Land Grabs For Greenways
If someone told you that some or all of the property you own could be confiscated against your will for a common area, an open area, or a walking or biking trail, what would you say?
You search for and find that perfect property to buy, only to find out that a 10- or 20-foot swath of that property next to a creek or stream is required greenway? Would you still want to buy it? Let’s say you bought a piece of land for the scenery, the quiet solitude, and the privacy. Should government force you to relinquish your land for the sake of recreational common access? Maybe we should ask Gastonia Mayor Stultz.
While environmentalist conservation groups avow that they have no “eminent domain” powers, they create partnerships with local governments in order to use those governments to do the dirty work for them. Greenway websites emphasize that all land acquisitions are “voluntary.” As we have seen recently in Gastonia, that is not exactly the truth with regard to the recent greenway project.
Eminent Domain is a property-taking law originally devised for the government to take land for critical infrastructure such as roads and utilities, to provide service to the population surrounding the property in question. Environmentalists have convinced politicians that they have the power and right to take privately owned property for “public benefit” by means of eminent domain on the basis of walkways, biking trails, and the vague definition of “open areas.”
Greenways’ websites promote all kinds of utopian benefits through restricting land use, creating open areas, and building walking and biking trails. They even call greenways “alternative transportation” to get grants from State and Federal Departments of Transportation. Do you wonder where our transportation money is going?
The operating capital for these groups is government grants and tax-deductible donations. This means governments are giving tax dollar grants to organizations with which the governments are partnering, while at the same time governments are handing out tax deductions to donors who give land or money to the greenways, trails, and conservancy organizations in order to encourage people to fund the taking of property. Cleverly, the money trail is the real trail being created under the guise of greenways. The conservancy foundations are not working for free. The more government grants and tax deductible donations they get, the fatter their salaries and bank accounts grow.
Recently I came across the City of Gastonia’s “2020 Plan For Our Future.” The plan states our government should, “Encourage the protection of land through foundations and land trusts.” It states our local government is to “partner with land conservancies and other public and nonprofit environmental agencies.” What would be the purpose of such partnerships? Would those “partnerships” involve tax-funded grants for the taking of private property? In this instance, the word “protection” means “restricted use.”
Historically, the “mob” always demanded “protection” money, too. What a coincidence! Did you vote to have our government partner with land trusts and conservancies to “protect” … oops, I mean “restrict” land use? If you did, was it your own land or land belonging to someone else you wish to restrict? Did you vote for a plan allowing our local government to take land by eminent domain for a greenway or a bike trail? You didn’t? Neither did I.
Instead of encouraging private land ownership and industries, our local government wants you to believe that by partnering with anti-private property rights groups, restricting land ownership, we will create some desirable location attracting businesses and lots of industrious, educated people. What industrious and educated persons want to buy or own a piece of land that could be taken or restricted at any whim of the local government for any reason whatsoever, such as greenways? I think there is an oxymoron in there somewhere. Should we ask Mayor Stultz about that, too? How about the mayor in your town or city? Think they might have the answer?
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Cheryl Pass writes at My Tea Party Chronicle.
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