I-933's message: 'Pay up or back off'
I-933's message: 'Pay up or back off'
Adele Ferguson
Well, I've made up my mind.
It wasn't a tough decision to make.
I voted for a similar version of it in 1995 when it arrived in Olympia in the form of an initiative to the Legislature.
Signed by 230,000 people, it expanded the constitutional mandate that people have to be paid when government takes property for public use.
The initiative limited by regulation what could be done on portions of land and called for filing of economic impact statements on any proposed regulation affecting private property.
The Legislature passed it, as is, in a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, but opponents were waiting in the bushes and got it on the fall ballot as Referendum 48.
Those impact statements would cost the taxpayers millions, they cried.
Well, not necessarily.
They could avoid the cost of the statement entirely by not putting so many restrictions on private property to satisfy the whims of environmentalists and other anti-growth types.
R-48 was declared the greatest danger to our way of life since World War II because it put the rights of private property owners ahead of the demands of government.
I wrote at the time that R-48 was a dose of "think before you act" medicine for governments that were too quick to make decisions ostensibly for the public good but without regard for the rights of the people.
There was a media blitz against R-48, with wide use of a last minute University of Washington study warning of billions (instead of millions) it would cost if government were forced to pay citizens when it made their property unusable by regulation.
The fiscal part was done by someone at The Evergreen State College, but saying University of Washington made it more impressive.
Voters were sufficiently scared and took a powder.
R-48 went down, 59.39 percent to 40.61 percent, 796,869 votes to 544,888 votes.
I'm telling you this because I expect the same tactics again this year.
The new version, I-933, was put together by the Washington State Farm Bureau.
It requires state and local governments to consider in advance what the cost would be to pay the landowner for any lessening of the value or use of his land when proposing a land use regulation rather than passing the regulation first and then pricing it out.
Government must also consider whether voluntary effort could mitigate the cost.
If it can't, then government must choose between paying the owner or excusing the owner from obeying the regulation.
It's pay up or back off.
I-933 is opposed by the usual suspects — environmentalists who want to stop growth anywhere since they already got theirs.
They throw the word developer around like the feds talk about terrorists.
There also are greedy developers, reckless developers and the worst kind — out-of-state developers.
If it helps you make up your mind, Gov. Chris Gregoire doesn't like I-933.
She is sympathetic, she said, but says the measure "is poorly drafted, far too broad."
She promised to work with the Legislature to find a solution to preserving farmland in Washington.
Oh, sure, her promises are good.
Didn't she promise not to raise taxes if elected?
Any time I get a chance to tighten up the rights of property owners, I do it.
Adele Ferguson's weekly columns on statewide issues appears on the opinion page of the Peninsula Daily News every Tuesday.
Write her at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340.
posted by olyfarm @ 2:34 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Well said. I saw the commercial for "No on I-933" and was swayed at first, but, after reading the initiative and then reading yours and John Carlsons editorials, I am voting yes on I-933. Government should not have the broad range of power it has now over property owners.
So, before people rail at me for being a liberal, let me just say that I am usually in favor of property rights. I was initially in favor of I-933, but, I am now concerned about I-933, if the measure had a bit in it that prevented farmland from being sold for other than agriculture uses, then I would feel better about supporting I-933.
Can someone explain this to me:
"If a farmer wants to sell his agriculture zoned land to a developer, under I-933, does this trigger the payment for lost value if the county will not re-zone?"
In my opinion, ag. land needs to stay ag. land and its highest and best use is as ag. land.
I am concerned that irresponsible developers (yes, the dirty word), will pay farmers more than ag. land prices (but less than residential dirt prices) for their property on the gamble that the counties will let them develop to avoid paying for the "lost value".
Hope this makes sense, I would like to have this explained better for me.
Thanks!
Anonymous asks a good question . . . and there are several answers and some questions we can ask back.
First, if you are a farmer, and the regulatory load has become so heavy on your farming operation that you can no longer afford to keep doing the type of farming you've been engaged in for decades, should you be prevented from making use of your land in some other way? What if you crunch the numbers and decide that you can put a percentage of the farm into forest practices, but only if you parcel a portion of the property for sale to people who will build homes there?
If it is your land, how are you going to feel about the "community" telling you that they will not allow you to manage your farm as you see fit?
If you look at this question from the perspective of the farmer, chances are you will come up with a somewhat different conclusion as to whether you should support I-933 or not. If you are a farmer who has been regulated to the point where you can no longer afford to farm, what are you supposed to do . . . go into bankruptcy "for the greater good"? If you go into bankruptcy, chances are that the "irresponsible developer" will snap up the farm at the bank auction for far less than you would have been paid if you sold it to him.
There are very few farmers who actually want to sell their farms to developers or anyone else. Most of them want to pass their farms on to their children. In most cases a farmer's subdivision of a portion of his property is going to be for a small piece of land to be gifted to one of his children as a place for them to build their home, or for a trusted employee to build a house for his own family.
What the farmer needs to make his farm more viable for the long term is to be regulated far more rationally than he is being regulated today. I-933 helps the property owners and government work together in a more voluntary way, removing some of the regulatory burden that is so costly to Washington's modern farmer.
