Finding A Compromise On Property Rights Regulation

"As they campaigned successfully against property-rights Initiative 933 this fall, many opponents acknowledged the measure's backers had a valid point - that growth-management rules can impose hardships on some landowners. They vowed to do something about it after the election.

Now some of them have unveiled more-detailed proposals. Several focus on expanding "transfer of development rights" (TDR) programs, already in place in some counties, that give owners of farm and forest land a way to make money off the development potential of their property without actually developing it.

'It would be neat if one day people could market their development rights the way they list their homes now,' said Michelle Connor, vice president of the Cascade Land Conservancy, a land-conservation group and one of the organizations backing the approach.

But supporters of I-933 say that, while there's nothing wrong with bigger, better TDR programs, they don't really deal with the fundamental problem the initiative tried to address.

'It doesn't make the regulatory environment any easier,' said John Stuhlmiller of the Washington State Farm Bureau, I-933's chief backer."