Property owners file $3 million Measure 37 claim

Kay Cyrus Knott and Jane Gragg have filed a $3 million claim against Deschutes County. It is the latest in a series of Measure 37 claims presented to the county following approval of the land use measure by voters last fall.

Under Measure 37, numerous Sisters area property owners have filed claims seeking either compensation for lost property value or permission to manage the land as allowed at the time ofpurchase.

The 80-acre parcel involved in the Knott-Gragg claim is located east of Sisters on the south side of State Highway 126 near Camp Polk Road. It occupies a small ridge covered with juniper and pine trees.

The land was purchased in the early 1970s and was classified as MUA, Multiple Use Agricultural, allowed at that time to be divided into 20-acre tracts. Later, the county reclassified the acreage as EFU, Exclusive Farm Use, although there are no water rights with the land.

“With the EFU classification neither Jane nor I can build a home on this great view property. In addition, we cannot even divide the property between ourselves if we wanted to,” Kay Knott said. “Finally, since we have no water rights, we cannot sell the property forfarming. If we were to try tomanage it as agriculture land for grazing, we might be able to put one cow on the 80 acres. Therefore, all we can do is pay taxes.”

Kay Knott is a fourth-generation Cyrus in the Sisters area. She was raised on the nearby family farm in the Cloverdale area and later lived away from Sisters for 25 years.

She and her husband Leonard now live on a 17-acre farm on Cloverdale Road east of Sisters.

The co-owner, Jane Gragg lives near Monmouth in western Oregon.

“Because of this land use change, we really can’t do anything with this property,” Gragg said. “There are many people who have been affected by land use changes.”

“Our home property has a wonderful view, but the other property has a 240-degree view of the Cascades,” Knott said.

She said she always has had a plan to build a new home on part of the property involved in the claim. When the Knotts moved back to Sisters in 1990, they learned that land use changes would not allow this.

“We understand that the county had a mandate from the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development to classify lands,” Leonard Knott said. “However, few counties were set up to go out and survey land to properly determine land use zoning.

“They were faced with an impossible task. So,counties took the easy way out and looked at much of the undeveloped land and arbitrarily classified it as farmland. We have been paying the consequences ever since.”

Both Kay and Leonard support any efforts of the state Legislature to standardize both the process and fees followed by Oregon counties in responding to Measure 37 claims.

“We don’t really know what we would want to do with the property if we would be allowed to develop it; we are up in the air,” Kay said.

“While it was purchased first as an investment, now we might like to build up there and reduce the maintenance work that we have with our current home and property. I would rather have time to have fun.”

The Knott-Gragg claim is one of 34 filed with Deschutes County since the first of the year with a total approaching $100 million.

Ten of the claims are in the Sisters area.