Envision Freedom, Eureka

Government in the Dark

As previously noted, the recent public hearing held 8/19 on the Vermillion River Collaborative Water Management Plan proceeded without access by the public to any copy, or even a summary, of the proposed plan accessible via the township website.  This seemed quite odd, because the township has been making just about everything else available for public review on the website.  This was conspicuously absent.

Before the public hearing, I emailed Jeff Otto asking that a copy of the Plan be posted on the website, and he made efforts to do that by emailing someone by the name of Dean Johnson, who I'm told actually wrote the Plan.  Here's a copy of the response I received. 

I was told that there was no electronic copy of the Plan.  This is hard to imagine.  Was the plan drafted using an old IBM Selectric, or some pre-settlement hammer and chisel?

Even assuming that what the author meant was that there was no electronic copy suitable for emailing to the general public or posting online (e.g., in a protectable format), the answer still doesn't quite smell right.  It takes less than one minute to convert a Word document to a .pdf document using free software easily downloaded from the internet.  I do it all the time.  It's hard to believe that the maps in the plan were hand drawn rather than obtained by the author as electronic files in .pdf or other graphic format.

This gave me the general impression that someone just didn't want township citizens to know what the Plan said before the public hearing took place.

Of course, a hard copy was said to have been available for review at the town hall.  During the hours the town hall is open, that is -- which of course is when most people are working.

So the Public Hearing proceeded as scheduled Tuesday night.  I got there a little early so I could spend a few minutes paging through the secret Plan before the hearing got underway.  The Plan is about two hundred pages long, filled with many maps and many, many pages of objectives, proposed actions, goals and policies. It looked like an effort to control whatever anyone does that might possibly affect water in any way, shape or form.

Another aspect of the public hearing on the secret Plan I found interesting was that the person said to be the author was not even present for the public hearing.  Perhaps, given the lack of accessibility of the plan itself, no-one was expected to offer any input on it.  Barry Farrington gave some very brief and extremely general comments about the plan before the hearing was opened up for public comment.  She seemed to be trying to make it sound routine, saying things like, all of the townships have to do this.

Don Pflaum and I offered some comments and objections relating to the Plan.  After the hearing, I went over to Jeff Otto and offered to use my scanner to scan the plan into a .pdf document.  He said no, that they would get an electronic version on line on the township website.

When no electronic version was available on the township's website this morning, I took my scanner and laptop over there and scanned it in myself.

For any brave souls wishing to plow through the copy I made, you can access it here (be patient - it's a large file and takes a while to open).  The maps didn't come out too well.  The black and white copy at the town hall that I worked from looks like the original maps may have been in color and then they were photocopied in black and white, which leaves something to be desired in quality and clarity.  Maybe someday we'll be able to view them on line in color.

Public Hearings

The public hearings tonight on the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and the newly minted secret draft of the water management plan were quite interesting, presenting much fodder for blogging.  I'll start with this:

If you attended the last public opportunity for input on the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, you may remember that one of the planners, on being questioned about why the various "sensitive area" maps remained in the plan draft even after deletion of the paragraphs that previously had referred to them, told us all that the maps really didn't mean anything. 

I asked about that tonight, saying that if the maps didn't mean anything, why doesn't the draft say that.

I was told that what the planner really meant was that the maps were in there purely for informational purposes only, and not to imply any policy statement.  So I suggested that the draft include a statement to that effect.  It seemed to be met with a positive response.

Public Hearing

There will be a public hearing Tuesday, August 19 at 7:00 at the Town Hall regarding the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and a local water management plan prepared for 12 rural communities located in the Vermillion River Watershed.

You can access the current copy of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan on line here. I haven't found any significant changes in it from the last version that was discussed at the June 25 Open House.
 
The draft of the local water management plan is apparently not available online.

Second Open House?

 

That's what the card says:

I guess they're just counting from the time the Planning Commission took over this project, because I know there's been more than one open house on this Comp Plan project before now.

A review of all six of the newly revised chapters, available at about the middle of this page, shows that the current version of Chapter 3 has eliminated the provisions about primary and secondary conservation areas.  What's left is very general language that could lead to the same result in the form of ordinances.

So it looks like the Planning Commission was listening, and for that I thank them.

