Heading south to Silverton recently, I hit a long line of cars and trucks stopped about 10 miles beyond the housing developments that crowd up to the edge of Portland's urban growth boundary. The cause of the traffic jam? A family of turkeys was crossing the road.

Compared to most of the rest of the country, we've achieved an exquisite balance here in Oregon. The vibrant urban economy of the Portland Metro area gives way quickly to a vibrant rural economy of farms, nurseries and vineyards, in a pattern that's repeated from Newport to Baker City. It's a landscape that exists in large part because of farsighted and pioneering land-use rules.

A recent report from Northwest Environment Watch demonstrates how farming and other land-intensive economic activities benefit from restricting the subdivision of rural land for houses, malls and office parks. From 1990 to 2000, Charlotte, N.C., sprawled onto 279 more square miles of open space per capita than Portland did; Seattle added 88 square miles more. For every 100 new residents, greater Charlotte eats up 49 acres of countryside; greater Portland eats up 10 acres.

But there's also a cost to the private property owner in saving all that land for farms and timberland and wilderness -- or, at the very least, there's a lost opportunity for gain. When a person can't subdivide his or her land, or even build a single-family home or a garage on it, the result is economic pain and disgust with government rules and regulations.

Which is why it's not very surprising that Measure 37 passed in November by a substantial majority. It allows landowners to demand compensation when they can't sell or develop their land because of land-use rules. As David Hunnicutt of the property rights group

Oregonians in Action says, that includes

"environmental and wildlife overlay zones, historic preservation laws, scenic views, open spaces, things of that nature." Government agencies have an out -- they can waive the rules instead of paying compensation.

Will the sky now fall on Oregon's landscape? Some land-use planning advocates think so. There's talk of lawsuits (like the one that undid Measure 37's predecessor) and legislative action.

A critique of that course comes from an unlikely source. "The environmental movement digs itself into a hole when it fails to recognize the spread of both apparent and real grievances with our land-use and environmental legal apparatus," writes David Yaden, chair of Northwest Environment Watch and former head of the Oregon Department of Energy. "Our reliance on law and regulation has limits that behoove us to explore other pathways, including better use of the market and incentives." He points in particular to Metro president David Bragdon's new flexible regulatory plan for habitat protection as an example.

This approach strikes the right balance. Measure 37 may have been misleading, but it's now the law. And its passage clearly expresses a frustration with land-use rules and the government agents who enforce them. The easiest way to turn a landowner against planning is for some government bureaucrat to say "no" repeatedly to a legitimate and seemingly harmless improvement -- stopping someone from building a shed next to their streamside home in Lake Oswego, or banning a Yamhill County farm family from building a house for their kids to live in.

It's time to preserve what we can of Oregon's well-balanced landscape, using arbitration and market incentives and reasonable compensation and whatever other tools are available. Using the courtroom to settle our grievances -- those of disgruntled landowners and disappointed planning advocates -- is no solution at all.

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Copyright 2004 Oregon Business magazine