Neighbors of a 108-acre parcel off Crawfordsville Drive are asking the Oregon Supreme Court to overrule a decision by the state appellate court that is the latest in a battle between a developer and landowners north of Crawfordsville.
Neighbors are represented in the appeal by 1,000 Friends of Oregon, a Portland nonprofit that advocates for land-use planning. They argue that the property in question, located north of Crawfordsville Drive and the Calapooia River, northeast of Crawfordsville and the intersection of Brush Creek Road and Highway 228, should not be rezoned from farm forest to non-resource five-acre minimum residential zoning because the majority of the property is designated by Linn County as big game habitat.
The Linn County Board of Commissioners approved the rezoning last year for applicants Ronald and Virginia Henthorne and Lynn Merrill. The Henthornes hold title to the property, but Merrill is seeking to develop it into a rural community of between 10 and 17 homes.
In an appeal to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals by neighbors earlier this year, LUBA overruled the county, saying that the zone change was inconsistent with requirements in Linn County’s own land use codes protecting big game habitat from conflicting uses and conserving sensitive fish and wildlife habitats.
The applicants argued in the LUBA hearing that protecting the big game habitat and conserving sensitive fish and wildlife habitats is implemented during the development of the property rather than the planning phase, providing that “beneficial management of wildlife habitats can be obtained through careful siting of dwellings and structures.”
The state Court of Appeals reversed LUBA’s decision, determining that “LUBA erroneously failed to defer to the county’s plausible interpretation of its own comprehensive plan.”
Thousand Friends is asking the Supreme Court to review and reverse the Court of Appeals decision and determine whether LUBA or the appellate justices are correct in the way they expect the county to implement protections for big game habitat, since that would be what would justify a change in zoning.
“Simply put, the county’s decision in this case and the implicit interpretation identified by the applicant fails to explain how the county can approve a zone that allows a five-acre dwelling density in mapped big game habitat that allows, at most, a 20-acre dwelling density,” 1,000 Friends wrote in its request for a hearing, dated Oct. 15.