“Giving” vs. “Taking”- Proposed Initiative Threatens to Change Washington’s Landscape

Overdevelopment is gobbling up Washington’s farmland and open spaces.

Front porch communities and local retailers are being replaced with sprawling, low density, car-centric subdivisions and “big box" or "strip-mall" retail centers.

According to the Sierra Club’s Sprawl Cost Us All report, sprawl is the result of over five decades of subsidies paid for by the American taxpayer.

Everyday a bigger and bigger portion of our tax dollars, are “giving” irresponsible developers the opportunity to continue this type of hopscotch development. Here are some of the ways we subsidize sprawl:

•  building new and wider roads
• building schools on the fringe
• extending sewer and water lines to sprawling development
• extending emergency services to the fringe
• direct pay-outs to developers

Washingtonians want to stop “giving” in to irresponsible development and many communities support better growth policies that help local governments protect environmentally sensitive areas such as farmlands and wetland habitat. These protections help balance the uses of developed, suburban and rural areas.

Now the sprawl think tank has come up with a new strategy, a way to get around land use laws that protect farmland, natural spaces and our neighborhoods. This strategy is to propose a irresponsible developers’ initiative (aka “takings” initiative). If passed, this initiative would mandate that local governments and taxpayers would have to pay landowners to obey land-use laws or exempt them from the law.

Taxpayers are already “giving” irresponsible developers subsidizes, if the “takings” initiative passes, it will be almost impossible for communities to protect themselves from the plague of poorly planned overdevelopment.

This proposed initiative mirrors Measure 37, a "takings" initiative approved in Oregon in 2004. Measure 37 requires that governments either pay landowners for claims of diminished property value due to land use laws or not enforce those laws at all. More than 2,500 claims have been made so far. Time after time, Oregon has had to let reasonable protections for public health and safety slide when they have been unable to pay property owners.

Measure 37 was struck down in a county court in October 2005. The judge ruled the measure is unconstitutional because governments cannot be forced to choose between protecting the health and safety of citizens and paying private parties to comply with the law.

Not surprisingly, developers and other special interests are challenging the ruling. The final outcome in Oregon remains unknown, but Measure 37 has clearly created a pointless and costly, bureaucratic mess.

Let’s protect Washington’s landscape. We don’t need this mess in our communities and need to stop “giving” into irresponsible developers. Common sense protections that value our farms, natural areas and quality of life are what makes Washington a great place to live, work and play.

The Sierra Club and many other groups are working together to oppose this type of proposal: Futurewise, Washington Environmental Council, Washington Conservation Voters, Washington AFL-CIO, Washington Blue-Green Alliance, Washington Audubon.

But we can’t protect our communities without your help. For more information contact Angela Silva at 206-378-0114 ext 320 or angela.silva@sierraclub.org.