On May 29, 1973, Oregon's innovative land use law, SB100, was enacted. Robert Liberty, Executive Director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, the organization created by Governor Tom McCall and Henry Richmond in 1975 to watchdog the laws' implementation, recalled the history of SB100 at the annual meeting of Friends of Eugene on March 31 [1998].

Liberty began by noting that "30 years ago, zoning and planning in Oregon was voluntary. Most land use plans were purely advisory, and zoning was largely confined to cities. Such rural zoning as existed allowed Oregon's farm, forest, and range lands to be cut into 5-acre lots." When 60's real estate scams and coastal subdivisions violating local land use plans raised alarms, Governor Tom McCall warned in 1969, "The steady scatteration of unimaginative, dislocated urban development is introducing little cancerous cells of unmentionable ugliness into our rural landscape whose cumulative effect threatens to turn this state of scenic excitement into a land of aesthetic boredom."

McCall introduced four land use bills in the 1969 Legislature; one became law, but was never funded. In 1970, he initiated Project Foresight, presenting alternative development scenarios by famed landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, and set up a land-use congress.

In the legislature, Republican dairy farmer Hector Macpherson of Linn County watched sprawl heading his way and became an advocate for planning to save farmland. Following the 1971 legislative session, he formed a group that worked with McCall's staff to develop a model land use law. Support came from the chairs of the two committees that would hear the bill. One was Nancie Fadeley, a Eugene Democrat, who chaired the new House Committee on Energy and the Environment.

On January 8, 1973, McCall told the Legislature, "... there is a shameless threat in our environment and to the whole quality of our life, and that is the unfettered despoiling of our land. Coastal condomania, sagebrush subdivisions, and the ravenous rampage of suburbia ... we have not stopped misuse of the land, which is our most valuable finite natural resource ... because the speculators have outrun local capacity for rational control. We're in dire need of a state land use policy, dire need of new subdivisions law and standards for planning and zoning ... We must respect [the] truism that unlimited and unregulated growth leads inexorably to a lowered quality of life."

But Senate Bill 100 languished in committee under attack by powerful industries. Senator Ted Hallock, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment, attempted to salvage it by setting up an ad hoc committee of the lobbyists opposing the bill. They watered it down, said Liberty, "by vesting planning power with the counties instead of 14 regional planning authorities, and the provision protecting areas of special beauty from development was replaced with a provision that created a process for considering the creation of areas of critical statewide concern." When they were finished, however, "there was a viable bill with some substance to it", that Hallock managed to get out of committee and passed by the Senate.

The bill then went to Fadeley's committee, where, if any amendments were made, the revised version would be sent to a conference committee where it would surely die. Fadeley understood this, though she wanted to strengthen the bill. "I was very aware of the political land mines ahead. I was uneasy not only about the politics, but also was unsure how much good it would actually do. But it was the only legislation that offered any hope ... "

The bill passed and was signed into law by Governor McCall on May 29, 1973, though he noted, "Senate Bill 100 is tremendously hedged."

"The long, difficult process of implementing SB100 began with the creation of the Department of Land Conservation and Development, governed by a commission of unpaid volunteers, the Land Conservation and Development Commission [LCDC]," said Liberty. Dorothy Anderson of Eugene, who now serves on the EWEB board, was one of the first commissioners.

"In December, 1974, after nearly 100 meetings in more than 30 cities around the state attended by thousands of citizens, LCDC adopted the first 14 planning goals." Five more were added two years later. Then followed "the arduous process of adopting and amending local land use plans and regulations ..." 1000 Friends' staff, including Liberty, then a staff attorney, members, and allies in Eugene and Lane County were dissatisfied with the County's draft plan and persuaded LCDC to reject it. The critique of the County's 1984 plan was more than 70 single-spaced pages with 250 pages of attachments.

As protection of farmland was a major focus and the timber debate was over federal forests, people were ignoring the County's intention to zone 150,000 acres of prime forest land for low-density development. "In 1979," reported Liberty, "Cliff Lamb, a teacher and tree farmer ... initiated a series of land use 'engagements' that changed the way the county and state planned for private forest lands." Lamb won most of those engagements. In 1984, when he and Liberty attended hearings on the county plan, they were jeered by the hostile crowd numbering in the hundreds, and Liberty's life was threatened.

The plan passed over 1000 Friends' objections. They appealed and won before the Court of Appeals, and then before the Oregon Supreme Court, which struck down the approval of houses on forest lands, minimum lot sizes for agricultural lands, and the justification of designating more than 50,000 acres of rural lands for low-density development. The decision lead to a new statewide rule interpreting the Forest Lands Goal, and some of the gains were codified in the 1993 forest zoning statutes.

Eugene has not sprawled south to Cottage Grove nor north to Junction City. The Upper McKenzie Valley remains rural, used for agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing, and recreation, not resorts. Several hundred thousand acres of farm and forest lands were not broken up into 10,000 20 acre parcels.

"Senate Bill 100 has proven to be the national model McCall predicted when he described it as 'the brightest jewel in Oregon's diadem of innovations,'" said Liberty. Oregon's land use law is a nationwide model. Florida, New Jersey, and Washington have developed similar plans. Various cities have adopted or are discussing aspects of the system.

Much work remains to be done. "We are still building sprawl inside UGBs," said Liberty. We need to:

stop allowing low-density development patterns to justify UGB extensions

create a state fund to pay for infrastructure costs for model developments

support a large-scale design assistance and mediation service program

stop the insanity of strip commercial development along Highway 101, which means changing ODOT's rules governing access and new facilities that have taxpayers subsidizing sprawl

give citizens information about who bears the costs of new schools, roads, water lines and sewage treatment facilities, about relative costs of different patterns of development

break the outmoded Constitutional restriction preventing gas taxes from being spent on the best possible transportation solutions, not just more roads

establish a stable fund to purchase and protect areas of special beauty

create regional institutions that recognize the problem of growth does not fit neatly into existing city and county boundaries; factories built in one jurisdiction create problems in others.

"Most importantly," he said, "we need to revitalize the review process for updating local plans and regulations."

Liberty lauded Friends of Eugene's efforts to help win the battle over the Ferry Street Bridge, noting it is now involved in the process of rewriting Eugene's land use code. Landwatch Lane County is monitoring the County's proposal to allow houses in F1 forestlands where they have been prohibited, and both groups are fighting the rezoning of land for development just outside the UGB.

As Tom McCall said, "Heroes are not giant states framed against a red sky. They are people who say, 'This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.'" "This area has provided more than its share of citizen heroes in the last 25 years," said Liberty. "Tonight we salute them."

Hen Cackles

©Wanda Ballentine, 1998