Growth Management Tools — what works?
Redefining Urban and Rural: Why Growth “Tools” Haven’t Succeeded
By Susan Duncan, Guest Writer, 1-28-08
Editor’s Note: As the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County undertake the monumental tasks of steering rapid growth in the Gallatin Valley and beyond, officials and residents are seeking and analyzing tools to do so properly. Countywide zoning? Transfer development rights? Conservation easements? Susan Duncan discusses how rural and urban residents perceive these “tools” differently.
For nearly 20 years, Gallatin County officials, land trusts, and conservation groups have researched and developed a “tool box” of incentives and voluntary programs to guide growth and discourage sprawl. The “tools” they have tried are conservation easements, clustered development, transfers of development rights and citizen-initiated zoning districts.
Despite these efforts, few Gallatin Valley residents (urban or rural) are confident that the threats posed by growth and development are under control. Recently, two out of three county commissioners agreed that “tools” aren’t enough and voted in favor of implementing county-wide zoning.
Why aren’t the “tools” working as well as we had hoped?
The progress has been slow because the people who want to save open space are not the ones who own the land. Therefore, open space advocates have to convince, bribe, cajole, or pass regulations to encourage landowners to make choices that please advocates. No where did the open space advocates consult with the landowners to determine if they perceived a lack of open space or a need to preserve it. Consequently, rural landowners feel demands are being imposed on them without their consent, and without enough incentive to comply. Predictably, a strong private property rights backlash results.
Urban and rural folks see the situation differently. Urban residents perceive a lack of open space in their crowded world. To rural residents, open space isn’t scarce. (Sometimes there seems to be too much, as when I have to drive 6 miles to the nearest store.) Instead, for rural folks, the issue is perceived as loss of productive, tax paying agricultural lands. Sonoran Institute recognized this perspective and began talking about preserving “working landscapes” instead of saving “open space”.
Urban folks want the land to look just like it does now. To them, land is static and can be preserved as open space – undeveloped, empty, and vacant. Like raspberry jam, it can be “saved” and will always keep its just picked flavor. To farmers, land is never empty or vacant. Fields and pastures are developed (as opposed to wild) - as production units. Empty, open space to urban folks is a production unit - at work (growing) or at rest (in winter) - to a farmer.
To rural folks land is a precious, dynamic organism that needs a caretaker. It’s a tragedy when land is taken out of agricultural production and held in trust (“saved”) as Open Space without management or maintenance (like the 100 acre Regional Park). Ungrazed grass gets tall, rank, and unpalatable and hard to walk through. As it dries, it becomes an extreme fire hazard. Disturbed ground is open to erosion and weed infestation. Unkempt, open ground invites vandalism and illegal dumping. Watching the decline of once productive farm ground is as painful as watching an abused and neglected child spiral into delinquency. It’s even worse if the land was purchased by a state or county government for open space and therefore, taken off the tax rolls. The property went from an asset to a liability – by design!
By definition, easements infringe on property rights. Easements give another party the right to use part of a landowner’s property for a specific purpose – a right of way for a road, telephone or power line, natural gas pipeline or for maintenance of an irrigation ditch. Conservation easements are no different. The only question is whether the benefits outweigh the curtailment of future options. Easements generally are in effect in perpetuity and go with the property when it changes hands. Any easement restricts what the landowner can do with the property.
Farmers have always favored “clustered development”. Farm buildings are clustered for convenience and to avoid interference with production. For farmers, clustered development (in the open space context) can be positive or negative - less income due to fewer home sites to sell or income plus open space dedicated to farming.
“Transfer of development rights” means passing the farm on to your heirs (or another buyer). In the open space context, it means giving up some private property rights, devaluing the taxable, as well as loan, value of a farmer’s greatest asset and retirement account. As land values and property taxes rise, the incentive to sell out is enormous. Putting farmland in a conservation easement can extend the economic viability of a farm, but it does not guarantee that the farm will be economically viable in perpetuity. Regardless of the intent, it may not be a farm forever.
Citizen initiated zoning is scary to farmers. Although a block of farmers headed by Terry Murphy in the Boulder Valley (north of Whitehall) did develop an agricultural zoning district to keep land in agriculture, farmers rarely initiate a zoning district. Too often, the citizens initiating the proposal are residents of rural subdivisions who want to protect their views and open space - urban values - without understanding how their proposals will affect farmers in the district. Farmers fear being outnumbered and outvoted by those who have a different culture and expectations.
