Archived News Articles
Legislation may take another look at the "Big Look"
February 4, 2008
The East Oregonian
As Oregon lawmakers convene in Salem to determine the state budget, many anticipate refunding of the "Big Look" Task Force, a citizens group charged with examining and making recommended changes to the state's land use system.
After several failed attempts to make system changes during previous legislative sessions, Senate Bill 82 created the 10-member task force in 2005, charging them to prepare their findings for the 2009 session.
At the end of the 2007 session, however, legislators cut funding to the task force, saying the group should not interfere with ballot Measure 49 campaign efforts. That measure passed in November.
"We've been in a state of standby - or whatever you want to call it - for about nine months," said Chairman Mike Thorne, former state legislator and local rancher.
Now, as landowners statewide await the implementation of Measure 49, funding for the task force appears to have regained support from seemingly opposed interest groups.
"We support funding the task force," said Eric Stachon, communications director for 1,000 Friends of Oregon. "We think probably the most critical issue that needs to be addressed is how the land use planning system will work on dealing with growth."
Former Governor Tom McCall had a hand in creating 1,000 Friends in 1975, with a goal in mind of protecting the state and its land resources from uncontrolled, unhealthy growth. That organization generally supports many of the land use system policies of keeping farmland for farm use and commercial development within designated Urban Growth Boundaries.
Stachon said he hoped to see the task force examine the effect of land use patterns on things like energy and transportation, and how the system would stay in line with goals adopted by the 2007 legislation to address climate change.
"If we make land use decisions that increase sprawl, we're not gonna get there," Stachon said.
Perhaps at the other end of the spectrum, Dave Hunnicutt, president of the landowner's rights organization Oregonians in Action, also touted the Big Look's refunding during a Jan. 17 visit to Pendleton.
During his presentation on Measure 49, he suggested any other state's land use system would be an improvement to Oregon's horrific statewide model. Speaking mostly to some begrudged Measure 37 claimants, Hunnicutt told audience members to testify before the Big Look task force - if and when they began a public engagement campaign.
Thorne acknowledged the task force would look to heavily involve Oregonians across the state in the group's effort to gather information and feedback.
"We'd like to get some substance out of it," Thorne said.
The task force culminated their work to-date in July by presenting 11 preliminary findings and a list of four overarching options for future direction. The first would be maintaining the status quo, the fourth option being to more or less abolish the state system and rely on federal guidelines. In between, the task force suggested the state could consider making more regionalized planning decisions or create something akin to a new statewide strategic plan, where decisions would fall in line with the state's goals for growth, economic development and the like.
Regardless the scope or direction, it seems many believe the system - established in the 1970s under different economic and political circumstances - is ripe for change.
"Thirty-five years ago they didn't even realize what a 'big box retailer' was," said Thorne, a member of the committee who wrote the original land use planning act. "The face of agriculture's changed."
By Flynn Espe
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