The Future of the Oregon Coast
Can It Be Saved from Sprawl?

Remarks to the Lincoln County League of Women Voters
By Robert Liberty, Executive Director, 1000 Friends of Oregon
December 1, 1999

It is a dull convention for luncheon speakers to say they are honored by their host’s invitation. While such compliments are commendable expressions of the kind of good manners that seems to be fast fading from today’s society, they do have the unintended effect of reducing the credibility of such compliments when they are genuine, which mine is.

When the history of Oregon’s nationally significant land use planning program is written, one chapter should be devoted to the work of the League of Women Voters. League members have been front and center in the effort to implement, enforce, defend and explain Oregon’s land use planning efforts. The Oregon planning program would not be what it is today without the efforts of League members like Dorothy Anderson of Eugene, the late Marguerite Watkins of Coos County, Leanne Maccoll of Portland and many, many others.

I wonder whether Tom McCall didn’t have women like you in mind when he said, "Heroes are not statues framed against a red sky; they are people who say, `This is my community and it’s my responsibility to make it better.’"

And that is why I am honored to address you today.

Your members have sent me many specific questions about planning for growth on the Oregon coast, covering everything from road vacations to scenic highway designations. But today I am going to address a broader subject —the threat that sprawl will destroy the quality of life on the Oregon Coast and what can be done to save the Oregon coast from that threat.

In 1973, Governor McCall addressed the Oregon Legislature, asking them for comprehensive planning laws in order to protect Oregon from "coastal condomania" and other effects of poorly managed growth.

The Oregon Legislature passed the legislation McCall requested, and Oregon -- and its coast -- is better off than it would have been otherwise. It is Oregon’s land use laws and the statewide planning goals that have put some boundaries around "coastal condomania". It is the state’s coastal planning Goals 16, 17 and 18 that have protected some coastal lakes, dunes and wetlands. It is Goals 3 and 4 and parallel state land use laws that have slowed down the spread of rural sprawl into the river bottom farmland and the forests that rise inland.

But recently, with the return of population growth to much of the coast, people have come to recognize that Oregon's magnificent coastline is being confronted by a tide of sprawl of a magnitude and scope which it has never experienced before and which is revealing the weaknesses in city and county land use plans. Here are some indicators of the problems facing the Coast:

(By the way, LCDC will be considering rules that finally put some weak limits on the level of residential development in these areas at their December and January meetings. The Association of Oregon Realtors is apparently planning to pack the hearings to get LCDC to back off and they need to hear from citizens who support even stronger limits on rural sprawl.)

In a comprehensive evaluation of the Oregon planning program that we published in February 1997, 1000 Friends gave its lowest grade -- a "D" -- to coastal and natural resource protection efforts.

How can this be happening in a state that is rightly regarded as a national leader in land use planning?

There are several reasons but I will limit myself to four this afternoon.

First, the local land use plans and regulations that the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) approved for the Coast's 33 cities and five counties turned out to be too weak (and they are weaker than plans and regulations adopted in other communities.) They have been further weakened by piecemeal amendments and changes to state land use laws over the past two decades. They now include far too much land for development, with little in the way of protection for natural and scenic resources.

Second, even those inadequate plans are often being poorly implemented. Unlike California, Oregon does not have a state-level Coastal Commission with direct review authority over local decisions. Too many county officials who are charged with implementing state land use laws have worked to apply, interpret or ignore existing laws, plans and regulations, in ways that undercut the objectives of the planning program. Far too many of the decision-making criteria used in these local plans are subjective and vague, lending themselves to highly political and ad-hoc decision making. This problem has been exacerbated by the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision in Clark v. Jackson County, which gave local governments far more latitude, extreme latitude, in how land use plans are interpreted.

Third, in the past, too many local officials on the Oregon Coast don’t feel the slightest hesitation in making verbal attacks on citizens and citizen groups who have the temerity to challenge any development anywhere. I think it is unconscionable for a local official to scream at a citizen that they are "disgusting" as a Coos County Commissioner did a few years ago during a public hearing. This attitude discourages the work of citizens who believe that existing good plans and rules need to be honored and enforced.

