Press Release: 142 acres near Crooked River Ranch
We’re going to the Land Use Board of Appeals
On January 17, Central Oregon LandWatch appealed the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners’ decision to approve the conversion of 142 acres of agricultural land to a rural residential subdivision.
This land was formerly Forest Service land and is adjacent to Crooked River Ranch.
We are concerned that this decision violates Oregon’s Land Use Planning laws, which protect the state’s agricultural industrial land base and direct new growth inside urban growth boundaries.
This move from the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners comes fifty years after Oregon’s renowned Land Use Planning system was put in place. Governor Tom McCall, who grew up in the Lone Pine Valley, saw unplanned sprawl like this subdivision as an unmitigated threat to Oregonians' quality of life. He gave a celebrated speech to the Oregon Legislature in 1973, saying:
"There is a shameless threat to our environment and to the whole quality of life - the unfettered despoiling of the land. Sagebrush subdivisions, coastal condomania, and the ravenous rampage of suburbia in the Willamette Valley all threaten to mock Oregon's status as the environmental model for the nation. “
The County's decision to approve this rural subdivision is contrary to Oregon Statewide Planning Goal 3, which preserves agricultural land for farm use, and Goal 14, which prevents sprawl by providing for an orderly and efficient transition from rural to urban land use.
Central Oregon LandWatch is a land use watchdog and environmental advocacy group working to preserve farmland and forestland, and protect open space, wildlife habitat, and water.
A wheat harvest in Jefferson County: Tari Donohue
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