While there's an academic concern that farmers will sell out to developers, most farms offer significant impediments to development that are independent of anything I-933 will do. For instance, will a PUD or municipality provide sewer and water services for such a development? Can a county government develop a taxing status that will provide some relief to the farmer in exchange for a guarantee that the farmland will not be developed? (Yes.) Are there environmental constraints that allow for farm operations, but will not allow for a housing development? (In many cases, yes.)
I-933's opponents assume that it will be wielded like a bludgeon. In fact, the open governance portions of the initiative offer many opportunities for its provisions to be used with considerable finesse, if a government agency is willing to work that way. Our take, though, is that it's this open governance opportunity that frightens them the most. After all, it means they will have to cede a portion of their policy control back to the people it is derived from.
Anonymous has a good question, and a valid concern, but we think that the situation outlined will happen far less frequently than I-933's opponents claim. The sky is not falling, really, it isn't.
I live in Kitsap county. This is NOT a farming community per se. But if anyone in this state is against this "new" law, they should move to this county and try to build a home. It is getting right next to impossible. The continuous passage of new laws, rules and regs has to be the main reason the cost of land and homes has become almost absurd.
I retired from the Navy in 1980 and moved here to enjoy life. I bought a 2 year old, 3 br, 2 ba. double car gar on a nice size lot home between Bremerton and Silverdale for approx.$72,000. That same home today is worth about $300,000. (it has since become the property of my ex-wife).
My present wife and I purchased 2 1/2 acres 2 miles north of Silverdale in 1988 for the rediculous price of $26,000. A septic cost us about $1500.
Since that time we have moved several times, the last time to Eastern Wash. We moved back here last summer and after weeks of trying to find a home we could afford , we decided to buy a piece of property and build. The best we could come up with was a 5 acre piece about 2 miles east of Port Orchard. The state and county had already declared about 2 acres of the side hill as wetlands, another acre as a buffer and then added another 25 feet to that buffer as a building setback from that buffer. The seller had already had the building area cleared, power and phone installed. There is a new shared well between this piece and the 5 acres next door. The GRAVITY septic cost them over $13,000. Nothing special about it ( Yesterday I heard that after Jan 1st, NO new gravity septic will be allowed in this county!!! Anyway, compared to all the rest of the property we looked at, this was a bargain at a price of around $170,000. Now comes the kicker, The sellers permits had expired as they didn't build nor ask for an extension, so we had to redo all the permits. The ONLY thing we didn't have to pay was the IMPACT FEE of about $2500.
When we developed a piece of property in 1986, there were about 5 or 6 people working in the Department of Community Developement (where all the permits, etc are issued in this county). They were in the basement of the court house and had most of their files in file cabinets in the hallway. Now they are taking up about 3/4 of a new 3 story annex building next to the court house. I would have no idea how many people work there, but after many, many trips there, I have seldom seen the same face more than once. This is why I-933 is one of the best things to hit this country since the constitution.Any one that does not vote for it is definately not for freedom in this country.
I wish there was more commercials on tv to inform the public. Most of them are either misled by the NO ads, dont understand it or dont give a damn.
Lets all pray that it passes!!!!! Thank You, Everett R. Roush
And yes, you can use this letter any way you desire.
We bought 10 acres in 1986 to keep as our family mini farm. We have goats, chickens, rabbits, dogs, and horses. We did not take the advice of people to clear all our land of the high yield Douglas Fir trees that grow on our property.
We bought this property from Weyhauser when they were selling it for a down payment on the Snoqualmie Ridge project. They have since sold off more of their former timberlands to private parties.
Now that the CAO has passed we can no longer clear any more of our land and we can not touch 65% of our land. We still pay taxes on all of our 10 acres and the tax assesed value of our has more than tripled since we moved in. We have never wanted to develop our land we would however like to clear land for pasture for our animals. Now we are not able to do that. We must leave it in a natural state. None of the vegitation that grows on our property is natural. We have high yield Douglas Fir trees that have to be harvested in 2025 or they will start falling over and who will be liable if one falls over the road and hits someone on a bike or horse and injures or kills them? We also have lots of blackberries that are officially a noxious weed along with the Salmon berries.
The No people use bogus studies that are designed to scare the unaware public and suggest that we rural land owners are just wanting to develop our land. I ask that if all the city dwellers are willing to give up the use of their back yards and still pay taxes on it? Asking the rural land owner to give up the use of part of their land without restitution is unfair to them. We do not live in the rural areas just so the city people can come out and visit "nature". If they want us to leave our land untouched then they should pay us to do so. Those who live in Urban Growth areas can see more and more single family homes replaced by more and more apartments and condos. The government wants to tell people where they can and can not live. If you like big cities with multiple unit dwellings like New York City then vote No on I 933. If you would like sensible land use including affordable housing in urban areas and farms staying in business in rural areas vote YES on I 933. Most of us moved to the country because we wanted open spaces and not be crowded into subdivisions.
One thing that is not brought up is that if a developer buys up enough property so as to own a square mile they can develop that property as they want to. The individual with 10 acres can not use more than 3.5 acres. There are also regulations on impervious land which includes gravel driveways, covered riding arenas, barns and garages that are on the remaining 3.5 acres. Vote YES on I-933 to keep our farms.
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