Next Comp Plan Meeting June 10, 2008

Here's the agenda.

Is Smaller Smarter?

At the last meeting of the Comp Plan committee, amidst much lipservice to the idea of land use incentives, I heard member Kenny Miller say that the township would force people to build close together.  The comment seemed to come out of nowhere and didn't relate to anything else being discussed.  That made it stand out.  The word "force" was exactly the opposite of the idea of optional incentives being emphasized by other committee members.

This makes me wonder how much is left unsaid at these meetings. 

I know at least one of my neighbors has said that he doesn't want Eureka Township to become another Apple Valley.  I certainly wouldn't want to live in an area where homes are squished together like identical sardines, crammed into the smallest possible space, with the ration of trees per homesite pathetically low, and typical homeowners' association rules forbidding painting your own house, planting a vegetable garden, parking in your own driveway, improvements not pre-approved by some Architectural Control Committee, etc.

Is this what they mean by "smart growth?"

One source describes the goals of smart growth:

• stop the spread of low-density suburban development through the use of urban-growth boundaries;
• redevelop existing suburbs to higher population densities, emphasizing multifamily dwellings and row houses instead of single-family detached homes;
• promote mixed-use developments and pedestrian-friendly design so that people can walk rather than drive to markets;
• promote transit-oriented developments so that people can take transit rather than drive to work;
• slow the construction of highways and spend more highway money on “traffic calming,” meaning measures that reduce road speeds and capacities; and
• accelerate the construction of rail transit systems.

This type of high density housing doesn't seem to fit in with the township's desire to retain its rural character.

I found an EPA publication that described a smart growth project in an area described as rural that is located within an hour of downtown Seattle:

The Third Street Cottages were built in 1998 in Langley, a small town on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound. Located within an hour of downtown Seattle and Everett by road and ferry, Langley is home to about 1,000 people and retains a village character de-spite being under moderate development pressure. Three years earlier, in 1995, the town adopted the “Cottage Housing Development (CHD) Zoning Ordinance” to expand options, foster strong neighborhoods, and retain and enhance Langley’s rural character.

Previous attempts to protect the rural character through rural zoning (1 dwelling unit per 5 acres) had the effect of fragmenting the landscape and increasing public service and infrastructure cost. In town, the zoning previously allowed for 4 to 6 dwelling units per acre.

The CHD ordinance allows detached homes at twice the previous allowable density in all single-family zones – up to 12 homes per acre. The ordinance essentially allows developers the option to build single-family homes at densities that were previously reserved for duplex development. The change in code, which won broad community support, requires that homes built under the ordinance be no more than 975 square feet in size (650 square feet on the first floor) and lower in height than homes on full-sized lots. They must be adjacent to a common area, with parking spaces hidden from the street. These attributes help maintain a sense of proportion and scale both to the new homes and others nearby.

The publication quotes one resident:

I grew up in wartime Maui, in a small cottage like this one,” said owner Faith Smith to The Seattle Times. “This place reminds me of that very tight community where everyone kept an eye on each other."

There's a Seattle Cottage Housing Development ordinance described here that has the following restrictions:

• Maximum lot size = 650 square feet
• 10 foot setback in the front and rear yards. The centerline of an alley counts as the reference point for the rear yard.
• Five foot side yard setback
• The space between cottages must be at least six feet.
• The side with the main entrance door must be 10 feet from the next cottage.
• Second floors cannot have more than half the square footage of the first floor.
• Limited to one and a half stories (i.e., parts of the second story do not have a full eight-foot height).
• one parking space per cottage

Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work - Forcing People to Consume Less Land.

According to a Cato Institute article, the EPA has been giving millions of dollars in grants to national and state organizations for a number of years to promote smart growth. EPA said that “the mission of the Transportation Partners program is to reduce the growth in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) throughout the U.S.”  The article explains:

If the main goal of the Transportation Partners program is to reduce automobile driving, the goal of smart growth is more particularly to redesign cities and suburbs to discourage driving and force people to consume less land. Smart growth itself is a popularization of ideas that planners call the “New Urbanism.” These ideas include compact urban development; mixtures of residential, commercial, and retail development; heavy reliance on mass transit and pedestrianism; and traffic “calming” to discourage automobile usage.

