Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 31, 1995 TAG: 9507310024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARBARA McEWAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Grissom and his wife, owners of 165 acres along a mountain ridge in southeast Roanoke Country, have been planning to convert the acreage to residential development by subdividing it. Money gained would be for their retirement.
Grissom apparently believes he and his wife are the only Americans whose plans for the future have ever been thwarted. Indeed, most if not all of us have had to change our expectations at one point or another. Spouses die unexpectedly, jobs are terminated equally unexpectedly. The economy doesn't cooperate. A new airport must be sited on property that includes ours. The logical boost to regional prosperity is determined to be tourism, with outstanding views of mountains and valleys a prime attraction.
We all pay taxes on private land. Yet this does not mean we own it in an absolute sense. Rather, we are temporary custodians of it. Robinson Crusoe could do whatever he wanted on his island as long as he was its sole resident. Whatever the results of what he did, they affected only him. In the early years of our nation this was also true to a large extent, but only because our population was small and our resources still vast. Today this is no longer the case. The closer we are to neighbors, the more rules and regulations we must expect.
We have codes that tell us how far we can build from property lines, how our houses must be constructed, where we can put septic tanks and wells, what we must do to control water drainage off our land. Even though we pay taxes on it, we cannot put a store on property we own if the land is zoned residential. If Grissom thinks he can develop his land and build houses any way he chooses right now just because he's paid taxes for years, he has not checked with his county building inspector or the Virginia Department of Transportation.
It is odd that people in rural areas should think they constitute a special case when it comes to determining what they can and cannot do with their property. It is particularly strange at a time when the public as a whole is beginning to increasingly value rural acreage as less and less is left.
Other protesters appear to be like the Grissoms: They want as much money as possible for this resource regardless of how their proposed action might impinge on others. Nor do they seem to understand how other values they presumably cherish will affect themselves as more people must be provided for. More people mean more fire and police protection, more schools, more roads, more taxes to pay for it all.
Do rural residents really want to destroy the very elements that make their area rural? If they want a more urban setting, why don't they sell out and move to the city?
Some 25 years ago, my husband and I moved from Cleveland to Bedford County and bought 120 acres of mountainside, 12 of which was in hayfield, the remainder in woods. With a magnificent view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it was to be our retirement home. As with so many youthful dreams, this one will not materialize as envisioned. Because of my husband's health, we eventually had to sell it and move to smaller quarters.
In the interval, I have had plenty of time to observe the problems associated with rural land when for all practical purposes it is clearly nonagricultural. In this part of Virginia, its sale is dependent in large part on the general real-estate market in most of the states to the north and some to the south and west of us. If people who want to buy here can't sell their houses there, only a handful can afford to move. Even in the most exclusive subdivision, prime lots can take years to market.
Or land can be sold piecemeal along roads and rivers. With no overall plan, a hodgepodge will result. Is this what rural landowners want? Gas stations tucked amid a series of houses with a junkyard thrown in? Convenience stores sprouting at intersections generating more traffic? Fast-food restaurants next to churches? Oh yes, and the video outlet.
All of these are legitimate businesses. It's their placement that is of concern. Grouped together, they can be an asset. As a strip development, they remove the very qualities that people in the country presumably cherish. As with houses built on land of particular scenic beauty, each unit only detracts from the distinctive country atmosphere for others who live in the area or pass through.
Laws or codes preventing this may be "unfair" to certain individuals, but the welfare of our society as a whole is what must prevail. The heart of all these problems rests on the fact people tend to find it hard to believe that their own interests should not come first before community interests, and that the interpretation of others regarding how these dilemmas should be decided may well be the best over the long term.
Government is our means of resolving such conundrums. As for individual cases such as the Grissoms', if they do not want to site prospective houses in clusters to leave as much open area as possible and to cooperate in other ways to preserve public views of a priceless resource, they can always sell their land to someone who will and invest that money in other ways to provide for retirement.
How sad that the virtues of open space are so seldom appreciated until so little remains. Then we scurry around and have to dig deep into our pocketbooks in an attempt to save the last remains. It is costly, difficult and usually impossible to restore land that is "developed." If we had foresight, if we really loved our kids and grandkids, we would save as much countryside as possible so they, too, could know its joys.
Are we to leave our heirs only the leftovers and not the best America has to offer? As it is, we are altering land that will be here for many generations to come for the financial gratification of the present, temporary "owners."
Like it or not, we are all interrelated. None of us can produce everything we need or want on our own private plot. Most of our wants are material, but we also need to consider the requirements of our spirits. We trade with each other the things we have on our property or intellectually for those we don't. Civilization is a cooperative affair.
Barbara McEwan of Forest is the author of several books and numerous articles on landscaping and gardening.
by CNB