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Luba Violates Spirit Of Oia's Historic Property Law

Washington County sought to remove an historical designation on a building it owned, relying on ORS 197.772 which provides, “A local government shall allow a property owner to remove from the property a historic property designation that was imposed on the property by the local government.”  This was a provision that Oregonians In Action was able to get through the state Legislature in 1955 to provide relief to landowners from historical preservation restrictions imposed without their consent and without any compensation.

Someone objected, claiming that the County had not objected to the historical designation when it was placed on the property, and therefore it was not “imposed.”  The issue was appealed to the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) which agreed with the objector.

Dave Hunnicutt, Director of Legal Affairs for Oregonians In Action, strongly opposes the LUBA interpretation of ORS 197.772, saying “There is no justification whatsoever for LUBA to interpret ‘impose’ to require landowners to prove that they objected to historic designations at the time of designation in order to avail themselves of their statutory right to remove the designation.   ‘Impose’ simply means that the designations were applied to the property.  As counsel for the County has pointed out, the historic designation was imposed in 1993 before ORS 97.772 was enacted, at a time when the county had no ability to block the listing, so objecting would have made no difference.”

The building involved was the 78 year old Branch Building which was built to house indigent elderly.  The person objecting to removal of the designation, Kay Demlow, wants to preserve the building because of its place in the county’s history.   County officials said the vacant building does not have much architectural value and that the cost of restoring it to offices or other uses is prohibitive.

Oregonians In Action’s Larry George said OIA fought for passage of the 1955 law that allows removal of historic designations primarily for private owners but it applies to public ownerships as well.