Here's an editorial that gets to the crux of what's wrong with Initiative 933, the ballot measure that would require government to compensate landowners for regulations that limit development options:
To tell government that it has to pay the individual for not interfering with water, air, fish or wildlife is like telling the policeman that he should pay me for not robbing the bank.
Governments have a responsibility to regulate individual actions that harm the larger community. Under I-933, governments would be required to pay landowners or, since they likely have funds to do that, waive the land-use rules altogether.
Campaigns both for and against I-933 have obscured the issue. But the bottom line is that the initiative -- which is mostly funded by the same group behind similar cookie-cutter measures nationwide -- would gut land-use planning that has been honed through years of democratic process. Here's a better idea: if citizens don't like the current laws they are free to vote out their representatives in county and state government.