16 <br />1 County's land development ordinance establishes a three-year deadline for the <br />z approval of a final development plan once the preliminary development plan has <br />3 been approved. Id. at 1239. After more than one remand on the preliminary <br />4 development plan, the matter before Jackson County remained on remand for over <br />5 10 years. Id. The applicant submitted the modified preliminary development plan, <br />6 and opponents argued that the approval had long since expired. Id. Jackson <br />7 County rejected opponents' argument and interpreted the applicable provisions to <br />s conclude "that the land development ordinance deadlines apply only to cases in <br />9 which the county has given final approval at each stage; according to the county, <br />1o the time limits are, in effect, tolled during the period of appeal to LUBA and <br />11 during any remand that may follow[.]" Id. Before LUBA, opponents argued that <br />12 the interpretation was contrary to the express language of the ordinance. Id. <br />13 LUBA agreed and noted that "[t]here is a fatal problem with the county's <br />14 purported `interpretation' of the LDO sections. The county has not interpreted <br />15 the quoted LDO sections, it has attempted to rewrite them to address a problem <br />16 that the drafters apparently did not expressly anticipate." Id. at 1240. LUBA <br />17 concluded that: <br />18 "[t]he county is certainly free to amend these sections to address any <br />19 concerns it may have about whether LUBA appeals might make complying <br />20 with the deadlines established by those section difficult or impossible. But <br />21 the county is not free to insert new terms or concepts into those LDO <br />22 sections without amending those LDO sections." <br />23 <br />