UPCOMING:

 - Monday, May 21st - BOARD OF SUPERVISORS' WORK SESSION 5:00pm Courthouse
 - Wednesday, May 23rd - PLANNING COMMISSION 7:30pm Courthouse
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RURAL NELSON MINUTES
MAY 17TH, 2007
LAKE MONOCAN CLUBHOUSE

        Robert McSwain opened the meeting and introduced Rich Collins, Professor
of Urban and Environmental Planning at UVA, and founder of the Institute for
Environmental Negotiation.  The subject for the evening's discussion was
land use policies, and the balancing of individual property rights with
public needs.  In addition to his teaching, Rich has had extensive
experience in environmental mediation. 

        Rich began by commenting on the natural beauty of the landscape in Nelson
County, seen as he drove into the county from Charlottesville.  One of the
things he is proudest of is the passage of the Chesapeake Bay Land Use Bill,
which he worked very hard to see enacted.

        What are the consequences of our actions?  What are we trying to achieve?
Not just for us but for future generations if we don't take some positive
steps to ensure environmental health.  This is where discussions about
property rights and public needs should begin.  The work he is involved in
now is highly political, working with Native American Virginians on water
rights issues.

Rich began talking about the concept of land, the concept of property, and
the concept of rights.  The idea of certain steps taken for the public good
is not radical or new, it has always been the case.  When we disagree on
others' views we need to work hard to understand how they got those opinions
and what it is based on.  We have always needed to educate each other about
the laws and rights that have historically been part of the American
experience.  This is a very contentious area of the law.  People tend to mix
up law and moral claims when they talk about their property rights.  The
more people you have the more invasive our consumption patterns.  Pressure
on the land builds.  The challenge to our welfare at present is of a greater
severity that it has ever been before. 

Views about property differ depending on its type.  
AIR:  we don't think of air as property, we think of it as free, that we all 
have an equal claim to it.  We think that we should be able to do anything 
with it that we like.

WATER:  we consider it is central to our lives, just as with air.  We
understand that it is a community resource.  Its uses have to be evaluated
by the consequences for people upstream and downstream etc.  

LAND:  has the same values, but we DO think of it as property.  The character 
of that land is property. We have to look at land as property, but in order to 
achieve a sustainable future we must also look at the needs of the public for
ecological balance.  We can no longer look at land as always available.  The
potential for trouble that these limitations create is going to have to be
confronted in ways that are politically difficult.

Rick stopped at this point, and said he would count on Bill Wanner to help
make the evening a discussion, not a lecture.  Bill is the Senior Regional
Planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.  Bill came
up and joined Rich at the podium.  Bill brought up the issue of equity:  for
those who count on their land for their future financial well-being, how do
you deal with changing expectations for that land?  Rick responded by saying
that there are always winners and losers, but there are ways to soften the
blow.  There are tax incentives, outright grants, or conservation easements,
where farmers are allowed to continue doing their farming and continue to
own the land and live on it in exchange for giving up their development
rights.  Use of land can be restricted through zoning, and there will
always be those who expect to do anything they want no matter what the
regulations.  There are methods of compensating those who feel they have
lost out from an unfair application of regulations to their piece of
property.  What is fair socially and collectively is often not fair to the
individual.

Biscuit Run:  a huge forested tract near Charlottesville in Albemarle County
sold at a high price to developers for a large-scale multiuse development
containing 3,000 housing units.  Some environmentalists say it is best to
group development densely, assure high quality construction and get lots of
proffers.   Some say we should not allow any developments of this size for
the foreseeable future until the consequences are studied.  Big time
developers with deep pockets tend to jam the development pipeline, and plan
way more housing than will be needed in the foreseeable future.
Bill said that he questions the whole concept of mixed-use neighborhoods.
In a Biscuit Run development are we creating little enclaves that don't have
the diversity of neighborhoods or the population density of a town? 
Is there currently any state law that will require a builder to provide
space for schools, open land, etc.?  No, it is negotiated with each
development.  This process is dependent on the good faith of public
officials and their attitude towards growth.  The Growth Machine is driven
by the goal of constant economic expansion.  What we've been blinded to is
that you can have capitalism without constant growth.  This is the idea
behind sustainability.  There is an optimum situation for every community,
and its residents ought to be involved in determining what that is and
finding ways to maintain it.

In Nelson County, 40% of the population lives at or below the poverty line.
Many of these people are living on fixed incomes.  Property taxes are
constantly going up.  Is there any way that property taxes can be adjusted
to income levels?  There are short-term remedies, such as tax breaks.  But
perhaps the long-term answer is that growth doesn't pay for itself.  How bad
does the situation have to get before a community is willing to halt growth
and to take steps to ensure their future?  Where do you draw the money from
to provide the tax relief?  Pressures from Albemarle are spilling over into
Nelson. 

