Oregon Public Broadcasting

What’s the longest you’ve ever waited in an ‘express lane?’ Five minutes? Ten maybe?? What about two and a half years?

That’s the kind of wait  people may be facing if they try to use the fast lane under land-use referral, Measure 49.  Rob Manning reports.

Ballot Measure 49 replaced Measure 37, last fall. To implement the new law, state officials mailed out forms to over 6000 people who had filed claims under Measure 37.

Basically, under Measure 49, claimants have a choice between an expensive and uncertain process for up to ten homes, or a so-called ‘express lane’ for as many as  three.

Campaign spokesman Jeremiah Baumann touted the measure at an event in wine country, last September.

Jeremiah Baumann: “It will keep the largest developments off our farm and forest lands altogether, and restore fairness by letting small landowners move quickly forward with a few homes, and keeping those large developments off our farm and forest lands.”

Notice, Baumann said “quickly.”

The “Yes on 49” campaign web site is still active, and it uses the word “immediately,” in reference to the “express lane.”

The promise of quick service probably played a hand in over 90 percent of responses to the state mailers coming back with the “express lane” box checked off. But here’s the reality, according to Richard Whitman, the director of the state land-use agency.

Richard Whitman: “We will start issuing decisions in July – this summer. And there will be a steady stream of decisions made over the next year to two years.”

Add to that, the six months that many claimants have already been waiting, and you’re at two and a half years. And then, property owners have to get building permits from the county.

Dave Hunnicutt is with the property rights’ group, Oregonians in Action. He opposed Measure 49, and is now upset at the pace of the new law.

Dave Hunnicutt: “There are a number of folks who have waited in many cases, for three decades, to get the most basic right to use their property back. Only to find out that they’re going to wait, up to three years, to get that relief. And at that point, if you’ve waited thirty years, you’re elderly and you can’t wait any more.”

State officials say it’s going to take months to go through the thousands of responses that have come in to the state land-use agency.

Hunnicutt, with Oregonians in Action, says all that research is a waste of time – because most of it happened already, under Measure 37.

Dave Hunnicutt: “Measure 49 makes every Measure 37 claimant, even those who have jumped through all the hoops and hurdles, and have had their claims approved, go back and reprove their case. It really strikes me as unnecessary.”

Richard Whitman: “It’s not.”

Richard Whitman with the Department of Land Conservation and Development says that the research is necessary because the Measure 37 process  often skipped it.

Richard Whitman: “Under Measure 37, you had a 180-day timeline, and if a state or local government didn’t act within those 180 days, they had to pay compensation, money to the property owner. And so the step of reviewing what was allowed at the time the owner acquired the property, was left to that later stage.”

In a sense, it was Measure 37 that had the express lane, since there were consequences of letting a customer wait past the 180-day deadline. Measure 49 doesn’t have that.

There is another reason that Measure 49 responses are taking so long  - and this one Hunnicutt and Whitman agree on. Whitman says he only got half the money he asked for, to implement Measure 49 and hire all the workers needed to process claims.

The last claimants have about ten days to get their Measure 49 responses to the state.  And then, they get to wait in "the express lane," until a state planner can get to them.