RESTORING FAIRNESS AND BALANCE IN OREGON'S

LAND USE LAWS

 MEASURE 37

THE BALLOT MEASURE THAT’S

NEEDED TO PROTECT PROPERTY RIGHTS

1. It’s not fair for governments to regulate away the use and value of private land to provide public benefits.  Governments should either compensate suffering landowners, or allow the uses.  That’s what Measure 37 requires. 

2. Measure 37 plugs a legal loophole that now allows governments to use regulatory power to confiscate up to 95% of the use and value of private property without compensation.  Now, there is no requirement to pay compensation for “partial takings.”

3. Measure 37 simply puts in place a “compensation” requirement the 1973 Legislature intended to be a part of the regulatory system it adopted, but succeeding Legislatures failed to carry out that intent.

4. Measure 37 will provide a boost to the economy of the state, more jobs, and increased tax revenues for schools and necessary public services, by restoring rights to use and develop property that land use regulations took away.

5. Measure 37 will bring balance and realism to land use regulations.  Governments will have to consider economic consequences of the restrictions they impose.

6. Measure 37 will force governments to differentiate between land use regulations needed to prevent harm to neighbors and the environment, and regulations imposed to provide public benefits.  Under the Measure, regulations to prevent harm do not require compensation, regulations to provide public benefits do require compensation.

7. Measure 37 protects individual landowners from over-reaching by government regulators who are influenced by special interests who secure benefits at the expense of landowners who suffer from land use regulations.  The Measure protects rights of the politically weak minority from the majority.   

8. Measure 37 is needed to protect private property rights, which are our most basic civil rights, and the cornerstone of our market-based economic system.  Without rights to property, our other civil rights are in jeopardy.

9. Measure 37 does not remove existing zoning.  Under the Measure, landowners must comply with zoning regulations that applied to their land when they acquired it.