West v. Multnomah County

In this land use case, petitioners seek review of a Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) order that affirmed Multnomah County’s (the county) decision to deny their application for a new “template dwelling” on their property. To qualify for a permitted template dwelling, petitioners had to show, among other things, that within a 160-acre square centered on their property, five dwellings existed as of 1993 and continue to exist. The dispute in this case is whether the structure that petitioners rely on for the fifth dwelling — a dilapidated house built in 1906 that has been vacant for some time —…