Open Space Preservation
I am concerned any time people start talking about "open space preservation" in Mountain West States. Most of my concern comes from the fact that the federal government owns generally over 50% of the land in these states. Why do we need to put more government regulation on our private land? It seems to me that these initiatives are misunderstood by the population in various circumstances. More regulations on private land affects what the private land owner is able to do with his/her land. When the government owns more that 50% of the land in mountain states like Utah there is no reason that the private land owners should be told how they can use their land while taxing the population to implement these regulations. I don't know if anybody else has noticed but there is plenty of "open-space" in the region. Even with rapid development, government land will remain government land.
The one aspect of open space policy that I see as valid is the protection of farm land and this issue should still be up to private land owners. Click here for more basic information on Utah's open space issues and farm land protection. This gives good information on the topic, however, I think we need to take a step back and see what is really happening to our "private land".
posted by Anonymous @ 3:32 PM
1 Comments:
This has become an issue here in Cache County as of late. Rob McFadden, a local developer was denied the right to develop his land after exhausting his financial resources on environmental and infrastructure impact studies. Rather than directly deny him the permits and variances needed to develop his private land between Mendon and Wellsville, the County Planning & Zoning Comission strung him out, hoping that he would give up and the land would remain open and undeveloped.
There are several problems with this. First, those who value the open space should bear its cost collectively- it's not fair that Mr. McFadden should bear the cost while others reap the benefits. If citizens value the open space in the foothills between the two cities they should organize and pay for a development easement.
The most glaring problem, however, is the county governments lack of transparency. Rather than directly deny Mr. McFadden they sought to restrict his bundle of rights in a less than honest manner. McFadden lost his $400,000 life savings seeking to satisfy the P&Z commissions insatiable requests for more studies and is suing the county government to recover his losses.
Last year, the County Council nearly enacted a bond to purchase a giant agricultural easement. This would have been a disaster. Had the county used the bond to purchase easements on desirable development property, the high cost of real estate would have prevented purchasing easements covering large areas. Small easements would have done little to prevent "sprawl" and development. In contrast, they could have purchase cheap easements (probably clear the hell out in Newton or Lewiston), and had no effect on preserving desirable open space closer to the main population of the valley and in the foothills.
Post a Comment
<< Home