Washington State Will Vote On Property Rights Initiative

Though were still being verified at the time of publication, a property-rights measure modeled on a law in neighboring Oregon looks set to appear before voters in Washington State this November.

"The initiative would require state and local governments either to compensate property owners when regulations lower property values or to waive those rules."

Dean Boyer, a spokesman for the Washington Farm Bureau, a major supporter of the measure, said "Government land-use regulations have increased exponentially in the past 10 years", and I-933 is needed to protect property owners from increasingly intrusive rules that reduce property values.

Opponents said I-933 is a "developer's initiative" that would gut zoning and other regulations that protect communities and the environment, imposing new bureaucratic burdens on local governments and fiscal burdens on taxpayers."