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While Oregon celebrates the 50th anniversary of its land use program, it also mourns the passing of those who strove to formulate that program and navigate it through the political, economic, and social shoals to make it the national success for which it is now recognized. That success was not predestined – the program had its share of naysayers and detractors. When SB 100 was passed in 1973, Senate President John Burns found it insufficiently strong to meet the state’s land use needs, while others objected to the infringement on home rule from perceived state overreach. But the program was launched nonetheless and the work of its leadership would determine its success.

Governor Tom McCall and the chair of the new Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) provided leadership, but could not run the day-to-day affairs of the new agency. However, LCDC made a wise choice in selecting Arnold Cogan as the first director of the new Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD).

Cogan was well-suited for the appointment. He received his engineering degree from Oregon State University and had worked at the Portland Planning Bureau, before becoming the first planning director for the Port of Portland. Governor McCall chose him in 1969 to be the first statewide planning coordinator and to implement SB 10 enacted that year to assure that all the state’s nonfederal lands would be planned and zoned by 1971. That was an impossible task, as there was little funding, a hostile local government response, and an initiative that put the new law on hold until the voters upheld it in May 1970. A different approach was clearly needed.

Cogan realized that if effective planning in Oregon were to come about, it must have public support, be rational in its objectives, and have a state agency role. As to public support, Cogan and others in McCall’s office initiated Project Foresight, a study that focused on the current and future status of the Willamette Valley, with particular emphasis on its natural resource and soil bases that provided much of the state’s economic power through its timber and agriculture industries. The study also considered other economic prospects, the open space and transportation systems, and the conflicts presented by urbanization.

Project Foresight included a public participation model that became a Cogan hallmark. What was memorable about this 1971-72 effort was a series of alternative development scenarios for the Willamette Valley, one of which was a continuation of largely unregulated growth as usual, which would take up most of the valley floor (such as the then-recently approved Charbonneau development that removed agricultural land in favor of a golf course and mixed-use development), to a managed scenario that would allow for both urban uses and space for nature and its resources. The Willamette Valley: Choices for the Future was the product of this effort – methodical data collection informing a rational decision-making process that characterized Cogan’s planning philosophy. It also had a principal role in advancing SB 100 and its planning and regulatory approach.

When Governor McCall signed SB 100, he knew the newly created agencies – LCDC and DLCD – faced enormous challenges. LCDC had the difficult mission of hiring staff, providing a process for establishing the new statewide planning goals, and beginning the review of city and county plans and land use regulations for conformity with those goals – all in fewer than 18 months. LCDC appointed Cogan as its first director. He hired the staff necessary to implement all the recently enacted subject matter legislation, such as farm and forest land protections, public facilities and service provisions, and urbanization limitations. To gain public support, Cogan established advisory committees around topical areas and invited the public to participate. The public did indeed participate in multiple meetings, and later hearings. Detailed and useful public comments were issued on the draft statewide planning goals, which were adopted after Christmas 1974, just ahead of the deadline. Although many of the details have changed and new goals added, the thrust of the goals has remained consistent with the 1974 versions. The public participation efforts to draft and adopt the first goals have never been paralleled in the Oregon planning program.

Not as well recognized, but critical to the success of the Oregon program, was the establishment of the process to review and certify that local plans and land use regulations were consistent with the newly established goals. There was no rulebook dealing with state review of local enactments and most of the goals contained broad policy statements that had to be interpreted and applied in a consistent manner. Just how did a county plan protect farmland or a city plan provide for housing needs work on the ground? Much has changed in these areas in the past 50 years, but Cogan and his staff set up the groundwork.

After these initial tasks were completed, Cogan left state work and went into private planning practice, putting those principles into practice by drafting plans and regulations and by seeing projects through the process. He was joined in this work by his wife of over 70 years, Elaine, and other planning leaders. He was prominent in the Jewish community and gave freely of his time and talents. He was recognized by the planning profession for the leader and visionary that he was.

We expect that time will take its toll on the planning leaders of 50 years ago, but while that natural process must be recognized, the beneficial characteristics of those leaders should not be lost in the passage of time. Arnold Cogan was not only a capable engineer, a skilled craftsman in the mixture of politics, economics, and law that comes together in planning, but a fine person who left this world better than he found it. Rest in peace, Arnold.

Edward Sullivan is a retired practitioner of land use and municipal law with more than 50 years of experience. Contact him at [email protected].

Carrie Richter is an attorney specializing in land use and municipal law at Bateman Seidel. Contact her at 503-972-9903 or [email protected].

The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the preceding commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Daily Journal of Commerce or its editors. Neither author nor the 91ÊÓƵ guarantees the accuracy or completeness of any information published herein.