91视频

There is a new city incorporation campaign rolling out in Deschutes County. In addition to overseeing the tremendous growth of Bend, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners on Sept. 20 will consider adding the city of Mountain View to its roster. The proposal is to incorporate 265 square miles southeast of the city of Bend with the 鈥済host town鈥� of Millican near its center.

If approved, the total footprint would be twice as large as the city of Portland and only slightly larger than the city of Chicago. The petition was filed by an area resident, Andrew Aasen, who is also running for the seat in Oregon鈥檚 5th congressional district. According to Aasen, incorporation will allow for creation of a new fire district for faster responses to emergency services and will allow for development of new homes in an area that currently is largely protected for exclusive farm use.

Incorporating a new city in Oregon has never been easy. Over the past 42 years, only two created cities still exist. The Keizer incorporation effort started in 1965 to fend off continuous annexation efforts by the city of Salem. But it took six failed votes and nearly 20 years before that city was born in 1982. Similarly, the effort to incorporate the small, seven-mile area now known as the city of La Pine initially failed to gain voters鈥� OK in 2000 but ultimately succeeded in 2006.

Experience shows the success of an incorporation effort requires more than securing a majority of the votes. Court battles over land use and challenges over election legitimacy can further embroil the effort. Consider the story of Damascus, which was incorporated in 2004 so it could take control of its borders and protect its rural character from encroachment by nearby Happy Valley, Gresham and Sandy.

Before being allowed to zone and make capital improvements, a new city must adopt a comprehensive plan and implement land use regulations. Although these documents are usually adopted by a city governing body after public hearings, Damascus voters were asked to ratify the plan and six versions were rejected over four years. The final version was rejected by a three to one margin. This left Damascus with no ability to spend tax revenues collected over years on public infrastructure. It took a change in state law allowing disincorporation by a majority vote, rather than a supermajority, and a reversal of a Court of Appeals decision that held the law change unconstitutional by the Oregon Supreme Court that ultimately ended the Damascus project.

However, there was an incorporation effort that was so filled with high drama that it became the subject of a multipart, Emmy-winning Netflix documentary. 鈥淲ild Wild Country鈥� is the story of the incorporation of Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County in the early 1980s. All the salacious details won鈥檛 be recounted here.聽 Without regard to the crimes committed by the residents (which takes up most of the oxygen in that story), this incorporation effort was important because it led to a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court that incorporation decisions, just like annexations, are subject to compliance with Statewide Land Use Planning Goals.

Although a fully formed comprehensive plan need not be adopted concurrently with incorporation, the Supreme Court concluded that 鈥渢he proponents (must) present evidence of the purposes sought to be achieved by incorporation insofar as these bear on future land use, such as the kind of municipal services that the city is expected to provide and the projections about future population and tax base that these purposes assume or necessarily imply.鈥� More specifically, 1000 Friends of Oregon was able to successfully argue that Goal 3 (farmland protection) applies, though the applicants were able to satisfy the court that the goal was properly applied in that case. In addition to the goals, subsequent changes in state law now require the filing of an economic feasibility statement that includes first- and third-year budgets for the new city.

The Mountain View petition claims to 鈥渄raw lessons鈥� from the Wasco County case in that it quotes the Statewide Land Use Planning Goal text, intends to 鈥渋nvolve the community through the process,鈥� and 鈥渁ims to create a well-balanced and resilient community that fosters economic development, environmental stewardship, and an enhanced quality of life for all residents, now and in the future.鈥�

These feel-good platitudes may appeal to some voters, but they fail to offer any detail about how the relevant goals will be met. For example, there is no indication of existing farm practices or whether the land is suitable for farming. According to Aasen, most of the area is federally owned. It is not clear how fire district services will be provided to these federal lands without any property tax recovery necessary to fund them. This is particularly problematic given that state law prohibits including lands within city boundaries that will not 鈥渂enefit鈥� from incorporation. The petition estimates recovery of $30,000 in property taxes for the new city during the first year for operating expenses. It is difficult to imagine developing necessary public services for such a sprawling city with such meager funds.

How this will all turn out remains to be seen, but this may send shivers down the spines of those who remember or were directly involved with the ghosts of those incorporations past.

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 91视频 guarantees the accuracy or completeness of any information published herein.