OPB’s new “Growing Oregon” series examines the history and impact of Oregon’s strict land use laws

OPB has released a new multimedia collection that explores how Oregon ended up with the strictest land-use policies in the place, and how individuals rules dictate almost every factor of our each day lives.

“Growing Oregon” functions a 6-portion podcast that is published and made by veteran OPB political reporter Jeff Mapes and presented by OPB Politics Now. It also includes accompanying longform world-wide-web features on opb.org

Oregon’s land use rules govern wherever builders can develop – and, in the procedure, how we stay, get the job done and commute.

A fifty percent-century ago, Oregon’s populace was booming and developers had their eyes on the verdant Willamette Valley, which was also home to about two-thirds of the state’s inhabitants.

The battle to protect the valley led to Oregon’s exceptional land-use process — just one that eventually produced what are arguably the hardest statewide progress administration controls in the country. These limits place city expansion boundaries all around every single town limited the setting up of rural properties, especially on prime farmland and they make Oregon what it is.

On the other hand, lots of Oregonians never know a lot about the regulations governing the land.

In “Growing Oregon,” Mapes digs into the background guiding how all this happened and the results on Oregon today.

Episode one particular of the six-element “Growing Oregon” podcast is obtainable now on Apple Podcasts, on opb.org, the NPR Just one app, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Further episodes will be launched just about every Friday by way of August 19.

Episodes consist of:

Episode 1: Oregon does it in different ways

Mapes clarifies the precarious point out Oregon leaders located themselves in all through the 1960s and ‘70s. The populace was booming, and Us residents experienced fallen in love with the plan of greater homes, bigger cars and more land – suburbia. But a team of Oregon leaders, like Governor Tom McCall, needed a new method.

Episode 2: The battle in excess of Senate Monthly bill 100

In the early 1970s, a bipartisan coalition of Oregon politicians fought to develop the nation’s hardest land-use legislation in excess of steep objections from builders and property owners. This is the tale of how they gained.

Episode 3: But how will it basically work?

Chronicling the tale of two shocking advocates who took Oregon’s new land use process and fought to make positive nearby governments actually stuck to it. This installment tells the story of a Eugene homemaker and a Connecticut reporter and the pivotal roles they performed in producing the program real.

Episode 4: The Westside Bypass

Oregon’s land use rules govern the place developers can construct – and, in the process, how we dwell, perform and commute. This episode chronicles the a long time-long battle in excess of the proposed Westside Bypass, and Oregon’s complicated relationship with highways.

Episode 5: Residence homeowners combat back again

Oregon’s exceptional land use process has been challenged in courtroom and at the ballot box a fifty percent dozen situations in the technology given that its generation. The stiffest fight came in the 00s – as residence house owners gained the proper to get cash back again if new land-use rules prevented them from setting up. We inform the story of the woman who turned the community confront of that struggle, Dorothy English.

Episode 6: We’ll be battling this without end

Our ultimate tale appears to be at the strategies Oregon’s exclusive land-use procedure has worked – we’ve saved open space, we have created walkable communities, we have manufactured sure even suburbs come to feel like accurate neighborhoods. But there have also been unintended outcomes: An increasing gap amongst wealthy and inadequate, mounting genuine estate selling prices and more and more contentious fights over what Oregon cities and metropolitan areas look like.