Opinion ID: 1188002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: LUBA's decision.

Text: As the parties and the agency considered it unnecessary to specify whether a petitioner claims as one whose interests are adversely affected or who is aggrieved, they did not consider in this case whether petitioner might be aggrieved in any respect separate from Mr. Kenagy. The petition to LUBA claimed standing on the basis that Mr. Kenagy owns a house and property near the river bank two miles downstream from the challenged gravel operation and that the river channel might eventually relocate through the proposed gravel pit and expose downstream banks to erosion. The county's response objected that Kenagy's alleged aggrievement is at best speculative in nature because actual gravel extraction under the conditional use permit would be subject to approval by the Corps of Engineers and planning officials so as to assure flood protection. LUBA's order recites these opposing contentions. It then concludes with respect to the issue of standing: We agree that the likelihood of damage resulting to Mr. Kenagy's property appears to be remote. The letter from the Corps of Engineers, it seems to us, does not clearly indicate that Mr. Kenagy's property is at all threatened. However, the possibility of flooding is not so far removed from probability that we can say the likelihood of a flood is too remote to be considered in evaluating the alleged injury. [Footnote omitted] We cannot say, therefore, that the facts alleged by Mr. Kenagy are so speculative that they are not worthy of our consideration. The test for standing rests not so much on the likelihood of the injury in an absolute sense but the likelihood of the injury should the facts plead [sic] be true. On appeal, the county criticizes the statement in LUBA's order that a petitioner has standing whenever there is a likelihood of injury should the facts [which petitioner pleads] be true. By that test, says the county, anyone could claim standing to challenge a land use decision by the most farfetched allegations, such as that approval of a nonfarm dwelling on farm land fifty miles away might cause an earthquake that will destroy his residence. On its face, the wording of the order seems to justify the criticism. If and to the extent that standing is claimed upon assertions of a chain of adverse effects in the natural or social environment, it is LUBA's responsibility to consider and decide the likelihood of the alleged effects, if disputed, as an issue of fact, not to accept every pleaded assertion at face value. We do not suggest that the alleged effects must be more likely than not or meet any specified degree of probability. This might well vary with the gravity of the adverse effect if it should occur. We mean only that when a specific adverse effect on a petitioner's individual interest is the claimed basis of standing, as it was here, LUBA cannot leave standing simply to the pro forma sufficiency of the pleading, as the literal terms of this order seem to do. Of course, a requirement that the agency examine the alleged potential effects upon a petitioner invoking or wishing to enter its proceedings invites, first, a separate factual dispute over these alleged effects that often is irrelevant to the merits of the main proceeding, followed by litigation over the decision to admit the petitioner long after the agency has decided the merits, as in this case. That is the price of defining a person's legal standing in a proceeding in terms of disputable factual causes and effects. It appears, however, that the quoted portion of LUBA's order does not mean to confer standing on anyone who pleads some hypothetical course of events that would constitute an adverse effect if true. LUBA cited two of its former orders which suggest that a petitioner's allegations will be treated as true only if they are not challenged by respondent. [11] The Court of Appeals noted that Kenagy's affidavit of a potential adverse effect on his property was uncontroverted and that LUBA found it to be corroborated by a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers. If LUBA concluded from the uncontroverted allegation and the corroborating letter that the possible likelihood of damage though remote, was not too remote to be considered, the Court of Appeals was not obliged to estimate the probability of its occurrence for itself. The court did not err in this respect. The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.