At the November 28th Board of County Commissioner’s legal meeting, the board discussed making changes to Article 76 of Title 19. Title 19 is the County Code that addresses Rural Land Development (click here to view code). As I listened to what they were planning I drew some concerns and decided to share them to the Commissioners at the following Wednesday’s Business session at Anne Basker Auditorium. Below are my presentation notes and a link to the meeting video:
Yesterday’s legal meeting:
- Article 76 – The purpose of this Article is to establish standards for the placement of structures, and access to properties in areas where wildfires pose a risk to property and human lives.
- Utilizing ODF to satisfy requirement – you stated ODF charges for structures. There is not any Structural assessment on a property until after a structure is placed on the property, therefore these properties are most likely not paying ODF for the purpose you are wanting to use in order to satisfy the building permit requirement.
- Do they need to pay ODF prior to getting a building permit?
- Does that mean building permits can only be issued when ODF is staffed?
- Utilizing ODF to satisfy requirement – you stated ODF charges for structures. There is not any Structural assessment on a property until after a structure is placed on the property, therefore these properties are most likely not paying ODF for the purpose you are wanting to use in order to satisfy the building permit requirement.
- My concern is that Fire Districts provide a 24/7, 365 emergency response whereas ODF does not.
- 76.020 – APPLICATION OF STANDARDS
- Part A – The provisions of this Article shall apply to all lands zoned Forest Commercial and Woodlot Resource in Josephine County.Forest Commercial and woodlot resource is covered under Article 65
- Recently the Board approved the following changes to title 19
- 65.070 – Standards and Criteria for new dwellings
- Paragraph E – A single-family dwelling may be authorized within forest zones provided:
- I brought this to your attention back in October – on the 11th to be exact
- #4 reads – the lot or parcel is within a rural fire protection district organized under ORS chapter 478:
- Does this mean that along with article 76, you need to change 19.65.070
- Isn’t that a state preempted code?
- 65.070 – Standards and Criteria for new dwellings
The response I received was not what I expected. Below are the transcribed notes showing the response I got from one of the Commissioners:
So moving on fire district, Mr.
Jones, you’re you’re very compassionate about it.
I I think you need to disclose that you are a retired rural metro employee.
You’ve stood up at the mic every single Wednesday for almost the last year talking about this.
I don’t know if you’re a spokesman for the rural Metro, but if you are, you need to disclose that, especially as a candidate for county commissioner.
We looked into this thing.
Try to answer your questions.
These are you’re splitting hairs, but let me tell you how it works.
If somebody puts in an application for development permit, all kinds of agencies are notified, including ODF.
And then if a structure, a house or or improvement is made to that property, upon completion, ODF will be notified again and at that point they’ll put them on the rolls.
As far as the other statues you’re relating to, we looked into that and the word district is in there.
Guess what?
ODF has a protection district, so I we looked at all of these things very, very carefully.
But we are advocating, at least I am, we are advocating that an individual that owns property in Josephine County can exercise their rights to do what they want on their property and not get tied up in politics or companies trying to financially benefit from what they want to do on their properties.
So I’ll leave it at that
Watch the video here, I start speaking at 33:09 on the timer. Nov. 29th, 2023 BCC meeting