By Rick Steinhardt
Criticism of zoning laws comes from those who see the restrictions as a violation of property rights, stripping property owners of their right to unencumbered use of their land. The argument most often made is that property owners know their land best and have an interest in preserving it. This is very superficial, as the development interests of one person can easily conflict with the character of the neighborhood and the ecology of the environment.
Draining a wet land to provide more pasture, building a dock over the eel grass that forage fish need for spawning, building right up to the property line or shoreline, elimination of buffer zones with impervious surfaces are a few of many possible conflicts that should be avoided by zoning enforcement.
Another argument is that zoning is a “taking” of private land for public purposes. Zoning has been a matter for regulation by law since ancient times where government has an overwhelming interest in public welfare. Irrigation zones along the Nile river that stemmed from public need are actually thought to have created government historically. A new zoning law raises the issue of compensation, and there is a complex body of law relating to that issue. It is by no means certain that a new zoning “taking” automatically involves compensation, especially where there is an overriding public interest.
Zoning often protects individual property owners directly as when it separates residential areas from, for example, factory-farming of hogs. As San Juan County’s population has increased from only a few thousand to over 16,000 today, zoning and other land use regulations have become ever more important. In the larger perspective, the perceived “burdens” of zoning are actually beneficial for both the individual and our community.
Rick Steinhardt is a Deer Harbor resident
You are one of the 16,000 and so am I. To throw in factory farming of hogs, for example, is way off base. But I can forsee people you know applying for a grant to study it.
Yes zoning is an important aspect of home ownership but when the county changes zoning rights as in the whole guest house issue then the home owner suffers a value loss.Telling a 20 acre property owner that he can nolonger build a guest house several years after he purchased his home is bit rough…
Rick: Didn’t you mean to refer to land use rules rather than zoning laws? EIther way, your arguments are equally valid. Your use of the hog farm analogy is spot on, except critics will miss the point, nit and say we don’t have any here. Closer to home, I was very thankful recently that the land use regs for rural farm forest helped me stop in his tracks a neighbor who was developing next door an illegal sand and gravel pit. Do those who speak out against land use laws really want to give their neighbors freedom to do that and other actions that will degrade their life style and the value of their properties?
Here again we see the “emotional” and extreme or imaginary examples of the conservation/environmentalist views. Zoning laws prohibit certain types of businesses in certain areas. That covers problems with gravel pits and factory hog farms. On the other hand, the extreme infringement on personal property rights through CAO type land-use regulations forced on residential private property owners is getting way out of control. The cry that this “broad-brush” form of extreme environmental regulation is in and for the good of all is absurd at best. Imposing upon the responsible citizens of this County the “great solution” to a problem that is not been identified and does not exist is a monument to narrow minded controlling elitists looking for something or someone to control.
There is a movement in this country, and elsewhere, to create “equity and justice” in economics and property. In this movement individual private property owners are viewed as evil, anti-environmentalist, anti-conservationist, profiting from and pillaging the land at the expense of everyone else. The movement seeks to eventually communalize all land and no private property owners will exist. In that end result the value of the property and any assets built upon it are controlled by the commune. What the person leasing or renting the property can do with it as well as how much income can be made while on the property is controlled by the commune. You say, “That is never going to happen here.” Really? Think about, it would be for the good of all. Are you against a healthy environment, equality and justice? You must be if you are against the above.
How does it happen? A little bit at a time. You start with vague and incredibly restrictive CAO land-use regulations. Add a County Council person who has spent her entire adult life working for global communalization and we’re well on our way. Little by little “great environmental solutions,” that restrict and/or suppress our rights, can be applied were in reality no problem actually exists.
Yawn.