In what came to be known as his “grasping wastrels” speech, Gov. Tom McCall opened the 1973 Oregon

legislative session with an environmental call to arms.

“There is a shameless threat to our environment and to the whole quality of life – unfettered despoiling of the land,” McCall declared. “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. We are dismayed that we have not stopped the misuse of the land, our most valuable finite natural resource.”

A moderate Republican back when his party still allowed them, McCall was a tireless conservationist, using his bully pulpit in the governor’s mansion to decry unfettered growth and “grasping wastrels of the land.” His work with the 1973 Legislature put the Beaver State in the vanguard of growth management, compelling local and county governments to enact comprehensive plans that would concentrate development in urban areas and protect rural Oregon from sprawl.

How times change. McCall must be doing 360s in his

casket over the mess Oregonians are making of their state with the recent passage of Measure 37, a property rights initiative whose twin, Initiative 933, goes before voters in our own state on Nov. 7. Washingtonians should choose a wiser path than our neighbors to the south and

vote “No” on I-933, a pro-development, anti-growth-management measure cloaked in the guise of fairness.

Like Measure 37, Initiative 933 would force local governments – i.e., you and I – to monetarily compensate landowners for regulations that affect individual property values, or to simply waive the regulations. It’s gained traction in some rural areas unhappy over critical-areas planning. Yet far from protecting agrarian interests from intrusive government, Oregon’s measure has paved the way – the operative word being “paved” – for suburban sprawl across meadow, farmland and forest. A new report by the Sightline Institute (www.sightline.org) shows that Oregonians aren’t getting what they thought they voted for. A Clackamas County farmer who supported Measure 37 finds his own investment in jeopardy, as a gravel mine is suddenly permitted on farmland next door. Random developments are springing up far outside urban areas, to the alarm of neighboring property owners. The most egregious case of all can be found in scenic Eastern Oregon. There, a man who owns 157 acres inside the pristine Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument area filed a $203 million claim, citing damages for loss of use; land use regulations were waived, and the owner now will build a strip mine, a geothermal power plant and a resort.

Through mid-September, some 2,400 claims for compensation totaling $5.611 billion had been filed under Measure 37. In almost every single case, the local governing agency has simply waived the land-use restrictions being challenged, allowing development – no matter how inappropriate for the area – to go forward. Therein lies the great deceit at the heart of Washington’s I-933: It’s not about compensating landowners for onerous regulations, it’s about making land use regulations too expensive to enforce.

That these “pay or waive” initiatives are backed by the building industry and bankrolled by out-of-state libertarian groups is well documented. And far from protecting the rights of the individual property owner, they’ll hurt you in the long run. You may not like every regulation, but local land use codes are all that protect you from your neighbor. Property values are enhanced, not diminished, by predictable zoning and regulations that preserve a shared quality of life.

Sadly, Oregonians have turned their backs on the Tom McCall legacy and embraced the grasping wastrels in their midst. Washingtonians – all of us – must be wiser.