Metolian resort developers could build at least 25 homes under new proposal

SALEM — The would-be developers of the Metolian “eco resort” could get what amounts to a beefed-up consolation prize under a new Metolius River Basin resort ban bill that received its first hearing in the Senate on Thursday.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski first asked the Department of Land Conservation and Development to pursue a resort ban in December, leading the agency to craft a management plan.

While designating the basin as an Area of Critical State Concern, the DLCD plan imperiled two resorts discussed by developers. As envisioned, the resorts comprised 3,100 dwellings in and near the basin.

Senate Bill 741 would essentially take the DLCD proposal and make it state law. But after a similar House bill ran into stiff opposition, the state agency is proposing a significant change from the House version that could improve the bill’s odds of passage.

The original plan would have encouraged the Metolian group to take its plans elsewhere in the state, potentially leaving it with the rights to build only two homes in the basin.

This, however, sparked a vigorous lobbying effort by the Metolian’s would-be developers, arguing that they had invested millions in their plan for an environmentally sensitive resort and needed to show a profit.

The new DLCD proposal, however, would sweeten the deal by guaranteeing the Metolian group the rights to build 25 homes and 10 overnight dwellings on its land inside the basin no matter what.

However, even if the new plan overcomes opposition, it now faces a different set of questions.

At the hearing, lawmakers revealed that the Office of Legislative Counsel — lawmakers’ lawyer, in other words — thinks the bill may be unconstitutional.

The language proposed by DLCD raises “serious constitutional questions and concerns for this office,” wrote B. Harrison Conley, senior deputy legislative counsel, in an April 23 letter to the committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland.

DLCD Director Richard Whitman later said the problem highlighted by Conley could be easily fixed by rewriting the bill.

But committee member Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, called it a “sham” that a possibly unconstitutional bill was being knowingly proposed.

Nick Budnick can be reached at 503-566-2839 or at nbudnick@bendbulletin.com.