From logs to land claims

Using a Measure 37 claim, Stimson Lumber seeks to build 57 houses on 1,100 acres of timberland on Iowa Hill, south of Cornelius

By Christian Gaston

The Forest Grove News-Times, Jan 17, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

Neighbor Sierra Briano says Stimspon Lumber's Measure 37 claim is a scam.

Chase Allgood / News-Times

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FOREST GROVE - Next week, Washington County commissioners will hear a Measure 37 claim asking permission to build nearly five dozen houses on timberland south of Cornelius, a request critics say proves their long-held contention that the initiative has far broader implications than voters realized.

Stimson Lumber, one of Oregon’s oldest timber companies, wants to divide 1,110 acres of the company’s land in the Iowa Hill area into 57 lots and put a house on each. The state has already indicated it will grant the company a land-use waiver and next Tuesday the board of commissioners is likely to OK the claim as well.

The commissioners’ approval won’t let Stimson break ground any time soon. Like any Measure 37 claimant, the company would have to go through a permitting process that could limit, or even nix, its plans. But Stimson’s proposal, which will be at the county on the same day the 2007 Oregon Legislature convenes a Measure 37 committee, could shape the discussion over the future of the controversial land-use law.

For Sierra Briano, whose land abuts the Stimson claim, the company’s proposal is an example of the worst that Measure 37 can be.

“They’ve benefited from having a forest deferral for tax purposes, they’ve cut all the trees down and made all that money and now they’re saying that they’ve lost money because they couldn’t subdivide the land,” Briano said.

Measure 37 allows property owners to receive waivers for state or local land-use restrictions put in place since they purchased their property.

Since Oregon voters passed the measure in November 2004, opponents predicted a flood of development in rural Oregon. So far, it’s looked more like a trickle.

In Washington County, for example, 874 claims have been filed but only 18 property owners applied for building permits.

The lack of a housing boom so far, in part, stems from a legal ruling that Measure 37 claims can’t be transferred to anyone else, including developers.

Typically, large parcels of land turn into housing developments after owners sell them to people who build homes for a living. Under current Measure 37 rules, that’s not possible. Once the land is sold to a developer, the waiver is void.

Many farmers and other rural property owners find the task of developing their own land, including financing the project, too cumbersome.

But, as Mark Brown, county land development manager, notes, other property owners have ample cash and experience in tackling big projects.

“There are going to be people who are well-situated to take advantage of a Measure 37 claim and those are usually going to be corporations or a limited partnership where the partners are experienced developers,” Brown said.

That pretty much describes Stimson Lumber.

The company, which is headquartered in Portland, owns 500,000 acres of timberland in four western states and a mill just west of Gaston, downstream of Hagg Lake.

Stimson contracted with WH Pacific, a land-development consulting firm, to file the claims on its behalf. Stimson officials did not return several phone calls left for them over the past week.

Stimson’s claim on Iowa Hill has neighbors — including some Measure 37 supporters — questioning the law. Dave Eischen, who has filed four Measure 37 claims for his own land which abuts Stimson’s property, isn’t sure what to think.

“It kind of surprised me that they’re doing that,” Eischen said. “I didn’t think the big timber companies would do that. I thought they’d want to raise timber.”

The Stimson claim first came before Washington County commissioners last month. Most Measure 37 claims get only short hearings in front of the board.

“It’s more of a legal issue than what we would like to do as commissioners,” said Washington County Commissioner Andy Duyck. “That’s one of the things that the public doesn’t always understand. This is very cut-and-dried.”

Neighbors opposed

But at the Dec. 5 hearing for the Stimson claim, opposition was fierce. Five Stimson neighbors gave testimony against the claim, led by Nancy and Robert Oswald, who pooled money with about a dozen other neighbors to hire attorney David Noren.

Noren laid out his challenge to the claim, which rests on the provision that any Measure 37 waiver applies only to the rules in place when a property owner purchases land.

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