Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 1, 1993 TAG: 9312010245
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE and GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Corell and her husband, James, own a cattle and hay farm in Giles County. The Appalachian Trail, part of the National Park System, runs through the county. The Corells have heard plenty about the fights that go on when the agency sets out to acquire private property to add to the trail.
"Those park people are very radical people," Corell said. "They get whatever they want."
Not that the Park Service is eyeing their land, she said, but "we haven't seen maps or anything, so who knows what they're going to do."
The Corells were among 90 people who attended the seminar "This Land is Your Land - Or Is It?" as part of the Virginia Farm Bureau's three-day annual convention, held in Roanoke. Two of the speakers live near federal parks in Virginia and told how they found out the agency was studying and mapping their property for possible acquisition.
Their stories illustrate a growing grass-roots movement among property owners, here and across the country, to staunch what they see as overzealous preservation efforts and environmental rule-making.
Some argue that the rush to preserve scenic views, rivers, endangered species, wetlands and other natural resources unfairly restricts their rights to use their land as they see fit and often devalues their property.
They are butting heads with environmental groups, now well-heeled in the public policy arena after two decades of organizing and lobbying, in one of the most controversial issues of the day.
In Richmond, a joint legislative subcommittee assigned to study the issue held a public hearing Tuesday by coincidence.
Environmental advocates dominated the audience and rose before the panel with prophecies of doom and ruin.
They said that environmental regulations are designed to protect public health and welfare and to manage natural resources for the benefit and enjoyment of everyone.
The issue of property "takings" comes in two forms. One is when the government physically takes private property for the public interest, such as a road or a park, and must pay the landowner fair market value.
The other form is a regulatory taking, in which a law or regulation restricts land use, such as banning subdivision development in a wetland, and diminishes the property value.
The legislative panel, headed by Del. Glenn Croshaw, D-Virginia Beach, is studying whether the state should compensate landowners when environmental or zoning regulations limit development.
The Virginia Association of Realtors and the Virginia Farm Bureau advocate studying the idea as a way of protecting landowners from costly environmental restrictions, such as the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act.
Environmentalists fear a taking law would itself carry huge costs. "By threatening the state that you have to pay to regulate, the state just won't regulate," one woman told the legislators.
Last year, 31 states considered expanding property rights, and five passed bills to do so, according to Catharine Gilliam of the American Resources Information Network in Alexandria.
Governors in three of the five states vetoed the bills, however, Gilliam added.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that a landowner must be compensated if a regulation renders the property economically worthless.
But most cases aren't that severe, said Jesse Richardson, a Blacksburg lawyer specializing in property law who spoke at the Farm Bureau seminar, so the question of what should be done about regulatory taking remains hotly debated.
Only a few regulatory taking cases have been filed in Virginia, Richardson said, and the state's courts generally have favored landowners.
He and the other two speakers - Alice Menks, a former president of the nonprofit Virginians for Property Rights, and Margery Pinkerton, a lawyer specializing in historic designations - urged the farmers and other landowners to find out more about the complicated issue, work together and write their state and federal legislators.
"There are enemies to private property rights everywhere," Menks said.
Historic and scenic designations that carry land-use restrictions unfairly burden property owners, she said. So do laws such as the Endangered Species Act, she said.
"Under that act, every plant and animal is protected - except humans," Pinkerton said.
Neil Houff is especially worried about the act, which prohibits any activity that may harm endangered species or their habitat.
Houff runs a pesticide and fertilizer application business in Rockingham County, and worries the law will be "a nightmare to keep up with."
And, like Shirley Corell, Houff is worried about the National Park Service. He has an interest in 500 acres of his family's farm in the Shenandoah Valley, where Civil War soldiers, American Revolutionaries and Indians before them fought and died.
Under the Park Service's broad definition of a battlefield worthy of preservation, "there aren't too many miles in the Shenandoah Valley" that would be safe, Houff said.
by CNB