Foland v. Jackson County

The Oregon legislature enacted several statutes that created the Comprehensive Land Use Planning Coordination program (program). The legislature also created the Land Conservation and Development Commission (commission) with duties and powers to administer the program. The commission had a duty to adopt state-wide land-use-planning goals. The program required that all Oregon cities and counties conduct land-use planning in accordance with the commission’s goals. The relevant statutes required each city and county to adopt a comprehensive plan that complied with the commission’s goals for land-use decisions. Pursuant to the statutes, if the commission acknowledged that a comprehensive plan complied with the commission’s goals, the city or county needed to make land-use decisions in compliance only with its comprehensive plan rather than directly with the commission’s goals. A city or county with an acknowledged plan had an ongoing duty to periodically review its comprehensive plan. If necessary, a city or county had a duty to amend and revise its plan to comply with the commission’s goals. The commission also had a duty to review acknowledged plans periodically to ensure continuing compliance with the commission’s goals and to require amendment if a plan did not comply. An amendment to a previously acknowledged plan would be automatically acknowledged if no person filed a notice of intent to appeal within 21 days from the date that notice of the amendment was mailed to any person who was entitled to notice. Any person who had participated in the proceeding to amend a plan was entitled to notice and could appeal the decision to adopt an amendment. An amendment subject to a timely appeal could not be acknowledged until the appeal was resolved.