Tools can preserve selected high value properties offered by willing landowners. Tools can extend the economic viability of some farms and ranches. But I want more than token “preservation of our heritage”. I want to preserve a viable working ecosystem - biological, social, and economic – that is flexible and dynamic. It has to meet the shared needs of the people who live here and still tend to retain “the values that attracted and hold us in this valley” over time. We all have to be involved in its creation and maintenance, because the outcome affects all of us.
More next time .
Read and join the conversation on Susan Duncan’s first column on ”Redefining Rural and Urban: A Community Discussion.”
Susan Duncan lives on a 76-acre irrigated farm in the Gallatin Valley of Montana that she and her husband Richard built from a fallow grain field since 1976. They raised registered and commercial cattle, sheep, and hay. Now they are niche market entrepreneurs of Dexter cattle and some produce. From 1999-2004 Susan was a country lifestyle columnist for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle “Fencelines” Section. She holds a B.S. Degree in Forestry from the University of Montana. For the last 20 years she has been an active participant in local efforts to envision a viable future and guide exploding development.
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All of us should be content with decisions made by a willing buyer and a willing seller. Unfortunately those are not the ones making demands upon private property owners. As Marion has said, "... it is always someone else's property that folks want left open for them."
It has always puzzled me that those persons now residing in newer homes throughout the West are seemingly able to skim right over the fact that they are now living on top of what was "open space" prior to the time their own lot was created and their own home was built.
Is it possible that those people do not understand that the ".. creation and maintenance.." of their own property was an "... outcome (that) affect(ed) all of us ..."?
Which is, of course, the source of the commonly-identified label "NIMBY" ~ as/in "now that I've got mine I'm perfectly willing to TAKE yours in order to make my own life more pleasing to MY eyes".
Most people who have owned large parcels of land for many years love the land they own whether or not it is now or has been used for farming, ranching or other purposes. Many of us continued to believe that a popular vote by those who covet what they do not own, who have not been willing to make the sacrifices to own land, can not just "take" what we have. However, as long as politicians are massaging the laws, rules and regulations in the USA and their primary concern is their own job security, that all relates to the votes of the masses. So we ARE at risk and most of us are more than well aware of that. We have seen too much too often in latter years where the right to own and use private property has fallen to the wishes of the masses at our expense.
When all the stars are aligned in the sky that will no longer be the case. Use of private land for the benefit of the masses will ONLY be done with the consent of, and with the primary well-being of, the land owner foremost in mind.
For the benefit of our children and grandchildren I can only hope and pray that those masses will discover the long term importance of our private property rights ... before they, too, end up with none.
... or so it seems to me ...
For instance, I noticed one quote posted there saying, "I look at that sale as a cop-out, (Kirt Manecke) says. Selling off assets is the easiest way to raise money without making any effort."
Guess it all depends on how you look at it, does it not? "... without making any effort"? If owning the asset can be accomplished "... without making any effort" why don't YOU own the asset that you wish to "plan" and control now or make a competing offer in cold hard cash to purchase it from the current owner of the land?
Would you be receptive to a non-profit I might decide to "create" that sought to tell you what to do with your own personal assets, most particularly your major and most valuable asset? Shall we all hold hands and gather in a circle to make that decision for YOU?
I kept looking for one of your referenced "experts" who DID own the land they wished to control; or, who were even offering to contribute their professed professional expertise to land owners without charge. I found none. Did I miss something?
Is this not once again just one more group operating on free money to do as Marion said, "... it is always someone else's property that folks want left open for them."?
Are ANY of you ready, willing and able ... or HAVE you been ready, willing and able ... to put YOUR money where your mouth is? I think NOT.
If so, MAKE MY DAY and tell me what I've missed!!!
It's mine. I bought it and that's that.
My question is: Why is it for anyone else to tell me what to do with it? If you want "open-space" - go buy some, pay for it,
maintain it, pay the taxes etc.
Everyone wants something for free these days. If you want open space --- go buy some and leave it open.
Why is it that, in places like Gallatin County and other fast-growing parts of the west, taxes keep going up? Why do school bonds and fire district bonds keep being requested? Why do county road maintenance budgets keep being stretched thin? Why are police departments maxed out?
