Terms of use

1. Acceptance

Using this site means accepting these terms and the privacy policy. Anyone who does not accept them should stop using the site. Use on behalf of an organisation is an acceptance on that organisation’s behalf.

2. What this service is

Plot Planner is a free planning and comparison tool. It takes a county, a zoning district code and a few facts that the user supplies, runs them against reference data compiled by hand from published county and state materials, and returns general pathways with indicative costs and a list of questions to take to the county planning department.

Specifically, the service does not:

• look up a parcel, address or tax lot, or infer the zoning of any property;
• determine what may be approved — counties decide those questions case by case on facts that cannot be assessed from a desk;
• predict septic feasibility, well yield, permit outcomes or permit timelines;
• substitute for a county planner, a land-use attorney, a surveyor, a septic designer or a title company.

How the output is produced, and every source behind it, is set out on the methodology page.

3. Not advice, and no professional relationship

Nothing on this site is legal advice, land-use advice, engineering advice, tax advice or financial advice, and using the site creates no attorney–client relationship and no other professional relationship of any kind. The output describes what generally applies to parcels in a district. It is not a determination about a specific property, and it must not be presented to anyone — a seller, a buyer, a lender or a county — as though it were.

4. Accuracy, and verification

Every rule and figure carries a source and the date it was last verified, and those dates are shown rather than hidden. Even so, land-use rules change, counties adopt and rescind provisions, and published materials are sometimes ambiguous or out of date at the source. Cost figures are indicative ranges rather than quotes, and site improvement costs in particular depend on conditions that need a local quote or a site evaluation.

Confirming anything before relying on it is the user’s responsibility. Each option the tool returns includes the questions to ask and who to ask, because that verification step is part of the product rather than a disclaimer attached to it.

5. Acceptable use

Using the site is subject to not:

• presenting output as an official determination, or as the position of a county, a state agency or any licensed professional;
• republishing or reselling the compiled data as though it were authoritative, or stripping the sources, dates and verification steps from it;
• automated access at a rate that degrades the service for others, or any attempt to circumvent its technical controls;
• using the site for any unlawful purpose.

6. Intellectual property

The site’s code, design, written copy and the particular compilation and structuring of the reference data belong to the operator of this site. The underlying statutes, administrative rules and county code provisions are public records and belong to nobody — the work here is in collecting, encoding, dating and relating them.

7. Third-party links and advertising

Links to county, state and other external materials are provided because they are the sources. A link is not an endorsement, and the content, availability and privacy practices of a linked site are outside this site’s control. The same applies to any advertising that appears: advertisers are not vetted, recommended or endorsed, and advertising never appears inside or beside the output as though it were part of a recommendation.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SITE AND ITS CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY AS TO ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, CURRENCY OR UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY.

9. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE OPERATOR OF THIS SITE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST OPPORTUNITY, OR COSTS OF LAND, CONSTRUCTION, PERMITTING OR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO USE OF OR RELIANCE ON THIS SITE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SITE WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not permit the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages. Where that is the case, the exclusions and limitations above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

10. Indemnity

Users agree to indemnify and hold harmless the operator of this site from claims, losses and expenses arising out of their misuse of the site, their breach of these terms, or their presentation of the site’s output to a third party as a determination, a professional opinion or an official position.

11. Changes

The service may change or be discontinued at any time, and these terms may be updated. The effective date at the top of this page marks the current version, and continued use after a change accepts it. Substantive changes will be noted on the site.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Oregon, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the exclusive venue for any dispute is the state and federal courts located in Oregon.

13. General

If any provision of these terms is held unenforceable, the rest remain in force and the unenforceable provision is applied to the maximum extent permitted. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. These terms, together with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement about use of the site.