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| Paris Barn Virginia (Martha Boneta's Farm) |
and Senator Richard Stuart filed a companion bill, SB51, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?141+sum+SB51,
Delegate Bob Marshall introduced on January 17, 2014, HB 1219.
The first two bills reintroduced
the Right to Farm Act HB 1430 (Boneta Bill) which passed in the House but was
defeated in the Virginia Senate last year. I have discussed the battle in my
recent article, “Boneta Bill Part Deux.” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/60539
In case you wonder, why would
anyone care what is happening in another state, rest assured that it is coming
to your state or is already there. It is an important battle not just in
Virginia. Property owners and farmers are fined, bullied, and threatened around
the country based on zoning ordinances and environmental conservation easements
with onerous requirements and inspections.
HB 268 addresses agricultural
operations and local regulation of certain activities, “protecting customary
agritourism activities from local bans in the absence of substantial impacts on
the public welfare and requires certain localities to take certain factors into
account when regulating agritourism activities.”
Because local boards of
supervisors have abused their power in the past, “there has to be a basis in
health, safety, or public welfare for a local ordinance to restrict activities
such as agritourism, sale of agricultural or silvicultural products, related
items, preparation or sale of foods that already comply with state laws, and
other customary activities. Local boards are “prohibited from subjecting these
activities to a special-use permit requirement.”
Delegate Bob Marshall’s
bill HB 1219, introduced on January 17, 2014, “provides that local governments
violating constitutional rights through zoning shall pay their victims (1) the
amount of fines they sought to impose, and (2) actual damages including
attorney fees. Local government officials who intentionally violate this law
would also be liable.” http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?141+ful+HB1219
Had these bills been in
place, Martha Boneta would not have been bullied and threatened with $5,000
fines per day by her county government when she held a pumpkin carving party for
10-year olds on her own property.
Mark Fitzgibbons, a
Constitutional attorney, is of the opinion that “There is great but
underutilized precedent for remedies against government officials who abuse
their power to violate the rights of citizens. Virginians don’t need to go
broke protecting their rights on their own property.”
HB 1219 will “authorize
private citizens to file suit for damages, Virginia’s Attorney General to defend
the victims, and give whistleblower protection to government employees who
expose violations of this law.”
The problems with land use
restrictions in Virginia run deep. For example, a non-governmental organization
(NGO) based in Warrenton, Virginia, Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), with
its “comprehensive planning” of Virginia’s rural areas, has been successful in
blocking Disney from opening a theme park in Prince William County twenty years
ago.
More recently, PEC battled
Trump Virginia Acquisitions, LLC, who bought Patricia Kluge’s Estate Winery and
Vineyard in 2011 with the intent of expanding its dormant 9-hole golf course
into an 18-hole course. The problem was that 216 acres of the 1,200 acre
property had been placed by the former owner, Patricia Kluge, under “conservation
easement” in 2006.
A “conservation easement”
imposes certain restrictions on the homeowners’ use of their property in
exchange for tax breaks. According to Dr. Cohen, “golf courses with
conservation easements are common throughout the United States, including on
courses owned by Donald Trump.”
PEC considered the project
“inconsistent with the rural and agricultural character of the area,” citing
traffic and noise. “In addition to the traffic and noise impacts, we also have
concerns about water use, run-off, and septic issues.”
Martha Boneta had a
conservation easement with PEC when she bought her farm. Martha uses tires on
her property to “help hollow fields for plowing, train animals to move in a
certain direction, and assist in planting. PEC sued Boneta, saying that the
tires violated her agricultural conservation easement, and she was forced to
store them in an enclosure.” Tires were the
least of her numerous and constant problems with PEC. http://www.cfact.org/2013/11/05/trumping-a-golf-course-over-pec-adillos-in-northern-virginia/
On January 21, 2014, the
new Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, announced more than $1 million in
farmland preservation grants - “Eight localities receive funds to place working
farmlands under permanent conservation
easements.”
The counties of Albemarle,
Clarke, Fauquier, Isle of Wright, James City, Stafford, and the City of
Virginia Beach will receive $149,678.46 each. Rappahannock County will receive
$11,000. Since 2008, the Commonwealth of Virginia allocated $8.68 million in
state matching funds for permanent conservation easements.
“Localities must use the
grant monies to preserve farmland within their boundaries through local
Purchase of Development Right (PDR) programs. PDR programs compensate
landowners who work with localities to preserve their land permanently by
voluntarily placing a perpetual conservation easement on it.”
At a time when food is
expensive, we are using more crops for biofuels, and we have to import food from
other nations, the obvious and most important question is - why would a
landowner place good farmland under perpetual conservation easement in order to
preserve it? Preserve working farmland for what?
A quick check of United Nation’s
Agenda 21 40-chapter document on Sustainable Development, signed and adopted by
178 nations in 1992, reveals under Chapter 10 (Integrated Approach to the
Planning and Management of Land Resources) a section 10.7 (c) which mandates to
“establish a general framework for land use and physical planning within which
specialized and more detailed sectoral plans (e.g., for protected areas,
agriculture, forests, human settlements, rural developments) can be developed.”
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
Check the rural “comprehensive
planning” in your area in synch with UN Agenda 21 and see how much of your
property rights have already been taken away by regionalism, conservation
easements, and through zoning laws passed by Boards of Supervisors without your
knowledge, input, approval, or opportunity to vote.
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