Oregon, a national frontrunner in protecting public access to beaches and curbing urban sprawl, has become the vanguard of a growing Western backlash against land-use rules. Within weeks, voters in Washington and Idaho will decide measures patterned after Oregon's. Montana voters may get a similar choice, depending on whether that state's Supreme Court allows I-154 to go to voters, despite a lower court's finding of "pervasive fraud" in signature-gathering there. California and Arizona also face similar measures. Washington's been down this road before. Republican lawmakers in 1995 passed a similar measure in the Legislature, only to be overruled by voters that November. The measures in Washington and Idaho are somewhat different, although both target land-use restrictions. In Washington, Initiative 933 would force governments to either pay landowners for the lost value of their property or to waive the restrictions. In Idaho, Proposition 2 would require payment to any complaining landowner or outright repeal of the new land-use limits within 90 days. For the rest of the Sunday article about Proposition 2/Initiative 933, click here.

DFO: We need to begin a conversation about Proposition 2 (Idaho)/Initiative 933 (Washington). I consider it one of the greatest threats to orderly local planning out there. In Idaho, the clever leaders have posed this "takings" proposal as an eminent domain thing when beneath the surface it could make local governments gun shy to deny requests. What do you think?

Thanks to Arpie, you can find a link to the "No On Prop 2" organization here.

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