Planning the Oregon Way: A Twenty-Year Evaluation
Deborah Howe1995, The Western Historical Quarterly
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Abstract
Planning the Oregon Way of Environmental Quality, started planning for a Willamette River Greenway, and presided over passage of bills to reassert public ownership of ocean beaches, to set minimum deposits for beverage cans and bottles, and to require removal of billboards. In this context of environmental awareness, the initial impulse for state land-use legislation came from the farms rather than the cities.' The center of concern was the hundred-mile-long Willamette Valley, where the Coast Range on one side and the high Cascades on the other reminded residents that land is finite. The first steps toward the idea of "exclusive farm use" between 1961 and 1967 involved legislative action to set the tax rate on farm land by land rental valuesin effect, by its productive capacity as farm landrather than by comparative sales data which might reflect the demand for suburban development. A conference on "The Willamette ValleyWhat Is our Future in Land Use?" held early in 1967 spread awareness of urban pressures on Oregon's agricultural base. With key members drawn from the ranks of Oregon farmers, the Legislative Interim Committee on Agriculture responded by developing the proposal that became Senate Bill 10, Oregon's first mandatory planning legislation. Adopted in 1969, SB 10 took the major step of requiring cities and counties to prepare comprehensive land-use plans and zoning ordinances that met ten broad goals. The deadline was December 31, 1971. How-cerely concerned with promoting economic development in Oregon should cheer this program rather than fight it."5 A task force headed by Umatilla County farmer Stafford Hansell heard testimony from more than four hundred Oregonians and reported essentially the same conclusions to Governor Vic Atiyeh. The election returns showed the same regional divisions as before, with strong opposition from ranching counties in the southeastern corner of the state and from lumbering counties in the southwestern corner. The 1982 referendum was the last comprehensive attack on the Oregon planning system. The rest of the decade brought institutional stability. A continuing economic slump triggered net outmigration that totaled 86,000 from 1980 to 1986. Stagnant population meant little demand for new housing and few pressures for land conversion, leaving the assumptions of most local plans unchallenged. Local planning activities xviii Planning the Oregon Way want. Oregon policy makers and planners are actively exploring ways to intervene in this trend and to effect greater densities. The transportation rule is an outgrowth of frustrations with the historical separation of land use and transportation planning. As SyAdler indicates, the hoped-for integration of land use and transportation should achieve more purposeful urban form and a land use pattern that provides a range of mobility alternatives. Similarly, a gradual convergence of land use planning and economic development policy is occurring. Especially in major urban areas, as John DeGrove points out, large economic interests acknowledge the value of a stable planning environment for long-term investment. Economic development is increasingly a central element in neighborhood and district planning in the state's dominant city of Portland. At the same time, the continued economic crisis of resource-dependent communities has created the problem of "two Oregons" divided by wealth, by economic prospects, and increasingly by world view. In 1960, for example, per capita income in affluent, suburban Washington County near Portland was 10 percent higher than the rest of the state. By the 1980s it was 25 percent higher. In the 1990s, problems of chronic unemployment and underemployment have been exacerbated by federal resource conservation policies. The Endangered Species Act and related policies have affected forest resources and fisheries. As both Matthew Slavin and Michael Hibbard point out, Oregon land use planning has been ineffective in responding to problems of rural economic decline. Avery specific issue resulting from the problems of the "other Oregon" has been the effort to define "secondary lands"the less productive lands within rural areas. In 1974, Oregon policy makers assumed that two competing land usesurbanization and resource productionneeded to be balanced in a statewide system. There has been widespread concern that the resource land regulations are overly restrictive since some designated resource lands cannot support viable commercial farming, ranching, or forestry. James Pease describes the long and contentious history that caused the 1993 legislature to permit homes on lots that were created and owned before 1985, except on the most productive farm and forest land. A larger issue is the question of the realistic future for Oregon's resource communities. In a study of Coos Bay, historian William Robbins (1988) has found an important discontinuity for the years from 1945 to 1975. In the midst of a normal pattern of booms and busts, these decades
