Using a Measure 37 claim, Stimson Lumber seeks to build 57 houses on 1,100 acres of timberland on Iowa Hill, south of Cornelius
Source: forestgrovenewstimes.com, by Christian Gaston
January 17, 2007
Next week, Washington County commissioners will hear a Measure 37 claim asking permission to build nearly five dozen houses on timberland south of Cornelius, a request critics say proves their long-held contention that the initiative has far broader implications than voters realized.
Stimson Lumber, one of Oregon’s oldest timber companies, wants to divide 1,110 acres of the company’s land in the Iowa Hill area into 57 lots and put a house on each. The state has already indicated it will grant the company a land-use waiver and next Tuesday the board of commissioners is likely to OK the claim as well.
The commissioners’ approval won’t let Stimson break ground any time soon. Like any Measure 37 claimant, the company would have to go through a permitting process that could limit, or even nix, its plans (See “What’s next,” page 17A). But Stimson’s proposal, which will be at the county on the same day the 2007 Oregon Legislature convenes a Measure 37 committee, could shape the discussion over the future of the controversial land-use law.
For Sierra Briano, whose land abuts the Stimson claim, the company’s proposal is an example of the worst that Measure 37 can be.
“They’ve benefited from having a forest deferral for tax purposes, they’ve cut all the trees down and made all that money and now they’re saying that they’ve lost money because they couldn’t subdivide the land,” Briano said.
Measure 37 allows property owners to receive waivers for state or local land-use restrictions put in place since they purchased their property.
Since Oregon voters passed the measure in November 2004, opponents predicted a flood of development in rural Oregon. So far, it’s looked more like a trickle.
In Washington County, for example, 874 claims have been filed but only 18 property owners applied for building permits.
The lack of a housing boom so far, in part, stems from a legal ruling that Measure 37 claims can’t be transferred to anyone else, including developers.
Typically, large parcels of land turn into housing developments after owners sell them to people who build homes for a living. Under current Measure 37 rules, that’s not possible. Once the land is sold to a developer, the waiver is void.
Many farmers and other rural property owners find the task of developing their own land, including financing the project, too cumbersome (see “The M37 dilemma,” www.fgnewstimes.com). But, as Mark Brown, county land development manager, notes, other property owners have ample cash and experience in tackling big projects.
“There are going to be people who are well-situated to take advantage of a Measure 37 claim and those are usually going to be corporations or a limited partnership where the partners are experienced developers,” Brown said.
That pretty much describes Stimson Lumber.
The company, which is headquartered in Portland, owns 500,000 acres of timberland in four western states and a mill just west of Gaston, downstream of Hagg Lake.
Stimson contracted with WH Pacific, a land-development consulting firm, to file the claims on its behalf. Stimson officials did not return several phone calls left for them over the past week.
Stimson’s claim on Iowa Hill has neighbors — including some Measure 37 supporters — questioning the law. Dave Eischen, who has filed four Measure 37 claims for his own land which abuts Stimson’s property, isn’t sure what to think.
“It kind of surprised me that they’re doing that,” Eischen said. “I didn’t think the big timber companies would do that. I thought they’d want to raise timber.”
The Stimson claim first came before Washington County commissioners last month. Most Measure 37 claims get only short hearings in front of the board.
“It’s more of a legal issue than what we would like to do as commissioners,” said Washington County Commissioner Andy Duyck. “That’s one of the things that the public doesn’t always understand. This is very cut-and-dried.”
Neighbors opposed
But at the Dec. 5 hearing for the Stimson claim, opposition was fierce. Five Stimson neighbors gave testimony against the claim, led by Nancy and Robert Oswald, who pooled money with about a dozen other neighbors to hire attorney David Noren.
Noren laid out his challenge to the claim, which rests on the provision that any Measure 37 waiver applies only to the rules in place when a property owner purchases land.
Owners who have had property since the 1960s, before most land-use regulations were adopted, pretty much have free reign. But, Stimson purchased most of its Iowa Hill property in 1986, so a successful Measure 37 claim would let the company play by 1986 rules.
Noren said that those rules didn’t allow the company to build 57 houses, but only one.
“Stimson is a corporation and has not said that the corporation is going to occupy any of these dwellings. A corporation cannot occupy dwellings because it has no physical existence except through its agents and employees,” said Noren, who has successfully argued against a number of claims statewide.
Because the company can’t house itself there — and according to Noren, the law at the time allowed only one dwelling per parcel per owner — even with a successful claim the company wouldn’t be able to build multiple houses.
If he’s right, then the company’s claim that new land-use regulations have reduced the value of their property is questionable at best.
At Stimson’s request, the hearing was continued until Jan. 24 to give the company’s lawyer time to prepare a legal response to Noren’s letter.
In that response, Megan Walseth of the Portland law firm Ball Janik, argued that it’s not up to the county board to address the question of what was allowed in 1986.
“Approval of the Measure 37 claim, in sum, does not require the board to find that the claimant’s proposed 57 lots can be developed,” Walseth said. “The question whether the proposed additional home sites could be approved under the 1986 code is more properly left for another day.”
Although Noren will argue otherwise, county commissioners are likely to heed Stimson’s advice and approve the claim so the county can avoid defending its decision in court.
“Whether I like it or not doesn’t matter,” said Duyck, whose family owns a farm near Verboort. “They have every right to do it under existing law.”
Indeed, the county so far has only rejected 31 Measure 37 claims, giving the green light to 356 others.
For Gretchen Keefer, who bought 10 acres near Stimson’s land in 2000, the big worry is water.
“The Iowa Hill area is a difficult water area, according to local well drillers,” Keefer said. “Some wells are over 400 feet deep and occasionally no water is found, even drilling almost to the river level.”
Keefer is worried that with 57 new wells, water would become scarce.
“In a dry year, this additional draw on the available water could leave some of us lower down without water at all,” Keefer said.
Keefer supports Measure 37 but feels like Stimson’s claim has made clear the problems with the law.
For Briano, Keefer’s neighbor, the runoff and water concerns feed her outrage that a company which has taken advantage of government tax and timber laws is now claiming that it has lost money because of land-use rules.
“To me it’s like a scam. It’s a rich people scam,” Briano said. “Stimson is going to make some disgusting amount of money off of it.”
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