There’s a reason you love Oregon.
Have you ever brought home fresh produce from one of Oregon’s 100+ farmers markets, or picked your own in places like Sauvie Island or the Hood River Valley? Shopped downtown in any of our 241 towns and cities? Rafted the wild Rogue or paddled a few of the 255 miles of the Willamette River Greenway? Sipped a fresh-hopped beer from one of our 281 breweries? Enjoyed the dunes and beaches along Oregon’s 362 miles of entirely public coastline? Hiked through the 800 species of wildflowers in the Columbia Gorge? Taken your kids to play in some of Portland’s 12,597 acres of park land?
Those are just a few of the benefits of Oregon’s land use planning system.
Oregon is naturally beautiful and bountiful – but you already knew that! What you might not know is that, if not for land use planning, many of Oregon’s fields and forests would long ago have been sold and paved over, and the unique character of each of our towns and cities diluted by the same kind of endless sprawl seen in so many other states.
Fortunately, that kind of sprawl can’t happen here. It’s literally the law.
The passage of Senate Bill 100 in 1973 created our innovative land use planning system. It’s one of Oregon’s greatest bipartisan political achievements. Explore our website to learn more. Then, when people ask you what makes Oregon such a unique place to live, work, and play, you can let them in on the secret ingredient:
It’s our land use planning system!
This timeline created by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) offers a great overview of the building of, and milestones accomplished with, our statewide land use program from 1973 to the present.
This comprehensive look at the beginning of Oregon's land use planning program covers Senate Bills 10 and 100, early referendum challenges to our land use program, and the intertwined histories of land use and housing policy in Oregon. Written by Carl Abbott for Oregon Encyclopedia, a project of the Oregon Historical Society.
A collection of cases and other readings that, together, provide a strong overview for legal and planning students interested in learning more about Oregon's land use program. Free to download. Written by Jeffrey B. Litwak and Edward J. Sullivan, Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College.