For nearly 30 years, we’ve warned potential property owners to never buy property in Multnomah County or the City of Portland. Today’s story is a prime example of why.

The OPOA Legal Center recently stepped in to defend Multnomah County farmer Scott Reed, who operates on 80 acres of zoned farm and forest land. The Reeds’ farm has been an active farm for nearly a century, well before Multnomah County even knew what zoning was. Today, the Reed family raises and sells Boer goats, manages a commercial Douglas Fir tree stand, and operates a roadside farmstand where their farm-fresh eggs sell out daily.

The Reeds are doing precisely what Oregon’s land use laws were designed to encourage: farming on farmland. Yet, Multnomah County Code Enforcement launched an investigation into the family based on “anonymous complaints” of illegal use of their property.

Their alleged offenses? Maintaining their farm and timber roads and constructing a goat corral. The County claims these basic agricultural practices constitute unauthorized “development” and “ground-disturbing activities,” asserting the Reeds failed to secure a series of complex permits simply to maintain their working farm.

There’s a lot wrong with this case from a “Right To Farm” standpoint and we’ll explain why. But even if you are an urban homeowner living in Portland, you need to follow this story – because how the County seeks to prove its case should scare every property owner in Oregon.

When Farming Becomes Illegal: Multnomah County’s Assault on the Right to Farm

Oregon’s land use laws are designed to preserve agricultural land for commercial farm use. There are several ways the law accomplishes this: zoning restrictions, tax incentives and penalties, urban growth boundaries, and nuisance suit protections for farmers if their neighbors complain about the sights and smells of farming. This latter protection is what we call Oregon’s “Right to Farm” law.

Notably, Oregon’s Right to Farm laws are also supposed to protect farmers from local regulations that unreasonably restrict farm practices, unless the regulations are necessary for protecting public health and safety. The Legislature put this protection in place knowing that if farmers are supposed to get a permit every time they plow a field, move soil, or repair a barn – farmers will spend all day getting permits instead of producing the food and fiber Oregonians depend on.

This would obviously be bad for farmers, but would run afoul of the primary purpose of Oregon’s land use planning system: preserving agricultural land for “maintaining the agricultural economy of the state and for the assurance of adequate, healthful and nutritious food for the people of this state and nation.” see ORS 215.243.

Multnomah County clearly did not get this memo.

In the citation issued to the Reeds, the County made their reasoning perfectly clear:

MCC 39.6210 requires a permit for all ground disturbing activities, including filling and excavation, unless exempt. Filling related to farming practice is not exempt from permit requirements for ground disturbing activity.

It doesn’t take a degree in agricultural sciences to know that “disturbing ground” is central to farming. Yet, with this interpretation, Multnomah County now effectively requires a daily permit just to farm in the farm zone.

The County was just getting started. Officials also cited the Reeds for unauthorized “development” within 200 feet of a County-designated “significant” stream. Never mind that this “significant” stream is an unnamed channel that sits bone-dry for much of the year. And never mind that the primary activity in question was basic maintenance of farm roads that predate the Multnomah County Planning Department itself.

Under the County’s code, “development” includes a wide breadth of activities (including filling and excavation) greater than ten (10) cubic yards of material. Note, that “excavation” means:

Excavation – The motorized removal of earth material or other motorized activity resulting in the exposure of the ground surface or other earth layer to wind, water, ice, gravity, or other element, including, but not limited to, cutting, digging, grading, stripping, trenching, dredging, bulldozing, benching, terracing, mining or quarrying, and vegetation or tree removal. Work conducted by hand without the use of motorized equipment is not excavating.

Again, we’re no Einsteins, but we’re pretty sure that the layers of the earth are almost always exposed to gravity and other elements. We also know that the act of row crop farming inherently includes the digging and removal of vegetation.

Under the County’s sweeping definitions, a farmer is simultaneously filling and “excavating” nearly every time they work their land. In practice, this forces a farmer to potentially trigger the need to obtain costly SEC-s overlay permits for virtually any routine task within 200 feet of a stream.

The County’s Case: Satellite Surveillance & Unending Fines

Long story short, the Reeds were receiving a citation no matter what they did or said.

But how did the County even conclude they were maintaining roads or doing this work? Officials never secured a warrant to inspect the land, never measured any fill material, and never conducted an engineering review.

Instead, the County’s case rests almost entirely on historical Google Earth imagery.

Rather than gathering real, on-the-ground evidence, code enforcement simply pulled up satellite photos to compare aerial views of the property. If they spot a blurry smudge that might be a pile of dirt or rock, they call it proof of illegal fill – no measurements, no ground-truthing, and no actual facts. Never mind that some of the images are so grainy they look like declassified UFO footage.

Officials even admitted this in their staff report, making clear that they are relying on pure guesswork to prove the Reeds moved enough dirt to trigger a permit.

Using this method, the county has racked up over a dozen allegations, some going back over five years. To make matters worse for the Reeds, the County isn’t treating this like a slap on the wrist. As punishment, the County has chosen to fine the Reeds $525 a day.

The County will let the Reeds off the hook, but only if the Reeds get the permits that the County claims they need or remove the alleged unauthorized materials.

It’s confusing how the Reeds can ever comply with this demand, when the County never took proper measurements and built its entire case on blurry aerial photos. That is the fundamental danger when the government skips proving its claims: officials cannot even explain how to fix the alleged violation, leaving daily fines of $525 to pile up indefinitely.

OPOA Legal Center Steps In To Protect Oregonians

Multnomah County’s approach poses real and serious questions about fairness and due process that should scare every property owner in Oregon.

For generations, if an official wanted to accuse you of breaking the law, they had to get a warrant, step foot on your land, look you in the eye, gather real proof, and give you a fair shot to defend yourself. But now, bureaucrats can sit at a desk, scroll through blurry pictures taken from outer space, make unproven accusations, and fine you for farming without ever setting foot on your land.

By doing so, they eliminate your basic rights to privacy and flip our legal system on its head, forcing honest folks to spend hard-earned money proving their innocence against computer guesswork.

Luckily for all Oregonians, rather than giving in, the Reeds have chosen to fight back. They reached out to OPOA, and we are taking their case.

Oregon law is clear that Counties don’t have the ability to regulate farm or forest practices in a farm or forest zone, unless they can demonstrate that the regulation is designed to protect the public’s health and safety. Requiring a farmer to get a permit every time they need to farm in a farm zone doesn’t meet that standard.

The government bears a burden of proof. Bureaucrats do not get to wield guesswork, baseless accusations, and warrantless surveillance to crush the citizens they serve. If Multnomah County insists on treating hardworking taxpayers like this, we will meet their overreach with unwavering resistance – and hold them accountable every step of the way.

We’ve made a video documenting the Reeds’ situation. Check it out below. We hope you join us in the fight to protect their right to farm.