Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Oregon anti-land-use-planning measure ruled unconstitutional

This is big news: Last Friday, a judge in Oregon ruled that Measure 37 violates the state constitution.

To recap: Measure 37, which was approved overwhelmingly by Oregon voters last fall, required state or local governments either to compensate landowners, or to waive development restrictions, whenever land-use rules reduced the value of private property. The measure was strongly supported by timber interests, who faced limits on logging near streams and sensitive areas. And its passage wreaked havoc on the state's growth management system -- which had been largely successful at protecting farmland from suburban sprawl -- while creating an administrative nightmare for state and local governments who faced a deluge of complex Measure 37 cases.

As written, Measure 37 was supposed to apply only to people who bought their land before land use and zoning laws came into effect. People who bought after that, allegedly, understood what they were getting into, and weren't entitled to compensation. But the judge ruled that this violated the "equal privileges and immunities" clause of Oregon's constitution, because it created two separate classes of landowners: one with special rights and remedies for diminished land value, one without.

Last Friday's ruling invalidating the measure was definitive and sweeping. But it's not the end of the debate -- not by a long shot. Appeals are already planned, and Measure 37's supporters will undoubtedly be back soon with another -- perhaps even more insidious -- property rights proposal. And if I had to guess, the proponents of Measure 37 will be looking to open up the system to all landowners, not just recent purchasers. If that were to pass, of course, it would make the chaos engendered by Measure 37 look tame in comparison.

Years of public policy on urban design have made very little driving ‘non-essential’

A few weeks ago, President Bush encouraged Americans to conserve fuel by cutting back on non-essential driving. Unlike some, I think it's actually helpful to use the bully pulpit this way. I just don't think it's terribly meaningful: People respond far more to prices than to jawboning. And as Brookings Institution scholars Robert Puentes and Bruce Katz point out, the sprawling layout of American cities makes an awful lot of our driving "essential," for all practical purposes:

[W]hat the President doesn't get when he asks Americans to curtail their "non-essential travel" is that a half-century of government policies have fueled and subsidized the growth of sprawling, haphazard metropolitan communities and have dramatically increased the amount of "essential travel" required for people to live their daily lives. Driving may not be the best option, but it is often the only option for Americans to get around.

Americans venture out in their cars to find housing they can afford because housing opportunities closer-in are thwarted, while new developments on the suburban fringe are subsidized. Taking transit, biking, or walking to the corner market or to jobs located off the highway exit is neither safe nor feasible because of policies that segregate uses and cater to the car rather than the pedestrian. Federal and state policies make highways easy to build and relegate transit and other alternatives to second-class status.

These policies come with a huge hidden price tag for families, in the form of higher local taxes (to pay for needed infrastructure) and the ever-rising costs of buying, driving and maintaining cars.

Neil Pierce has similar thoughts in today's Seattle Times.

Society still subsidizes the cost of driving

An interesting article from the Washington Post finds that taking Metro -- DC's light rail system -- into downtown may not save suburban commuters all that much money. Even with gas at $3 per gallon, the savings on fuel, plus wear and tear on vehicles, are offset by increased spending on transit fares. Commuters really only start to save if they use transit often enough to ditch one of their cars; otherwise, it's a bit of a wash.

It's a useful piece of analysis, as far as it goes. But the most important part is what's left out:

Tight federal budget prevents old-growth timber sales

The Oregonian today reports on an unexpected consequence of a tight federal budget: The U.S. Forest Service doesn't have enough money to prepare timber sales in old-growth forests.

From the article:

[T]he administration and Congress are starving the U.S. Forest Service of money to plan sales of the big trees, and fight the inevitable appeals and lawsuits by their defenders. Forest managers say they are no longer pouring their shrinking funds into thankless conflicts they rarely win.

"We can't afford expensive timber sales -- the kind where controversy is engendered," said Gary Larsen, supervisor of the Mount Hood National Forest. "We're trying to find those where people can agree on the benefits."

Nifty: We can save money and old-growth in one step. How come it took so long to figure this out?