No on 49

If you purchased a piece of property that was dividable into one or more lots, then the state came along and took that right away and didn't compensate you for it, would you be upset? Of course you would. Measure 37 corrected that injustice. Measure 49 will not. Vote no on Measure 49.

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After reading several statements in the Hood River News and the voter’s pamphlet, it is clear many people do not understand the Measure 37 process.

A Measure 37 claim is an application to be compensated for lost property value due to land use regulations. It is NOT an application to build homes, malls, etc, as people fear. After the county and state has approved the claim, they decide to pay compensation or waive (as in most cases) certain land use regulations back to the date when the claimant acquired the property. Then, and ONLY then does a property owner file a land use application with the county for their desired use.

So how does the claimant calculate this lost value? The claimant lists in the application the maximum uses allowed under law at the time they purchased the property to calculate lost value. Therefore, people think they have applied for subdivisions.

This may seem inappropriate to many, but unfortunately this was the process claimants were given. Don’t blame the property owner. If more people understood this process, we could get beyond the hoax of big box stores and strip malls, and address fair land use for property owners AND preserve the livability of our rural area.

Why doesn’t Measure 49 work? According to land use experts and independent attorneys, crafty language in the measure will prohibit almost all property owners from even one home.

Measure 49 only applies to the few Measure 37 applicants across the state, and did nothing to address fair land use laws for everyone.

Our legislature seems to only address these issues when we force their hands, and passage of Measure 49 will put land use and the Big Look Task Force on the back burner, instead of addressing the issue.

Land use regulations shouldn’t be drafted with a closed-door process and partisan vote of the legislature. Vote no on Measure 49.

Yes on 49

The opponents of Measure 49 suggest that Measure 49 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yet if this is so, Measure 37 must certainly be 49’s much more ravenous mother. Measure 37 is a larger, more vicious wolf intent on devouring decades of thoughtful land-use planning in Oregon. Allowed to run wild, Measure 37 will certainly open us up to other hungry predators intent on decimating our state as we know it.

As Joni Mitchell sang years ago, you can “pave paradise, and put up a parking lot” but if you do so, you may be singing the end of her song – “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” I say support Measure 49, which allows reasonable development requests from property owners while keeping the devouring beasts at bay.

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Protect our natural beauty.

Protect our neighborhoods.

Protect fairness and great good.

Protect what is special about the Hood River Valley.

Keep Oregon, Oregon.

Please vote yes on 49.

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The opponents of Measure 49 want you to believe state and local governments have taken land from property owners. Not one square foot of property has been taken. Every square foot of farm and forestland still belongs to the current property owners.

What was done back in the early 1970s was to establish land use laws that protected agricultural and forest lands. Owners of these two classes of property have sense enjoyed the ability to farm or manage forestland at a greatly reduced tax rate.

Does anyone remember the screams and yells about proposed legislation to set distance limits on orchard and farm spraying? Not a few members of our own community demanded the right to farm. They even drove tractors and farm rigs around the Salem capitol building to insist on laws protecting that right.

Now it is clear they want to have their cake and eat it too. Now it is clear Measure 37 claimants want the right to do anything with their land, irrespective of the effects on their neighbors, infrastructure, schools, police and fire services or the value of the places we live.

Measure 49 is a test of what Oregonians really wanted when they voted for Measure 37. We now have a chance to rethink land use and property ownership. Lets find out if how Measure 37 has shaken out is what we intended. Vote on what you have seen as a result of Measure 37 claims, not on campaign ads and testimonials.