## Facts

- Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission adopted statewide land-use goals that local governments were required to apply in planning and zoning decisions.
- Statewide Planning Goal 3 addresses preservation and maintenance of agricultural lands for farm use.
- Statewide Planning Goal 10 addresses housing, including designating sufficient suitable land within an urban growth boundary (UGB) to meet residential needs.
- Developers asked Malheur County to change the zoning of a 32-acre parcel from farm-use zoning to a rural residential designation.
- The parcel was located about four miles from the City of Ontario and was outside Ontario’s UGB.
- Malheur County granted the rezoning.
- The county justified the decision by asserting that an exception to Goal 3 was warranted because (1) there was market demand for rural non-farm housing, and (2) population growth would likely cause Ontario to run out of residential land within the UGB in the near future.
- Rudd appealed the county’s decision to the Land Use Board of Appeals (UBA/LUBA), arguing that the rezoning conflicted with the statewide goals.

## Issues

1. May a county rezone agricultural (farm-use) land outside an urban growth boundary to rural residential use based on market demand and anticipated future housing shortages inside the UGB, by asserting an exception to Goal 3?

## Decision

- LUBA reversed the county’s approval of the zone change.
- LUBA concluded that the county’s reasons—market demand for rural non-farm housing and predicted near-term exhaustion of residential land inside the UGB—did not justify converting agricultural land outside the UGB in a manner consistent with the statewide goals.

## Legal Principles

- Statewide planning goals adopted by LCDC are binding standards for local land-use decisions unless a legally sufficient exception applies.
- Goal 3 protects agricultural lands for farm use; converting such land to non-farm residential use requires more than a preference for rural home sites or generalized demand.
- Goal 10 places primary responsibility for meeting housing needs on land planned within the UGB; projected housing needs ordinarily must be addressed through UGB-based planning rather than scattered rural residential rezoning outside the boundary.
- When a local government relies on an asserted exception to a statewide goal to justify a rezoning, the record and findings must establish that the exception is warranted under the goals framework, not merely that the requested use is desirable.

## Conclusion

LUBA set aside Malheur County’s approval of a 32-acre farm-use-to-rural-residential rezoning outside Ontario’s UGB, holding that the county’s reliance on market demand and anticipated future housing shortages within the UGB was not an adequate basis to justify departure from the statewide goals protecting agricultural land and directing housing planning within urban growth boundaries.


Rudd v. Malheur County, UBA No. 80-056, 1980 WL 267415 (1980)