Help us protect almost 400 acres of the world’s best farmland from sprawl and reckless development. Help protect our democracy from big money and top-down decisions.

Dear Governor Tina Kotek,

We are farmers, eaters, residents and lovers of Oregon's working and wild spaces and we urge you to protect our farmland and respect the land use system that has built a vibrant and livable Oregon. In particular, we ask you not to designate or ask to have designated, any new industrial lands under SB 4 provisions that override sound land use planning. As we have seen in the recent vote in North Plains and the uproar over the rushed and poor processes around SB 4 and HB 3414, major threats to the land use system resulting in massive, unnecessary growth are not what Oregonians want in 2024 anymore than they did in 1974.

We reject the false choice between having our land use protections, high quality farmland, scenic, and working lands or having new high tech jobs in Oregon. We now know, after the SB 4 hearings, that thousands of acres, including many large industrial sites, already exist within our cities' UGBs.  We also know that it is far cheaper to build inside cities than it is to build on farmland with no infrastructure ready to go. This is exactly the question that Oregon's land use system was built to solve and we already have the answer: build inside UGBs. And indeed SB 4 has been a success.  It has brought millions of dollars of investment to the states high tec industry while not taking a single acre of farmland.  No company needs the rural reserve land and no land should be designated.

We reject the city and the state breaking faith with our land use agreements, our local governments, and its constituents.  The metro area underwent a major planning process to designate urban and rural reserves about one decade ago.  Upending that for a short term and uncertain gain subverts the governmental and democratic processes that worked to build a consensus in our area.

We reject the undemocratic idea that a single person should decide the fates of small businesses, land owners, and the public at large by being given a "magic wand" to make land use decisions with little public input and very limited appeal.  That is not par for the course in Oregon nor is it a representative and democratic system.  In North Plains and many other communities when poorly planned and massive growth that benefits the few has made it to the voters, it has been soundly rejected.  The will of communities should not be subverted by undemocratic processes.

We reject the inequitable process and guaranteed inequitable outcomes that would be ushered in by this bill.  If you subvert the Oregon's land use principles to bring land in under SB 4 we will be substituting the power of well connected lobbyists and the wealthiest cities for a good planning process that benefits the state.  Rather than a considered public process that considers the needs of residents and the state as a whole, you will be asked to decide on proposals crafted by those with a lot of development money pushing goals that narrowly benefit certain corporations or certain regions in the state.

We reject scrambling for short term gains and losing sight of the long term needs of our communities.  We reject the expansion of UBGs at the cost of the very farmland we will need to grow food and the other agricultural products we depend on.  We reject the climate denialism that assumes what we need are a few jobs now and not resilient landscapes in the future.

Despite the lack of need and the lack of sense in the proposal, the city of Hillsboro is preparing to ask for hundreds of acres of land.  Please refuse their request outright and take the wins Oregon has seen over the last year with massive high tec investment and protected working lands near our cities.

For all these reasons, for the protection of the best farmland in Oregon, for the sake of the land use laws that have brought us to the Oregon we love today and for the sake of the land that will feed and care for the Oregonians of the future, we urge you to not designate any land, near Hillsboro or anywhere else, under the UGB provisions of SB 4.