Last week, I attended the American Planning Association's Great Northwest Planning Conference in Tacoma to present on a panel regarding destination resort planning, its benefits and impacts. Also on the panel were Terri Payne, a long-range planner from Deschutes County, and Mike Usen from SE Group, whose business is resort planning.

What did I learn? Primarily three things:

1. Washington has unique elements to its destination resort law that Oregon doesn't that are aimed at addressing and mitigating environmental and other impacts.
2. Despite those, planners and others in the planning community from around the state still have tremendous concerns over impacts from existing and planned resorts as well as the potential for additional resort development in the future.
3. There are more resorts in Central Oregon alone than in all of Washington.

Even Usen seemed to express some level of astonishment regarding the number of resorts in Central Oregon, and made a point - it seemed - of conceding that this level of development may come with its share of problems. Usen did illustrate several points of law in effect in Washington that I think in spirit hold great promise in Oregon, primarily the way the state's environmental quality act interacts with its destination resort law. Many of SE's resorts also seem to address issues that resorts in CO don't, for example providing workforce housing. That said, though, it still appears that Washington's law contains considerable holes, as evidenced by concern among planners in attendance.

Following the presentation I was approached by several planners from both states, all concerned over resort impacts, asking for the LandWatch powerpoint. Why? They don't want to see their region become the next Central Oregon, and they want to understand the impacts we're facing so as to hopefully avoid them in their neck of the woods.

It seems these days that everywhere I turn there is more frustration and concern being expressed over the issue of destination resorts in Oregon - and now beyond. Is this concern resonating in Salem? How about Olympia? As I told the forty-fifty or so people in attendance during the panel presentation, several Oregon legislators seemed to wake up to this issue in this year's session, and one major supporter - Ben Westlund - seems to be coming around. What does 2008 hold, if anything, in the way of containing this burgeoning trend? And how much damage can be done between now and the 2009 legislative session if nothing is done?

In my presentation, I called for a three-fold solution - learn more, educate our communities, and pass a new set of laws to reign in resorts so that their benefits can be felt without their impacts. There is a fourth point, however, one I didn't mention, one that is a little more radical, but presents perhaps the best opportunity for avoiding unnecessary and costly future impacts: do as citizens are proposing to do in Crook County's Powell Butte community - establish a moratorium until more is known and planning can proceed in proper fashion. Is it politically likely? I dunno. But it's the right thing to do.

For those that are interested, the powerpoint is attached below.