Somewhere there has to be a balance on the land use restrictions, but I don't know where the line should be drawn.
Oregon touts their land use laws as being wonderful, protecting "valuable" farm land while they let Portland and it's burbs expand out onto the farms. And that is good farm land. Meanwhile, the restrictions that apply to the west side of the mountains, where the good farm land is also apply to the eastern 2/3 of the state which is basically dry and much of it has low value as farmland.
Politicians push to get industry to move into the Portland area, leading to expanding the metro area onto this farmland they think they are protecting, then wonder why cities on the east side of the mountains struggle. If they really want to protect farmland, then the growth should be on the east side of the mountains.
Build a house on your rural property? If it's timber land, you can't unless your parcel is something like 80 acres minimum, while if it's farmland, you have to prove you can make a good income (I don't remember how much, but it is in the $80K range) on the parcel.
Our 10 acres was grandfathered in, so we were able to build a house. I can step out the door, prune my trees, do a little thinning, pile and burn slash and intensively manage my timber much better than if I had to burn hydrocarbons driving 5 or 10 miles from town to work on the property.
What is the result of their poorly thought out and excessively restrictive land use laws that the greens think are wonderful? In the Portland area, they now advertise a lot of 5,000 sq. ft. as being "large"; they build a 3,500 sq. ft. house on a 4,000 sq. ft lot; they want everybody to live in a high rise condo. Property values--also read as "property costs if you are buying"--are much higher on the Oregon side of the Columbia than on the Washington side, then the politicians blame the evil real estate industry when surveys show housing is not very affordable. Oregon thinks the higher property values mean demand is driving up prices, while people flee to Washington where the looser laws let people live on decent sized lots with a real back yard and where they don't hear intimate activities in their neighbor's house 5 feet outside their window. The Vancouver area has been growing rapidly and now on both sides of the river they are talking about a new bridge so people in Washington can come over to Oregon to work, then go home to live.
But from the stories on this forum, it sounds like in Washington they have gone nuts with restrictions in rural areas; just different from Oregon.
There's got to be a balance. There's got to be some sense. But there isn't. Not yet anyway.
The tax thing is just another whopper - like lotteries will support schools. 