Preserving Farmland.

In Eureka Township, we are told that we need to preserve farmland, and this is given as a reason to not take up too much land for residential purposes.  It's interesting to see the results of smart growth planning in other rural areas of this country.  This is from an on-line article describing how smart growth affected rural landowners in Carroll County, Maryland:

Imagine that caring for the rose bushes you have had for ten or twenty years becomes just too much work. You no longer have the time, energy or money to provide their constant, tedious care. Yet you simply cannot just dig them up. Imagine that you must first petition the local government for approval to remove them. Imagine that your petition will most likely be denied. 

Imagine that your rose bushes, your rose bushes, somehow over the years became under government control. Without petitioning local authorities first, and then receiving their approval, your rose bushes are here to stay.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Not to Lou Breitenother. He has a ninety-two acre farm in South Carroll County. His farm is much bigger and grander than the above imaginary rose bushes scenario, but the concept is the same. Mr. Breitenother is old and tired and can no longer manage his property as a working farm. He also can no longer afford to pay the property tax on his vast acreage (Brown, par. 2).  But he can’t sell his land because nobody wants it. It is zoned for agriculture only and because of the strict local zoning laws, it can only be sold as a farm or can only be developed with one house per twenty acres (Brown, par. 19).    

The argument of Smart Growth advocates that our farmland must be saved is intriguing. Wendell Cox, a senior fellow in urban policy at The Independence Institute, summarized a United States Department of Agriculture report and writes that “research has shown that farmland conversion to urban use does not pose a threat to U.S. food and fiber production” (qtd. in “So-Called” sec. 3).

True, agricultural land has declined by 15% since 1950, but production has risen by more than 105 % (qtd. in “So-Called” sec. 3).  According to Cox, farmers have simply become more efficient at growing more crops on less land. Urban areas are still less than 3.5% of the total U.S. land area and from 1949 until 1997, for every acre of new urban development, approximately 1.5 acres have been used to established rural parks (“Retarding “ sec. 5).

If our farmland is actually not in such grave danger, then why is it so pressing that we protect it?   Lou Breitnother’s wife Flo, has some insight: “What makes me angriest,” says Flo, “are the people who want the farms to stay farms so they can drive by in their cars and say ‘Oh that looks beautiful’” (qtd. in Brown, par. 5).

The author concludes:

There is a growing view that many Smart Growth advocates are simply those who ‘have’ and want to ensure that others ‘have not’. These advocates want their spacious rural living to stay pristine, and are hiding behind environmental concerns to do so. More importantly, they are shamefully doing so by using the ‘saving the environment’ platform, which is more socially acceptable than the politically incorrect NIMBY platform, ‘not in my backyard’.

Smart Growth should not be a free license for government to dictate how property owners can use their land, nor cause home prices to skyrocket in desirable communities.  Sadly, Smart Growth has also become the lamb’s wool cloak for the wolf-like ‘have’s to further their effort to keep the ‘have nots’ out of their neighborhoods.  

May 13, 2008 Meeting Minutes

This just in from Berry Farrington:

Eureka Township 2030 Comprehensive Plan

Planning committee meeting

May 13, 2008

7 PM

Topic:  Open House follow-up

Parks, Trails and Recreation

Transportation

Committee Members in Attendance:
Cory Behrendt, Sharon Buckley, Mike Greco, Vince Mako, Kenny Miller, Jeff Otto, Jim Sauber, Berry Farrington - TKDA

Open House follow -up

The group discussed the open house and identified changes to Chapter 2 Natural, Agricultural and Cultural Resources and Chapter 3 Land Use.

Changes in the land use chapter: deleting the primary and secondary conservation area maps and text in the land use chapter; removing the section on location standards for transfer of housing rights; and other updates to the transfer of housing rights section about the background and the goals.

Changes in the natural resources chapter: change language to reflect focus on incentives not controls, consider ordinance standards for native plant communities identified by MN County Biological Survey.

The revised chapters will be reviewed at the June 10 meeting.

Review Draft Parks, Trails and Recreation Chapter
The group reviewed the draft. The group decided the Plan will not show a Chub Lake park search area. Changes include Township involvement in County/Regional/State facilities, and accepting land donations.