Subdividing your property, especially in rural areas, has way more impact on local communities than a simple loss of view. When those new residents move in and dial 911, someone has to show up. When they start driving on county roads to reach their place of business in the faraway urban area, a county road maintenance guy has to get out and plow those roads much more regularly (incidentally, more traffic on the road makes it harder for the neighboring farmer to drive his combine around like he used to - making it more likely for him to subdivide). School buses have to drive that much farther and put that much more wear and tear on the buses. When some guy punches his wife, the cops have to leave the area of urban concentration and drive into the country. And so on.
I don't mean to polarize as much as susan has (by consistently dividing people between rural and urban) but I do think large landowners need to realize that they impact people with their choices just as much as urbanites - and maybe more, since they can change landscapes on a much larger scale. The conversation in this area regarding planning has focused way too much on how it LOOKS and not enough on how it WORKS. Lets broaden the discussion to the real issues and leave the garnish (the view) to a later date.
The cost of all the public services you've mentioned can be allocated in many ways, and has been allocated and absorbed in varying ways throughout the nation.
If an urbanite now lives in an area that spread each of those increased costs throughout the tax base when their own new home was constructed then self-righteous indignation about sharing the costs for public services tendered to future developments is certainly not justified, nor it is fair. Just as the influx of warm bodies living next door to them had positive impacts on the economics of their communities, so will those positive economic benefits of new developments on the horizon be shared throughout the area. If all future costs of all new developments are isolated only to those new residents of them, that practice will not curtail development ... it will only structure the cost of homes and serve as a means to structure society, making the occupancy of new homes only within the financial reach of those with a much larger pocketbook. Doing so curtails the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to own a home within the West. Perhaps you do not care whether or not your neighbors' kids can afford to move in next door. But do you care about your own?
As far as the tax-to-spend issue is concerned, whenever a large parcel is broken up into smaller parcels and those parcels are developed the total public proceeds then taxed each and every smaller parcel far exceeds the total of the original tax base contribution going into the public coffers from the original large-parcel tax. Whether or not that increased tax base compensates for any increased costs of public services to any new development is a question that can only be answered by those who provide those services. However, to treat and/or tax the "new guy on the block" differently than others coming before him/her reeks with the odor of prejudice.
I thoroughly agree, J: "You simply cannot break down "planning", "growth management", "tools", etc.. into a desire to save open space."
But to " ... broaden the discussion to the real issues ...", The Biggest and The Most Important of those REAL issues is the seeming expectation that anyone, or any group of people, has the right to take or control the private property rights of another, disallowing not only an individual's right to own but their right to use the property that they do own.
When and if those harboring such expectations are willing to throw their own major/primary assets onto the same bargaining table and relinquish their own rights to invest in them and/or to divest of them for the benefit of The Public Good ~ in any regard ~ the bargaining table might then be balanced for each and every one of us.
Socialistic in nature, but balanced.
Would you like to be the first to offer to do so, J?
Once again Marion has taken a sledge hammer and hit the nail on the head: "The issue is private property rights. If you want to determine how the property is used.....buy it. If not let the owner decide what is best for his investment."
I found out about the Wyoming Open Spaces Initiative at the University of Wyoming and have printed off much of their information (still reading). I was also encouraged to see that the Governor of Wyoming recently sponsored a growth conference in Casper. From an Eastern Montana perspective, Wyoming is actively seeking solutions to growth problems while Eastern Montana has a big target and "For Sale" sign painted on it with no plan to deal with growth problems (this may not be a totally fair assessment, but it's how I presently see things).
Perhaps the intent of your article is to focus on what has and is happening in the Gallatin Valley, but does it do injustice to what's happening on a statewide basis? You say the ones who want to save the open lands are not the ones who own the land. How does this stand up when you consider that many farmers and ranchers across the state have shown their desire to protect open space by putting their properties under conservation easements? Also, don't open space advocates have to consult with landowners in order for conservation easement and other landowner options to be enacted? Seems like the 1.6-1.7 million acres under conservation easement in Montana demonstrates that at least some landowners were consulted and desired to protect open space. Also, it is my impression that most lands under conservation easement continue to be managed as productive rangeland, farmland, or forestland. How does this mesh with what you wrote?
