Adventures in Oregon: Shutting Down Businesses
26th February 2014
When Oregon land-use laws and rules were written back in the 1970s, timber companies cut down trees, hauled them to the mill, cut them into boards, and sold them to homebuilders. Now, some homebuilders go into the forest, cut down trees, piece together a home on site, then carefully dismantle it to take to the homebuyer’s lot for final assembly.
The problem is that piecing together the home is considered secondary forest processing, which is illegal under Oregon land-use rules for land zoned “timber resource.” As a result, some log homebuilders are being regulated out of business.
My, what a suprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
Rules can be updated, but that takes a lot of time and effort and the mom-and-pop log homebuilders can’t afford to do it or wait for it. In the meantime, those rules stifle innovation and create a bias towards big corporations, which can afford to lobby for changes. They also lead to crony capitalism, in which the wealthy are able to get rules changed for themselves while everyone else pays the cost.
Yup. That’s the way things are in the Obamanation.