Dorothy English wanted to live to be 100 because there were “some bastards I want to get even with.” Specifically, Multnomah County, Oregon, which zoned her 20 acres of land years after she and her husband bought it, thus preventing her from subdividing it into eight parcels for her grandchildren.
She didn’t make it, dying a year ago at the age of 95. But she just may get even anyway.
In 2004, Oregon voters passed measure 37, restoring property rights or compensation to people like Dorothy whose property values had been reduced by downzoning. The county agreed to allow her to divide her land into eight parcels, but put so many conditions on it that she demanded compensation anyway. In 2007, a court agreed and ordered the county to pay her just over $1 million.
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But then voters changed their minds and said people could divide their properties into only three parcels. Some other people who had received permission to subdivide under measure 37 reluctantly settled for three parcels, but Dorothy refused to accept this and demanded the compensation the court awarded her.
The county said it no longer had to pay, and a circuit court judge went along with it. But, almost exactly a year after Dorothy English died, an appeals court ordered the county to pay her estate. Of course, the county can always appeal to the state supreme court.
If you are a city resident, as most Americans are, and you don’t want to see the countryside developed, it is easy to think that you can just zone the problem away. But this imposes huge costs on the minority that lives and owns property in rural areas. In 2004, Dorothy English helped Oregonians understand this. Too bad they forgot in 2007.
Too bad the court didn’t see fit to rule that the politicians violated her rights under the color of law and threw them all in jail.
Thanks
JK
All laws impose costs.
“All laws impose costs”. Well, sort of. I would say that all laws either seize and transfer property, (eg rent control, taxation) or even worse, simply destroy it (eg Zoning laws).
Laws are blunt instruments to be used sparingly and carefully.
Then there is what Plato said:
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
I’m so glad to see that The Antiplanner is concerned with the inter-generational sustainability of one’s land. I look forward to his next article on how the privatization of land criminalized traditional substistence cultures.
t g said: I’m so glad to see that The Antiplanner is concerned with the inter-generational sustainability of one’s land. I look forward to his next article on how the privatization of land criminalized traditional substistence cultures.
THWM: Since Mr.O’Toole is a caucasian in America, he’s living on some indigenous persons stolen land. Do think he’s going to return it and move back to Ireland?
But this imposes huge costs on the minority that lives and owns property in rural areas.
Yaaaaaaay!
Randal surely then – if he is not a hypocrite – is sympathetic to the huge costs that the minority bears from the fetish for auto-dependence.
That’s right car fetishizers: Randal is arguing for minority rights (I mean, aside from not ignoring the 5% minority represented here).
This means the environmental health degradation from fossil fuel combustion for easy auto freedom must be remembered, and laws should be passed to protect the minority.
Will wonders never cease?!?
DS
I must have missed all the Antiplanner’s posts in which he demanded compensation for property owners who have borne a disproportionate share of the costs associated with the location of freeways and other auto-oriented infrastructure.
“All laws impose costs.” In theory, laws impose costs on people guilty of crimes.
There were thousands of measure 37 claims, and most were not like Dorothy’s. Dorothy wanted to divide her property into 8 parcels – measure 49 which reversed 37, allowed a “fast track” of 3 houses, with more possible.
Dorothy was also not willing to develop her property with up to date codes for fire and slopes because it cost too much.
laws impose costs on people guilty of crimes.
Yes, but that’s only part of the story. Laws impose costs on people who would like to behave a certain way but choose not to because they risk punishment from government. This includes not only little old ladies (like Dorothy English), but also developers who would like to replace forests, wetlands, parks, etc. with buildings, as well as commuters who would like to reach their destination more quickly than the speed limit allows, not to mention citizens who are attracted to other, “underage” citizens who would like to act on their attraction.
There were thousands of measure 37 claims, and most were not like Dorothy’s
If “planners” were to use an a-typical poster child like that to support a “planning” cause, the Antiplanner wouldn’t hesitate to criticize them for it.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/04/court_reverses_multnomah_count.html
Posted by tituscourt on 04/19/09 at 11:29PM
coast steve is right. if you’ve followed this saga you know that the measure said the government had to waive the rules restricting the property OR pay. The county waived the rules but the english family and lawyers wanted the MONEY, TOO. They wanted both, which the law didn’t provide for.
The county waived the rules and said she could divide the property. but then she didn’t want to follow building codes or have to build roads that fire trucks could use. read the other articles on this whole situaiton. and for that her lawyers think the county should also have to pay??? that’s insane. they gave her what she wanted. she wanted more. and then also wanted money. sounds like greed to me. and sadly, her lawyers will be the ones to reap the rewards while all of us tax payers have to foot the bill.
she should have just taken her win, divided her land, and built her houses. instead, she wanted to continue attacking the county because she had a bee in her bonnet.
D4P, I find your ability to conflate driving at a speed you feel is safe and acts of pedophilia hysterical.