You mention that a conservation easement is an infringement on property rights. I was thinking about this the other day before I saw your article. On this day a rancher could decide to subdivide his property and permaently change the use of his property. No future rancher could ranch the property, nor could any future person enjoy the natural amenities that property once offered. That rancher, at this point in time, could make a decision that would affect his property's use for the rest of time. So how is that different from the rancher who decides to put his proerty under a conservation easement? Doesn't that rancher have an equal right to make a decision at this point in time that would permanently affect his property's use? Please explain the difference.
You conclude with "More next time." I look forward to seeing that. I look forward to seeing your plan for preserving "a viable working ecosystem--biological, social, and economic--that is flexible and dynamic," because we need to implement that plan as soon as possible. In the meantime, do you advocate sitting back and not pursuing other avenues to protect open space in the face of the fierce assault land developers and realtors are waging on the land?
Every other place in the country that has any sort of population base has adopted some sort of planning/zoning to address the consequences of growth. Sometimes this is done better than others, but in general, impacts to water quality, impacts to the tax base, impacts on emergency services, impacts to housing, etc... all these things can, and should, be addressed as growth happens. Many times, the reality of this is that growth gets directed away from rural areas and toward urban areas where services can be efficiently provided. This gets done through planning/zoning.
I agree with two things Rosemary has said: 1) there have been huge impacts to long-term landowners by newcomers in the past. The fact is that many of these impacts could have been avoided if people had been willing to have hard conversations about growth and how to deal with it 30 or 40 years ago. 2) Large landowners are impacted MUCH more by restrictions on land use than small landowners. If you look closely at what those restrictions do, however, you see that often they make your property more valuable. People pay for large, unsubdivided properties that have some protections - the numbers bear it out all over the west. So the question I've got is whether large landowners are afraid of land use restrictions because they don't want to hurt their checkbook, or because they don't want to hurt their egos?
You can't dismiss the need for reasonable planning or zoning simply because you've been here a long time and have an iron-clad view of property rights. People HAVE showed up, and its time to get away from the rhetoric and us v. them ideology and start figuring out how all of this is going to work.
However, when you say "So how is that different from the rancher who decides to put his property under a conservation easement? Doesn't that rancher have an equal right to make a decision at this point in time that would permanently affect his property's use?", those questions leave out a very influential factor that must be taken into consideration by a good number of landowners.
Many of those current landowners who have chosen to put a conservation easement on all or a portion of their property have substantial means and high taxable incomes. That is untrue of many of us who have owned the land "from the ground up", so to speak, and who consider our land to be our major asset, our bank account for the future of ourselves and our families, our funding for health, education and retirement. We can ill afford to absorb the financial cost associated with a conservation easement. Tax benefits associated with them are fine and dandy if someone does have a high taxable income but most old-time land owners are not faced with that "problem" since they do not have that high income that needs sheltering.
Although in some states those tax benefits are marketable to those who need them, last I heard the going market price was in the neighborhood of 75% of the value of them ... which means that the land owner must be willing to sacrifice even more financial gain above and beyond the lost income that they might have received had they developed the land they own. I do not know if the sale of those tax benefits is taxable as ordinary income or not.
Whether or not any landowner might wish to leave their land undeveloped, there are few dollars available to purchase those development rights from them and none of which I am aware that would equal the financial benefit that they might reap through development of the land.
So if you wish landowners to make the choice to put their property under any kind of a conservation easement you must find a way to make such an easement of equal financial benefit to them. Those "tax benefits" that people like to point to are only a benefit to those with high taxable income. If an "old timer" land owner has the option of selling their land in one piece to one of the mega-rich that have flooded into the West in recent years at a price equal to or in excess of the financial gain they might receive from development of the land, that new and much-richer land owner might well be prone to put a tax-deductible conservation easement across all or a portion of the land ... and be able to reap those tax benefits by doing so.
But even in an estate tax instance, that financial numbers game can seriously go awry and negatively effect many generations in families who count their land as their major asset and have spent a lifetime paying for it.
Legally, any easement is a burden to the underlying estate ... the land over which the easement for any purpose is given. However, in my own opinion no easement of any kind is ".. an infringement on property rights" unless it was TAKEN from the land owner against their wishes ~ which is not at all what a title insurance company would consider it to be!!!
