Bowerman v. Lane County

Under ORS 92.190, local governments “may use procedures other than replatting procedures in ORS 92.180 and 92.185 to adjust property lines as described in ORS 92.010(12)” with the only limitation being that the procedures “must provide for recording of approved property line adjustments.”

Petitioner appealed the decision for not allowing reconsideration of property line adjustments. Petitioner assigned error to the court not looking at ORS chapter 92, concerning property line approval process and payments for the application fee. On appeal, Petitioner argued that the issue is certain to occur on remand and that he has a strong interest in knowing how the application fee process is to be conducted, i.e. submit a single application and fee or multiple. In response, Respondents argued that reconsideration is not necessary and that it should be adhered to the discretion of the court in not deciding how the application process should function. Under ORS 92.190, local governments “may use procedures other than replatting procedures in ORS 92.180 and 92.185 to adjust property lines as described in ORS 92.010(12)” with the only limitation being that the procedures “must provide for recording of approved property line adjustments.” The Court held that nothing in the ORS chapter 92 legislature intended to make a recording of the property line adjustments because ORS 92.130 expressly gave a local government the necessary latitude to “determine the procedures for approving property line adjustments, provided that those procedures call for the recording of each approved adjustment.” The Court further found that some of the property lines were not yet reflected in the recorded deeds. Affirmed in part, reversed in part.