[Capr-announce] CAPR WINS in CAPR v. SIMS!

[Jeff Wright]

Dear CAPR Members,

We have just won a big court victory for rural property owners.  The
attached article from the Seattle Times describes our victory against King
County regarding the Critical Areas Ordinance.  Please take a moment to make
a tax deductible contribution to the CAPR legal fund
(http://proprights.org/pp_donate.php) so that we can continue to fight for
your property rights.  

Please join us for our annual banquet on May 15th, where we'll discuss and
celebrate a number of recent legal wins, and hear about coordinated efforts
on property rights statewide from our keynote speaker Bob Williams of the
Evergreen Freedom Foundation.  This is a not-to-be-missed evening!  To RSVP
for the banquet, please call (206) 663-5500.

Help us celebrate Thursday, March 5th by attending the King Co. Chapter CAPR
meeting.  The meeting will be held at the Issaquah IHOP Restaurant located
at 1433 NW Sammamish Rd. and will start at 7:00PM.  Brian Hodges from
Pacific Legal Foundation will be on hand to give a victory report.  Come
help us give him a big round of applause. 

 

Steve

Steve Hammond

President

Citizens Alliance for Property Rights

www.capr.us  www.proprights.org 

 

P.S. We must continue to strike while the iron is hot.  Please make a tax
deductible contribution to the Legal Fund
(http://proprights.org/pp_donate.php) to help us move a number of other
excellent precedent-setting legal cases forward!

  _____  

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008812783_webcritical05m.
html 

Originally published Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 1:04 PM

Big court victory for rural property owners

The state Supreme Court has handed a huge victory to rural property owners
in King County who fought a part of the Critical Areas Ordinance package
that requires them to keep native vegetation on 50 to 65 percent of their
land.

By Keith
<http://search.nwsource.com/search?sort=date&from=ST&byline=Keith%20Ervin>
Ervin

Seattle Times staff reporter

Rural property owners who fought a King County law severely restricting how
much land they can clear have won a huge victory.

The state Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review an appeals-court
decision that struck down the law as an improper tax or fee on development.
Chief Justice Gerry Alexander signed an order in which he and four other
justices unanimously denied the county's petition for review of the Court of
Appeals ruling.

The clearing restrictions, part of a package that includes the Critical
Areas Ordinance, require rural property owners to keep native vegetation on
50 to 65 percent of their land, depending on its size. They were adopted as
a way of protecting streams and wildlife, including the threatened chinook
salmon.

Steve Hammond, president of the Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights, said
the order "puts the nail in the coffin" of the most controversial element in
the critical-areas package.

"I've been saying since 2004, when I was on the [County] Council, this is
not the right thing to do," Hammond said of the clearing law. "This is the
homeowner having to make a donation to the open-space program. Two-thirds of
your property is a pretty significant donation. That's bad.

"The only way I know how to get folks who don't live in the affected area to
understand it is to say, 'What if I walked into your bathroom and said you
have three fixtures: You can keep one and the other two have to go?' "

Stephanie Warden, director of the county Department of Development and
Environmental Services, which helped draft the clearing law and enforces it,
said she was disappointed by the court's ruling and will meet with attorneys
to discuss the county's legal options.

Warden said the county adopted the one-size-fits-all clearing restriction in
an effort to make the process less onerous for property owners.

"One approach," she said, "could have been to require that the property
owner submit a site-specific study and then we would determine on a
parcel-by-parcel basis what the clearing limit should be. But we felt it was
easier on the property owners to have a specific clearing limit."

The state Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case didn't attract
immediate public attention because it was issued on a Tuesday and wasn't
posted on the Supreme Court's Web site. Opinions in cases that have been
argued before the court are typically posted online on Thursdays.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or  <mailto:kervin at seattletimes.com>
kervin at seattletimes.com

Copyright C 2009 The Seattle Times Company

 

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