Oregon Supreme Court upholds ruling in favor of land-rights activist Dorothy English

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of the late property rights pioneer Dorothy English on Thursday, presumably closing the book on a divisive land-use case that changed state law and shook our sense of place. The court upheld an earlier decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals and ordered Multnomah County to pay English's estate $1.15 million. The Supreme Court ruled that English had obtained a valid final judgment in the case and that the Multnomah County Circuit judge who heard the original case should have issued a writ of mandamus ordering the county to pay. English's case has long been portrayed by property rights advocates as an example of heavy-handed government interference. And in English, a colorful, sharp-tongued widow, they found a willing and even sympathetic figure. English, who died in April 2008 at age 95, wanted to develop her 20 acres off Northwest Skyline Boulevard outside of Portland. She and her late husband bought the property in 1953, and she wanted to divide it into eight home sites for her extended family. But the county had changed the property's zoning in the intervening years and wouldn't grant English a development permit. Property rights lawyers intervened, and the outspoken English became the "poster girl" for 2004's Measure 37, which gave property owners the right to develop their land in the way permitted when they bought it. English filed the state's first Measure 37 claim, and was joined by 6,500 Oregonians who demanded either compensation for diminished property values or for the right to build, in many cases, extensive subdivisions. Local governments such as Multnomah County were given the choice of either paying or waiving development restrictions...more