Special Series
The Year of Living Car-lessly Experiment
In a Series
No to Fox, Yes to Vancouver
Thanks to your great comments (here and here), the car-less Durnings have made two decisions.
We won't go on Fox TV's Trading Spouses. (Read to the end of the comment string to hear our reasons.)
We will take our car-less vacation in Vancouver, BC. (Ditto.)
Wildish Land
The Eugene-Register Guard reports this week on a Measure 37 claim that could change the face of Lane County. Ten-minutes from downtown Eugene, Mt. Pisgah rises from the Willamette River’s middle fork. It’s a favorite hiking destination, and the main attraction of the Howard Buford Recreation Area, which also boasts a beautiful arboretum winding with trails.
For decades Wildish Land Company has owned approximately seven miles of waterfront property—1400 acres total—adjacent to the recreation area. Walking through the arboretum, listening to the notes of Swainson’s Thrush spiral through live oak, one follows the river and gazes across at more open space—Wildish-owned land.
Now Wildish, enabled by Measure 37, has filed a claim to the tune of $15 million, envisioning hundreds of homes on its stretch of Willamette waterfront. The company says the property would be worth $21 million developed. The land’s current value—limited by a land use designation for agriculture, forestry, and gravel mining—is only $5.6 million.
Saving the property from development and making it a public appendage to the Howard Buford Recreation Area would probably require a successful bond measure that would raise $15 million for conservation—assuming the Wildish accounting is correct. Is it worth it?