It’s not so funny that the lawmakers who rule us probably have the same ability.
D4P, I find your ability to conflate driving at a speed you feel is safe and acts of pedophilia hysterical
What’s to conflate? Both involve a type of behavior that one group of people decides is “bad” or “wrong” and then imposes rules on another group of people who will be punished if they don’t obey, and are not compensated if they do.
The Antiplanner would have us believe that land use laws are somehow unique with respect to the potential for imposing costs without providing compensation, when such is patently untrue.
So, if the Antiplanner is going to argue that land use laws should be abolished, he can’t simply base his argument on the notion that they “might impose costs without providing compensation”, unless he wants to simultaneously argue that all laws that “might impose costs without providing compensation” should abolished.
(Granted, the Antiplanner gets paid to make his arguments regarding land use laws, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised as his inconsistency…)
“Both involve a type of behavior that one group of people decides is “bad†or “wrong†and then imposes rules on another group of people who will be punished if they don’t obey, and are not compensated if they do.”
No, one involves a type of behavior that victimizes someone innocent, which is what makes it bad and wrong, and the other is just disobedience.
Dorothy English wanted to divide her property into 8 parcels. Following the rules she agreed to, when she bought her property.
mathieuhelie said: “Both involve a type of behavior that one group of people decides is “bad†or “wrong†and then imposes rules on another group of people who will be punished if they don’t obey, and are not compensated if they do.â€Â
No, one involves a type of behavior that victimizes someone innocent, which is what makes it bad and wrong, and the other is just disobedience.
THWM: Then how do you explain Jim Karlock, Dick Cheney and other people like this…
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070712/NEWS/707120375 ?
Following the rules she agreed to, when she bought her property.
Ah. So Massa Craig wants to profit off of slavery. And he wants to charge a fee for planes flying over his property. And he doesn’t want to serve Negroes at his lunch counter. And he wants to put his outhouse in the middle of the lane where the carts travel. And his woman is getting all uppity and wants to have a job. Awwwwww.
Can’t a white guy be free and just not be bothered with inconvenient rule changes?
Come now. The way the state stumbled thru this debacle was that there would be compensation for the rule change.
DS
Wow! DS that was a bizarre answer.
But that’s OK, I expect that kind of answer from a Planner!
It’s only bizzare if you don’t know anything about property.
Property is not a divine right, written on stone tablets handed down from the clouds. Society makes property. All the examples I gave are examples of changing rules after people had/bought property.
DS
So DS, you seem to support, taking the value of a elderly widows property and leaving her with only SS to live on and not paying her for the value of her land. While waiting for her to die of old age, before you pay her.
Thanks, craig, for so haplessly mischaracterizing what I wrote to illustrate the quality of your argument. It doesn’t get much better than that.
DS
Though was she just speculating? Why didn’t she rent it to some one to grow some thing on it and get some revenue?
Gee DS, didn’t you start putting words into my mouth, by posting the below and mis characterizing what I wrote?
I don’t believe I said anything about slavery, planes, lunch counters or outhouses.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
——————–
Ah. So Massa Craig wants to profit off of slavery. And he wants to charge a fee for planes flying over his property. And he doesn’t want to serve Negroes at his lunch counter. And he wants to put his outhouse in the middle of the lane where the carts travel. And his woman is getting all uppity and wants to have a job. Awwwwww.
Can’t a white guy be free and just not be bothered with inconvenient rule change
DS
I don’t believe I said anything about slavery, planes, lunch counters or outhouses.
Yet all these instances in my comment above in 19 were about the rules of property changing in mid-stream. Because society sets the rules. They aren’t carved in unchanging granite.
There is no precedent nor expectation that the rules of property cannot change, which was the basis for the pouting I italicized in 19.
This lack of understanding of property is only one of the weaknesses of the failed Private Property Rights movement and fetishization of same.
DS
So why did Dorothy English’s estate win the appeals court case.
I haven’t been following, but it is not because property rights cannot change. That is well-understood and in dicta.
I suspect it was due to the fact that at the time of original decision, the Measure stated compensation was due, and the decision was valid in law and stands, and the appeal was struck down. Overturning a Measure doesn’t overturn a court decision and both parties have to contract to do something other than the decision.
DS
I don’t oppose the rules being changed. But I do oppose the rules being changed at the expense, of the Dorothy English’s, of the world.
What about when rule changes benefit the Dorothy English’s of the world? Should Dorothy’s be required to compensate the rest of the community?
I do oppose the rules being changed at the expense, of the Dorothy English’s, of the world
I guess the alternative is changing rules at the expense of everybody.
The Constitution says ‘just compensation’, without defining ‘just’ or ‘compensation’, so the Founding Fathers left it up to everyone to work together to figger it out. Anathema to some small-minority crowds, surely.
And what D4P said.
DS