Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Just before the county Board of Supervisors seemed likely to reverse itself and allow Justin Askins into the program, lawyer Roy Thorpe pointed out that Askins probably would not qualify for a related tax break because he doesn't plan to ever develop his land.
The supervisors gave Askins three weeks to decide whether he still wanted to join the Elliston/Pedlar Hills agricultural and forestal district, which would restrict his ability to develop his 140 acres near Ironto until December 1997.
Askins said the tax break - just $175 a year - really wouldn't matter to him, and he viewed joining the district as a short-term step before permanently surrendering development rights in the future via a conservation easement. He seemed surprised by Thorpe's interjection, however, and did not protest when the supervisors tabled his request.
The case has raised eyebrows among New River Valley environmentalists, who see it as just the latest example of the board's bias against preservation.
Askins believes the supervisors - in particular his neighboring landowner, Supervisor Joe Stewart - unfairly singled him out because he wants to preserve his land as undeveloped open space.
Stewart, 79, is a beef cattle farmer and livestock auctioneer who participates in the agricultural and forestal district program through his farms and timberland in Elliston and Riner.
On Oct. 11, the board, at Stewart's insistence, separated Askins' request for inclusion in the agricultural and forestal district program from seven other applicants. While those other 864 acres breezed through by 5-2 votes, the supervisors nixed Askins' by a 4-3 count. Joining the agricultural and forestal district program is generally a first step toward applying to join the land-use assessment and taxation program, which gives tax breaks to farmers and foresters who declare their intent to not develop their land.
Ten months ago, the board frustrated environmentalists and planned-growth advocates by rejecting a sweeping plan to encourage the preservation of Montgomery's remaining open, rural land. That conservation and development plan included a recommendation that the county add open space to the uses that qualify for the land-use tax break.
But, Thorpe pointed out, under current law only farming, horticulture and logging are granted such breaks.
Askins is a Radford University English professor who teaches and writes about "deep ecology," a philosophy that grew out of 1970s nature writing and tries to re-establish the connection of people to the natural environment.
Such a connection is why Askins never wants to develop, log or farm most of his 140 acres at Reese Hollow near Ironto. Askins keeps a teepee on a former cabin site on the land, which sits above the North Fork of the Roanoke River and on the ridge behind the popular Mountain View Italian Kitchen on North Fork Road.
Askins is a wild-haired, disheveled combination of college professor and nature mystic. On the one hand, he argued that protecting open space and allowing tax breaks could actually increase the value of adjoining land and therefore the taxes the county takes in. But on the other, he spoke of staying overnight in his teepee and talking to the animals who live in Reese Hollow to ask them what to do about the supervisors' earlier decision.
by CNB