In every Oregon legislative session there are some land use bills introduced which make me think, "How the heck did this turkey legislation get hatched?"
Case in point for 2017 is SB 1024, which I've heard is supposed to address the affordable housing crisis. Except, it doesn't. Not at all.
After reading the short bill, I'm convinced (along with many others) that SB 1024 is just the latest attempt to undermine Oregon's highly successful land use system.
It would double the number of dwellings allowed on rural residential lots and prohibit county regulators from preventing someone who already has a home on rural residential property from building another one on the same lot.
As I said in testimony I just submitted to the Senate Committee on Human Services, where SB 1024 inexplicably landed even though it really is a land use bill, this is crazy. You can read my testimony below.
There's a work session on SB 1024 next Monday, April 17. If you also feel that this bill is a very bad idea, submit testimony to the Senate Committee on Human Services ASAP: [email protected]
Dear Senator Gelser and members of the committee:
I’m a constituent of Senator Boquist who lives in a Rural Residential area in south Salem, Spring Lake Estates. Until recently I served as the secretary of our neighborhood association for about 24 years, so I’m very familiar with the land use issues in our area. These include living in a groundwater limited area where Marion County regulations have required a 5-acre minimum for a single house so that existing wells don’t run dry.
SB 1024 is totally perplexing to me. After reading the bill, it certainly seems like it would allow double the number of homes in our 96-lot rural residential subdivision without any ability for Marion County or any other land use body to restrict this additional development.
This is crazy. It goes against longstanding land use policies. It takes away the land use protections that my wife and I, along with other property owners in Spring Lake Estates, assumed would continue to be enforced. We live in a rural residential area because we enjoy the rural lifestyle on our home on five acres.
We never expected that our neighbors would be able to build a second home on their property as SB 1024 would allow — and again, without any ability of Marion County to regulate this overbuilding that could threaten our well by doubling the use of water on surrounding lots.
I’ve heard that SB 1024 supposedly addresses the need for affordable housing, but I see absolutely no indication that it would do this. Consider these points:
(1) The bill has no size limit for the additional so-called “Accessory Dwelling Unit” that could be built on a rural residential lot. So SB 1024 obviously isn’t aimed at encouraging “granny flats,” tiny houses, or other sorts of dwellings normally associated with the notion of ADU’s in urban areas. SB 1024 simply allows two dwellings on a rural residential lot intended for one house.
(2) There is no indication that the ADU’s on rural residential land would be affordable. Rather, as noted above they could be as expensive, or even more expensive, than the house currently on the lot. For example, though we wouldn’t want to do this, my wife and I could build a $500,000 house on a portion of our five acres, then sell it to someone for that amount. There is no requirement that the ADU be rental property, which people usually think ADU’s would be.
(3) Our rural residential neighborhood is about five miles from the Salem city limits. Obviously there is no mass transit out here. If you don’t have a car, you can’t get anywhere. Shopping is even farther than five miles away. Even if an ADU built in our area was “affordable,” the extra cost of living out in the country, along with the necessity of getting everywhere by car, would make living here impractical for most low-income people. So SB 1024 does nothing, or next to nothing, to help resolve the affordable housing problems in urban areas.
(4) Reading this bill, the only reason it seems to have been submitted is to undermine Oregon’s successful land use system. Having led the fight against a Measure 37 subdivision planned for high-value farmland just north of our neighborhood — which threatened our ground and surface water (wells and springs that feed a community lake) — I can assure you that liberals and conservatives alike in Spring Lake Estates value Oregon’s land use system. So this attempt to undermine it via a nonsensical attempt to make SB 1024 about “affordable housing” would, I’m confident, be opposed by most of our neighbors, regardless of their political leaning.
Bottom line: SB 1040 is a very bad idea. It needs to be sent to an early legislative grave. I can’t think of any good easons for members of your committee to support it, and many reasons for you to oppose it.
Sincerely,
Brian Hines
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