Portland,Ore. -- A ruling yesterday by the Oregon Court of Appeals seemed to reinforce a July federal court's actions in protecting Oregon’s agriculture and forestlands from aggressive housing development.The rulings addressed two conflicting ballot initiatives: The first, Measure 37, was passed in 2004 and would have allowed landowners to subdivide large holdings into smaller plots for housing. When applications started flooding in for multiple housing developments—not the two or three “mother-in-law” units some voters had anticipated—alarmed rural stakeholders launched Measure 49, which was passed by some 62% in 2007. Measure 49 was intended to “rein in the worst abuses of Measure 37,” according to Ralph Bloemers, whose nonprofit group Crag Law Center in Portland represented The Friends of Yamhill County in the vineyard-rich Willamette Valley.