THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120284
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: BY DONALD E. BABCOCK
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
The Agricultural Reserve Program, like the Sandbridge sand-replenishment program, proposes to preserve the lifestyle of a select few at a frightful cost to taxpayers. This preservation is to be accomplished by thwarting basic economics, which ultimately drives and controls all our lives.
Could a body described as ``the committee advocating the purchase of development rights'' be expected to recommend otherwise? Membership in the ad-hoc committee that produced the ARP seems to have been limited to farm lobbyists and environmentalists. Conspicuously absent are the folks who built, improve and make the city go: business people.
All else aside, the committee must be given credit for being candid about who will pay for its grand scheme: the taxpayers. It also says up front that it has made made no attempt to estimate the cost; the committee just says it will be a lot.
Why would the environmentalists hitch up with farmers who they normally say rape the soil, destroy wildlife habitat and pollute our streams with fertilizer and pesticide runoff? Because they see a chance to get into the taxpayers' pocket. Historically, farmers have been very successful at this: price supports, set-asides, land banks, special tax breaks, food stamps . . .
Let's explore the definition of farmer. Is it one who farms full-time or part-time or just owns agriculturally zoned land? How much? Must his farm be a viable enterprise? It's interesting to note that an archaic definition of farmer is: one who has paid for and holds a concession on the rights of collecting and retaining taxes.
It is probably more important to define developmental rights. A precedent exists in the Bayville Farm caper. The owners gave the development rights to the city. Quaint, picturesque Bayville dairy farm would go on forever. Everyone was sure there was complete understanding . . . until the owners announced they were going to substitute golf tees for cow teats.
Much is made of the fact that farming is capital-intensive. A large part of the high cost is high local land prices. The historic method of overcoming this problem was to migrate to where land was cheaper. Westward ho! The ARP proposes using taxpayer dollars to eliminate the inconvenience of moving.
Participation in ARP will, of course, be voluntary. Sure! ``(A)dvocates emphasize that purchasing development rights in itself does not halt development or preserve farming. Other planning tools must be used to control development on properties that are not part of the program.'' For rural landowners that means: Take the taxpayers' money or get thumped with planning tools! If existing planning tools are available, why not use them on all properties and save the taxpayers a lot of money?
Could the ARP be fairly, equitably and effectively administered by the proposed special board? In val-uing and selecting a property for inclusion, this board would look at all sorts of factors,including cultural significance. What's that? Yours, mine or theirs? Who will be on the board? A large stable of multidisciplined experts will obviously have to be available to assist in conducting the evaluation. In-house or outside help? At what cost?
You can rest assured the board's actions will be challenged in court. To do a proper job on the list of factors will undoubtedly take years, not counting time for lawsuits and appeals. Taxpayers' money will be devoured at a prodigious rate. Is cultural significance rated on a scale of 1 to 10? What is it? Would a vintage WPA two-holer on a property be a capital investment, an environmental impact or just culturally significant? If isolated properties are selected shotgun-style, wouldn't that be tantamount to spot zoning? Isn't sale in a free market the only proven mechanism for determining the true worth of all attributes of a property?
Although there seems to be total agreement that no one knows what the cost of the program will be, Mayor Meyera Oberndorf and Vice Mayor Will Sessoms have city staff working up probably equally nebulous costs of building city services for comparison. Concurrently, builder/Realtor Herb Culpepper, president of the Back Bay-Pungo Civic League, says (with tongue in cheek?), ``I'm trying to keep an open mind. . . ''
Meanwhile, the committee is pitching the program, looking for mechanisms to extract the money less painfully from the taxpayer and hoping it can raise 25 percent of the funds from outside sources - taxpayers wearing another hat.
To amount to anything, ARP will obviously cost at least $100 million. Why not stop all expenditures until the unpaid volunteers deliver to the mayor, with appropriate ceremony, firm commitments from verifiable sources to fund $25 million of the project? MEMO: Mr. Babcock is a resident of Virginia Beach.
by CNB