights down the road all the while claiming that our personal rights are being eroded with no proof of that whatsoever

Unless that logic goes against your idealocicaly beliefs and you hate Bush so much that you are willing to sell property rights down the road all the while claiming that our personal rights are being eroded . . .

Bingo. You finally get it, ace. That's our idealocicaly.

I can just picture Rub Kremer (or his twin Liars Liars on), really giving this vote some thoughtful consideration.

Typical, 'ol Tensk going straight for the name-calling. How progressive...

ace: You buy property with X set of rules and the boys from PSU come in and change the rules and it devaluates your property you have a case

Funny thing, though, ace - I've never once seen "property rights" advocates argue that the public must be compensated whenever property is upzoned or otherwise increased in value by government actions.

Funny thing, though, ace - I've never once seen "property rights" advocates argue that the public must be compensated whenever property is upzoned or otherwise increased in value by government actions.

John,

Are you familiar with the concept of property taxes?

Are you familiar with the concept of property taxes?

PanchoPdx: Why not put some math back of that statement, rather than just making a broad, sweeping inference that the present value of the future property tax increases will pay for the overnight increased valuation that was given the property owner? There's no way this can come close to evening out.

With taxes running 2 - 2.5% of ACV, and ACV itself perhaps 50% of RMV (average numbers, of course), we're paying about 1 - 1.25% net in taxes. The present value of this amount of future cash flow will never cover the original increase in valuation.

But if it did, upzoning would not of course be so lucrative.

did anyone else get the huge Comcast poster advertising Comcast and the "Jail" Blazers? NOW there's a waste of trees and resources.....

Wineries have utterly destroyed the beautiful landscape out here in Yamhill County. I could post numerous pictures of beautiful hillsides that have been CLEARCUTTED only to be replaced by junky looking California wineries. Alcoholism destroys lives AND the environment. "Global Warming" made winegrowing possible here in Oregon in the first place. Hopefully either global warming trend continues and pushes these stupid wineries further north -- into CANADA or brings a terrible disease and wipes them out completely.

Eric, this is the first I've seen a rebuttal from you (I don't regularly check every blog in which I post). And bravo, it's good to know you work hard on mitigating environmental damage at your farm.

However, the fact that farming is innately unnatural pretty much blows all the "concern for the environment" nonsense coming out of the Pro 49 camp out of the water. If M49 was really about keeping Oregon's natural areas in tact, it would also ask to ban any new, and reduce existing, farms in the state.

Chris,

Wineries are NOT farms.

I like the skinny houses. The ones in my area have generally replaced crappy looking 70s ranch houses. Like any construction, there are good skinny homes and ugly skinny homes. But as a way to get single family, detached housing in a dense urban area, they seem like a pretty good solution to me.

I, for one, am pretty freaking sick of folks from New Jersey coming here and telling us that we have to give up our property rights so they can have a scenic easement on our property.

yeah, i think the Multnomah Indian tribe said something like that about 150 years ago.

Rob, we're all immigrants and invaders. including you. including those Multnomah Indians.

Chris,

Thanks for clarifying that important point!

Farming is "unnatural." So, according to you, homo sapiens is too. Unless you have some replacement for food from farming (ever see Soylent Green? Look what happened to poor Charlton Heston!) what do you propose as an environmentally responsible method of land use for food production? Your tautology is so mind-numbingly simplistic, it almost defies a response.

Those of us working towards more sustainable agricultural practices are wasting our time, apparently. Or, if we are not, we should nevertheless not delude ourselves into thinking we care about the environment. What the heck are you saying here? Can you enlighten me? And if you think that advocating creating residential subdivisions on productive farmland is more environmentally responsible than keeping that land agricultural, you are utterly ignorant of the real world. Which is actually what you have advocated here and on other blogs, just to remind you.

I suggest that we instead consider the real point that you are so conveniently attempting to distract us from here - (by the way, given your multiple postings that you say you cannot keep track of, do you do this for fun, for ideological reasons, or do you do it with all the care and concern of a spammer selling Viagra?) - that you have repeatedly made statements about me and about my business practices with NO knowledge about the facts and an "active imagination." I suspect, instead, that you have simply regurgitated ideas you have read elsewhere. Because there were other sources for your statements - such as the fiction that farmers who support M. 49 rely on leased land, so they want to keep land prices low - and we both know who they are. Or at least I do.

By the way, Greg, I have lived here since I was a teenager. By choice. And I am not from California, nor are most of the folks I know in the wine business. I suppose your ancestors were Native Americans, right?

Forgot to mention, Greg:

There was an awful lot of clearcutting in Yamhill County (actually, everywhere I have ever been in Western Oregon) long before winegrapes became a minor part of the landscape. Care to try blaming us for anything else you dislike? Where I come from, that's called scapegoating...........

Eric,

You and your ilk just want a cheap abundant supply of land so you can produce your POISON for the masses. I sure hope (and pray) that disease comes soon and wipes it all away so you can move back to New Jersey and take all your friends with you.

Thanks Greg.

That's a very nice thing to say, and contributes mightily to the public discourse over this issue.

Sorry to disappoint you, but regardless of the vicissitudes of the wine business, I won't be moving back to New Jersey (I haven't lived there since Jimmy Carter was President) in this lifetime.

The God of wrath you pray to will surely bring you a better world where my "ilk" suffer fire and brimstone, if only you pray hard enough.

BTW, didn't the Bible tell about Jesus turning water into wine?

