A Note from Dave & Sam

We want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support and patience during this time. When we began this blog, we had one goal – consistency. Our hope was to post weekly content, no matter what. Unfortunately, given the importance of OPOA’s efforts this 2024 legislative session, and the volume of calls we are receiving from property owners needing urgent help, we have been inundated with legal and legislative work. This has left us little time to talk about the work we are doing. However, now that the Session is wrapping up, we are hoping to get back to more consistent blog posts from here on out.

Despite not being able to have blog posts about our current issues, we want to pull back the curtain so you know what we have going on. Currently, we only have two staff attorneys at OPOA. Dave has spent every day at the Capitol since Session began working on important legislation. You can read our blog post from today to learn more about some of the bills he has been lobbying. That has left Sam to primarily assist property owners with current legal matters, take calls from new folks needing help, and work on long-term projects.

We were talking with an experienced land use lawyer last week who has an average case load of between 20-30 cases at any given time. Without an experienced associate attorney, that’s the max, especially for a complicated and highly technical area of law. We get nearly that many requests every week, and sometimes more. As a non-profit legal center who does not charge for our services, this is a normal call-volume for us.

We love the calls and emails we get, and are able to help people dealing with significant land use issues. For example, we’re currently working to help a couple who lost their home in a fire and are being needlessly bullied by their local government. We’re working against the clock to help them get a permit for a new dwelling as soon as possible so that they can heal from this tragedy and not have any issues with their insurance. Just today, we advised property owners on how they could develop their property, whether they could divide their land in certain ways, and whether they could file Measure 49 claims, while also working on emergency amendments to a bill at the Capitol.

But for every property owner we help, there are those we either can’t get to in time or that we just can’t find solutions for. These latter cases are the ones that weigh heaviest on us. For example, last week we received a frantic call from a widowed senior living in an RV who was being asked to vacate their property in a short period of time. She was confused and scared. We were able to her understand what was going on, and why the County was requiring her to vacate. Unfortunately, given her unique circumstances, there was not much more we could do to help.

The fact of the matter is our land use planning system isn’t designed with equity in mind. This elderly widow would have been more than happy to live out the rest of her days in her RV with her animals. There would have been no impact on Oregon’s farmland or neighboring farms and no magical system would have unraveled. But the land use system didn’t work for her, and now she’s at extreme risk of being displaced.

We wish we could say that this situation is rare. However, given Oregon’s aging population and current economic conditions, we are receiving a significant uptick in calls from seniors needing help with difficult land use situations. For 35 years, we have been Oregon’s only private property rights organization and have helped thousands of people without charge, but we need help keeping up with the number of client requests we receive.

We currently have enough of a workload to support at least three more staff attorneys. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to make these hires at this time. We hope through additional fundraising campaigns and charitable donations we will be able to bring on more help soon.

In the meantime, we ask you for two things: patience and support. If we haven’t gotten back to you yet, please send us another email or a give us a call but know that we are working to get to your issue. We want to help. If you are on our long-term project list, thank you for your understanding as we assist those with urgent matters. If you can make a donation, please do so. If you can share the good work that we do on your social media, leave us a positive review on one of our posts, or just talk about our work in any of your networks, please do. We love reading emails from folks that resonate with what we are doing and appreciate the support we receive from all of you.

Best,

Dave and Sam

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not represent the opinions or positions of any party represented by the OPOA Legal Center on any particular matter.