Special Series
This Land: Measure 37's Impact on Oregon
In a Series
Oregon's Property Values Still Not Hurt By Planning
UPDATE 6/8/07: Changes made throughout this post.
Last week I wrote about a study showing that, in aggregate, Oregon's property values were not hurt by the state's smart growth laws. Ergo, Measure 37 "fixed" something that wasn't broken.
Turns out that study was based on data collected and analyzed by two researchers at Oregon State University. Those researchers, William Jaeger and Andrew Plantinga, have produced a more complete report (pdf) containing a full economic analysis and no editorializing. The conclusion, however, is basically the same: there's no evidence to support the claim that Oregon's growth management protections have harmed property values, at least in aggregate.
I'm hopeful -- probably naively so -- that when Oregon voters consider a revision to Measure 37 this fall, the discussion will move past the property value question. It's more or less been settled definitively now: Oregon's growth management laws have not hurt property values. That said, Measure 37 raises a host of other questions -- about fairness, planning, and local democracy -- that we should be hashing out instead.
