Property rights (and wrongs)
Protests against recently proposed ordinances—for mountain protection and phasing and clustering—center around defense of “property rights,” including anticipated limitations on the amount of profit landowners can hope to make by selling their land to developers [“Mountain overlay proposals irk landowners,” Development News, August 8].
How is investment in land different from other kinds of investment? Investing in anything involves risk. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Making windfall profits on a land investment because of factors you don’t control is viewed as good luck, but the prospect of making a smaller gain because of factors you don’t control, such as ordinances designed to buffer the community as a whole from the devastating effects of untrammeled growth, somehow becomes “unfair.”
Ownership of property would be meaningless were it not for the legal protections afforded by government in the interest of the common good—protections we all finance with our tax dollars. So when unconstrained property rights conflict with the common good, shouldn’t the latter trump the former? Would these claimants to being able to do “whatever we want with our own property” feel that way about the “rights” of a neighbor who wanted to install a large-scale hog farming operation on their property?
The proposed ordinances currently being discussed would include provision for true hardship cases, which is reasonable; but where is government’s obligation to maximize the profits people realize on their voluntary investments?
Elizabeth Burdash
Albemarle County
Not a card-carrying
member
I normally enjoy the very good newspaper you publish. But I wish to tell you of my concern of your running the large box ad for the ACLU. They probably do more to hinder the constitutional rights of Americans than any organization. They are also very anti-U.S. Please do not promote the ACLU again.
Douglas Phillips
Roanoke
CORRECTION
Last week’s coverage of the City Market’s possible relocation contained two reporting errors. Charlottesville Tomorrow Executive Director Brian Wheeler was one of more than a dozen signatories on a letter to Mayor Brown, but not the sole author, as implied. And Mayor Brown’s blog, on which he posted a response to the letter, can be found at www.onecityblog. blogspot.com.