        Adequate housing is not a right, but most of us agree that it is desirable
for the community, not just the individuals concerned.  We have a mismatch
between the average income and the average housing price.  Some people have
to spend 40% or 50% of their income on housing.  We need to address this
issue with national policy.  Part of the tax on a multi-million dollar house
should go to provide adequate housing for others.  The market has not taken
care of this so far.  Land markets are different from other kinds of
markets.  The value of land is created because of something that has
happened in the community, not necessarily something done by the landowner.
The owner of that land should have to give part of that value back to the
community for the common good.

        The comment was made that values go up because individuals are trying to
better themselves.  Rich countered that developers are taking value that
they did not create.  Something is wrong when a developer offered the city
of Warrenton $112,000 per housing unit if the city would allow him to build
a mega-development. 

        What about the issue of currency exchange?  The Nelson County dollar cannot
compete with the Chicago dollar.  There is always going to be pressure to
raise prices since there is always someone from somewhere else that is
willing to pay the price.  Rich said that turning people away is now seen as
exclusionary.  It will have to come around to being seen as a right of the
community to say we want to stay this size for the following reasons of
sustainability.

        It was pointed out that one of the effects of Proposition 13 in California
was to ruin the school systems.  One of the good things it did was to
illuminate the consequences of development. 

        Rich and Bill were asked what they thought about using cluster development
to build affordable housing.  Bill pointed out that when cluster development
is used it's real tough to make those units affordable.  He said that
cluster developments do save the developer some costs in infrastructure but
a house sold at below market value is not necessarily affordable.  The Right
to Farm Law says that the farmer has the right to do what is necessary in
his agricultural processes whether or not they annoy suburbanites. 

        Does Virginia reset the land use tax yearly?  Rich replied that this is
locally designed.  The state makes recommendations, but localities are not
required to follow them.  Often social and economic values pervert the best
intentions of planners, such as when the land-rich benefit the most from
land use planning.

        What are the moral and ethical implications of planning that try to shift
the results of bad policy to another area? Americans are tolerating those
from other nations coming into the USA to do our dirty work.  Being illegal
they are very compliant.  We have low population growth; the illegal workers
have high population growth.  Local governments pay when immigration laws
are not enforced.  If a locality chooses not to worry about the source of
the problem (immigrants come looking for jobs) and works only to protect
itself, is this immoral or unethical?  Thinking bigger can help untangle the
source of problems.

        NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) should be changed to NINTGI - Now I Need to Get
Involved.  Working to learn about what creates the problem can help move the
discussion toward solutions.  Think upstream to search for the source of
problems.

        People seem to confuse their constitutional rights with assumptions about
their moral rights.  Governments have long had the right to regulate
property, through reasonable democratic processes.  The courts have upheld
this.  Some people think that the government should have more stringent
rules protecting property.  Unless we agree that government must make some
regulations for the benefit of all, we are in real trouble.

        Planners can often be compromisers - they don't want to be fired - as they
were in Loudon County.  It is hard to agree on just when capacity is
reached, as in evaluating how much water will be needed to fulfill the needs
of a certain growth pattern.

        In Nelson County we are in a pattern of lots of feedback from residents in
the comprehensive plan, which is not translated into the zoning plan.  Are
there any suggestions for how to avoid this, as we are about to enter the
whole process again?  The plan is only a statement of intention.  The fight
comes in how to make the intentions law.  There is no way to avoid the
tension inherent in the processes.  Involving those who disagree in
discussions is good, especially if it can be done without shouting.  Try
talking about the consequences of the various ideas.  Nelson County may find
it more contentious this time around to develop the next comprehensive plan,
and this may not be a bad thing.

        The point was made that most of those who are moving to Nelson County are
not dependent on government services and are actually a net plus for the
county as tax payers and good citizens.

        The next meeting of Rural Nelson will be in September, and the subject -
appropriately enough - will be water resources.

Respectfully Submitted,

Mary Buford Hitz

Copyright 2000-2007 by Rural Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Reports may
be reprinted or excerpted with attribution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This report, sent to over 600 Nelson County citizens, was made possible by
the generous donations of Rural Nelson members and supporters. We need your
help to continue this service. Please consider donating.

Kim T. Cash
Field Officer
Rural Nelson, Inc.
P. O. Box 401
Lovingston, VA  22949
434.263.5000
www.ruralnelson.org