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4. Falling Star
- University of Arizona Press
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4 Falling Star Three decades after Tom McCall helped to launch Oregon’s unique land use planning system by memorably inveighing against “the grasping wastrels of the land,” a very different person became, arguably, the best known and most effective voice since McCall on the subject of Ore gon’s land use planning system. That person was an unlikely 91- year- old widow named Dorothy English. But English’s views on the state’s land use system differed radically from McCall’s. In 2004, the following radio commercial was one of many advertisements featuring English that appealed to Oregon voters to support Ballot Measure 37—a property rights ballot initiative that would profoundly affect Oregon’s storied land use planning system: Dorothy English (elderly voice, with music in background): My name is Dorothy English. My husband and I bought 40 acres in Multnomah County in 1953. Narrator (male voice): They raised their children on their property and hoped that someday they could give them part of their land. Dorothy English: But Multnomah County took that away from me. Narrator: For the last 20 years, Multnomah County has passed regulation after regulation on her property. Dorothy English: And now I can’t do anything with my property. Narrator: The legislature tried to help, and Governor Kulongoski asked Multnomah County to work with her to fix the problems they caused. But what has Multnomah County done? Dorothy English: Nothing! I’m 91 years old, my husband is dead, and I don’t know how much longer I can fight. Narrator: Measure 37 will protect your family from being treated the way Multnomah County has treated Dorothy and her family. Falling Star 77 Dorothy English: Please! Vote Yes on Measure 37. Narrator: Paid for by the Family Farm Preservation PAC [political action committee]. The diminutive, stooped, and gravelly voiced grandmother Dorothy En glish would hardly seem a likely historical counterpart to the six- foot- five baritone wordsmith Governor Tom McCall. Yet, to the extent that the history of land use planning in Oregon has been driven at least in part by the influence of unique individual personalities, the comparison is fair. In the introductory chapter of this book, we observed that after the passage of Oregon’s Ballot Measure 37 in 2004 (which effectively jettisoned much of Oregon’s planning system—we examine this measure in detail later in this chapter), both authors of this book independently received questions from people around the country, such as, “What were voters in Oregon thinking?” In voting 61 percent in favor of Measure 37, it is almost certain that many were thinking about Dorothy English, and others like her. In this chapter we examine the landmark battles for the future of planning in Oregon that occurred in the first decade of the twenty- first century. To tell that broader story, there is probably no more appropriate place to start than with “Grandma Dorothy.” Dorothy English purchased 40 acres in Multnomah County with her husband, Nykee English, in 1953, when essentially no development restrictions existed. The English family sold 11 acres of the property in 1974 and another 9 acres in 1977. With 19.74 acres remaining in 2004, the regulatory and economic landscape had changed greatly. English’s property is just outside the Portland urban growth boundary and a 20- minute drive from downtown—making it a potentially valuable site for development. Located in one of the most highly regulated counties in a state with arguably the strongest land use regulations in the nation, however, subdividing and building on the property was nearly impossible. English stated that her attorney counted 61 rules that blocked her ability to further subdivide the property. English and her attorney claimed that she should be compensated $1,150,000, on the theory that this amount reflected the difference in value between her property with her single house, and what it would be worth with eight lots. Dorothy English’s rise to the status of a media icon started several years earlier, with the political campaign for another pro- property rights 78 Planning Paradise initiative, Ballot Measure 7 (which we examine later in this chapter). In a quavering, high- pitched voice that seemed to evoke immediate sympathy from listeners, English stated that regulators had “stolen” her property. Her compelling case quickly made her a brilliantly effective “poster girl” for the property rights movement in Oregon,1 and English’s case became a cause célèbre among property rights activists nationally, as...