Review Draft Transportation Chapter
The group updated the chapter to more specifically address transportation safety Other changes related to access management, transportation and land use, communications among agencies and with landowners.

Second Community Open House
A second open house is scheduled for June 26.

Next Planning Committee Meeting

Eureka Township 2030 Comprehensive Plan
Planning committee meeting
May 13, 2008
7 PM
Topic: Open House follow-up
Parks, Trails and Recreation
Transportation
AGENDA
1. Open House follow-up (30 minutes)
2. Review draft Parks, Trails and Recreation chapter (30 minutes)
---- Break at 8 PM for audience questions ---- (15 minutes)
3. Review draft Transportation chapter (30 minutes)
4. Discuss planning process next steps (15 minutes

Pre-Settlement What?

Some excellent questions came up Monday night at the Open House that went unanswered.  I'm paraphrasing based on my notes and my memory:

Where did you get the map you're using for the Primary Conservation Area?

It's the DNR's Biological Survey map.

Why are you using that map?

It shows areas of pre-settlement vegetation.

Why are you using that map?

The planner apparently thought she answered that question.  The questioner didn't.  Neither did I.

In an effort to try to understand what's going on here, I looked back at minutes of the CAC taskforce from last June, when Glen Shirley made a presentation to the committee that was working on this comprehensive plan project at that time. 

Mr. Shirley included a number of links in his presentation.  Although a lot of them are no longer working links, I found one that sheds some light on this "pre-settlement" concept. 

"Pre-settlement" means before the Europeans got here. 

A lot of us who are over a certain age have no idea why anyone would choose that particular moment in history to mark as significant. It wasn't part of our curriculum when we were in school.  Mr. Shirley gives us a link to a documentary entitled "Minnesota: A History of the Land" that was put together a few years ago and shown on public television.  I read the advertising copy and the Teacher's Guide that are available online, but didn't want to spend the $60 plus tax plus S&H to buy a copy.

The advertising copy and Teacher's Guide contain hate-filled rhetoric depicting our ancestors as evil beings who usurped and ravaged the land, coveting its natural resources.  A quote shown here refers to farmers who plowed the land to feed, clothe and house their families as raping the land without any  regard to his descendants' yearning for open space:

“How could man’s ambition combined with simple tools like an axe and plow in hand all but erase our state’s original forests and prairies in such a short time? Didn’t my great-grandfather know how deeply we would now yearn for just a few more precious acres of prairie to be left as he, row by row, plowed his fields of tall grass and flowers under? This extraordinary series is a poignant must see lesson in our state’s history.”
-Jim Brandenburg

Had Mr. Brandenburg's great-grandfather not plowed those fields, he might never have seen his grandchildren and great-grandchildren born. 

Here are excerpts from the advertising copy for Episode 1:

With the arrival of Europeans comes a new way of looking at the land, one that will change the region forever. See how this is expressed in the land survey, which carves the natural world into squares that can be bought and sold.

So buying and selling land is portrayed as the evil that set the stage for the unprecedented ravages visited on the state's land.

And this gives us a peek at  Episode 2:

Voices from the past and stunning nature videography re-create the natural world Euro-Americans first encounter. Find out what happens to North America's most abundant wildlife species as commercial hunters and the railroad arrives in Minnesota.

The majestic Big Woods are cut down to make room for farms and villages. Visit one of the little known crown jewels of Minnesota, the Bluestem Prairie. Find out why Minnesota has some of the richest soils in the world and how Minneapolis becomes the flour milling capital of the world.

Historic re-creations bring to life the bonanza era of wheat farming. And experience the catastrophic fire that ushers in a new way of looking at the land.

"Commercial hunters" provided for their families, while giving others goods they wanted.  The railroads helped transport necessities to people over great distances.  Farming the land to feed people, and building villages to create economic and social communities, used to be portrayed as good things, because they were good for the people who lived here.  Had the pioneers not done these things, they would not have survived.

Perhaps that is what the makers of this documentary would rather have happened?

From the Viewer Guide, we learn that the Europeans were evil, plotting, covetous beings, while the land is referred to as though it were a virgin to be ravaged:

As the landscapes of Minnesota emerge from the most recent ice age, an intersection of natural systems is revealed. Three biomes and a confluence of waterways mark the region and draw American Indians, who inhabit and sculpt the land.  When the first European settlers arrive, they usurp the territory and plot a new path for its future.