Fourth, we are not spending enough money on land use planning at the state or local level. A single freeway interchange on Interstate 5 costs twice as much as we spend on LCDC’s budget every two years. Local planning staffs have a hard time keeping up with the responsibility of reviewing permits and cannot do the research, analysis and updating of land use plans and regulations that changing circumstance require.

And when it comes to make decisions on applications for permits, it is a common phenomenon for local staff and officials to defer the self-interested findings of the geologist, biologists and engineers hired by applicants because local governments cannot afford their own experts.

I have described what is wrong with coastal planning.

Now I consider how… and whether, the Coast can be saved from sprawl.

The Oregon Coast can be saved from sprawl because you have the tools to do so in state planning requirements and programs and because I believe a new generation of coastal residents and officials are ready for change. Let me consider each of these opportunities.

We have many tools available in Oregon, that are now available elsewhere, that would allow Coastal communities to do a better job in managing growth.

The most important opportunity for upgrading local plans and regulations is the "periodic review" process established by state law. Every 5 to 10 years, local plans and regulations are supposed to be updated in order to reflect new circumstances, such as changed population growth forecasts, to implement new state requirements, to incorporate new information and most importantly to better implement Oregon’s planning policies.

Unfortunately periodic review has become a narrow, technical process, which is hostile to public participation and which results in minimal changes to plans and regulations. Why? Part of the reason is money; doing a broad revision of plans and regulations costs money. Another reason is that re-thinking old strategies and objectives generates controversy, something most elected officials want to avoid. And of course many property owners and developers have a stake in keeping plans weak and flexible.

But none of these problems are problems with the laws governing periodic review, they are problems with how that law is applied and problems of funding.

Another tool in Oregon's land use statutes provide is the possibility of designating the Coast an area of "critical state concern." The law provides that such designation will be made by the Legislature upon the recommendation of the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC.) The Legislature may approve a special management plan which LCDC administers, that supersedes or supplements local regulations. The legislation was adopted with the Coast and Columbia Gorge in mind, but no area has been nominated. (The Gorge was protected under federal legislation.)

The problem here is that the Legislature is dominated by a leadership including key committee members, that is outspoken in their opposition to Oregon’s land use planning laws, including several members from the Oregon coast.

A new opportunity for changing coastal development patterns is offered by the efforts to change direction by the Oregon Department of Transportation. In August 1995 Governor Kitzhaber directed the agency to transform itself into a "growth management agency."

If that direction meant anything, it meant putting a stop to the practice of allowing every community along Highway 101 to use this state highway as the backbone for miles of strip commercial development and then financing new bypasses around the congestion that results, to be followed by a new round of bypasses.

If it means anything it means forcing ODOT and local governments to make a fundamental choice; do they want Highway 101 to be their main street or do they want it to be a route for out of town traffic to avoid main street? It can’t serve both functions.

And if it means anything it means forcing ODOT to take into account what highway improvements mean for community development patterns, for their impacts on natural resources and to consider the nightmare scenario of converting the North and Central Coasts into a commuter bedroom community for the Willamette Valley. Even as we speak, widening and straightening of roads, justified as safety improvements, are underway that will increase commuting. (Because they will also allow motorists and truckers to drive faster and because they will increase traffic, I doubt they will do much to reduce traffic accidents.)

ODOT is in the midst of these discussions even as we speak. The Coast could become the first region in the state where this change in perspective is really implemented.

There are also tools and programs that are outside of government. Today computer technology is finally realizing its potential as a planning tool. Geographic Information System (GIS) software allows for mapping and analyzing information in ways that provide a compelling description of the future that will come about if existing trends continue. And it can help prepare alternative scenarios describing the costs, the benefits and other differences from the trend alternative.

Of course, all the good planning laws and techniques are useless without the will to use them. For many years the most loudly expressed opinions by Oregon coastal residents and officials were the ones hostile to planning for growth.

But things are changing.

Change is indicated by recent elections in which more sympathetic, or at least less hostile, local officials have been elected in Curry, Coos and Tillamook Counties and perhaps elsewhere.

Change is evident in the number of request 1000 Friends of Oregon is now getting to speak on the Oregon coast or to assist citizen activists.

