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Kim's family may sue Newberg
Dundee council
passes M-37 ordinance
Local man files class action lawsuit against
Fred Meyer
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First Measure
37 claimed filed in Dundee |
Owners wants $250,000 or option to
open a drive-through espresso shop
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Measure 37 may make true
the sign that has been hanging on “The Purple House” in Dundee for
more than a year: “Coming Dundee Espresso Drive Thru.”
Owner Howard Meredith on Tuesday filed a Measure 37 claim against
the city of Dundee. He asks Dundee to change zoning on his property,
near the corner of Highway 99W and Eighth Street, so he can realize
its full value – possibly with the drive-through coffee shop he
first sought to open there about two years ago. That or pay him
$250,000.
“They restrict me so bad that my land’s worthless,” Meredith said.
“The only thing I can use it for is put in a fancy restaurant and
sell wine. ... I don’t want to be in the wine business, so that
leaves me out.”
The city in 1995 changed the zoning on Meredith’s property from
commercial to commercial business district, which allows him to have
a coffee shop but no drive-through.
Meredith’s is the first claim to be filed in Newberg or Dundee
since Oregonians voted Measure 37 into law Nov. 2. The land rights
measure, which went into effect Dec. 2, gives property owners
leverage against the state’s decades-old land use laws, now
requiring governments to compensate landowners when land use laws
decrease the value of their property. The governing body can opt to
waive the offending restrictions instead.
Should Meredith’s claim prove valid, City Administrator Eve Foote
said Dundee would have to let him use his land as he pleases.
“Obviously the city doesn’t have the money” to pay a claim of such
an amount, she said.
Foote said the city’s attorney, Paul Elsner, and Meredith’s
attorney, Russell Baldwin of Lincoln City, were discussing the
claim.
What step comes next is hard to gauge, Foote said. The city council
passed its Measure 37 processing ordinance the day before the claim
was filed.
“This is so new to all of us,” Foote said.
The ordinance calls for the claimant to meet with the city
administrator, but that cannot be enforced; Foote said Meredith has
not met with her. The ordinance also calls for a $500 fee, which
likewise may not be enforceable; she said that is up to legal
interpretation. Meredith has not paid the fee.
There are many questions yet to be answered, Foote said. Did the
city reduce the value of his property? She pointed to a business
license that the city issued him for a coffee shop, albeit useless
for a drive-through.
Was his denial sufficient to be the basis of a claim? Foote noted
that Meredith never formally requested the city change its land use
laws. His requests for the drive-through were verbal, and the city’s
response was simply to give him a copy of the ordinance that
restricted such uses, Foote and Meredith both said.
She added that several other factors may impede him from converting
the house into a coffee shop – meaning the city’s ordinance wasn’t
the only obstacle standing in his way. The city’s building inspector
would have to give his stamp of approval before the owner could
change uses on the house, and the Oregon Department of
Transportation would have to grant him access to the already clogged
Highway 99W.
Meredith has owned part of his property since 1975 and the lot with
the purple house since early 1980s. He painted the house purple with
green trim — mimicking a wine grape — as a mocking protest to the
Victorian overlay that the city has considered adding to its
planning ordinances. Meredith objected to the city dictating what
colors a person could paint a building.
He has considered many businesses for the property — fast-food
restaurant, hotel and coffee shop among them — but that the city’s
land use laws have prevented him.
Needless to say, he voted for Measure 37; erecting on his property
one of the city’s largest campaign signs for the measure.
“I’d just as soon have my rights back,” he said. “So I can develop
my property.”
By Gunnar
Olson, Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at
golson@eaglenewspapers.com
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From
Dec. 11,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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