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Photo by Andy Atkinson Andy Kerr talks about disadvantages of population growth after a workshop Sunday in Ashland. Anti-growth group urges: Save Oregon Kerr wants state to stop paying people to move in By CHRIS BRISTOL ASHLAND -- If Andy Kerr had his way, it would rain so hard whenever somebody visited Oregon that nobody would ever want to move here. Why? Because he believes the Beaver State is fast becoming the Land That Time Forgot Only For A Little While, a once-rustic charmer fast being overrun by so many lemmings on the run from the suburban insanity of their home states that inevitably they cause it to happen all over again. If that sounds a little xenophobic, so be it, says Kerr, president of the anti-growth-and-proud-of-it group Alternatives to Growth Oregon. "People say we don't want to be California, but that is clearly the course we are on," he says. In town Sunday for a workshop at the Ashland Community Center, Kerr and other members of AGO spoke out against the social and economic forces they say have threatened to ruin the quality of life for residents of the Rogue Valley. An offshoot of the environmental movement, the AGO wants Oregonians to consider the possibility that growth is bad because even when it's managed, it leads either to urban sprawl ala Los Angeles or high population density ala ... Los Angeles. "We're saying the emperor has no clothes," he told the audience. "Don't be afraid to talk about it." The root cause is population growth, according to Kerr, who notes the Northwest is repopulating at twice the rate of the nation. In 40 years, the U.S. is on pace to grow by 100 million people. Jackson County's population will almost double. "Look at the European model," he says. "Europeans have roughly the same quality of life we have, without the growth. Their population is not growing." Kerr, a native webfoot from Creswell and former head of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, dismisses the idea that his group is specifically against California emigrants. "We're not talking about erecting walls at the borders," he says, "but we need to stop paying people to come here." In Oregon, where emigrants outnumber natives and every fourth to fifth person has moved from another state within the past 10 years, the main problem has been an open-arms economic policy that drives over-development, he says. Worse yet, he adds, established residents pay for it without a corresponding benefit beyond a choice of Wal-Marts at either end of town. According to AGO research, taxpayers end up paying over $33,000 for every new home built in Oregon. These costs are not paid by developers or new homeowners, and put great pressure on schools and infrastructure such as sewers and roads. "We're subsidizing growth and developers," he says, suggesting that many communities would be better off buying land and setting it aside. On that note, the AGO supports proposed legislation (HB 3401) that would amend state law to allow communities to charge developers the full costs of new infrastructure, including costs for schools, police and fire protection. The proposal probably won't get anywhere with the '99 Legislature, but Kerr's group plans to sound the alarm at every chance it gets. "Our position is radical," he says, "but it's also rational. With time, it will be seen as reasonable." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA