This is what I'm talking about when I say that even our private land holdings that we currently enjoy are not wholly safe. Wheeling and land use issues are not just about trails and public lands... it is all about private property rights and where our representatives stand on that issue.
Here;s the article.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/07/10/opinion/commentary/21_37_337_
8_05.txt
Outrage over property rights 30 years too late
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By: Michael Pattinson - Commentary
Finally, the outrage. For 30 years across America, local, state and
federal governments have been begging, borrowing and stealing trillions
of dollars of private property with little or no compensation. Little or
no outrage.
Any voices raised in protest were drowned out by the cheering of
environmentalists, happy their favorite plants and animals would get a
free place to live on millions of acres of free land.
But in Connecticut, the Supreme Court allows a city to take a few homes
---- even when it pays for them ---- and the anger falls like acid rain.
Better now than never.
The Connecticut city had its reasons why it took those homes. Cities
always do.
But for the first 180 years of our republic, the courts really did take
property rights seriously. Judges insisted that private property really
was private, and that government could only take it under extreme
circumstances. And then, of course, it had to pay for it.
But for the last 30 years, we've been on a slippery slope of government
land grabbing. At the federal level, the Endangered Species Act has
outlawed the private use of private land on tens of millions of acres
throughout America.
Of course, few say that private use has been "outlawed," though it has.
They say it has been "set aside." George Orwell was right: Control the
word, control the thought.
In California alone, 5.4 million acres have been "set aside" for the
red-legged frog. Two million more acres have been set aside for sheep,
shrimp, snails and grasshoppers. Together, this is larger than the
entire state of Connecticut. Larger than the every piece of urbanized
land in California.
A recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife report shows that taking ---- I mean
setting aside ---- just a small portion of this land in California will
mean an economic loss of $965 million and destroy 259,814 housing
opportunities.
Even this estimate must be considered modest because this same Fish and
Wildlife Service said that the 500,000 acres it wanted to set aside for
the gnatcatcher could be done at no cost. Zero.
Free land. Imagine that. Or could it be that it is not really free? It's
just that someone else is paying. Too many people no longer want to
know.
The list goes on all across America: The Piping Plover enjoys 508 miles
of free waterfront property in nine states adjoining the Great Lakes. In
Arizona, the Pygmy Owl gets 800,000 acres ---- free and clear, with not
a penny going to the people who own any of this property.
More than 20 million people are crammed into the 800,000 acres that make
up Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Atlanta and Boston. Meanwhile, 78
pygmy owls are given 800,000 acres of land in Arizona. That's almost
10,000 acres per owl.
At Camp Pendleton, the land grabbers tried to take 63,000 acres for a
microscopic shrimp that is born, lives and dies in a mud puddle in three
weeks. This is threatening our ability to train troops at American
military bases throughout the world.
If red-legged frogs had been found at the homes in Connecticut that
everyone is now so upset about, the result for the homeowners would have
been the same, yet we never would have heard about it.
But we did, though this is far from the largest abuse of property rights
in America.
However rapacious the federal government may be, local governments are
positively predatory.
The headlines tell the story: Almost every day in California a newspaper
trumpets the latest environmental "victory" over property owners. In one
week in June alone, the news tells us that city councils are shutting
down property rights in Monterey, Vallejo, Norco, El Segundo, Ventura,
Yucaipa, Fairfield, Alamo, San Ramon, Contra Costa County, Castroville,
Pajaro, San Joaquin, Murrieta, Temecula, San Diego, Carlsbad, Oceanside,
and on and on and on. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
For landowners big and small.
In Southern California today, the wholesale destruction of our property
rights means that only 6.4 percent of San Diego residents can afford to
buy an average-priced home. In Orange County, the number is 3.8 percent.
The rest of the state is not much better off.
The implications for a whole generation unable to buy their first home
are staggering ---- and catastrophic. Yet no one seems to notice.
To paraphrase Lenin, steal a few homes in Connecticut and that is a
tragedy. Steal hundreds of thousands in California and that is a
statistic. But hardly a surprise.
Michael D. Pattinson is president of Barratt American, a Carlsbad-based
developer, and is past president of the California Building Industry
Association.
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"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do
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