My personal expectation is that I should be allowed the use of my land AS ZONED when I purchased it with a density no less than the zone allows, whether or not I ever choose to excise that option.
The details and controversies regarding the use of land throughout the West has many similarities and the attitudes and opinions that can negatively effect any owner of private property travels across state lines quite rapidly.
Planning nor zoning eliminates the popular movements that wish to TAKE private property rights from those who own the land they covet. The more dense the population becomes throughout the West the more adamant and demanding is the "NIMBY" philosophy.
With or without planning and zoning the RIGHT answer remains as previously stated:
"The issue is private property rights. If you want to determine how the property is used.....buy it. If not let the owner decide what is best for his investment."
The fact an owner might be limited to some degree by zoning placed on the property many years ago prior to their purchase of it does not change that answer.
To zone or re-zone to prohibit the use of land by a property owner is unjust and contrary to what any reasonable person ought to be able to depend upon in the USA.
Before you wish it to be otherwise you need to visit other countries in the world to see just exactly "what happens then".
So it seems that the argument here is philosophical and where, of course, we differ. Thanks for the last post - the clarification at the end regarding expectations and what the rules were when property was purchased helped me see your point.
The difficulty I have is that, in so many cases and places, people didn't make choices to plan/zone/whatever years ago, and suddenly the consequences of growth have caught up. I don't believe you can make the argument that we can't begin trying to deal with these issues now simply because we didn't do anything historically. Just because we made poor land use decisions in the past doesn't mean we have to continue them. I acknowledge that this is hard for long-time large landowners.
That said, I have to ask the question - what are expectations? When you bought that farm 34 years ago, did you do so with the expectation that you'd cash in and make a killing? Probably not, though i don't want to make any assumptions. Most large landowners, as susan has so well illustrated, view their "open space" as an economic landscape, a working landscape, but that doesn't mean they bought it with the economic expectation that they'd one day develop it. Circumstances simply changed and development became a very lucrative option.
But again - what are expectations? Every western state (every state, for that matter), provides specific guidelines local gov'ts must use when evaluating new development. In Mt, developing in an unplanned, unzoned area is risky business. There is no guarantee. The state of MT guarantees that you get one lot per 160 acres; any denser and you've got to go through review. And as soon as you have to go through review, your expectations necessarily get a bit shaky. You aren't guaranteed anything.
I'm not trying to callously brush aside the needs and interests of large landowners. I am, however, saying that the choices they make have impacts - impacts which affect things like traffic patterns, water quality, emergency services, etc. - and that this needs to be realized (and dealt with, which is what the "tools" intend to do). And often, the more far-flung the development, the more difficult it is to mitigate impact. You cannot lose sight of this and simply have a "landowner knows best" attitude.
1. Tools DO work but they don't solve all the problems. Most people I have talked to do not think growth is "under control". Don't stop offering these tools. Don't ignore zoning proposals. Instead roll up your sleeves and get involved in the process. Continue to use all resources available. But we need more. Conservation easements are a personal , voluntary choice, entered into after carefully weighing the costs in $$$ and future options for you and your heirs. Only you can determine if the incentives are enough and the easement helps you meet your goals.
The scary thing about conservation easements to me is who holds the easement (the trustee). Can the trustee sell the easement to another party? It is very important to get it clearly stated and in writing exactly what is expected of you by the trustee and is that binding if the easement is sold to another trustee that may have a different interpretation of "development". One family found out they could not let their grandkids raise 4H goats on their cattle ranch. Is a cell phone tower or a satellite dish a no-no? What about a windmill? Or solar panels? Or a bank of solar panels? What new piece of "gotta have it" technology is going to come down the road 20 years from now that you won't be able to have?
2. Patience, By J. We got a long way to go here. New West wants this 700 word bites and I'm doing it in 900+ word bites. I told them this goes deep. I can't do it in sound bites. You're going to have to trust me to do it my way. I suppose you want to know where I am going -
First article: Overall layout
This article: We hoped tools would make more of an impact. Why not?
Next article: What we have tried is a competitive strategy and urban usually wins and rural loses. Why is that?
Next article: What about a cooperative approach? What would it look like? Why do I think it will work?
Next article: How do we develop a cooperative approach? It's already underway. We just need to conciously work at it - through media, tours, meetings. We are working on it right here, through New West. The feedback feature is great. We can sort out what we think is important and put it to work.