Change is evident in the results of public opinion polling done in Tillamook County in connection with its Strategic Vision project. (The following information was taken from that project’s website.)

A survey of Tillamook County households was the foundation for the visions, goals and strategies developed by the Futures Council. To develop the survey, information from the 17 focus groups was used to create questions about present and perceived future conditions in the County. The survey was mailed to 4,000 randomly selected Tillamook County households The household survey provided statistical validity to the collection of residential opinions and concerns. The project claims a 95% level of confidence that the results are representative of households in the entire County. This is due to the large sample size (4,000), the random selection of residents who were mailed a survey, and the number of surveys returned (864).

Here are some of the survey results:

TABLE 6.1

And change is evident in the growing national skepticism toward the attitude that planned growth is bad for the economy. Today even real estate development experts are now rejecting this proposition and coming to see sprawl as the real threat.

The Real Estate Research Corporation (RERC) prepares a report each entitled "Emerging Trends in Real Estate." The report is commissioned by a variety of businesses, such as ERE/Yarmouth a real estate investment firm that manages real estate portfolios worth billions of dollars. The ERE/Yarmouth portfolio contains every type of property, commercial, industrial and residential, inner city, older suburb and new suburban. RERC’s report is based on its own research and interview with hundreds of local real estate experts.

Here is what the report said about limits to urban sprawl and the need for new patterns of development:

And the report delivered a strong rebuttal to the argument that limiting urban sprawl the way Oregon has done through urban growth boundaries, and farm and forest zoning, hurts economic vitality:

Second-Tier Cities

The tools are available and attitudes are changing. These are hopeful signs.

With this as background, perhaps you will indulge me in a little speculation about the kinds of broad principles that might guide changes to existing Coastal land use plans and programs. Here is a baker’s dozen of possible principles that might be used (supplementing not replacing Oregon’s existing land use goals) in updating Coastal land use plans:

•The highest priority should be given to investing in existing communities rather than in spending taxpayer resources to facilitate new development on the fringe of communities.

•Farms, forestlands and natural resources should not be developed as long as there is land available for development or redevelopment to accommodate community needs for housing and jobs.

•Every child living in a city, should be able to walk or bike to their grade school safely and conveniently.

•In cities and rural communities, it should not be necessary to spend a pint of gas to get a pint of milk.

•Taxpayers have a right to know what different development patterns are going to cost them in taxes and who is going to pay the bills for that development

•All citizens, regardless of income, ought to be able to find decent housing in the same community where they work; zoning should not be used to enforce economic segregation on people.

•We should not place people or property in harms way and we should not provide economic incentives for putting property or people in danger.

•Outside of community centers, local governments should not have the power to compromise the function of Highway 101 as an inter-city transportation facility, by allowing mile after mile of commercial development with direct access to the highway.

•ODOT should not have the power to destroy the character and commercial viability of existing community centers by turning every main street into a highway.

•The highest priority for economic development is to provide higher wages and stable employment to existing residents, rather than promoting jobs for new residents or increasing the pool of low-paying, seasonal employment.

•Coastal resources and beauty are a critical economic asset for the tourism industry as well as an important part of local quality of life; they must be treated as the assets they are when planning how and where growth should occur.

•Citizens should be able to be confident that their elected and appointed officials are making decisions about the use of land free from conflicts of interest and bias created by their personal financial interests, the interests of family and friends or by campaign contributions.

And now for my final principle:

•At least once every decade, every citizen should have a chance to know where current development trends are taking her community and an opportunity to decide whether they want to continue in that direction or to set a new course.

I believe the Oregon coast can be saved from sprawl. But it will not be saved by mandates from Salem or by organizations working from Eugene or Portland. It can only be saved through leadership by coastal residents who want to see a change in how their communities grow. State agencies, business leaders, nonprofit organizations and newspapers, schools and many others would be willing to aid such an effort, but the missing ingredient is leadership.

Will enough coastal residents feel enough love for their region to dedicate the time, money and creativity it takes to keep the Coast a place they, their children and children’s children will still be proud to call home at the end of the 21^st century?

I don’t know. Those are your questions to answer.