Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 9, 1993 TAG: 9310150385
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN MOSSER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What we heard all too often were expressions of fear of government, of fellow citizens, diminished property values, and losing the ``freedom to do whatever I want with my property.''
These fears are without foundation.
The present Initiative document consists primarily of the following components: an introduction that defines ``Open Space and Conservation and Development Planning;'' a chapter identifying ``Open Space Resources, Needs, and Priorities;'' a chapter identifying actual (presently in use) and possible tools to establish and protect open space; a chapter containing maps that identify the location of such open-spaced features as springs, caves and sinkholes, lands under land-use-value taxation and critical habitat, prime agricultural soils, 100-year-floodplain, wetlands and historic sites.
The final chapter makes recommendations on the best ways to use the existing tools, suggests ways in which those tools might be improved, and describes the kinds of new tools that might be considered for adoption in the future.
The document was conceived as a sort of ``how-to'' resource guide for use by citizens interested in preserving their lands as open space or protecting those lands they own that have open-space features from encroachment (if that is what they want to do).
Nevertheless, numerous citizens are fearful of what the Initiative might do to them or disappointed in what it won't do for them. Because the proposal is so misunderstood, virtually every speaker at the meeting who spoke against the plan did so by expressing antithetical points of view:
One voice decried the loss of ``landowner rights,'' and in the next breath expressed concern that a neighbor would sell out to developers and threaten his farming activities.
Another speaker, who characterized the plan as ``wimpy'' because it did not stop all development, is apparently willing to accept only a total moratorium on development or continue the status quo (rampant strip development that undercuts the viability of locally owned businesses in the town centers, housing developments that take the best farmland out of production, continued destruction of habitat).
One of the speakers opposed to the amendment lamented the fact that Toms Creek was more prone to flood his property now than before development had occurred in near by Blacksburg. The open-opace amendment would provide more, not less protection against the unfortunate consequences for agricultural lands of development.
Another speaker worried - rightly - about the fragmentation of farmland by developments and about the difficulty of working such small parcels profitably. Again, the Initiative tries to preserve the integrity of the family farm by offering incentives to landowners for alternative development strategies or nondevelopment options, such as conservation easements (a tax benefit) and streamlined Agricultural and Forestal District management, with increased vigilance to ensure that those who benefit are in fact in the program because of a desire to maintain their land in agricultural, forestal or open-space use.
A member of the Board of Supervisors declared in advance of the citizen input that he ``would not support [the plan], no way shape or form,'' suggesting that it was produced by ``people who don't own a foot of land.'' Yet I understand that this same speaker - one of the county's largest landowners - has some of his land in an open-space program, thereby enjoying large tax benefits subsidized by taxpayers, most of whom are quite happy to trade their tax dollars for the preservation of open lands.
All I ask opponents of the amendment to do is read the document. They should stop listening to nameless fears. They are being manipulated by self-interested politicians who willfully ignore the public good for private gain.
Let's stop the demagoguery and hypocrisy, the unscrupulous pushing of the fear buttons, and start talking about the good this initiative can do for all of us. The present proposal - widely and deeply misunderstood - is a plan that we can enact now, and it will provide more, not fewer, options to landowners.
\ Dan Mosser of Blacksburg is an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech.
by CNB