Surveyors begin mapping the land for sale, and entrepreneurs cast a covetous eye toward its natural resources. Loggers head toward the rich stands of white pine in Minnesota’s northern forest, and small towns begin to dot the landscapes at St. Anthony Falls and along the St. Croix River. The great influx of European settlers would come later in the nineteenth century. Episode I:  Ordering the Land, describes the land they were coming to and the systematic way it is made ready for the axe and plow.

Why shouldn't the land be mapped?  Why shouldn't people be allowed to own the land?  Entrepreneurs provide the spark, the ingenuity that improves our lives.  They take the risks that others won't take.  They fail and start all over again.  If we didn't have entrepreneurs, our lives would be much poorer.  If we didn't have entrepreneurs, we wouldn't be able to pay the salaries of government employees, not even the ones that were on the production team for this documentary.

I see no indication of any concern for the families who came here to start a new life, who had only themselves to rely on in their struggle for survival in this harsh land.  How did they get through the Minnesota winters?  How many died from starvation, disease, or the cold?  I see no reference to the many ways in which our ancestors fought to make our lives better.  Think of the things we have that they didn't even dream of:  indoor plumbing, central heat, hospitals, universities, the ability to communicate instantaneously with others regardless of distance.

And this tells us about Episode II:

Episode Summary
By the middle of the nineteenth century, a surge of European settlement makes new landscapes of the old. Loggers harvest the pine forest of the north at an ever-accelerating rate. The Big Woods in the south-central region of Minnesota are cut and turned into farms. The prairie fills with new settlers and booming bonanza farms. The flour mills at St. Anthony Falls bring wealth and renown to the bustling city of Minneapolis. The landscapes of Minnesota are blanketed by farms and industry, and the area’s wildlife is decimated with unprecedented fury by market hunters.

After less than fifty years of settlement, the prairie is nearly gone, numerous species have disappeared from the region, and the “inexhaustible” northern forest is strained by logging and fire. Changes in the Land is the story of the monumental change that sweeps the landscape of Minnesota in the last half of the nineteenth century.

Here are some questions for the teacher to pose to students, questions designed to foster disgust with capitalism, industry, progress:

1. Describe the worldview of the European Americans who settled Minnesota in the nineteenth century.  Why do you think they held certain values?
2. How would you respond to G.W. Allen, who described the Big Woods like this: “As it now stood, covered with timber, it was not furnishing anyone with anything.”

Apparently, this is what teachers are teaching our young people now.  Maybe this is why so many arrive at this discussion with their minds already made up, believing without being able to explain why, that we need to go back to "pre-settlement" times to make up for what our evil ancestors have done.

And I must ask this question:  If you believe that the Native Americans' values were superior to those of the European settlers, then do you also subscribe to the belief that one must respect the wisdom of elders and honor one's ancestors?

But I'd still like to know why we must preserve "pre-settlement vegetation" as opposed to vegetation that may have evolved since then, which in evolutionary terms may be considered an improved response to its environment.  I'd like to know whether this fixation arises out of the kind of irrational hatred that this documentary portrays.  I'd like to know why we can't have a rational discussion of these issues, because if we can't approach these questions rationally, what hope do we have of coming up with good answers? 

And I'd still like an answer to the question of why our zoning maps must be patterned on the DNR's Biological Survey Map.  If we can't get a rational answer to that question, then why use the map? 

The Open House

The Open House last night was well attended and many people asked questions and voiced concerns.  The planners told us that Chapter 3's  reference to "conservation design standards" that talks about one half of somebody's land being set aside in permanent open space would be optional.  I think they said that the wording would be changed to reflect that.

My notes also indicate that we were told that new restrictions for environmental protection would not apply to existing housing rights.  Now that I'm sitting here looking at my notes, I'm having a hard time understanding that, because of what Ray Kaufenberg said.  Ray was on the Strategic Vision CAC, which worked on these issues before the current committee took over.  What Ray said indicated that the current plan doesn't provide for any new housing rights.  If there are no new housing rights, and the new restrictions don't apply to existing housing rights, then what do they apply to? 

I remember in the old version of the plan that the CAC put together, the transferable development rights (TDR) part envisioned the township creating new housing rights that could be bought and sold, and one of the issues was where the "receiving zones" would be where people could buy a housing right and build.  I had heard something about the current version of the TDR plan being pared back because of input from the Met Council, but I wasn't clear on what exactly had been changed.

Ray's comments indicated that the current plan had taken out the part about creating new housing rights, and he disagreed with that.  Ray said that the CAC had worked hard and long on the transferable development rights part of this proposal, and he questioned whether the current committee was building on the work of the CAC.  Ray said that issuing new housing rights as part of the TDR program was an issue of fairness. 

He seemed to be saying that the township shouldn't back down on the issue of creating new housing rights just because some staff person at the Met Council told the planner that the Met Council didn't want the township to have a greater density than one per quarter quarter.  Ray said that the committee should first write up a plan that the citizens want and then submit it to the Met Council, instead of removing plan features that people want based on guess work about what the Met Council will or won't approve.

Nobody told Ray that he was wrong, and that new housing rights were part of the TDR vision.  So if the only housing rights envisioned by the plan are existing housing rights, and the proposed environmental protection provisions don't apply to existing housing rights, why are they in the plan?

Now, I may be missing something here.  Maybe this does make sense and I just can't figure it out.  I hope somebody clarifies it.

There's more to say about last night's open house.  Right now I need to tackle other projects.

The Flyer

Did you get this flyer in the mail yesterday?

Let's Inventory your Property

The word "inventory" implies ownership.  Owners take inventory of property they own. They pay tax when they sell it to somebody else.

It makes no sense to take inventory of property that belongs to someone else.

Why does draft Chapter 2 of the township's Comp Plan "inventory" the township's natural resources?  Why does the draft imply that the township owns the natural resources within its borders?  Page 2 begins:

Inventory

Data from state, regional, and county agencies, combined with direct local knowledge, provides a snapshot of Eureka's resources today. Identified on maps, the data illustrate a unique strength: that large blocks of high quality natural resources and agricultural lands remain in the Township, and are relatively unfragmented. This is unusual in township areas within the Twin Cities metropolitan region. The presence of well connected habitat, the large blocks of contiguous agricultural land, that lands rich in aggregate resources are largely undeveloped, allow for the Township to pursue a range of options in protecting its resources.

What if I came to your home and started inventorying the assets around and within it based on my opinion of what would be valuable to the community at large.  I might observe:  "This is an  unusually fine piece of workmanship, a real antique treasure.  It's the kind of irreplaceable  asset that ought to be protected.  I'd really hate to see it end up in the wrong hands and not be
maintained properly." 

You might think I was either nuts or planning to rob you.

What if I said, "Oh, no you have the wrong idea.  I don't want to take your property.  I just want to protect it."

Then you'd be sure that I was either nuts or planning to rob you, and you'd start to get angry that I could talk about your family heirloom in that way.

What if I said, "Well, you know, the law allows me to protect property that might be valuable to the community at large.  As long as I don't take it away from you, I don't have to pay you for it, but I can certainly require you to maintain this property in a way that I and my experts think is best.  It's for the common good, after all.  We certainly wouldn't want to lose this fine piece of furniture.  It really belongs in a museum."

I'd be surprised if you weren't either calling 911 or getting out your shotgun at that point.

I've sat through a few meetings at the town hall listening to committee members talk about protecting resources.  It's quite disconcerting to hear others talk about the land on which we live, the land that we worry about, maintain, pay for, insure and love, as though they should be in charge of deciding how it is managed and used.  Actually, it's quite a shock, and makes me feel like  asking, excuse me, did I miss something or have you bought our property or do you just think you are entitled to it without buying it? 

We love the trees on our land.  We love the wildflowers, and every year I watch the seasonal changes in the nature that surrounds me with reverence and love.  How dare you presume to add these to your inventory? 

When we have a storm and find that a tree has fallen across our driveway, we don't ask ourselves what public or private entity can we call to take the fallen tree out of our way.  My husband gets out his chainsaw and clears the driveway. 

When a big wet April snowstorm results in the gravel on our driveway being plowed off the driveway, we don't blame climate change and wait for some government agency to come fill the potholes.  We order crushed rock and my husband uses it to fill the potholes and the soft spots.

We plant tree seedlings in the woods and try to remember where we planted them so we can go back and check on their progress.  We feed the birds and try to outsmart the squirrels who like to steal the bird's food.

Our neighbors are like that too.  We take care of our property.  We protect it.

When someone else says a natural resource is "unprotected," they mean that it's not yet controlled by a government or non-profit agency of which they approve.  They mean that the resource is privately owned and privately controlled and this is a bad thing.  Control of land by private landowners is automatically and in all cases considered, without anything that could be considered proof, to leave its natural resources "unprotected."

This is consistent with communist ideology.  The first plank of the Communist Manifesto:

the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848, available at  http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Why do some people accept the general idea that natural resources need to be protected by the government, while they would be up in arms if someone from the government wanted to come into their home and "protect" whatever furniture or other items the government official considered to be worthy of protection?  Perhaps because, gradually over time, we have become accustomed to hearing the pleas for protection of resources from one or another non-profit organization, but those pleas always focused on somebody else's land, not ours.  And we have been taught to believe that the only ones who argue against protection of natural resources are evil polluters and faceless corporations obsessed with profit who would rape the land if allowed.

Have we been indoctrinated?  Does the mere mention of a trigger word like "unprotected" cause the brain cells used for analytical thinking to cease functioning?  Have we been told so many times to "think green" that we forgot to ask whether the proposed action is actually a good idea? 

I'm old enough to remember when news stories calling for environmental action actually contained assertions of verifiable facts showing a current threat to health or safety.  We don't see much of that anymore.  But we get a lot of the trigger words like "endangered," "pollutant," "nitrates," "native species" and "CO2."  It's as though we are expected to immediately go blank
and proceed, in a trance state, to carry out the ordered protections.

But the trigger words are just conclusions without factual basis or explanation of why the actions being proposed are good ideas, or whether there might be any disadvantages, and we never hear about any kind of cost/benefit analysis, no matter how expensive an undertaking is being proposed. 

Nor do we hear any discussion about unintended consequences.  When we banned DDT in the '70's, nobody intended over 64 million people to die from malaria as a consequence, but that's what happened.  Now, more than 30 years later, the World Health Organization gets around to stating that DDT is not a danger to wildlife or humans.  The scientists got it wrong about DDT, and over 64 million people died, mostly children under the age of five.  It's not unreasonable to think that scientists may get it wrong again.

It's time to start having rational discussions about whether we need additional regulations to "protect" natural resources.  That means actually listening and responding to citizens who don't necessarily agree with the proposed agenda.  It means coming up with facts to support the need for additional regulations, not just using the buzzwords and looking horrified if anyone dares to disagree.

Bombshell

We now have drafts of three chapters from the planning committee working on the township's comprehensive plan.  They are all available here.  Some initial observations:

TDR
The recent drafts continue discussion of a transferable development rights program. Chapter 3 states:  "The Comprehensive Plan recommends that the Township continue taking steps to implement a residential transfer program, so long as it meets" certain goals enumerated on page 7.

Conservation Areas
Chapter 3 gives us maps of proposed Primary and Secondary Conservation Areas on pages 10 and 11.  The primary area is said to delineate "the areas that contain the native plant communities identified by the County Biological Survey."  The secondary area is described as "Natural Resource Corridors, which contain and connect priority natural resources."  The draft doesn't tell us who created this map or how the green areas were chosen. 

Restrictions in Primary Conservation Area
The draft would prohibit transfer of additional Housing Rights into the primary conservation area, and seems to acknowledge that this may make some lots unbuildable.  "Performance standards" would be higher within the primary conservation area than in other areas of the township.  We are not told exactly what this means.

Secondary Conservation Areas
We are given a bit more specificity in the portion on page 9 that talks about the secondary conservation area, where the "performance standards" are supposed to be somewhere between that of the primary conservation area and the rest of the township.  This section refers to "Conservation Design standards" that would permit small residential lots, "with half of the land area set aside in permanent open space. The open space contains the priority natural resources, is protected for perpetuity through a conservation easement, and typically a homeowners association oversees the management of the open space."

