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The Smart Growth Process Produces Losers
Voters are sending mixed signals about how they want their communities to grow, embracing strict controls
in some places and rejecting them in others.
In deciding a flurry of growth measures on state and local ballots last week, voters did send one clear message:
They want more control on issues that hit close to home — from parks and zoning to property rights and environmental
protection. They're no longer satisfied leaving planning decisions to elected and appointed officials.
"There were successes and failures at the ballot box," Goldberg says. "But all in all, it's a really
good sign that people are paying attention to shaping the future of their communities. They're not accepting some
conventional, one-size-fits-all approach."
One of the loudest messages came from Oregon voters. Oregon rebels against the Smart Growth bureaucracy. They dealt
the state's tough land-use laws a severe blow by approving a referendum sponsored by property rights activists.
It forces state and local governments to pay property owners when land-use restrictions reduce property values
— or lift the restrictions.
Oregon in the 1990s was a national leader in managing growth. It was the first state to enact urban growth boundaries
statewide that limit where development can occur. Portland became a model for "smart growth." Fifteen
years later and billions of tax dollars wasted, Oregon citizens are raining in an out of control, unelected government,
smart growth bureaucracy.
"People are throwing monkey wrenches into these plans," says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan
Institute at Virginia Tech. "The ball's now thrown back into the court of the people who created the regulations.
... There's a sense of unfairness because the process produces losers."
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