A drawn-out legal dispute centering on Camas County planning issues has grown new legs after a settlement negotiated in May fell through.
The Camas County Commission adopted sweeping and controversial changes, many that included up-zoning in rural parts of the county, in March 2007. In all, 20,000 acres were rezoned.
Both P&Z Chair Ed Smith and County Commission Chair Ken Backstrom allegedly purchased or owned property in the rezoned areas, and both participated in the decision-making process and voted to allow higher densities and/or more economically advantageous use on their own properties.
Fifth District Judge Robert Elgee, terming the actions "egregious," ruled in two preliminary injunctions in the past seven months that the procedures and conflicts of interest breached the Local Land Use Planning Act.
A trial commenced May 20 and was quickly called into recess until May 21, when a settlement agreement was reached, said Camas County resident and developer George Martin, Jr., who filed the lawsuit.
The settlement, however, was abandoned, Martin said. Martin's attorney, Christopher Simms, has begun working with the court to schedule a new trial date, as well as file a separate lawsuit alleging that a rezone of the prior rezone, adopted in the several weeks leading up to the scheduled May 20 trial, is also illegal.
"To an outsider, all of this looks as if the Board of Commissioners has gathered the data, deliberated along the way, consulted with their P&Z Commissioner, and made changes and revisions to the proposed Comp Plan, Zoning Ordinance, and Zoning Map, all without a record," Elgee wrote in the first of his two injunctions. "Then, once everything had been decided, they held a public hearing, on the record."
In his decision Elgee cited more than a half-dozen meetings for which a record does not exist, or could not be provided.
Camas County public officials were clear that their second rezone effort in May was an attempt to clear up such procedural errors.
Martin, who owns approximately 180 acres of developable property adjacent to the city of Fairfield, was aggravated by the lack of public notice and participation in the process and apparent conflict of interest inherent when officials favorably rezoned property they owned.
Camas County, at the direction of the Board of Commissioners, began the process leading to the massive rezone of Camas County in late 2006.
"Again, my initial thing down here is, I moved down here to retire," Martin said. "I still need to make some money and make a living, but I moved down here for the long-term. I didn't object to their original comprehensive plan at all."
Martin said that when the new zoning regulations passed without provisions for impact fees or provisions for supporting infrastructure like roads, "I really got my back up."
"I just felt it was going to ruin the community, and that's why I jumped into it," he said. "I was the only one who really had the potential of standing in a court of law."
Commission Chairman Backstrom was not immediately available for comment.
