American Dream

Few Oregon cities or counties have any money to pay people compensation for land-use rules that reduced their property values. "The result will be," says one county planner, "no enforcement of zoning regulations." While planning advocates will decry the results, the current situation is hardly defendable.

This article describes a family that has owned 5 acres near Salem for nearly 40 years--in other words, since before the state passed any land-use laws. Even though there are more than a dozen homes nearby, adjacent property owners and 1000 Friends of Oregon have blocked the family's attempts to build one house on their five acres. Now they will be allowed to build.

"This may be the beginning of the end of land-use planning," mourns one farmer who says he moved out of suburban Portland--probably the most heavily planned part of Oregon--because he wanted to get away from sprawl. Now he fears sprawl will come to him. But if people can build where they own land, instead of where government tells them to build, they won't need to concentrate in high-density areas.

Let's hope the farmer is right: this is the beginning of the end of land-use planning.