Oregon's land use system contributes to housing crisis (OPINION)

...The current affordable housing crisis is devastating families in the Portland metro region, in vibrant regional cities like Bend and even some rural areas. The cause? On a macro level: an economy that is not producing enough good-paying jobs. On a micro level: a dysfunctional land-use planning system.
Read more at Oregonlive.com Read More......

Supreme Court rule for Florida property owner in land use case

(Reuters) - In a victory for advocates of private property rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said a Florida property owner may be owed compensation from a government agency that declined to award him a development permit for his land.

In a 5-4 ruling with the court's five conservative justices in the majority, the court said Coy Koontz could pursue a property rights claim against the St. Johns River Water Management District.

The legal issue was whether the agency's action constituted a "taking" subject to compensation, under the so-called takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Read more at Reuters Read More......

California high-speed rail to cut through San Joaquin farmland

FRESNO, Calif. -- California's ambitious plan for high-speed trains is drawing sharp criticism from San Joaquin Valley farmers who fear the project would carve their property into useless pieces, disrupt their work and drive down land values. Read more at Standard Examiner Read More......

Congressional deal halts Interior Dept.'s western wilderness program

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES, 4/13/2011 - A last-minute budget deal reached by Congressional leaders would block an Obama administration plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection. ∴ Republican lawmakers had complained that the wilderness plan would circumvent Congress's authority and could be used to declare a vast swath of public land off-limits to oil-and-gas drilling. Read more in the GT... Read More......

BLM unveils new wilderness push

THE DAILY SENTINAL, 12/23/2010 by Dennis Webb - "The Bureau of Land Management will launch a new effort to identify and protect lands with wilderness characteristics under an initiative announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today. ∴ The effort comes in response to a 2003 settlement between former Interior Secretary Gale Norton and other parties including the state of Utah that left the BLM without a national wilderness policy. 'That is simply unacceptable,' Salazar said in a news conference in Denver. ∴ Salazar said the Norton agreement “frankly should never have happened and was wrong in the first place.” The new initiative won’t disavow that agreement by the Bush administration, but will make use of existing BLM authority to evaluate its lands for designation as “wild lands” following a public process. Such lands would be managed to protect their wilderness characteristics unless a new public management process results in a modified designation. ∴ Wild lands would differ from wilderness areas, which Congress designates and can be modified by legislation, and from wilderness study areas, which the BLM typically must manage as wilderness until Congress decides whether they merit wilderness designation. ∴ Salazar said the wild land designation provides more flexibility for multiple uses of land, such as for alternative energy development. But it would give lands with wilderness characteristics “a significant place at the table,” whereas in the past such characteristics weren’t valued, he said." Read More......

Letter regarding Andrew M. Martin land use & the City

Letter to the Editor submitted to the Corvallis Gazette-Times by John H. Detweiler:

On 12/21/09, the City Council voted unanimously to uphold the Land Development Hearings Board's decision to uphold the Community Development Director's interpretation and application of Land Development Code (LDC) provisions and the determination of violation for development activity at the property located at: 5700 SW Reservoir Avenue, subject to the adoption of Formal Findings and Order.

However, the issue in the Andrew M. Martin affair is not whether or not Mr. Martin followed the LDC. The issue is whether or not Corvallis would be better off if Mr. Martin were allowed to develop his land the way he wants to develop it.

Quoting from the Corvallis LDC section 1.1.10.02: "The City Council has the following powers... b. May adopt, amend, supplement, or repeal the text of any provisions or regulations ... or the boundaries of zones established on the Official Zoning Map." Plans of any kind have a tendency to be overtaken by events and need to be changed. Corvallis would be better off if the Council had changed the zoning to allow Mr. Martin to develop his land the way he wants to develop it. Our City Council did not exercise its power to make Corvallis a better place and chose instead to stick with a plan that it should have changed.

John H. Detweiler; web page => www.peak.org~detweij

GT Article: The last straw Read More......