Utah Property Rights ombudsman marks decade of fighting for fair land transactions
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune, by Kristen Moulton
June 18, 2007
Craig Call likes to call the office where he spent the past 10 years a "stealth operation." And it's not because the Utah Office of Property Rights Ombudsman is sneaky.
It's because it's obscure.
Obscure, that is, to anyone who has not tussled over property rights with city, county and state governments.
From Blanding to Sandy to Richmond - working out of the back of a pickup truck and camper-shell he affectionately called the "ombuggie" - Call spent a decade helping to resolve disputes between property owners and government.
Now, he has left the state office to pursue both a private law practice and to serve as executive director of the new Utah Land Use Institute, a nonprofit designed to educate property owners and government decision-makers about what government can and cannot do.
"I can't just be putting out fires," says Call. "I need to teach fire safety."
From the beginning, Call saw his role as ombudsman to teach what the law says about a property owner's rights, to provide a "reality check" on government.
"It shouldn't be about power. On the merits, the law is relatively simple," says Call.
The office was born in 1997 out of the desire of the Utah Legislature's Cowboy Caucus to scrap with government over property rights.
Call, who had served briefly as a Provo City Council member and represented Provo in the state House in the 1980s, had experience in historic preservation.
A graduate of Brigham Young University's law school, Call brought to the office a libertarian's appreciation for the rights of the individual - a bent he muted as he strove to "seize the middle ground."
But property owners say they felt he was on their side.
Paul Snell, owner of Snell Automotive and 4x4 in Sandy, says it was Call's intervention that saved his shop from being condemned for the South Town Expo.
"I didn't roll over and play dead," says Snell, whose previous shop had been condemned to make way for Jordan High School.
Call says it was Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon who agreed not to press the condemnation against Snell's shop.
"I have nothing but praise for him," Snell says of Call.
In Ogden, Cristina and Milton Rodriguez say they trusted Call, who alerted them to flaws in the city's first and second appraisals for their property.
"We don't know that kind of stuff. He's got the education. He can look and things and tell what's right and wrong," says Cristina Rodriguez.
The city wanted to buy their downtown property to make way for a Wal-Mart. The project stalled when the Legislature took away cities' right to use eminent domain for redevelopment, a right that was restored in last winter's session.
Many of the calls to the ombudsman are about compensation for property taken for public projects.
For instance, the owner of an old gas station in Richmond turned to Call after the Utah Department of Transportation offered much less for his property than he thought he needed to rebuild.
Call empaneled several mediators, who went to the north Cache County community and resolved the dispute. The owner ended up with more than twice what UDOT first wanted to pay.
Other cases have had more to do with intangibles.
Neighbors along Wasatch Boulevard contacted Call after UDOT erected 13-foot-high sound walls that blocked residents' views of the mountains.
That dispute was settled with UDOT lowering the walls to 6 feet.
Utah was the first state to create a property-rights ombudsman, a lead others are now following.
But Utah remains the only state that requires government to deal with citizens who bring an action through the ombudsmans office. Mediation is mandatory.
Moreover, if an agency wants to buy someone's property, they have to notify the landowner about the free, independent advice available at the ombudsman office.
Eminent domain was the big issue when the ombudsman office was created.
Now the office, which was expanded this spring to three attorneys - Brent Bateman, Su Chon and Elliot Lawrence - will increasingly take on cases that have to do with land use.
Though the ombudsman cannot require a city, county or state agency to change a land-use decision, a landowner can use the ombudsman's opinion to win attorneys fees if he or she prevails in a lawsuit.
Call figures the Utah Land Use Institute, which will be self-supporting through seminars and sales of his book "A Utah Citizen's Guide to Land Use Regulation," will have plenty to do in the coming years.
Increasing urbanization and myriad new land-use laws will make it more important than ever that decision-makers and landowners understand the law, he says.
"It warrants a balancing of interests. Land use is decided for the majority, but the Bill of Rights is designed to protect the minority."
