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Oregon has had a rocky road with eminent domain. Typically, it is developers that try to use the tools of government to get property for below what the market would price it at. In Oregon, it was the government and the environmentalist who were using the long arm of eminent domain to take over how people were able to use their property. Now, if there is government interference on how you use your property, the government has to fairly compensate you.

The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal has an editorial on it today. Here is an excerpt: 

On a list of states with the worst property-rights protections, Oregon has long held a top position. So hearty congratulations to that state’s landowners, who this week won a long struggle for more control over their acreage, and in the process may become a model for land-use reform across the country.

Their victory came in a unanimous Oregon Supreme Court decision upholding a 2004 ballot measure designed to curb “regulatory takings.” Oregon lawmakers have spent 30 years perfecting the art of imposing their environmental agenda by restricting how landowners can use or develop their own property, whether it be building a new house or cutting down trees.

Oregon’s ballot measure, which passed with a mere 61% of the vote, required authorities to either compensate landowners for any reduction in the value of their property, or exempt them from the regulations. This was the second time voters had passed the measure, the first version having been tossed out on a technicality by the state’s notoriously liberal Supreme Court. via the OpinionJournal

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