Roots Of Property-Rights Measure Tangled
Billed as a grassroots effort for the little guy, a property-rights initiative sweeping the Legislature is bankrolled by businesses that critics say will be the real winners if it passes.
Backers say the measure, Initiative 164, is a long-overdue balancing of power between private-property owners and government.
“It’s the chance of a lifetime,” said Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Association, which put more than $60,000 into the initiative campaign. “It will reduce regulation and cause government to say, ‘Hey, time out, we’ve got to look at the cost to property owners of all these new regulations we want.”’
Under the initiative, any regulation limiting the use or development of private property for public benefit would be considered a “taking” and require compensation of property owners at taxpayers’ expense.
Regulations that outlaw a public nuisance would be exempt, and the measure is not retroactive.
The initiative also would force governments to examine the cost to property owners of new regulations, and require governments to craft the least restrictive rules possible.
“What this initiative does is recognize that right now, individual landowners are carrying most of the cost of regulations that benefit all,” said Tim Boyd of the Washington Forest Protection Association. The association represents large and small timber companies controlling a total of about 5 million acres in Washington state.
Regulations such as requirements for streamside buffers deny timberland owners use of 10 to 15 percent of their land on average, Boyd said, a five-fold increase in the past 10 years.
“There’s a tremendous cost in taking that land out of production,” he said. The constant increase in regulations also means landowners have little certainty in how, and even if, they will be allowed to use their property, he said.
“If there truly is a public interest to lock up this land, then the public should be willing to pay for it,” Boyd said.
Critics say the initiative is a lawyers’ full-employment act and a business boondoggle that actually hurts small property owners.
The initiative “puts a little person’s face on what is ultimately a bigbusiness agenda,” said Tarso Ramos of the Western States Center in Portland, a liberal think tank.
“They assert they are protecting the private property rights of small property holders, but in fact the major financial backers are not small property holders. They are major timber companies and real estate interests.”
Some Spokane officials fear the interests of small property owners are being overlooked in a businessbacked frenzy of bureaucracy bashing.
They worry the initiative could make even local zoning restrictions too expensive to enact.
“I’m a property rights advocate,” said Roger Crum, Spokane city manager. “But I also believe in good city planning. It goes back to protecting the single-family home owners’ property rights.
“It guarantees that when you buy a house, a glue factory won’t go in next door or at least you’ll know it’s coming before you buy. But that adds up pretty quickly if you have to buy everything we zone.”
The initiative covers a lot more than just regulations on land. It defines private property as land, water rights, crops, forest products and resources that can be harvested or mined.
That could mean taxpayers would have to pay to enact regulations ranging from buffer zones along clearcuts to workplace safety rules that decrease a business’ profit, some critics say.
“The argument can be made that government is limiting use of someone’s property by requiring them to operate in a certain way,” said David Brickland, general counsel for the Washington Environmental Council.
At the very least, vague wording of the initiative will generate mountains of lawsuits, some predicted.
“The only people that are going to love this is the lawyers,” said Skip Chilberg, chairman of the Spokane County commissioners.
Dan Wood of Hoquiam, Wash., coordinator of the initiative campaign, disagrees.
A former miniature golf course and sandwich shop manager, he now champions private property rights full time, as director of The Umbrella Group, a statewide network of landuse activists.
“People are saying hysterical things about this initiative,” Wood said.
Because the measure is an initiative to the Legislature, lawmakers have three choices:
They can pass it as is, making it law without even hitting the governor’s desk. They can pass it along with an alternative, and both measures would go on the ballot. Or they can do nothing, and the measure would go on the ballot in November.
As a grass-roots effort, the measure failed repeatedly. Wood said he’s backed legislation similar to the initiative since 1991 without success.
This summer, citizen activists fell short of the 181,667 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot. When they tried again to gather the signatures to submit the initiative to the Legislature, they had only about 30,000 names collected one month from the December deadline, Wood said.
Then businesses saw opportunity in the Republican sweep of the House, and started writing checks. Backers hired a professional signature gathering firm, and more than 227,000 signatures were gathered. They’re still being validated by the secretary of state’s office.
Nonetheless, the measure is sailing through the Legislature. It flew out of the House Government Operations Committee last week on a party-line vote. Retirees, farmers, homebuilders, small timberland owners, and representatives of large corporations packed hearing rooms to support of the measure.
Republicans, who dominate the House, have promised passage by the full House.
And the measure appears to have key Democratic support in the Senate, where the GOP is just one vote shy of majority.
Sen. Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said he’ll support the initiative because his constituents support it. “A lot of people have had too many restrictions put on their property, and they’re tired of it.”
Sen. Eugene Prince, R-Thornton, said he’s not surprised the initiative is popular, even with Democrats. “People are getting beat up by the bureaucracy and they are angry.”
Prince, however, said he’s still making up his mind about the proposal: “If it’s my only alternative, I’ll support it.”
Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, D-Eatonville, a dairy farmer and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said she supports the initiative, even though she has some reservations.
“What one person calls a taking another might call what’s best for the community,” she said. “But I’ve herded cattle long enough to know you don’t get in front of a stampede.”
xxxx Contributors to Initiative 164 Nearly $250,000 was raised to gather signatures on Initiative 164, a property rights measure now being debated in the Legislature. Some of the major contributors included: The Building Industry Association, $62,300. Issues Political Action Committee, a Realtors PAC, $32,122. Washington Association of Realtors, $25,000. Boise Cascade Corp., $12,000. Point Blakely Tree Farms, $5,000. Murray Pacific Co., $10,000. Simpson Timber Company, $9,000. Plum Creek Timber Company, $8,000. State Farm Bureau, $5,000. Rayonier Timberlands, $8,500. Olympia Master Builders, $5,000.