It is all about how it works, not how it looks. And that goes back to a very fundamental level. In your daily life, do you understand by what mechanisms this place provides the things you want? That's sense of place. Where does your food come from? Where do your clothes, car, everything you use come from? If you like the view, what is protecting your view? Do you have any control over your view? Who does? If you can see the stars at night, what is underpinning that (dark skies ordinance) or threatening that (yard lights)?
Every choice you make (and others make) has an impact. Some impacts are visible like throwing a rock in a pool of water, some hidden like throwing a rock on the ground. Physics: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Who or what are you supporting with each of your consumer choices?
Every action has consequences - some positive, some negative. If you can't see both sides of the proposal, you are not ready to make a choice. Choice is a balancing act. Finding that point where the positives balance out the negatives. Each of us has to weigh it out for ourselves.
Most people know very little about the place they live in. In the West you can put yourself at risk by not understanding the potential for avalanches, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, water shortages. Many people assume it is just like the last place they lived in and it's not. They do what they always did and are surprised when the outcome is not what they expected. I met a guy from Iowa who brought his special never-fail corn seed out to his new place in Montana and it failed miserably. One of my neighbors was a wildlife biologist. He put in landscaping, all plants that he knew deer were fond of. He was appalled that the deer came and ate them all down to the ground! A lady in a horticulture class asked the prof why her lemon tree wasn't doing well. She had never had that trouble before. She was from Hamilton, Montana. The prof asked where she lived before. San Diego, she replied.
That said ~ those opinions expressed ~ I do not believe The Issue, most particularly regarding "open space" that is privately owned, is dependent upon, nor are popular movements motivated by, zoning ~ either the existence of it or the lack of it. If zoning and long-term land planning eliminated threats and fears that many land owners now feel are pressing in upon them, then I would certainly not share those fears in my state or county. The current movements that are most scary to land owners are the desires of many people to basically eliminate the right to use private property owned by other persons for any purpose ~ perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but not by much. It all seems to be a desire to sterilize one person's property for the primary benefit of other people who have made no contribution whatsoever to it ~ either to purchase it or to maintain it or to pay any of the other expensive encumbrances that accompany property ownership over a long period of time.
When you made your own major investments, assuming that you might have made some in stocks or bonds or securities of some kind or nature, what were your expectations when you did so? Did you make those investments of whatever kind and nature in order to donate them to a charitable cause? ~ a cause to be determined by someone other than yourself? Or did you make those investments with the intent that they provide for you and for your family? Did you plan for, and expect, those investments, those assets to appreciate in value? If they met those goals or exceeded them would you feel obligated to apologize to anyone for having made a wise choice when your money was thus invested? Would you feel obligated to share your good fortune with non-contributing members of The Public? Or is that obligation only relegated to those of us who chose to invest in land?
In my lifetime there have been few, if any, large parcels of land purchased anywhere near an urban area throughout the West that would stand alone with the income derived from it ~ "stand alone" equaling produce enough income to return a reasonable interest on the money needed to make the downpayment, self-support the payments made for the balance of the purchase price, and support and educate a family who lived upon it. The break-even or even the survival operation of most family farms and ranches demand that one or more members of a family living there work in town in order to keep groceries on the table and shoes on the kids' feet. Even then most must borrow operating capitol and go into debt to just continue operating at any level.
Do your homework on those issues. The average age of family farm and ranch owners is approximately 60 years of age. Younger family members who do not wish to raise their families at the poverty level or below have already moved to town, generations ago.
Comments made such as "When you bought that farm 34 years ago, did you do so with the expectation that you'd cash in and make a killing?" imply ~ shout from the rooftops, actually! ~ that if land was purchased at any time in the past with the expectation of the value of it keeping up with or exceeding the inflation of any other valuable commodity that a land owner is a nasty awful person. Was that you intent?
Any person with a brain weighs and values their investment in real estate of any kind with an eye to its future value. I can not speak for those who own land that was inherited or gifted to them since I have never been in that position.
Circumstances don't "simply change" for a rural land owner any more so than they do for urban dwellers. I believe that Susan in this article and in her previous article made a point of explaining that her examples were stereotypes and were not meant to include every land owner nor every urban dweller. However, when identifying the similarities between the two she may have forgotten to emphasize the common needs to survive, to pay the bills, to feed the family, to educate the children and to provide for the health and care of the elderly.
