Freedom to Farm or Bust

Martha Boneta at Liberty Farm
Photo credit: Susan Lider

Virginia, like many other states, offers land preservation tax credits of $100 million a year.  Land preservation tax credits are tied to conservation easements which are binding agreements between a land preservation trust (usually a NGO) and a farmer who receives tax breaks in exchange for “legally restricting future development of their property” for a number of years or in perpetuity, as specified in the contract.

Martha Boneta, who was instrumental in passing the two bills now dubbed Boneta Bill-1 and Boneta Bill-2, bought a farm that had a conservation easement which was administered by the Piedmont Environmental Council, a non-governmental organization, and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a state government agency.

The Piedmont Environmental Council is a conservation group that holds 51 easements on 7,600 acres of land in Virginia. According to Kevin Mooney, when Boneta bought her farm in 2006, “she did not receive either tax breaks or money.”

Boneta purchased her 64-acre Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia, from the Piedmont Environmental Council with the easement already in place from the previous owner. For eight years, Boneta fought the PEC’s frequent farm and intrusive closet inspections, video and photographic surveillance, and other forms of excessive harassment.

Bryant Osborn wrote in Culpeper Star Exponent, “Martha has charged that PEC has trespassed repeatedly on her farm and has attempted to drive her off the farm through unwarranted and overly invasive conservation easement inspections, and an IRS audit she says was instigated by one of PEC’s board members.”

Susan Lider said in a press release, “PEC was caught on video engaging in abusive inspections that involved interrogations and demands to inspect closets, attics, and even photographing the farmer’s laundry.”

The Boneta Bill 1, HB 268, which became law in Virginia with bipartisan support on July 1, 2014, protects “certain activities at agricultural operations from local regulation in the absence of substantial impacts on the public welfare.” This is meant to protect farmers like Martha from intrusive local governments that can go to excessive lengths to harass and prevent an honest farmer from engaging in simple farm activities such as growing organic vegetables, selling sheared wool, and jars of honey.

The Boneta Bill 2, HB 1488, which passed both houses in February 2015, and is awaiting the governor’s action by March 29, 2015, “allows a landowner or other party to a conservation easement to request that the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation use the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act to resolve a dispute relating to the interpretation of the easement.” If and when the bill is signed by the governor, it would control land trusts that currently have few standards, predictability, accountability, consistency, or transparency.

Martha Boneta’s farm has been in the crosshairs of PEC from the beginning but she has not given up. After a November 6, 2014 hearing in front of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a motion to take over all easement enforcement, if both Martha Boneta and PEC agreed, resulted in a trustee vote of 6-0 to approve a resolution. The VOF was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1966 to promote land conservation and to monitor easements.

If you might think that Boneta’s troubles are over, you would be wrong.  Kevin Mooney reported that, on December 10, 2014, the PEC’s attorney sent an email to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation declining the amendment proposed by VOF on grounds that it “would likely confer improper private benefits” to Martha Boneta.

In the face of this “preposterous” claim, Bonner Cohen of the National Center for Public Policy said, “For eight years, she has been subjected to harassment and humiliation by the PEC’s reckless enforcement of the easement, and she has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending herself. Whatever the original intent of Virginia’s conservation easement statute, the PEC’s well-documented deplorable behavior calls out for the General Assembly to reform the program, lest other landowners be subjected to the hell she has gone through.”

Back to square one, Martha Boneta refiled a lawsuit in Fauquier County Circuit Court on March 4, 2015 against PEC, the non-profit land trust in which she alleges that “PEC colluded with realtors and government officials to issue zoning citations against her property in order to force her into selling her farm.” Martha Boneta had withdrawn the original lawsuit in order to allow the opportunity of mediation. Since the mediation has failed, she refiled her lawsuit.

According to a press release of March 5, 2015, “Martha also is considering filing a second lawsuit at the federal level against PEC, based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, commonly known as RICO.”



Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson portrait taken at a Spotsylvania County farm on April 26, 1863, seven days before his mortal wounding at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia   Photo: Wikipedia image

New evidence emerged that constitutes the basis of the federal RICO lawsuit. In the signed and filed versions of the easement, PEC makes the claim that Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederate War General, encamped on Martha’s property on the evening of July 18, 1861. According to the press release, “Historical accounts of Jackson’s movements in Fauquier County place the encampment at another location.” https://books.google.com/books?id=IZI_y8Td5HUC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=%22STonewall+Jackson%22+Paris%2c+Virginia%22&source=bl&ots=2fmgq8IkxJ&sig=CWgTBXszYAzp-eejTIl_M-OHFC8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ujzTVMbZLMehgwTAkYPQBw&ved=0CGgQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22STonewall%20Jackson&f=false

The press release continues, PEC “makes a similar historical claim about Jackson’s whereabouts in the easement documents it has associated with Ovoka Farm, also located in Paris, but on a separate parcel of land from Liberty Farm.”  https://vof.app.box.com/s/tycexiapro4vhkl9smsvflfwp7oae7kd/1/2913997329/24711587393/1

This historical connection with Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson hyped the price of Liberty Farm beyond its actual value, thus Boneta paid $425,000 in 2006. She lost revenue for two years when she was told to fence off 18 acres of the Oak Grove section of the property where no farming was allowed because of the stated connection with the now-debunked historical encampment.

Stay tuned for the next development from Liberty Farm, Virginia, where a determined American is fighting for her farming rights and indirectly ours against a well-funded environmental goliath.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

Conservation Easements for Unsuspecting Farmers

Paris Barn Virginia (Martha Boneta's Farm)

After Delegate Bobby Orrock introduced on January 8, 2014, HB 268 http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?141+sum+HB268,
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.