We got the big mailers - the Measure 49 pitch and the Comcast mailer - both on saturday. Both are in the recycling bin where they belong.
I'll simply be happy to see this nonsense out of my life in another couple of weeks.

"We'll miss Rob. It was nice having an eponymous representative for the developers."

That had to come from a parallel universe of opposites.

What is is that prevents many from grasping that it is the planning establishment that is most friendly and helpful to chosen developers.
Certainly not Kremer or anyone coming else who regularily criticizes the Gerding-Edlen, Urban Renewal, Homer Willaims, SoWa, Cascade Station, Beaverton Round, Smart Growth, Transit Oriented Development, Light rail/street car cabal.
And in stark contrast to those developer recipients of subsidies the typical subdivision developer pays heavily in fees and costly on site and off site requirements.
Despite the ludicrous and dishonest Yes ON M49 campaign, M37 is incappable of
perpetrating the broad scarring of Oregon. IMO much of the REAL proposed M37 development is far prefferable to the costly and overcrowded product the planning establishment is forever pushing.

The planning cabal is too busy getting drunk on wine and covering up rape allegations.

Eric, please quit trying to come off as some sort of altruistic enviro-savior. Your widely publicized $750,000 "contribution" to the Yes on 49 campaign proves you have a vested interest in keeping development curtailed. If you don't like all the extra attention, you shouldn't have spent the money.

And since when is it your or the government's role to decide what is high value farmland? Some of the best farming areas in the state have already been developed under our current land use policies. The state is in no danger of losing our agricultural base. This is all just a false construct coming out of the Yes on 49 side.

Methinks there is an ulterior motive behind your fervent defensiveness and vitriol; and it ain't a concern for the environment.

BTW, wine is not a nutritional requirement. If a few thousand more acres of potential vineyards get developed, it isn't going to deny the world of grape juice.

And why should rural farmers be shielded from (minor) development when urban residents have to suffer government-mandated density and congestion?

eric lemelson such as the fiction that farmers who support M. 49 rely on leased land, so they want to keep land prices low - and we both know who they are. Or at least I do.
JK: Lets look at what’s in it for you:

1- Some claim that passing M49 will keep land cheap for farmers to buy/rent at low prices through using the power of government to essentially steal it.

2 - The flip side of that is that land inside the UGB keeps going higher in price. This helps developers who already have land.
( It benefits a few farmers & screws everyone else,)

3 - It protects your winery’s neighborhood by keeping unwanted density out.

4 - It screws city neighborhoods by forcing more density on them.

5 - Lets not forget those millions from that out of state, multinational corporation, the Nature Conservancy. Presumably they want cheap land so that this multinational corporation can buy up even more of Oregon on the cheap.

Bottom line: M49 helps a few farmers and screws millions of other Oregonians.

The sad part is that few of those farmers even grow food anymore. Mostly they grow ready grown lawns, trees and potted plants. Oh, yes and a few tomatoes for overpriced restaurants in the Pearl.

Thanks
JK

I really question all this ridiculous blather about "saving the farm" or the sky is falling fearmongering about "looking like California". I find it especially ironic that those most fearful of this fate are the very ones who came from California to begin with. When I was in Southern California recently I saw PLENTY of huge farms all around San Diego and even in Orange County. Sure there has been progress resulting in some housing developments but isn't a healthy economy a GOOD thing? I wouldn't mind it looking more like California up here, maybe we can get some more people to balance out the extreme whacko envirocommunists political establishment here.

Greg

Folks move out of So Cal because they can't stand the smog, the congestion, and the ugliness.

They move to Oregon for its clean air and water and natural beauty, and hope to keep it that way.

Why is this "ironic"?

Oregon is huge and desolate. I'm sure even if every single Southern Californian relocated to the Willamette Valley there would still be ample open land remaining. But the M49 crowd thinks the end of the world is nigh.

Jim, most of the peer-reviewed academic studies I've seen have concluded land values (about 14% of a property's price) haven't actually been increased by the UGB - partially because we're required by state law to have 20 years of supply of residential land inside the UGB. Lord know Metro will continue to expand the UGB when those new people move in. The sky is not falling.

And why does Eric's contribution have to be anything but altruistic? Are you really so cynical to think that no one cares about this state anymore unless it's for personal profit?

And "Oregon is empty" Greg -- when you want to move to Malheur or Wasco county, let me know.

evann,
You think, "Lord know Metro will continue to expand the UGB when those new people move in"?

The only way you coudlthink that is if you had no idea what the last 10 years of UGB expansions look like.

Guess what? Nearly every square inch of those expansions sit conveniently stuck in a planners quagmire without anything close to being built. Yet another example of SB 100 being hijacked, retarded and and not being followed.

evann: Jim, most of the peer-reviewed academic studies I've seen have concluded land values (about 14% of a property's price) haven't actually been increased by the UGB
JK: ONE MILLION an acre land not affecting house prices? Gimme a break - they have not repealed the law of supply and demand. Peers can be fools too as we have seen recently in the Korean cloning article and the radio waves affecting living cells case.

evann: - partially because we're required by state law to have 20 years of supply of residential land inside the UGB.
JK: Metro decided to get the 20 year supply by building up, not out. Up is very expensive - that’s why they give the tax breaks.

Thanks
JK

If they're so concerned with building up not out, why not build a huge skyscraper and put all the various governmental offices in it? It would be a grand monument to Oregon's glorious progressivism!