Oregon's Measure 37, passed by a propagandistic campaign in 2004, rolls back all land use regulations to the time of property purchase. This has meant that suburbs are threatening exclusive farm areas, McMansions are coming to the middle of wilderness inholdings, power plants in national monuments, and Wal-Marts in the middle of cities that don't want them.
Fortunately, there's a good chance that Oregon will have a chance, this fall, to seriously curtail the disastrous Measure 37 (the vast majority of Oregonians now support serious revision of this measure).
Let me digress a little...
I often wonder how conservatives who lament high taxes and regulatory systems explain the "mystery" of California. This is a state with very high taxes across the board (property, income, sales, etc), with a huge number of regulatory agencies, with lots of laws governing business activity, and with Democrats controlling every branch of government (assuming that Arnold is a Democrat)... YET it continues to be the United States' economic dynamo.
Now, too, it appears that land use safeguards -- to, say, protect clean water, to limit development of sprawling exurbs , to restrict loss of farms and forests, and so on -- may even have a positive impact on property values!
Indeed, here's the summary of a new study by Georgetown's Environmental Law & Policy Institute:
To test the argument that Oregon’s land use regulations had serious adverse effects on property values, this project collected and analyzed data on trends in Oregon land values since the adoption of the state’s landmark land use program approximately 35 years ago. Our major findings:
- An analysis of trends in land values in several Oregon counties indicates that the establishment of an urban growth boundary, and the adoption of relatively stringent restrictions on development in rural areas, did not have a systematically negative influence on the market values of restricted parcels.
- A comparison of agricultural land values in several Oregon counties with agricultural land values in several comparable counties in Washington reveals no systematic difference in the rates of property appreciation, despite Oregon’s more stringent regulatory regime during most of the period.
- A comparison of statewide agricultural land values in Oregon and neighboring states shows that Oregon experienced a comparable, and generally somewhat higher, rate of appreciation as its neighbors, again despite Oregon’s stricter regulation of rural development.
- As much as 14% of current agricultural land values in Oregon represents the capitalized value of the state policy of taxing agricultural lands at a much lower effective rate than other lands. Federal agricultural subsidies also have a positive effect on land values in Oregon, although this effect is difficult to quantify and varies greatly in different parts of the state.
These findings are consistent with many other empirical studies conducted elsewhere in the United States. Most relevant studies conclude that regulatory restrictions on development have little if any adverse effect on property values, especially if the owner is permitted to maintain or construct at least one single family home on the property. Other studies, consistent with these results, have documented the positive effects of state agricultural tax programs and federal subsidies on rural land values.
And later:
In sum, claims that Oregon’s land use program harmed property owners by reducing property values, and that Measure 37 would remedy this alleged unfairness, are unsupported by economic and empirical evidence. Oregon’s land use program has not unfairly burdened property owners. Given this conclusion, Measure 37 is itself deeply flawed as public policy because it confers windfalls on owners eligible to file claims without clear evidence of injury. If economic fairness is an important goal for Oregon’s land use program, and we certainly agree that it should be, Measure 37 was a major step backward.
This study results in similar conclusions to the OSU M37 study.
Proponents continued claims that Measure 37 remedies financial hardship that they've had to bear because of unfair regulations rings increasingly hollow.
There is no correlation between land use regulation and property values. If anything, there is a positive relationship: the more safeguards, the more appreciation.
This diary was cross-posted on Land Use Watch and alerted on DailyKos Environmentalists!