PORTLAND (AP) - With Measure 37 back on the books, planning departments across the state report a steady flow of landowners seeking government compensation or the right to build homes and businesses.

Much of the activity is taking place in Washington and Clackamas counties, where farmland confronts intense pressure for growth. Each county received about a dozen claims last week.

Last month's Oregon Supreme Court decision to uphold the property-rights law also gave successful claimants, who had to play a four-month waiting game, the go-ahead for their development plans.

Dan Van Vactor, a Central Oregon attorney, recently filed a Measure 37 application to allow two additional farmhouses on Wasco County land where he grows hay and timber. Rules adopted after his purchase required him to sell $80,000 a year in crops to carry out the construction project.

Van Vactor said it was safer to wait for the Supreme Court decision than waste time and money starting a project he might not be allowed to finish.

“There was no risk to waiting,” Van Vactor said. “The risk of proceeding was, it simply could have been for nothing.”

Measure 37 spent four months in legal limbo as a circuit judge's opinion striking down the 2004 ballot measure awaited resolution in the Supreme Court. Four counties and the state, all named in the case, shut down claims completely. Most other governments continued responding to property owners but would not authorize construction on Measure 37 property.

When the Supreme Court ruling officially took effect last week, governments resumed accepting claims.

Planning directors say they don't know when claims will slow. Measure 37 gave applicants until December of this year to be excused from existing land-use rules. But a new two-year window can be triggered by applying to build and getting rejected under modern regulations.