Goal One Institute is a nonprofit research and communication center – a think tank – based in Lebanon, Oregon. Our mission is to foster a transition to truly sustainable human communities within an intact and healthy global ecosystem. Our primary focus is on the unprecedented challenges of peak oil and global warming and on the role of land use in meeting those challenges.

Nonpartisan and independent, Goal One Institute is committed to the land ethic as voiced by Aldo Leopold:

“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”

Policy & Research

Goal One Institute publishes original policy and research reports on specific projects in Oregon, including analysis and recommendations for action. We also provide commentary on land use, energy, and climate issues at our blog, Post Carbon Oregon.

Current Projects

Issues on which Goal One Institute is currently working include:

LandWatch Lane County: county must make decisions on time

State law requires that local governments reach a final decision on land use permits and zone changes within a specified period of time. If a local government fails to make a timely decision, an applicant may then go to circuit court for a writ of mandamus ordering the local government to issue the permit.

Circuit court is not a friendly venue for someone trying to protect his or her neighborhood or the public interest. It is difficult and unwise to try to represent yourself in circuit court – hiring an attorney is essential. In circuit court, the burden of proof is reversed: the court must approve the writ unless an opposer proves that doing so would violate land use regulations. Furthermore, in circuit court an opposer risks being forced to pay the applicant’s attorney fees.

Lane County has demonstrated that it often fails to make timely decisions. Within the last three years, three applicants have taken advantage of the circuit court option, and others could have.

LandWatch Lane County, with the help of Goal One Coalition, has initiated an effort to reform Lane County’s land use decision-making process to ensure that final decisions are reached in a timely manner. LandWatch has asked that Lane County amend its code to provide interim deadlines within the overall 150-day period established by statute; failure to meet an interim deadline automatically results in the application being pushed up to the next level of review, which normally would require the filing of an appeal. The LandWatch proposal also includes clarification of the process by which an applicant may request extensions of the time line or a waiver of the statutory period.

LandWatch has sent a letter to the Board of Commissioners identifying the county’s pattern and practice; that letter is available here.

If the county should fail to respond in a satisfactory manner and agree to reform its pattern and practice of decision-making, LandWatch intends to petition the Land Conservation and Development Commission for enforcement.

Reforming the local decision-making process

Over the past several years Goal One Institute has become increasingly aware of pressing problems with local appeals procedures and costs around the state. The hearings and appeals process can be complicated, convoluted, repetitive, and time consuming; and is becoming so costly that Oregon citizens – applicants and neighbors alike – are priced out of the process.

Goal One Institute is recommending amendments to the Oregon Revised Statutes to simplify and streamline the local decision-making process and to reduce the cost to local governments of reaching a final decision on applications for permits and zone changes.

Currently, state law requires local governments to provide opportunity for at least one public hearing, and caps the fee for that initial public hearing at $250. State law also allows for local governments to provide opportunities for one or more local appeals. No restrictions are imposed on fees for these additional appeals, except that the fee may not exceed the cost to the local government of providing the appeal. Many local governments have imposed fees amounting to multiple thousands of dollars. For example, the cost of an appeal in Lane County can exceed $3,700.

Such high fees effectively thwart statewide planning Goal 1 by pricing people out of the process.

Goal One Institute’s recommended solution to the proliferation of prohibitive appeals fees is:

• Amend existing statutory language to emphasis that a single-hearing process is the default process. Local governments would retain their existing authority to review decisions at their own discretion.
• If local governments chose to provide options for local appeals, fees for such appeals would be capped at the same cost as for the initial public hearing – $250.

Draft language for proposed amendments to ORS 215.422 (counties) is available here.

Draft language for proposed amendments to ORS 227.180 (cities) is available here.