Most might find it ludicrous to suggest taking a public vote on when they should sell any of their major assets or investments and/or at what price or for what purpose. Yet those same people seem to have no hesitation voicing their desire to the control the land investments owned by others.
Think about it. Is what is good for the goose NOT good for the gander? Is it a good thing for the fox to guard the hen house? Does it all depend upon whether YOU are the goose or the gander, the fox or the hen? Maybe so?
Your research is incomplete if you are assuming that development rules and regulations in other states have failed to mitigate impact. There are many good and reasonable examples throughout the West for the state of Montana to investigate.
But not a one of them has lessened the continuing demands voiced by that group of persons AKA the "NIMBY" groups.
Rest assured that it IS the prevalence of those people and their continually growing numbers that will be a prime motivating factor for a whole big bunch of land owners to develop their properties as quickly and as densely as possible ~ before that right is taken from them ~ which IS what they fear most. I know. I am one of them.
You state in your comments, Susan, that you are intending to promote "a cooperative approach". The word "cooperative" by definition implies a mutual, shared, two-way collaborative. It will be very interesting to know just what and how you intend to share ~ other than asking a private property owner to "share" all they've worked for during their lifetime with non-contributing parties! If you intend to ask us to contribute our land to The Public Good, then you should take time to consider the fact that The Public was not very Good about showing up when the payments came due or the fenced needed fixing. Please consider those truths as you write!
I will look forward to reading your next adventuresome article! ;-)
Which no one can deny,
But if you look throughout The West
Examples meet the eye.
There's those that tried and those that failed;
There's those who reaped success.
Don't try to reinvent the wheel
To lessen your distress.
That's not to say or just assume
That any change the fear
That's felt by owners of the land,
The land that we hold dear.
But that is not The Goal me-thinks;
I hope that I am wrong.
PROVE ME WRONG with your next post!!!
I'll dance and sing a song!!!
(... unless, of course, that would just make it all WORSE and more scary than ever ...)
Now we see environmental groups attempting to control native hunting privileges and land use in the arctic under the guise of imagined global warming 45 years from now.
Every bit of conservation easement land should be taxed at the same rate as any other property of like value. If someone wants to give away a million dollars worth of real estate, then the recipient should be required to pay taxes on the gift and on the value of the land. Other taxpayers in the area should NOT be required to make up the difference themselves in the tax base.
Then community interest must get involved.
Is my nose as important as your fists?--or less?--or more?
It becomes a community problem when your private property affects my interests...
The name you claim to be your own
Does not concur with fact
Of life or times of Famous Man;
By MUCH your words have lacked!
The REAL Jedediah Smith
For whom a Park is named
Would never once have claimed the land
He crossed that made him famed!
That "nose" you claim to be your own
Is what infringes ON
The land you claim is full of "fists";
The FIRST to rise at dawn.
It is the "nose" that you would like
To call "community"
That interferes and covets all
Traditions here to see.
Self-righteous "noses" such as yours
Deserve the largest "fist"
To SAVE communities you've entered
With self-righteous gist.
The man whose name you choose to slander
Never chose to TAKE
The land throughout The West he loved.
Such comments he'd not make.
So take YOUR "fist" and poke YOUR "nose"
'Cause like The Name you smear,
Land owners now will meet their deaths
With rifles you will hear.
A thief is a thief is a thief ... no matter the color of the clothing he wears ...
How ... uh ... errr ... NICE it is to have you back on line ... in spite of the fact your caretakers in that facility you've been in for sooooo long promised they wouldn't allow you use of a computer until you'd recovered ... but whatha heck!!! It is sooooo very nice of you to attempt to share what you've learned there in rehab! Thank you! The fact you're trying means that there might be some hope for you yet?!!? ... so don't give up now!!!
When I heard about your funeral I didn't attend, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
And now heeerrrrreee you ARE! ~ apparently NOT dead yet??!
For those of you who have not met mike-with-the-little....m before, messages such as the one above are his specialty! He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of anyone I know. He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire ~ a modest little person, with much to be modest about.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
As you can tell, I am one of his friends!
Susan Duncan's new column is posted...
You can read it here:
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/redefining_urban_and_rural_agriculture_loses_without_planning/C396/L396/
Thanks!