So you no longer have the right to decide how this land of yours will be used -- that's up to the homeowner's association, to which you will pay dues and assessments.  As the property owner, of course, you will still be responsible for the property taxes, which may or may not be reduced as a consequence of the easement.

What Else Is Coming at us?
If I had told someone that the vague and undefined language previously used in these planning drafts might be used to take away all use of their land under a program like this, they would've thought I was over-reacting.  After all, these are our neighbors, and they would never pull such a stunt, confiscating our land like that. 

Well, folks, here it is in black and white.  We still don't know what "performance standards" means, but if they're willing to require that landowners in the secondary conservation area give up the use of one-half of their land, what do they have in mind for those in the primary conservation area, which they tell us deserves the most protection?

Does the Township Really Want Our Input After All?

At every turn we are told that the township wants citizen input.  Actions speak louder than words.  What I see tells me that the township wants to discourage any input other than the cheerleading variety and ignore any input that does not support their predetermined goals. 

I read the township's online summary of the January 30, 2008 "stakeholder" meeting with the Chub Lake shoreland owners.  Having been present and a participant in that meeting, I found it interesting to compare and contrast my recollections and notes with the summary I read on the township website.

The structure of the meeting and the questions posed were geared to producing a predetermined result.  I raised an issue that produced some input at the meeting, but that issue is nowhere to be found in the township's online summary of the meeting.

I asked whether we really need more restrictions on the use of our land.  After all, we already have environmental regulations, including the shoreland zoning regulations, and a township watershed management ordinance to protect water quality and natural resources. 

I don't think we do need any more restrictions, and I said so. And the desire expressed by many others at that meeting that things stay as they are today supports the position that we do not need any additional restrictions on our rights.  Others at that meeting agreed with this position. 

But the posted summary of the meeting completely ignores this issue, allowing the reader to assume that the group supported adoption of further restrictions on property owners' rights.  For that reason, the summary is misleading.

Upcoming Open House

And now the Planning Committee is planning an Open House for Monday, April 28, 2008 so that it can present its current comprehensive plan to the township.  Based on what I have heard at their meetings, the plan is to have a feedback form with questions for the attendees to answer.

Last night Berry Farrington read one of the questions aloud, with the comment, "Who could say no to that?"  The other proposed questions appeared to be circulated among the Committee members but were not discussed. 

No Wonder Nobody Wants to go to These Open Houses.

In my admittedly short experience of going to these types of functions, one is usually presented with some kind of feedback form that asks carefully crafted questions designed to elicit the desired responses.  The questions never ever acknowledge that there might be any opposing consideration or downside to the stated goals.  Then the responses are used to justify the predetermined result. 

I'm guessing that's what we'll get on the 28th, too.  Just one more way of letting us know that they only want feedback that supports their predetermined results.  And if anyone's been paying attention to the way that the township has ignored other feedback, they might just feel like it's a waste of time to attend the open house.  That's a win/win for the Committee because they get the feedback they want without the feedback they don't want.

Some say we get the government we deserve, and if we ignore what's going on in our government maybe we do get what we deserve. Let's do something about the government we're getting.

2030 Planners Flip Flop on Plan Provisions

Last night the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Planning Committee members discussed the need to have someone on the ground "beneath the canopy" to determine what areas of land in the township are biologically significant.  Jeff Otto said that this is needed to determine whether all or just a part of someone's property is biologically significant.  This would be needed in order to help the township determine what portion, if any, of an owner's land could be used.

Hired planner Berry Farrington explained that this type of analysis is usually not done unless or until someone wants to build on their property.

Later on in the meeting, during the discussion about the upcoming open house, Ms. Farrington said that the emerging comprehensive plan reflected input from the township.

Strategic Vision CAC Did Respond to Community Input, But the Current Planning Committee Ignores it.

Here's how I remember it:  The community did give the CAC input at the last forum on October 2, 2007.  At the CAC's next meeting on October 16, 2007, the CAC members changed their draft in response to that input.  The changes included (a) removing the language stating that biological significance or other natural resource concerns might dictate that some property might not be buildable; and (b) removing the language restricting use of undefined "biologically significant" land.  These changes are reflected in the CAC's final draft dated October 20, 2007.

But now, without explanation, we are back to the same objectionable vision of the township granting itself greatly expanded and vaguely articulated powers over what we may be able to do with our land.